“He asked me to marry him tonight. He gave me this ring. That was the reason for the party. Am I so hard to take?”

The police dick got red. She stood up without waiting to ask whether she could go or not. “Take me home, Mart,” she said in a muffled voice. “I’ve got some back crying to catch up on.”

Striker called the brother back again for a minute, while she went on alone toward the elevator; shoved the note before him. “Was that his handwriting?”

He pored over it. “I can’t tell, just on the strength of those three words. I’ve never seen enough of it to know it very well. The only thing I’d know for sure would be his signature—he had a cockeyed way of ending it with a little pretzel twist—and that isn’t on there.” Over his shoulder, as he turned to go once more, he added: “That was a favorite catchword of his, though. ‘What’s the use?’ I’ve often heard him use it. I guess it’s him all right.”

“We can check it by the register,” Striker suggested after they’d gone.

The dick gave him a scathing look. “Is it your idea somebody else wrote his suicide note for him? That’s what I’d call service!”

“Is it your idea he committed suicide the same night he got engaged to a production number like you just saw?”

“Is it your idea he didn’t?”

“Ye-es,” said Striker with heavy emphasis, “but I can’t back it up.”

“You bet you can’t!”

The register showed a variation between the two specimens of handwriting, but not more than could be ascribed to the tension and nervous excitement of a man about to end his life. There wasn’t enough to the note for a good handwriting expert to have got his teeth into with any degree of certainty.

“How long had he been in when it happened?” Striker asked Maxon.

“Not more than half an hour. Bob took him up a little before four.”

“How’d he act? Down in the mouth, blue?”

“Blue nothing, he was tappin’ out steps there on the mosaic, waitin’ for the car to take him up.”

Bob, the night man-of-all-work, put in his two cents’ worth without being asked: “On the way up he said to me, ‘Think this thing’ll last till we get up there? I’d hate to have it drop me now. I got engaged tonight.’”

Striker flashed the police dick a triumphant look. The latter just stood by with the air of one indulging a precocious child. “Now ya through, little boy?” he demanded. “Why don’t you quit trying to make a noise like a homicide dick and stick to your own little racket?

“It’s a suicide, see?” continued the police dick pugnaciously, as though by raising his voice he was deciding the argument. “I’ve cased the room, and I don’t care if he stood on his head or did somersaults before he rode up.” He waved a little black pocket-notebook under Striker’s nose. “Here’s my report, and if it don’t suit you, why don’t you take it up with the Mayor?”