VII + 

“You Have a Lot of Fun, Don’t You?” + 

When I returned to consciousness for the second time that evening, I was lying on my back on a baggage truck, which was moving. Men and women were crowding around, walking beside the truck, staring at me with curious eyes. + 

I sat up. + 

“Where are we?” I asked. + 

A little red-faced man in uniform answered my question. + 

“Just landing in Sausalito. Lay still. We’ll take you over to the hospital.” + 

I looked around. + 

“How long before this boat goes back to San Francisco?” + 

“Leaves right away.” + 

I slid off the truck and started back aboard the boat. + 

“I’m going with it,” I said. + 

Half an hour later, shivering and shaking in my wet clothes, keeping my mouth clamped tight so that my teeth wouldn’t sound like a dice-game, I climbed into a taxi at the Ferry Building and went to my flat. + 

There, I swallowed half a pint of whisky, rubbed myself with a coarse towel until my skin was sore, and, except for an enormous weariness and a worse headache, I felt almost human again. + 

I reached O’Gar by phone, asked him to come up to my flat right away, and then called up Charles Gantvoort. + 

“Have you seen Madden Dexter yet?” I asked him. + 

“No, but I talked to him over the phone. He called me up as soon as he got in. I asked him to meet me in Mr. Abernathy’s office in the morning, so we could go over that business he transacted for father.” + 

“Can you call him up now and tell him that you have been called out of town⁠—will have to leave early in the morning⁠—and that you’d like to run over to his apartment and see him tonight?” + 

“Why yes, if you wish.” + 

“Good! Do that. I’ll call for you in a little while and go over to see him with you.” + 

“What is⁠—” + 

“I’ll tell you about it when I see you,” I cut him off. + 

O’Gar arrived as I was finishing dressing. + 

“So he told you something?” he asked, knowing of my plan to meet Dexter on the train and question him. + 

“Yes,” I said with sour sarcasm, “but I came near forgetting what it was. I grilled him all the way from Sacramento to Oakland, and couldn’t get a whisper out of him. On the ferry coming over he introduces me to a man he calls Mr. Smith, and he tells Mr. Smith that I’m a gumshoe. This, mind you, all happens in the middle of a crowded ferry! Mr. Smith puts a gun in my belly, marches me out on deck, raps me across the back of the head, and dumps me into the bay.” + 

“You have a lot of fun, don’t you?” O’Gar grinned, and then wrinkled his forehead. “Looks like Smith would be the man we want then⁠—the buddy who turned the Gantvoort trick. But what the hell did he want to give himself away by chucking you overboard for?” + 

“Too hard for me,” I confessed, while trying to find which of my hats and caps would sit least heavily upon my bruised head. “Dexter knew I was hunting for one of his sister’s former lovers, of course. And he must have thought I knew a whole lot more than I do, or he wouldn’t have made that raw play⁠—tipping my mitt to Smith right in front of me. + 

“It may be that after Dexter lost his head and made that break on the ferry, Smith figured that I’d be on to him soon, if not right away; and so he’d take a desperate chance on putting me out of the way. But we’ll know all about it in a little while,” I said, as we went down to the waiting taxi and set out for Gantvoort’s. + 

“You ain’t counting on Smith being in sight, are you?” the detective-sergeant asked. + 

“No. He’ll be holed up somewhere until he sees how things are going. But Madden Dexter will have to be out in the open to protect himself. He has an alibi, so he’s in the clear so far as the actual killing is concerned. And with me supposed to be dead, the more he stays in the open, the safer he is. But it’s a cinch that he knows what this is all about, though he wasn’t necessarily involved in it. As near as I could see, he didn’t go out on deck with Smith and me tonight. Anyway he’ll be home. And this time he’s going to talk⁠—he’s going to tell his little story!” + 

Charles Gantvoort was standing on his front steps when we reached his house. He climbed into our taxi and we headed for the Dexters’ apartment. We didn’t have time to answer any of the questions that Gantvoort was firing at us with every turning of the wheels. + 

“He’s home and expecting you?” I asked him. + 

“Yes.” + 

Then we left the taxi and went into the apartment building. + 

“Mr. Gantvoort to see Mr. Dexter,” he told the Philippine boy at the switchboard. + 

The boy spoke into the phone. + 

“Go right up,” he told us. + 

At the Dexters’ door I stepped past Gantvoort and pressed the button. + 

Creda Dexter opened the door. Her amber eyes widened and her smile faded as I stepped past her into the apartment. + 

I walked swiftly down the little hallway and turned into the first room through whose open door a light showed. + 

And came face to face with Smith! + 

We were both surprised, but his astonishment was a lot more profound than mine. Neither of us had expected to see the other; but I had known he was still alive, while he had every reason for thinking me at the bottom of the bay. + 

I took advantage of his greater bewilderment to the extent of two steps toward him before he went into action. + 

One of his hands swept down. + 

I threw my right fist at his face⁠—threw it with every ounce of my 180 pounds behind it, reinforced by the memory of every second I had spent in the water and every throb of my battered head. + 

His hand, already darting down for his pistol, came back up too late to fend off my punch. + 

Something clicked in my hand as it smashed into his face, and my hand went numb. + 

But he went down⁠—and lay where he fell. + 

I jumped across his body to a door on the opposite side of the room, pulling my gun loose with my left hand. + 

“Dexter’s somewhere around!” I called over my shoulder to O’Gar, who with Gantvoort and Creda, was coming through the door by which I had entered. “Keep your eyes open!” + 

I dashed through the four other rooms of the apartment, pulling closet doors open, looking everywhere⁠—and I found nobody. + 

Then I returned to where Creda Dexter was trying to revive Smith, with the assistance of O’Gar and Gantvoort. + 

The detective-sergeant looked over his shoulder at me. + 

“Who do you think this joker is?” he asked. + 

“My friend Mr. Smith.” + 

“Gantvoort says he’s Madden Dexter.” + 

I looked at Charles Gantvoort, who nodded his head. + 

“This is Madden Dexter,” he said. + 