Hard as Nails

Chapter One Best Intentions

Gilbert E. Best was as full of dynamic energy as a busy coffee percolator. He started out of the elevator before the door was more than half open, pounded his way down the flagged floor of the skyscraper hallway, not as a man who is in a frantic rush, but as one who is so filled with surplus energy that he finds an outlet in pounding the floor with his feet.

He walked past six doors marked, each with the legend on the square of frosted glass which fronted the hallway, Frank C. Dillon — Attorney At Lam — Private. The seventh door was lettered, Frank C. Dillon — Attorney At Lam — Office Hours 10:00 to 12:00 — 2:00 to 4:30 — Entrance.

Best’s broad shoulders swung in a pivot from the waist. He used enough force in opening the office door to have moved the steel door of a vault, and came to a stop before a reception desk.

A pair of blue eyes that looked up with listless boredom from behind a telephone switchboard on which was a brass sign marked, Information, suddenly sparkled to life. “Hello, Gil.”

“Hello, Norma. What does Dillon want?”

“I don’t know, Gil. He’s in an awful sweat about something. He told me to rush that call through to you. I wanted to listen in, but the board got busy and I couldn’t. What did he want?”

“Wanted me to come over right now.”

“Did he sound apologetic?”

“As apologetic as he ever sounds,” Best said. “He wanted to bury the hatchet. That means he’s in a jam and he needs me. Is he alone in there?”

“No, there’s a woman with him.”

She ran her finger down the page of a day book and marked a name with the pointed tip of a crimson fingernail. “Ellen Hanley, her name is. She’s plaintiff in a case against the Airline Stageways.”

“Personal-injury suit?”

“Yeah.”

“How long’s he had it?”

“A couple of months, I think. The case is at issue and ready to be set for trial. Maybe it’s set for trial. I’ve forgotten. Gee whiz, Gil, after that last scene you had, I didn’t think he’d ever send for you again!”

“And I didn’t think I’d ever come,” Gilbert retorted. “But I guess he needs a real detective agency, and I need the dough — if there’s enough of it.”

“Stick him plenty,” said Norma Pelton with sudden vindictiveness. “He just gave me a ten-dollar cut.”

“What’s the idea?”

“I don’t know. He said business was rotten, and—”

A door of veneered mahogany, which bore in gilt letters the one word, Private, opened with explosive force. A big man whose paunch was buttoned tightly inside a cream-colored vest rumbled into irascible speech before the glittering, avaricious eyes had fully focused on the office.

“Where the devil’s that detective? Put through a call and—”

He broke off as his eyes rested on Best standing by the window.

“Hello, Dillon,” said Best.

The lawyer didn’t reply to the salutation directly, but there was a relieved note to his voice as he rasped out: “Why the devil didn’t you let me know you were here? I told you this was an emergency. If I hadn’t busted out here, you’d have been talking to Norma for another ten minutes yet. Come in.”

“What is it?” asked Best, crowding past the bulging vest as the lawyer held the door open for him.

“I’m in a jam.”

“Again?”

“Don’t be funny.”

“What sort of a jam?”

“I’m going to lose about ten thousand Bucks.”

“That’s a lot of money,” Best said, “even if you haven’t got it to lose.”

Dillon snorted, grasped the detective’s elbow with fingers that were surprisingly strong, for all of their coating of fat, pushed him through a law library and into an office fitted with massive furniture that matched the huge bulk of the lawyer.

A woman, who seemed as pathetically small as a boy in a man’s overcoat, raised hopeless eyes to survey the broad-shouldered detective.

“This is Ellen Hanley,” said Dillon. And, turning to Ellen Hanley, said: “This is the detective I told you about — Gilbert Best.”

Best tossed his hat to the big desk, smiled reassuringly at Ellen Hanley. Her eyes were bleached with suffering. Her lips twisted into a smile, but there was no hope in her eyes.

Dillon squeezed himself past the corner of his desk. Springs in the swivel chair squeaked protest as he adjusted his weight.

“Ellen Hanley,” he said, “has a swell case against the Airline Stageways. That is,” he amended hastily, “she did have.”

“What happened to it?” Best asked.

“She didn’t follow instructions,” said Dillon, with an accusing glare at the woman.

