Honest Money and Other Short Novels

Close Call

Ken Corning stood in his office, feet planted well apart, eyes very cold. They surveyed the officer in coal-black appraisal, steady, hard, hostile, and with obvious annoyance.

“I tell you,” he said, “that I don’t know where Mr. Dangerfield is.”

“He’s your client,” said the officer.

“That doesn’t mean I’m his keeper, does it?”

The detective, who had been standing back of the officer, thrust his way forward.

“Just so there won’t be any misunderstanding about this, I want to state that we hold a warrant for the arrest of Amos Dangerfield. He’s charged with the murder of Walter Copley. Apparently he’s in hiding, and, apparently, he consulted you before he went into hiding.”

Ken Corning said: “All right. Now that you’ve got that off your chest, I still don’t know where he is.”

The detective sneered.

“And I presume you mean to imply that, if you did know, you wouldn’t tell us. Is that right?”

There was a knock at the door of the office.

“Come in,” said Ken Corning.

The door opened. Helen Vail, his stenographer, thrust her hatted head through the opening.

“I was a little late,” she said. “I heard voices, and wondered if you wanted anything.”

Corning smiled affably at the officer and the detective. “Yes,” he said, “I want you to come in here and be a witness. These gentlemen are trying to trap me into being an accessory after the fact. I wish you’d take a notebook and take notes of the conversation. And don’t bother about taking your things off.”

Helen Vail sized up the situation with alert, intelligent eyes.

She reached out through the opening in the door, snatched a notebook from her desk which was by the door, grabbed a pencil, dropped down into a chair, crossed her knees, opened the book on her knee, and said: “Go right ahead. I’m ready.”

Ken Corning said: “Your question was, I believe, whether or not I would tell you where Mr. Dangerfield was, if I knew. Permit me to remind you again that, as I don’t know, the question is beside the point.”

The detective said: “All right. Now you’ve got that off your chest, you’ll admit that we told you we had a warrant for his arrest?”

“Certainly,” said Corning.

“You’re a lawyer. You’d oughta know that it’s a crime to shield anyone accused of murder.”

Ken Corning smiled.

“This man came to you, charged with murder, and you advised him to skip out,” charged the detective.

“I most certainly did nothing of the sort,” replied Corning.

He was smiling now, a smile of cold scorn.

“You knew he was charged with murder.”

“I did not.”

“You knew he was going to be.”

“I am not a mind reader, nor am I a prophet.”

“You know it’s a crime for a lawyer to listen to a man confess to murder, and then advise him to skip out before a warrant can be issued.”

“Perhaps. How about if a man tells you he’s innocent of a murder, but thinks he may be charged with it?”

“Is that what Dangerfield told you?” asked the detective.

Corning’s voice was edged with scorn.

“Since you’re quoting law,” he said, “you might look up some more law and find that whatever a client tells his attorney is a confidential and privileged communication.”

The officer said to the detective: “We ain’t getting anywhere, Bill.”

The detective nodded.

“Listen, guy,” he said, “you’re new to York City. You’ll find out that you can’t be so damned high and mighty and make it stick. This place ain’t healthy for smart alecks like you.”

Corning strode forward towards him. His eyes were cold, scornful and very hard.

“I’ve heard all from you that I want to hear. Get out. My secretary has taken down your threat. It will be available if anything should happen to me.”

The detective laughed, a mirthless cackle of sound.

“Okey,” he said to the officer, “let’s go. Maybe when we come back we’ll have a warrant for this guy.”

Ken Corning stood in the center of the floor and watched them leave the office. When the door had clicked shut, Helen Vail dropped her notebook on the chair, thrust the pencil in her hair and took off her coat.

“What a sweet morning I picked to be late,” she said.

Ken Corning grinned at her.

“It’s okey, Helen. They didn’t get anywhere. Just trying to run a cheap bluff.”

“How long you been here, Chief?” she asked.

“Since two o’clock this morning.”

“Since two o’clock! Good grief! Why didn’t you call me?”

“No use. Nothing for you to do.”

“Something broke?”

“I’ll say. It’ll be announced in the papers in an hour or two. The police suppressed the news until it was too late for the regular morning papers. They’ll probably run an extra.”

“What was it?” she asked.

“Walter Copley, editor of The News, was murdered.”

She whistled.

“What’s our connection with it?” she asked.

“We’re retained by Amos Dangerfield. The police claim that it was his car that did the killing.”

“Go on,” she said. “What happened?”

“The News,” he told her, “goes to bed around two-thirty or three o’clock. Copley was leaving the paper. There’s an owl street car that makes a swing, and Copley had been in the habit of taking that car. He didn’t see very well, and he was afraid to drive his own car. He was always prejudiced against a hired chauffeur.

“Anyhow, he got to the front of his apartment house, got out of the car. The car started on. An automobile swung around the corner, coming fast, and Copley hugged the safety zone. That car held him there, so he couldn’t dodge.

“Another machine was running directly behind it, without lights. As the first machine flashed past, the second swerved out from the rear, cut directly across the safety zone and smashed Copley down. Both cars sped away.”

“Kill him?” asked the girl.

“Deader’n a door nail.”

“Was Dangerfield mixed up in it?”

“He says not. He got me here, said he knew that the crime was committed by certain political enemies, and that he’d been tipped off there was going to be an attempt made to involve him in it. He didn’t have any particulars, just had an anonymous telephone call telling him he was to be put in a bad spot, and he’d better run for cover.”

