Experiment in Crime Read Free Page B

he is a Fed, he's outsmarting himself."

    Double-O crossed to one of the discreet slots, his long legs moving like jointed crowbars. He peered. "I see what you mean," he said, after a while. "I'm willing to bet he's a husband with a wife at a hen convention--afraid somebody he knows will see him here. But tell Connie, anyhow."

    Professor Burke ordered coffee and a cigar. He was pleased by the pulchritude of the cigarette girl--and startled by her costume. Hardly enough clothing, he thought, for a large doll. He tipped her a quarter and lighted the cigar. Like everything else in the establishment, it was of superlative quality. He blew smoke.

    He was filled with a sentiment of self-satisfaction. The fact was that he liked the Club Egret. The fact also was that, even while he enjoyed the music and the lights and the spectacle of the people, he was contriving a few sentences to slip into his next year's lecture--sentences which would make it plain that he had personally investigated the dens of iniquity and found them a tinselly sham.

    The house lights went down. A master of ceremony took possession of a microphone--in a cone of smoke-washed light. The professor recognized the first joke as almost identical with one which had been used by Plautus, a little more than two thousand years before.

    A girl said, "Hello!"

    He turned with surprise--and some discomfiture. The young lady, not identifiable in the dark, was standing at his side.

    "May I sit down?" she asked in a warm, husky voice.

    "Why, certainly. Of course!"

    The professor hurried to assist her. She had long, blonde hair, done up beautifully.
    Her arms and shoulders were bare, as if she had swum part way out of her evening dress.

    The dress itself winked, and glistened. Her nose turned up slightly. That was all he could discern--excepting that she wore a perfume which had a stunning effect--as a spray has a stunning effect on an insect.

    The professor felt slightly guilty, and the resultant course of his thoughts was to be expected. There are some men whom no women, however predatory, however young and inexperienced or old and desperate, will try to pick up. Instinct warns them that the attempt would be futile from every viewpoint. Professor Burke was the archetype of that species of man. And, since no such effort had been made in his case, he suspected none now. He assumed, instead, that the young lady was a former student of his, or a former undergraduate--and that, having recognized him, she had ingratiated herself out of the common, feminine love for scandal. It was, of course, scandalous for him to be dining at the Club Egret.

    "My name," said the lady, "is Connie Maxson."

    He failed to place it--which in no way surprised him. It usually took him a semester to learn the names of his students--and he seldom remembered them long.

    "Would you like coffee? Or a drink?" he asked resignedly.

    "Love one."

    He beckoned. The lady ordered Scotch and water. After reflection, he said, "The same."

    "Enjoying yourself?" she asked.

    He raised his eyebrows and blew smoke in an ironical manner--hoping she would be able to read the gesture. "You would hardly expect a professor of socio-psychology to enjoy himself here. Say rather, I am enjoying the spectacle of a rich, moronic element indulging in pleasures which deprive the body politic of integrity."

    The girl said, "Well!" After a moment she asked, "On a vacation?"

    "I drove over from the Gables, naturally. Vacation doesn't start for several more days. This is in essence a research project. I'd even intended to watch the gambling for a while. Possibly to squander a few dollars as a sort of payment-in-kind for the experience.
    The headwaiter, however, was rather huffy about my inquiry."

    The house lights went on suddenly.

    The girl was extremely beautiful--and the professor was sure he had never seen her before in his life. He would have remembered the face, even if not the name. She was staring at him. She