She started to say something, but raised a handkerchief to her lips and coughed with hacking monotony.

Best looked at the lawyer inquiringly.

“Accident happened five months ago,” said Dillon. “It was night. The stage was coming around a corner too fast to get over on its side of the road. The driver was fighting the steering wheel. He couldn’t turn off the spotlight. It glared into Miss Hanley’s eyes. She was crowded off the road, smashed into a stump, wrecked her car, smashed some ribs. Gave her some serious lung injuries.”

“Was the stage injured?” asked Best.

“No, she never touched the stage. The stage crowded her off the road and into a stump.”

“And kept right on going?” asked Best.

“It would have, but one of the passengers heard the crash, looked back and saw what happened. He made the driver stop. The driver pretended he didn’t know anything about it. The passenger was sore. Miss Hanley was unconscious. They stopped a passing motorist and had him take her to the hospital. The driver then admitted to the passenger that he was going pretty fast and didn’t have a chance to turn off the spotlight when he saw the car coming.”

“That,” said the detective, watching Dillon shrewdly, “should make a pretty good case.”

“It should have!” snorted the lawyer. “I sued the Airline Stageways, and Walter Manning. He was the driver. You know, his statement wouldn’t be admissible against the stage company because it wasn’t a part of what we call the res gestae. But, on the theory that both the stage company and the driver were responsible for the accident, I sued the driver, as well as the stage company. Then I could have introduced the admission as against the driver. The jury would have considered it as against the stage company, in spite of the judge’s instructions.”

“Well?” asked the detective.

Dillon snorted. “Sam Wigmore,” he said, “is the most unscrupulous shyster that ever represented a corporation! Do you know what he did?”

“What did he do?”

“He got Manning to make a default. I’ve got judgment against Manning for fifty thousand dollars. That judgment isn’t worth fifty cents, but now that I’ve got judgment against Manning I can’t introduce the statement that he made, as a declaration against him. That means the only thing I can do is to put him on the stand as a witness and ask him questions. If he denies the statement he made, I can impeach him.”

“I still don’t see anything to worry about,” Best said.

“I can’t find Manning. They’ve spirited him out of the country.”

“Like that, eh?”

“Like that.”

“Why didn’t you have me get in touch with him five months ago?” Best inquired.

“The action was only put in my hands three months ago, and I thought it was a cinch case. I thought they would settle, until Wigmore pulled that fast one on me and spirited Manning out of the country.”

“You still could have reached me thirty days ago,” Best said.

“Yes, but, damn it, you had to go and get temperamental and wouldn’t work for me any more!”

Best laughed. “You were the one that got temperamental,” he said, “and swore you’d never call me again. What do you want me to do — find Manning?”

“We’ve got to find Manning.”

“How about the passenger?” Best suggested. “He should make a good witness for you.”

“He’s a swell witness to the statement that Manning made, but he can’t be a witness to the accident. He was dozing at the time. It was the crash that woke him up. He looked through the back of the stage and saw the car rolling over, had a glimpse of Miss Hanley being pitched out.”

“I see,” the detective remarked.

“You don’t see anything yet,” grumbled Dillon, pulling a handkerchief from the side pocket of his coat and mopping his perspiring brow. “Wigmore pulled a fast one.”

“Another one?”

“Yes, another one.”

“What did he do?”

“Miss Hanley hasn’t any money,” Dillon said. “She hasn’t any money to even pay her ordinary living expenses. She had to get some form of work. A woman who must have been in the employ of the stage company told her about some employment she could get if she’d write to a certain address. She made it appear that the applicant would have to show she was in good health.”

The lawyer broke off, to stare at the frail form of the woman as though she had been some particularly obnoxious insect.

“Do you know what she did, Gil? The little fool went ahead and answered a questionnaire that was sent her — a questionnaire that said the position was open only to applicants enjoying good health, and containing a lot of inquiries about whether she’d ever been in an accident, and if so, whether she’d had a complete recovery, and a lot of that stuff. It was a printed questionnaire. It looked innocent enough. It wouldn’t have fooled me if she’d told me about it. But she didn’t tell me about it until afterwards. She filled it in, stating that she’d been in a minor accident, but that she’d had a perfect recovery; that she was enjoying good health.”