“He didn’t know who called him?” she asked.

“No. It was a woman’s voice.”

“You told Mm to skip out?”

He grinned down at her.

“Gosh,” he said, “you’re worse than a detective. No. Of course not. I told him that if he were not apprehended before morning papers came out, he’d doubtless have an opportunity to learn something of the facts of the case that would be built up against him. And, of course, in the case of a frame-up, the more one knows of what the evidence is going to be, the more one can tell what to do about it.”

He reached in the inside pocket of his coat and took out a leather wallet. From the wallet lie took two fifty-dollar bills, a twenty, three tens, and a check for nine hundred dollars.

“Retainer,” he said. “Enter it up in the cash.”

She turned the check over in her fingers. It was signed Amos Dangerfield in a hand that showed slight irregularities.

“Looks like he was sort of nervous when he signed that check,” Helen Vail said.

“Try waking yourself up at two o’clock in the morning and finding that there’s a murder charge hanging over your head, and see how you feel,” he told her.

She grinned. Her mouth twisted in a little grimace. “No, thanks,” she said. She moved towards the door, paused. “They got any motive?” she asked.

“Lord, yes! They’ve got motives to burn. Dangerfield was at swords’ points with Copley. At one time Dangerfield had political ambitions. He started getting them again, lately. Copley should have been the one to support him. His paper’s against the administration. Of late he’s been getting a lot of stuff on graft. He was preparing to blow the lid off the town and expose the whole machine that’s in power.

“If the campaign had been successful it would have swept the old bunch out of office and Copley could have written the slate. Dangerfield thought Copley should give him something nice. Copley had other plans.”

Helen Vail’s eyes narrowed.

“They won’t dare to show that as a motive,” she said. “And, at that, it isn’t much of a motive. A man wouldn’t go out and murder someone just because he couldn’t get some political job.”

“Sure,” he told her. “But be your age. They’ll use the quarrel the two men had, a bitter quarrel. Everyone in the office of the newspaper heard it. Dangerfield accused Copley of giving him a double-cross. He threatened to do everything from horsewhipping Copley to blowing up the paper and suing him for libel. You see, in the mess of stuff that Copley had collected to show graft and what-not, he uncovered a dump down on Birkel Street. It’s rather a tough neighborhood. There was a sort of dance-hall running there. It was a place that paid protection money, and the sort of things went on there that you’d expect to run if you were paying protection money.

“Copley chased back in the records to find who owned the building, just on general principles. He found that the owner was Amos Dangerfield. Dangerfield didn’t even know what sort of a place it was or what was happening down there. He turned the whole thing over to an agent, and the agent ran the place and collected the rents.

“But Copley was going to publish the story of this dance-hall as the opening gun in his campaign. He had a sob sister story on a couple of the dancers there, and a straight case of bribery, clean up to a sergeant.

“Naturally, it’d have put Dangerfield on a political spot. He could have made all the alibis he wanted about not knowing what was going on there, and all the rest of it, but he’d never have been elected even to the office of dog catcher on a reform ticket. Copley knew that and that’s why he was throwing Dangerfield over. If he’d teamed up with Dangerfield, he’d have had to throw away one of his best stories. He figured it’d be cheaper to get some other guy for office.”

Helen Vail let her face squint up with thought.

“Gee,” she said, “some of that stuff must have been hot — politically.”

“Of course it was,” he said. “It was dynamite.”

“What happened to it?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Nobody knows. Probably nobody ever will know. The authorities took charge of everything. They claimed that they had to dig up evidence about the murder. They pawed through a lot of stuff. They claim they didn’t find anything.”

“You mean they had someone slip it out of the safe or wherever it was, and destroy it?”

He said:

“I don’t mean anything except that they didn’t find anything. The authorities who made the investigation were the same authorities who were to be put on the pan by the evidence that Copley had collected. You can draw your own conclusions.”

“Well,” she asked, “what do you think?”

He grinned at her.

“Try reading my mind. It’s what a jury will be asked to do.”

“You think the case will go to a jury?”

“Sure. They want to make Dangerfield the goat. They’ve got to. They thought they could rub Copley out without leaving any back trail. But, if they did leave a back trail, it was going to be one that led directly to the fall guy, and that’s what Dangerfield is. Even if a jury acquits him, the people will think that he was guilty.”

“What you figuring on, Chief?”

“I’m going to try to beat ’em to it and dig up some witnesses.”

“Going to hire a detective to do the leg work?”

“No. I’m going to do it myself. I can’t trust anybody on this thing. It’s too delicate.”

Corning rang the doorbell. The woman who answered the ring was broad of shoulder and hip. Her arms were bare, and they were well muscled. Her eyes had an expression of stony hostility.

“Well,” she said, “what do you want?”

Ken Corning grinned.

“I’m an attorney,” he said. “Pm representing Amos Dangerfield who lives next door.”

“Oh,” she said, “the one who murdered the newspaperman, eh?”

Corning grinned.

“No,” he said, “he didn’t murder the newspaperman.”

The woman said, uncordially: “Well, come in and sit down. Don’t try to get me mixed into the thing, though. I don’t want to go on a witness stand and have a bunch of lawyers yelling questions at me.”

“Certainly,” he soothed. “Pm just trying to get the facts. Mr. Dangerfield lives next door to you. That’s his flat, the one on this side, I believe?”

