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down at Shayne’s automatic lying on the floor.
    He asked, “Is this your gun, Shayne?”
    Shayne said, “Yes. I’ve got a permit to carry it.”
    “But no permit to go around killing people.” The chief frowned. “I’ve heard about the rough stuff you pull in Miami, but it won’t go here in Cocopalm.”
    The little whiplash of a man chuckled fiendishly behind the chief. “You’ve plugged a pair of our most reputable citizens,” he said with sharp irony. “I figured you’d give us action, Shayne, but I wasn’t expecting it so soon.”
    “Neither was I,” Shayne retorted. He whipped the necktie around his collar and let it hang. “Are you Hardeman?”
    “Good Lord, no. I’m Gil Matrix, editor, owner and publisher of the Voice. Prints all the news that’s fit to print and a lot that isn’t. Let me be the first to welcome you to our city.” Matrix pushed forward and held out his hand.
    Shayne took it, grunting sourly, “I’ve already been met by a reception committee that can probably be traced to the front-page stuff you ran this afternoon.”
    Matrix’s grin was unabashed. “I meant to stir things up. Lord,” he muttered, his eyes going again to the dead figures on the floor, “and did I ever! Chief Boyle here has been sitting on the lid too long and it was time the powder keg exploded.”
    “That’ll be enough from you, Gil.” Chief Boyle stepped angrily into the center of the room, shouldering the undersized editor aside with his great bulk. He glared down at Shayne, who now nonchalantly tied his tie. “What have you done with Mr. Hardeman?”
    Shayne shot him a quick curious glance. “Hell, I haven’t got him.” He got up slowly and nodded toward the two dead men. “I thought one of those was Hardeman.”
    Boyle’s eyes were hot with incredulity and disbelief as he stepped back a pace. “You thought one of them was—”
    “On my right lies Pug Leroy,” Gil Matrix said in a loud voice, his hands thrust deep in his trouser pockets as he circled the thick-bodied man on the floor. He shrugged heavy, slightly hunched shoulders which made his short body seem incongruous.
    “Leroy,” he went on dramatically, “has been working toward murder through the gentler stages of crime for a couple of years. His demise won’t be excessively mourned.
    “And this other lad is Bud Taylor, a local product.” He spoke in a harsh, rasping voice, looking down at the thin-faced, youthful gunman who could not have been more than twenty-two.
    There was utter silence in the room.
    The little man dominated the scene as his owlishly round eyes slowly challenged everyone in the room, beginning with Chief Boyle, who was standing to one side with the hotel detective, passing on to the subdued assistant manager, and finally stopping when they rested upon Phyllis, who shrank deeper into her chair. The doctor, whose back was turned, silently closed his medical bag and stole from the room.
    “Bud Taylor,” Gil Matrix repeated, “one of those unfortunate weaklings easily led astray—a product of his environment, let us say. A youth who could have taken the right turn, but was induced to take the wrong one. We are all responsible for the Bud Taylors of this world,” he went on fiercely. “Every one of us ensconced in our citadels of smugness who tolerate a festering growth in our community that sucks in a lad like Bud Taylor with the glamour of easy money. Easy money,” he repeated in a strange whisper. “We shall all be judged,” he jerked out, “I say—”
    “Cut out the oration, Gil.” Chief Boyle produced a handkerchief and mopped his sweating face. “This ain’t the time or the place for a sermon.”
    “There’ll be no better time or place,” Matrix told him wrathily. “You ought to be down on your knees asking God to pity the citizens of Cocopalm who entrust their security to your supine hands—”
    “Maybe the parson’ll let you preach the funeral sermon,” Chief Boyle snapped