"What do you know about this?" Klee barked suddenly at Slugger.

"Like the copper said," Slugger growled, "I come back to the office with some collections. When I opened the door, there he lay. I knew the copper was just outside because I just passed him, so I went to the window and yelled."

"Any idea who did it?" Klee demanded.

"Yeah," Slugger snarled. "I got a good idea. Maxie Rimmer borrowed dough and then wouldn't pay up. When the boss got tough, Maxie said he'd pay off another way. The boss had a date with Maxie this afternoon while I was out. I heard him make it."

"That's right, Inspector," Rafferty said. "He's got Rimmer's name written on a pad on his desk, and the time of three o'clock."

"Anybody see this Rimmer come in or hear anything?"

"Nobody heard anything," Rafferty said. "I been talking to tenants in the building while we waited for you, sir. But a man down the hall says he saw a fellow answering Maxie's description go out of the office about half an hour ago."

Klee knelt over the body and worked at one clenched fist. When he stood up he was holding a scrap of paper. He whirled on Dan. "See this Layton? The paper matches the kind those promissory notes are printed on and here is just the end of a signature. You can see the letters M-M-E-R. Does that tell you anything?"

"I'd say, sir," Dan suggested carefully, "that after Slye was murdered, someone dragged a promissory note out of his dead hand but left a scrap of it between his fingers. From the letters, it could have been this Maxie Rimmer's note."

"Good," Klee said brusquely. "That's using your head. You may make a detective yet. Rafferty, go down to Kelligan's Bar and see if Rimmer's been in today. He hangs out there, with a lot of other hot shots and small-time hoodlums. But the chances are he's hiding out and we'll have to put out an alarm."

When Rafferty left, Klee began examining the files and the papers spilled on the floor. "Why didn't Slye put labels on his file drawers?"

"He never labeled anything," Slugger said. "He carried most of his business details in his head, anyhow. He knew where everything was and he always said it was nobody else's business."

Klee finished pawing through a file and nodded grimly. "The notes signed by the people whose names start with R are all here, there's no note for Maxie Rimmer. Maxie killed Slye and ran off with his note to keep from being tabbed. But he …" He broke off at the sound of commotion in the hall. The dog began to snarl.

Rafferty came in, red-faced and sweating, pushing a pasty-faced, narrow-eyed hood before him. "What do you know, Inspector? Here's Maxie himself. He was at Kelligan's, as big as life."

"You can't pin anything on me," Maxie Rimmer shouted. "Sure I was here today but I never killed him, the rat. I wanted to, but didn't."