The woman nodded, led the way into a sitting-room. The windows opened out on a strip of lawn. Across that lawn was a driveway. At the end of the driveway were three garages, beyond the garages was a large rambling house.

“What did you think I’d know?” asked the woman.

“Something about what time the car was taken from the garage,” he said.

“I only know I heard a lot of men out there this morning. It was early, just before daylight. Right around when it was getting gray dawn. They trampled things up and took flashlight pictures. They claim they found blood and hair on the bumper of the car, and that there was a place on the left front fender where...”

“Yes,” he said, “I know all about that. How about prior to that time? Did you hear the garage door open, or anything like that?”

“No.”

“How many people on this west side of the house?”

“Three.”

“Can you give me their names and where I can find them? I presume they’re working now.”

“Two of them are. There’s one that isn’t. He’s out of work now. I think he’s leaving here on the first.”

“What’s his name?”

“Oscar Briggs. He was an accountant. He specialized in income tax work. There ain’t any business in his line now. His clients haven’t had any income.”

“I wonder if I could run up and speak with him.”

“I guess so. I’ll take you up to his room.”

They climbed stairs, went down a corridor to the back of the house. She knocked on a door. Windows looked down in the driveway, right at the very entrance of the garage.

Steps sounded from the inside of the room. A man opened the door, saw the broad shoulders of the woman on the threshold.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Markle, but I can’t let you have—”

She interrupted him.

“There’s a gentleman wants to see you.”

She stood to one side so that he could see Ken Corning.

The man was tall and slender. He carried himself with an air of dignity. But there was a subtle something in his manner which suggested that his poise was punctured. He seemed a man who had made something of an established position for himself, and had come to regard that position as being secure. Then he had found his values dissolving before his eyes, his very foundations crumbling. Pie kept the outward semblance of dignity and poise, but there was something in the back of his eyes, a suggestion of panic.

Ken Corning moved forward and held out his hand.

“My name’s Corning, Mr. Briggs. I’d like to talk with you for a few minutes.”

“Come in,” said Briggs.

“You’ll excuse me,” said Mrs. Markle. “I’ve got work to do, and there’s no way I can help you.”

Corning said: “Certainly, and thank you, Mrs. Markle.”

Briggs indicated a chair.

Corning sat down. The windows of the room looked down directly upon the doorways of the garages. There was a writing desk in the room and Briggs had evidently been half way through a letter.

“I’m representing Mr. Dangerfield,” said Corning.

“A lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

“You’ve read the papers?”

“Yes. Of course we knew something about it. The police came somewhere around daylight this morning. They wanted to examine the car, and they were trying to locate Dangerfield. He had skipped out. Seemed a mighty nice fellow, too. I understood he was doing some research work. Has the entire upper floor of the building across from us, I believe.”

Corning said: “Yes,” and waited.

Briggs moved uncomfortably.

“That all you know?” asked Ken Corning.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t hear the garage doors open or close during the night, didn’t hear the car come in? Didn’t, by any chance, see that Mr. Dangerfield was in his rooms last night at any particular time, or see him driving the machine, did you?”

Briggs fidgeted around in his chair.

“Look here,” he said, “who told you to come to me?”

“No one. I’m representing a client who’s charged with a very grave offense, and I want to see if I can find out something about the facts.”

Briggs kept his eyes averted.

“Well,” said Corning.

“No. I don’t know anything else.”

Ken Corning said, very solemnly: “It’s a murder case, you know, Mr. Briggs.”

“And I don’t want to be put on the stand and have a lot of lawyers yell questions at me,” said Briggs.

Corning smiled affably.

“Oh, it isn’t as bad as that. You’ll be subpenaed, of course, and you’ll have to tell what you know. But people won’t do any shouting.”

“You mean I’ll have to go to court?”

“Oh, yes. You’ll be called. The fact that you didn’t hear anything might be of some value. Negative testimony, you know, and all that.”

“But I don’t want to go to court.”

“Unfortunately, you’ll have to. It’s one of those things that come up at times, like jury duty. And, of course, Mr. Briggs, if you do know anything, it would be far better to tell me now. You see, if you get on the stand and testify under oath and conceal any facts it would be a grave offense. On the other hand, if you should insist to me that you know nothing, and then tell a different story when you got on the witness stand, it would make you very uncomfortable, put you in a false light, you know.”

Briggs sighed, suddenly raised his eyes to Corning’s.

“All right,” he said, “if you put it that way, I’ll tell what I know. I hadn’t intended to tell a soul. But I guess I’d have had to weaken before the case was over, particularly if it got to looking bad for Mr. Dangerfield. I don’t think he drove the car at all.”

“No?” asked Ken Corning, sitting very still in his chair.

“No. I think he was at home abed. You see, I can look across into his flat. There aren’t any women on this side of the house, and Mr. Dangerfield is a bachelor, something of a recluse, I understand. As a result we don’t draw the shades at night, none of us.

“I was up late last night. I saw Dangerfield padding around in his pajamas. He went to bed about midnight. I was sitting up, trying to figure some way out of my personal situation. My business is none too good at the present time.

“Well, about one o’clock, or a little earlier, I heard the sound of the garage door downstairs being opened, rather slowly. I had turned out the light in my room because my eyes hurt. In fact, I’d put on pajamas, and had tried to sleep, but couldn’t.

