“Not unless he gets caught.”

“That’s the point. I want to hire you to catch him.”

“Before or after?”

“Look, Mr. Shayne, this might be funny to you-” the muscleman ran a thick tongue over his dry lips-“but it ain’t to me. Whoever it was sent me two dolls. Here’s the other one. With a noose!”

Henlein removed a second doll from his pocket and laid it carefully on the desk as if he felt that this construction of cloth and yarn which symbolized his body were actually a part of it. His hand shook as he drew it back.

The redhead picked up the second doll. Except for the noose with the seven-times-around hangman’s knot, made with the common sort of heavy brown twine department stores use to tie boxes, this doll was identical to the first-crudely made, stuffed with a sort of cellulose which, at one loose seam, was visible; the yarn hair ragged and carelessly applied; the eyes, nose and mouth formed with only a few deft stitches.

He put it down, saying, “The only way it can hurt you is if you die of fright. You afraid of little dolls, Henny?”

“It ain’t the dolls, I told you. It’s the guy who sent them.”

“Well, why don’t you work him over? Break his jaw, cave in some ribs, give him the knee! You’re a muscleman, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know who sent them!” Henlein shouted. “If I knew would I be here wasting my time?”

“Probably not. Don’t waste any more. I won’t take the case.”

Shayne lit a cigarette, coolly blowing smoke just past Henlein’s face. There was sardonic humor in the idea of a professional killer trying to hire a detective to protect him against the sender of a couple of tiny dolls. Although Henlein’s fear was genuine, the situation was too incongruous to seem real.