Atlanta Daily World

The ELEVEN OF DIAMONDS by BAYNARD H. KENDRICK

BATHED in the friendly light of a Miami moon, the yellow walls of the Hotel Pescador bore a touch of deceitful beauty. One honest architect had dubbed the Pescador "hash-Spanish-rococo" - as kindly friends led him weeping through its falsely pretentious interior bristling with unexpected courts, nooks and small semi-concealed stairways. Whatever its appearance, it was located close enough to the lapping waves of Miami Beach so that guests gasped but weakly when presented with first class charges for second class accommodations. The stairways had their uses, too, since no elevator was considered necessary to serve three story building.

On the night the moonlight was playing its pleasing tricks on the hotel walls, Mr. Durlyn Bessinger, and his portly wife, occupants of suite No 4, stayed out late. Mr. Bessinger was gambling at the exclusive Gulf Club, several miles north of Miami Beach, and more to the point was winning. Earthquakes and hurricanes could not dislodge Durlyn Bessinger from a game of Chemin de Fer when the cards were running his way.

Seated at the roulette table, in the adjoining room, Edward Fowler tall and broad-shouldered in his loose cut English clothes, was watching the Bessingers through the communicating door. Utterly expressionless, as the sweep of the croupier's rake claimed the last of his hundred dollar stack, Fowler left his seat and strolled into the next room. He touched Bessinger on the shoulder.

"I'm going to run along home. You seem to be making out better than I did. Good luck!"

Bessinger turned shortly, prepared to be annoyed at the interruption. When he saw Fowler his scowl melted into a smile, but his gaze returned instantly to the cards. Fowler was an acquaintance of week's standing, and Fowler had brought a run of luck to the Bessinger family. In addition, the quiet, slow-moving man with his slight trace of English accent was a useful guide. He had introduced the Bessingers to more clubs in a week than they had found in two previous months of Miami.

The gregariousness of habitual gamblers had thrown them together on a few occasions before they spoke. Then Bessinger, after an untoward run of luck in one of the small clubs, had tendered his check for additional chips. The proprietor was skeptical, and Edward Fowler had courteously offered to endorse the check. Later he took his new acquaintances to another place. By dint of indirect questioning the Bessingers learned that Fowler was a wealthy Canadian, with interests in a metal mine near Sudbury, Ontario. The garrulous Mrs. Bessinger made no attempt to conceal the information that Durlyn's income rolled in steadily from wholesale grain in the middle west. She assured anyone who cared to listen, that except for the vagaries of the New Deal, Mr. Bessinger had been cursed with few worries for the past ten years.

As Fowler left the gambling house by a side door, available to a few regular patrons, he was wondering just how much of Mrs. Bessinger's eagerly conveyed information was true. He paused a moment outside, before leaving the shelter of the doorway, savoring the richness of moonlit ocean to his left, and the delicacy of pin-point lights marking Miami Beach to the south.

Across the court his roadster was parked, shielded from view by fronded palms. When he left the doorway, he traversed the small courtyard with a noiselessness and speed which would have surprised Mr. Bessinger. He backed out the roadster, and headed south heedless of traffic regulations. The car was doing seventy when he reached Collins Avenue and slowed down. A few blocks farther along he stopped.

The street was deserted, except for an occasional passing motorist. He climbed out and opened the rumble seat in back of the car. Under the seat, his groping fingers found the head of a polished nickel bolt. It moved to one side. The cushion of the rumble seat rose to his touch, disclosing a recess cleverly built into the upholstery.

In the recess lay a bundle of papers held together with a rubber band; a leather key-case; a blackjack; and a formidable Browning automatic in a spring-clip armpit holster. He left the gun where it was, but slipped the blackjack into his coat pocket, and the key-case to the exact place where he found it. A wardrobe trunk, ajar in the corner, took fifteen minutes of his time. Shoe trees were removed from three pairs of shoes in the bottom drawer, and carefully replaced. Two pairs of expensive white flannels were shaken out and refolded.

Twice he snapped out the reading lamp, to stand and listen in the semi-darkness of the room. Once it was voices from a noisy party in an adjoining suite. The second time it was footsteps and laughter in the hall. He had just turned on the light for the third time when he commenced a leisurely skilful search of the bedroom, meticulously returning every article he touched. He found the letters rolled up in one of Mrs. Bessinger's voluminous silk nightgowns.

They were tucked away in the laundry bag of the trunk at the bottom of some soiled clothes. There were seven of them, dated within a period of four months, and postmarked from various places in the middle west. He took them to the light and studied them with interest.

Four of them were on letterheads of Crass & Bremen, a brokerage house in Kansas City. They acknowledged, with thanks, the courtesy of various large orders placed by Mr. Durlyn Bessinger. The other three, postmarked from Nevada, Utah, and Arkansas, respectively, came from dealers in hay, grain, and feed. They were ordinary business letters, discussing hard times, and lack of profits. Apparently Mr. Bessinger owned a share in each of the three dealers' stores.

Fowler's gray eyes wrinkled at the corners, but he did not smile. He had been cleverly taken in - wasted precious minutes reading a bundle of letters planted in a nightgown as a decoy. He was about to replace them when a curious fact attracted his attention. All seven of the letters were addressed to Durlyn Bessinger, Esq. - and the usage of "Esquire" is far from common in the United States.

He spread the letters out fanwise and scrutinized the size and form of the characters in the typing. "By jove," he said under his breath. "They may all have come from different places - but I'm willing to wager they were all typed on the same machine. I'm afraid my friend has been going to some lengths to establish himself in the grain market. What a man! Using a mailing service to get different postmarks on letters he's written to himself!"

(To Be Continued)

Copyright by Greenberg Publishers, Inc. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.