“I looked out of the window.

“There were four men who were pushing a car out of Dangerfield’s garage. They had another car parked at the curb with the motor running.

“Of course, I thought right away of car thieves. They were evidently running the car out of the garage by man power so that the motor wouldn’t make a noise and alarm anyone.

“I started to give an alarm, but I didn’t know what to do. There’s no telephone here in this room, you see, and I’d have had to go downstairs and alarm the house in order to get the telephone. By the time I could have notified the police it’d have been too late. And I didn’t want to put my head out of the window and start yelling. One reads so much about gangsters shooting, these days.”

Corning nodded. His eyes were slitted in concentration.

“I know,” he said. “Go on.”

Briggs said: “Well, it was done so smoothly and so rapidly that I couldn’t do a thing. Even while I was sitting there, debating what I was going to do, it was all over. They got the car to the curb. A man jumped m, just one man. He started the car and drove away. The other three got in the other car that was parked at the curb, and followed. I figured Mr. Dangerfield had just lost a car, but I also figured it was insured, and that perhaps he’d just as soon have the insurance as the car, so I decided to forget it.

“I didn’t go back to bed. I sat there in a chair by the window. About one-forty, I heard a noise. Two cars drove up and stopped at the curb. Then one of the cars was rolled up the driveway, just the way it had been rolled down. It looked like Dangerfield’s car. They had switched off the lights and the motor, and they pushed the car up into the garage and closed the door.”

Ken Corning spoke very slowly, sat very still in his chair.

“Did you,” he asked, “see any of the men so that you could recognize them if you saw them again, or give a description?”

“I saw the one who drove Dangerfield’s car. He crossed in front of the headlights of the other car, once. I had a glimpse.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was a heavy-set man with a white hat. That is, it looked white in the glare of the headlights. It was probably just a light color. He had on a tweed suit and brown shoes. I caught a glimpse of the face, but looking down on it, it was hard to tell very much about it. I saw that there was a scar along one cheek. That was about all I could see.”

Ken Corning said: “And you’ve told no one about this?”

“No.”

“You’d better write it out. Make just a brief statement in your own words. Sign that statement and give it to me. I’ll promise you that I won’t call you as a witness unless I have to. It may be I can get the case dismissed without having to go to a trial.”

Briggs moved towards the desk with alacrity.

“If you could only do that,” he said, “it’d sure be a load off my mind. I didn’t know what to do. When I read of the murder in the paper, and the fact that the police claimed Dangerfield’s machine had done the job... Well, I’ve been in a stew ever since daylight.”

He sat down at the desk and started to write.

Ken Corning lit a cigarette. He sat, thoughtfully smoking.

A knock sounded at the door, a heavy, imperious knock.

Corning looked at Briggs. Briggs got up from the desk, strode to the door, opened it. A man pushed his way into the room, without greeting, glowered about him.

“Which one of you guys is Briggs, the guy that lives here?”

“I am,” said Briggs.

“Then this other guy is the lawyer, eh?”

Ken Corning got to his feet, pinched out the cigarette.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Harry Smoot, of the Detective Bureau. I’m here looking around. I heard you was out here. Your name’s Corning, ain’t it?”

“Yes,” said Ken Corning.

Smoot walked over to a chair and sat down.

“You ain’t told this lawyer anything, have you?” he asked of Briggs.

Briggs seemed a little nettled.

“When you interrupted me,” he said, “I was in the middle of a statement concerning what I had seen and heard.”

“Oh, ho,” said the detective, “you know something then.”

“Yes,” said Briggs. “I had just finished telling Mr. Corning about it.”

Smoot’s heavy face settled into a portentous frown.

“Listen, guy, when there’s been a murder committed, and you know something about it, the thing for you to do is to get in touch with the police, not go running around telling lawyers all you know, Do you get that?”

Briggs said: “I guess I have a right to talk with whom I wish, haven’t I?”

Ken Corning strolled nonchalantly over to the desk, Briggs had covered two pages of stationery with his statement. It was, of course, as yet unsigned. Corning slipped the papers into his pocket while Smoot glowered at Briggs.

“I’m just telling you,” said the detective, “for your own good. You don’t want to get in no trouble, do you? Well, the thing to do is to get in touch with the police when you know anything. Now what is it you know?”

Briggs said: “I know that Dangerfield wasn’t driving his car last night, that other men took out that car, and that they returned it. I know that their conduct was suspicious when they took the car out and also when they returned it. I believe this whole crime was framed on Amos Dangerfield.”

The detective’s face was dark.

“Now listen, guy, you’re goin’ too far and too fast. You can’t know all this stuff without being mixed up in the thing some way. And what you know ain’t right, See? We got the deadwood on this case. What you’ve done is to listen to this lawyer until he’s got you all balled up about what you did see.”

Ken Corning said: “Don’t let this man browbeat you, Briggs.”

Smoot whirled on Corning.

“I’ve half a mind to run you in,” he said, “tampering with witnesses.”

Ken Corning said in low, ominous tones: “Have you a warrant for me?”

“Not yet,” said the detective. “That ain’t saying I ain’t going to have one.”

“All right,” Corning told him grimly, “when you do get one, you can serve it. Until you do get it, your talk don’t mean a damned thing, except that if you keep on looking for trouble you’re going to find it.”

“Yeah? Well, guy, I’m going to report what I’ve found out here, your tampering with a state’s witness.”