Dillon glared at his client. Ellen Hanley had another fit of coughing. Best’s eyes showed sympathy. “How did you find out about it?” he asked the lawyer.

“When Wigmore quit his talk of compromise and decided he was going to trial. I had him almost worked up to a twenty-thousand-dollar settlement.”

“Twenty thousand dollars is a lot of money,” said Best.

“There’s some bad injuries in this case,” Dillon said, and tapped his lungs.

Best frowned. “Then,” he said, “as I see it, aside from the fact that you can’t prove your case against the stage company, in the first place, and can’t show any serious injuries, in the second place, there’s nothing much wrong with your lawsuit.”

“That’s it,” groaned Dillon. “Of course, I could put Ellen Hanley on the witness stand and get a doctor to support her testimony concerning the injuries, but you know how juries are. They see so many people who fake injuries against transportation companies that as soon as Wigmore flashes her written statement on ’em that she’d had a complete recovery and is in good health, I’d stand no chance of collecting anything, except maybe a few hundred dollars for doctor and hospital bills.”

Best frowned for a moment, then stared at Dillon. “It’s going to take money,” he said.

Dillon’s face instantly became a cold, hard mask. “I can advance you,” he said, “a hundred dollars, and pay you twenty dollars a day.”

Best shook his head. “I said money,” he remarked.

Dillon’s face mottled. His voice grew high-pitched with emotion. “What the hell do you think I am?” he asked. “Santy Claus? Do you think money grows on bushes? This whole thing is contingency with me, except costs. I got a retainer to cover costs, and that’s all.”

“How much of a retainer?” asked Best.

It was the woman who answered the question. “All I had,” she said. “A hundred and eighteen dollars.”

Best picked up his hat. “So long, Dillon,” he said, and strode from the office.

The lawyer tugged at the edge of the desk, heaved his bulk out of the chair. “Now wait a minute, Gil,” he said. “You can’t—”

Best slammed the door of the private office behind him, walked through the law library, pushed open the door into the outer office, shook his head at Norma Pelton.

“No go?” she asked.

“No go,” he told her. “I can’t stand your boss. He makes me seasick. The big stuffed shirt.”

“Huh,” she said, “you should be working for him.”

“Took all she had,” said Best in a voice that was edged with disgust, “and then kicks her all around the office because she tried to go to work and make some money to support herself — over a hundred dollars for ‘costs.’ Hell, it didn’t cost him over fifteen dollars to file the suit and serve the papers, and then he was too damn stingy to get a detective to sew the case up for him, but pocketed the rest of the retainer and tried to club the stage company into a settlement. It serves him right.”

Best pounded his way across the office, slammed the door to the corridor and started toward the elevator.

A key clicked in a lock, a knob turned. One of the doors marked, Frank C. Dillon — Attorney at Law — Private, opened. Dillon’s faun-colored vest blocked the opening. His face wore an ingratiating smile.

“All right, Gil, old kid,” he said, “I wouldn’t hold out on you. I’ll put up the money.”

The detective remained in the hallway. His face did not smile. “I meant money,” he said, “not for myself, but to keep that woman going until we can get a settlement for her, or bring the case to trial. And I need money for some help in this thing, and I don’t want any questions asked about what I do with it. You know the way Wigmore and his detectives strong-arm a case as well as I do. They’ve had five months’ head-start on me. I’ve got to pull a fast one.”

Dillon sighed, stood to one side and wheezed: “Come on in, Best. We can fix all that up.”

“And,” said Best, “I want the address that she wrote to get the employment.”

Dillon’s reply was a snort of contempt. After a moment he said: “That’s what burns me up, Best. That damn shyster, Wigmore, had the crust to put on there the address of Five Hundred and Three, Transportation Building. That’s the claim department of the Airline Stageways.”

Best pushed his way into the office, took a notebook from his pocket, handed it to Ellen Hanley, smiled reassuringly.

“Sign your name on that page,” he said, “just the way you signed it on that questionnaire.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Dillon, peering over Best’s shoulder, his wheezing breath sounding in the detective’s ear.

“Give me some money,” Best said, “and shut up. The less you know about this, the better.”