COPYRIGHT, 1932, BY COWARD-McCANN, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY THE VAN REES PRESS

MURDER
AT
LARGE

I

Ordway Belknap, ex-Judge of the Magistrate’sCourts, and for the present a detective ofamateur standing, and a semi-professional criminologist,on call at the Homicide Department,leaned comfortably back in an arm-chair in the denof his spacious penthouse apartment on the EastRiver—in Gracie Square to be exact. James,the perfect ‘man’ that confirmed bachelors dreamof one day possessing, entered soundlessly on thedeep-napped carpet, and, in a cotton-wool voice,announced Judge Whittaker on the wire.

“Thank you, James,” murmured Belknap in atone modulated to the atmosphere of the room;while James, with the smooth precision of theRoxy Orchestra being lowered, sank from view,the den being a floor to itself.

Belknap slowly ground out a freshly lit cigarette2and meditatively examined the telephone athis elbow. His face gathered seriousness as a windowgathers steam. He recalled Whittaker’s remarkof a week ago, made as they passed at theClub: “I will give you a ring soon on a matter oflife and death. No, I can’t go into it now—I’mrunning.” And though in the meanwhile the matterhad slipped his mind he now unaccountably,even to himself, hesitated to remove the receiver.

Belknap was a man of fifty-odd, but didn’tlook it; tall, handsome, with a firm mouth, burningbrown eyes, and thick, lustrous black hair. Hismuscles were steel-hard; and his skin always deeplybronzed, winter and summer alike, for he was oneof those elusive and self-styled members of theLong Beach nature club. He enjoyed motoringdown on brilliant days even in January to nurse adriftwood fire in the shelter of a shallow dune,basking himself in fire heat and violet ray.

Sun-bathing is the habit of a solitary; butthen, Belknap was a solitary in more ways thanone. He loved the slow, indolent afternoons, apparentlywasted, and with no words spoken. Herelished the mingled smell of olive oil, wood smokeand salt; and the sight, through more than3half-shut eyes, of gulls, and a ship moving up thehorizon like the large hand of a clock, invisiblymoving yet seen to have moved. Rodney Drakewould periodically rise like an elongated Pict outof the waste of sand and gesticulate against the sky.On the open beach the hardy little Egyptian, nameunknown, would squat motionless on his heels overa tin firebox.

So it may well have been these lonely watchesthat fostered the thing in Belknap that his acquaintances,even friends, called ‘queer.’ Theworld in general certainly considered him puzzling,enigmatic. It found him definitely

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