Corning suddenly pushed forward.

“All right. Go ahead and report. Now get out of my way!”

The detective stood on one side.

“How about that statement?” he asked Briggs. “You didn’t sign anything, did you?”

“No. I hadn’t finished it, so I didn’t sign it.”

“Where is it?”

Corning, at the door, turned.

“I’ve got it in my pocket,” he said. “It’s my statement, made for me at my request.”

Smoot strode towards him ominously.

“You can’t get away with that,” he said. “Give it up!”

Ken Corning planted his feet wide apart.

“That statement,” he said, slowly, “is in my inside coat pocket. It’s going to stay there. Do you think otherwise? If you do, just try to get it.”

His eyes blazed into those of the detective.

For fifteen seconds they stood there, the big detective sullen and enraged, Corning flashing fire from his eyes, standing his ground, cool and deadly.

“You’ll hear from this!” said Smoot.

“Bah!” said Ken. “Go hand your line to some kid who’s afraid of you!”

He turned on his heel and walked down the stairs.

Helen Vail took the sheets of paper.

“Put them in a lock box somewhere,” Corning told her. “Don’t trust to the safe in the office.”

“You think it’ll bust the case?” she asked, looking down at the scrawled writing on the paper.

“Can’t tell. It’ll give the District Attorney something to worry about. I want to get hold of Dangerfield now and have him surrender. Then I can get a date set down for the preliminary hearing and have a subpena issued for this witness.”

“Do you know where Dangerfield is? Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”

He grinned at her.

“I told them I didn’t know where he is, and I don’t. But I wouldn’t be such a fool as to let a client charged with murder get away without knowing how I could get in touch with him. I can’t go to him, but I can get him to come to me.

“I just put an ad in the personal column in the Clarion that’ll do the trick. Dangerfield’s watching that column. He’ll communicate with me as soon as he sees the ad.”

Helen Vail said: “Did you see the late papers about the witness the state has got?”

“No,” he said. “Who is It? What will he swear to?”

“Some fellow named Bob Durane. Claims he was driving a car along the boulevard, just after Copley was struck down. He says that a car went past him at terrific speed, running without lights, and that there was a lone man in the car, driving. He says that when the man went past him there was a street light where it shone on the man’s face, and that he’ll recognize him if he sees him again.”

Ken Corning blinked rapidly.

“Who is this bird, and where is he?” he asked.

“The District Attorney’s office has got him sewed up over in the Palace Hotel. The paper said ‘a downtown hotel,’ but the Palace was where they buried those other witnesses, and I suppose that’s where they’ve got this baby planted.”

Ken Corning paced the floor.

“A plant,” he said. “Pulling this stuff through the newspapers is going to make things rough for Dangerfield.”

She stared up at him and said: “Isn’t there anything you can do about it?”

He nodded grimly.

“Sure. They come busting in on my witnesses and browbeat them for even talking with the lawyer for the defense. They get their own witnesses and put them under guard. They’d probably arrest anyone that even tried to talk with them. When I try to get a statement about what happened it’s ‘tampering with a witness.’ When they want a statement, they bury their witness somewhere and put a guard around him.”

“That ain’t fair,” she said,

“Of course it ain’t fair, but the people don’t know it. They just can’t be bothered.”

“Maybe there’s some way we could make ‘em know it, Chief. We might be able to let ’em know...”

“Exactly what I’m going to do right now,” he told her. “I’m going to bust over there and demand to interview the witness. There’ll be some news-hungry reporters hanging around there. They’ll have a guard on the room, and I’ll let the guard throw me out. That’ll make news. Then the people will think maybe there’s something funny about it.”

She nodded.

The outer office door clicked. A shadow hulked into the room, then a man pushed his way into the office. It was the same man who had been in earlier in the morning with the officer.

He held out a copy of a newspaper, damp from the presses.

“What’s the meaning of this, Corning?” he demanded.

Ken Corning glanced significantly at the papers which Helen Vail held in her hand.

She abruptly thrust them down the front of her dress. The detective stared at her.

“Meaning of what?” asked Ken Corning,

“Meaning of this personal ad: ‘A.D. Have uncovered evidence desired. Any time now is all right. Telephone first. Ken.’ ”

“How should I know what it means?” said Corning.

The detective moved towards Helen Vail.

“Say,” he said, “you were hiding something. You don’t want to get mixed in this, baby! It’s going to be a fight. What was it you had in your hand when I came in?”

She pushed towards the door.

The detective reached out a hand and hooked two fingers down the V-shaped opening in the front of her dress.

“Now listen, sister...”

Ken Corning crossed to the detective in two swift strides.

“Take your hand away!” he snapped.

The detective caught the blazing fire of the eyes, whirled around, snarling.

“Say-y-y-y,” he said, “if you...”

Helen Vail ducked under his arm, scurried across the outer office and into the corridor. The detective turned awkwardly, made a clutch at the empty atmosphere, glowered at Corning.

“You don’t try to get along at all,” he said. “You’re just a smart Aleck that don’t know what he can do and what he can’t do. This is your first big case, youngster, and you’re going to wind up by being in awful bad.”

Ken Corning stood rigid, poised.

“This is my private office. I don’t want a bunch of roughneck detectives barging in here without invitation. You’ve had too damned many privileges as it is. Now, damn you, get out of here, or I’ll bust your face wide open.”

“Yeah?” asked the detective,

“Yeah. You’ve busted in here once too often. And when you presume to lay your dirty paws on my secretary, you’ve clean overstepped every vestige of authority you ever had.”

The detective fidgeted.

“I didn’t touch her. I just wanted to ask her a question.”

“The hell you didn’t touch her! You started pawing her over. I saw you and she felt you. Now are you going to get out, or shall I put you out?”

The detective turned.

“Oh, all right! If you’re figuring on framing me, go ahead. But remember that you’re bucking something that’s licked many another guy that thought he was going to make a big reputation for himself as a criminal lawyer. You can’t buck the system. If you’re going to get on in this game you gotta play ball.”

Ken Corning sneered.

The detective stalked through the outer door.

Ken Corning stood, feet planted widely apart, watching the automatic door check bring the door to a close. Then he got his hat. He waited for a minute or two, then left the office, locking it behind him. He took a cab to the Palace Hotel.

There were newspaper men in the lobby.

Reed Nixon, of the Star, recognized him.

“Hello, Corning. Hear you’re representing Dangerfield. How about an interview? How about telling us something?”

“Sure thing,” said Corning.

Nixon hurriedly piloted him over to a corner of the lobby, where he was screened from the other reporters.

“Listen, guy, how about this? Give me something nice, a defiant statement, something with a fight in it. Say it’s a dirty political frame-up.”

“It’s a dirty political frame-up,” said Corning.

“That’s fine. Where’s Dangerfield?”

“Dangerfield was called away hurriedly upon a business trip. As soon as he reads that he is wanted, however, he will surrender himself. You can say that I promise to have Dangerfield in the hands of the authorities within another twenty-four hours.”

“Attaboy!” said Nixon.

“Where have they got this witness parked, Nixon?”

“Up on the third floor, 324. You can’t see him. They got a couple of muscle men on guard. You’ve got to have a pass from the D. A. to get in.”

“That’s not right,” said Corning. “A man should be given some opportunity to know what he’s charged with. The lawyer of one side should be entitled to no advantage that the lawyer of the other side isn’t given.”

Nixon laughed.

“Gee,” he said, “that’s a fine lot of hooey, but I’d like to hear you tell the D. A. that.”

“I’m going to,” said Corning.

Nixon nodded.

“That’s the old spirit. Let me in on the ground floor. Give me something else that’s got a wallop in it.”

“You got a photographer here?” asked Corning.

“I can get one pretty quick. Why?”

“Nothing, but if I should try to interview that witness, and should get treated rather roughly, and if you should have a photographer get a flashlight of me being thrown out on my ear, it would make a good action story, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ll say!”

Then, as the reporter thought a minute, he added: “It would maybe make the D. A. sore, though.”

“Why?”

“Oh, some of the people might get to figuring there was something funny about a witness that the D. A. had to keep all buttoned up that way. When it came to trial you might be able to catch someone on the jury with the argument that the thing was a political frame-up.”

“A dirty political frame-up,” corrected Corning. “Don’t forget the adjective.”

“Okey then, a dirty political frame-up.”

“Going to get the photographer?” asked Corning.

Nixon squinted his eyes.

“Stick around,” he said. “I’ll phone. Don’t get chummy with the other boys. The boss might risk rubbing the D. A. the wrong way, if we got an exclusive.”

Corning nodded, sat down and lit a cigarette.

Inattentively his eyes, watching the crowds on the street, strayed aimlessly. The big, overstuffed chair was placed in front of the plate-glass window, and he could see the people hurrying to and fro.

His eyes rested on a roadster in which two men sat. They seemed interested in the front of the hotel Corning remembered that they had passed the taxicab in which he had been riding. He watched them.

The car was a police car. The two men were plain-clothes officers. Corning could not remember having seen either of them before, but the maimer in which they wore their clothes, held their heads, stared at the entrance of the hotel, labeled them for what they were.

Ken Corning smoked up his cigarette. Reed Nixon came back to him.

“I’ve got the photographer,” he said, “all planted with a flashlight and a camera that won’t attract attention. He’ll follow you down the corridor. Go up to the third floor and turn to the left when you leave the elevator.”

Ken Corning got to his feet, grinned, and walked to the elevator.

Reed Nixon strolled to the stairways, vanished from sight.

Ken Corning left the elevator at the third floor, turned left and walked down the corridor. He checked the numbers on the doors as he went past them.

When he had passed 318 and was approaching 320 a man who had been standing in the corridor came towards him.

“What you looking for, buddy?”

“Three twenty-four.”

“Got a pass from the D. A.?”

“No,” said Corning gravely. “I’m Corning, the lawyer who is representing Mr. Dangerfield. I understand that there’s a witness here who knows something about what happened. I want to talk with him.”

The man grinned.

“Well,” he said, “he don’t want to talk with you.”

Corning’s face was baby-faced in its utter innocence.

“Well,” he said, “if he’d tell me that, it would be all I’d want. That would show that he was biased in favor of one side of the case, you see; and I could spring it on him when I cross-examined him.”

The man frowned, stared fixedly at Ken Corning.

“Say, listen, what you doing? Taking me for a goof?”

Ken said: “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“A goof.”

The man pushed his way forward.

“Okey. That’s enough out of you. On your way. I don’t want any more of your lip, buddy.”

Ken Corning stood his ground.

“I wish to see Mr. Robert Durane,” he said.

“On your way, guy. Beat it!”

The man pushed out a big hand. Ken Corning pivoted from the hip, just the fraction of a deft turn, but it served to take his shoulder out of the path of the pushing hand. The big man lost his balance as he came forward. Ken Corning’s foot moved slightly. As the man took a swift step forward to catch his balance, his foot tangled with Corning’s. He sprawled flat on his face.

Corning moved forward, twisted the knob of room 324.

He heard a roar of rage behind him.

The door opened.

Ken Corning saw a man seated in a chair in front of a table, playing solitaire. He was smoking a cigar. He looked up as the door opened, and Ken saw that there was a livid scar down the right-hand side of his face, that t he man had hulking shoulders, a thick neck...

Another man who had been seated on the bed, reading, jumped forward. His form bulked in the doorway and blotted out Corning’s gaze of the interior of the room.

“Got a pass?” he asked.

An avalanche of human indignation descended upon Ken Corning from the rear. He felt powerful hands grasp his shoulder, felt himself spun around. A fist lashed out and caught him on the side of the face.

At that moment something went “Pouff!”

The corridor lighted up with the powerful glare of a flash gun.

Ken Corning dodged the next blow. The man from the interior of the room rushed him. Hands gripped his coat. He was pushed down the corridor. A foot impacted the small of his back, and he gave a swift leap to take him out of the way of another foot that sent a vicious kick.

Corning flashed a glance over his shoulder, then buckled down to the business of running, making time down the corridor. He hurled himself around the corner of the stairs. The bigger men made slow work of negotiating the turn.

Ken Corning distanced them on the stairs. They were slow and clumsy in their footwork. They followed him down the first flight, and part of the way down the second flight. When they found that pursuit was fruitless, they raised voices in maledictions.

Ken Corning kept right on going.

He paused to adjust coat and necktie on the mezzanine. A mirror showed him that one eye was swelling badly. The side of his face felt sore to the exploring touch of his fingertips.

He grinned. After a few minutes he walked down to the lobby, strolling through it casually.

He met Reed Nixon near the doorway.

The reporter said, under his breath:

“Gee, guy, you gave us a break!”

“You get the picture?” asked Corning.

“And how! He caught a picture just when the guy was socking you with a right. But when they both started chasing you, it was a break we’d been looking for. Our photographer stuck in another plate, dashed down the corridor, stuck his camera in the room and set off another flash.

“We’re rushing ’em over to develop ’em. We think we got a peach of the mystery witness that they’re trying to keep under cover. If we did, we’ll play it up strong. It’ll mean the D. A. will be sore, so we might as well go the whole hog. If I can sell the Chief on it, I’m going to give you a big play.”

“Okey, thanks,” said Corning, and walked out.

He was careful not to look directly at the automobile with the two officers, but was equally careful to observe, out of the corner of his eye, that the machine crawled into motion.

He walked to a drug-store on the comer and called his office.

“Anything?” he asked Helen Vail when he heard her voice on the line.

“I’ll say. You got an answer to your ad.”

“Fine. What was it?”

“Telephone call to meet the party at the Fleming Hotel He said you knew the name he’d be registered under. He’s in Room 526.”

“Okey,” said Corning. “If he calls in again, tell him that I’m on my way out there, but that a couple of dicks are trailing me in the hope that I’ll lead them to him, so I’ll have to take it a little easy.”

“You going to ditch them?” she asked.

“No,” he said, “this is my day for taking the police department for a ride. I’m going to kid ’em along strong.”

He hung up, walked out and caught a cab.

He noticed that the police car fell in behind.

“Fleming Hotel,” he said.

The cab made good time. The police car clung doggedly. Ken Corning sat back on the cushions and apparently was lost in thought. His right eye was swelling rapidly, and the soreness in the side of his face was increasing.

The cab swung in to the curb in front of the hotel. Corning paid the driver. The uniformed doorman made something of a ceremony out of opening the door of the cab.

Corning walked into the hotel.

He paused at the desk. One of the plain-clothes officers was walking in the lobby as Corning leaned over and asked the clerk: “Who’s in 528?”

The clerk stared at him a moment, then consulted a card.

“Mr. Carl Grant, of Detroit,” he said.

“That’s the party,” said Corning. “I’d forgotten the name. Will you give him a ring and tell him that Mr. Ken Corning, the lawyer, is on his way up? Tell him it’ll only take a minute.”

And he walked towards the elevators.

As the door of the cage clanged shut, he saw the plain-clothes officer who had followed him in, pausing to confer with the clerk at the desk.

Ken Corning left the elevator on the fifth floor, walked along the corridor, knocked on the door of 528.

The door opened.

A portly figure in a silk dressing gown stared at him belligerently.

“I don’t know you!” he said.

Ken Corning heard the door of the elevator clang open and shut, heard steps in the hall.

He raised his voice.

“Okey, Amos, get dressed and we’ll go and get it over with.”

The man stared at him with bulging eyes.

“Say,” he began, “I never...”

He didn’t finish. Ken Corning heard the banging of heavy steps behind him, caught the glimpse of a heavy body rushing forward. Then he was pushed to one side as though he had been a floating cork in the path of a battleship. Reaching hands darted forward, came down on the shoulder of the man in the doorway.

“Mr. Amos Dangerfield,” boomed the voice, “I arrest you in the name of the law for the murder of Walter Copley, and I warn you that anything you may say will be used against you.”

The man sputtered.

“But I’m not Dangerfield. I don’t know anything about the case except what I read in the paper! I’m Carl Grant of Detroit...”

The officer pushed his way into the room.

“May I have a word with this man?” asked Ken Corning, making as if to push his way past the door.

The officer grinned.

“At the jail,” he said, and kicked the door shut in Ken Corning’s face.

Corning whirled, moving with the swift rapidity of a hunted animal. He stepped to the adjoining room, twisted the knob of the door, and walked into the room.

He slammed the door and twisted the bolt.

“All right, Dangerfield,” he said. “They haven’t got pictures and descriptions out yet They shadowed me here, but the officers were going blind. I ditched them on to the party next door. The car’s waiting down the street. Stick around until we see them drive away.”

Corning walked over to the window, drew up a chair and looked down on the street. He could see the top of the parked police car, pushed against the curb in front of the space reserved for taxicabs.

Amos Dangerfield was a fleshy man much given to excitement. His voice was shrill and quavering. He came and stood by Ken Corning and asked innumerable questions.

Ken Corning didn’t raise his eyes from the street, nor did he answer the questions. He waited a few seconds, then interrupted the flow of language.

“Never mind all that. Get ready to leave and keep quiet. I’ve got to get you in to headquarters before they grab you. Otherwise they’d make a point of your flight. They spotted the ad in the personal column, and figured I was going to meet you somewhere, so they put a tail on me... Tell me, do you know a heavy-set man in the early forties with a scar down the right side of his face? Guy with black hair and gray eyes?”

“No,” said Dangerfield, slowly.

“All right then,” Ken Corning told him. “Shut up! I want to think, and the racket bothers me.”

He sat and watched. Five minutes became ten. Then he saw the plain-clothes officer escort a man across the strip of sidewalk to the waiting automobile.

The pair stood at the door of the car.

“Okey,” said Corning. “They’ll probably split and leave a shadow here. On our way. Make it snappy!”

He led the way out into the corridor, down the back stairs.

Amos Dangerfield wheezed and sputtered his way down the five flights of stairs. The descent took all his wind, and he made no comments, asked no questions.

Ken Corning found a stairway to the baggage-room, went to it, tipped the porter, walked out the side entrance to the alley, went down the alley, caught a cab.

Amos Dangerfield tugged at the cab and lifted his bulk into the vehicle.

“Police headquarters,” said Ken Corning.

Mrs. Markle stood in the doorway of her boarding house. Her ample form was covered with a dress of silk which gave her a stiffly starched, dressed-up appearance. Her eyes surveyed Ken Corning without the hostility they had shown earlier in the day, but with a certain curiosity.

“He’s gone,” she said.

“When will he be back?” asked Corning.

“He won’t be back. He’s gone. Got a job, took a plane somewhere.”

“How about his mail? He must have left you with a forwarding address.”

She rotated her head in a decided negative.

“No, he didn’t. And, if you ask me, there was something fishy about the whole business. He left in less than an hour after you did. When you called on him he didn’t have any more job than a tramp, and he owed me for two months’ room and board. I wouldn’t have let him get that deep into me, only he’d been a steady boarder for more than a year, and he’d always paid up regular when he had it.

“But after you left, the man that went up there left, and then another man came, a fish-faced little brat that was all smiles and smirks. He went up and talked with Briggs for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then Briggs came down all in a flutter, yelling for transfer men, and acting as though he was running to put out a fire.

“He paid me everything he owed me that was in arrears, and paid me for a week in advance. I saw his wallet when he took it out. It was just bursting with money. He said he had a job offered him, and he’d got to take a plane to get there. He didn’t say where the job was. I asked him about his mail, and he said to forget it, that if any mail came it’d be a bill probably.

“He never used to be like that. Always was a quiet, self-respecting, respectable chap. Now he’s rushing around scattering money to the winds and taking aeroplanes. I don’t like it. I’m as glad he’s gone.”

Ken Corning’s face remained impassive.

“Thank you, very much, Mrs. Markle,” he said.

“Can I let you know if I hear from him — where he is?”

He raised his hat politely.

“No,” he said. “Thank you, but you won’t hear.”

And he turned down the steps.

He drove back to his office. Helen Vail stared at him and broke into laughter.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The eye,” she said. “What a beautiful shiner!”

He grinned.

She indicated the paper which lay on the desk in front of her.

“Like to see yourself as others see you? Here’s a photo of you on the receiving end of the wallop, It must have been a beaut!”

He touched his sore cheek bone.

“It was,” he told her,

She said, “Well, the Star is giving you some swell publicity. I bet the D. A. is gritting his teeth. Notice that they don’t say you tried to bust into the room, but that the guards of the D. A.’s office assaulted you when you made inquiries about the witness.”

“That’s what happened,” he said, grinning. “I just acted dumb until the guy started to shove me around, and then I let him fall over himself. That made him mad, and he lost control of himself.”

Helen Vail indicated another photograph.

“Look at this. Exclusive photograph of the mystery witness who claims that he saw Dangerfield driving the car. He looks tough, sitting there playing solitaire.”

Ken Corning studied the picture.

“They give you an awful good play up,” said Helen.

“They should,” he told her. “Look at the story I got for them, and the pictures they had a chance to take. It makes good front page stuff. It gave them a chance to run out an extra.”

She looked at him appraisingly.

“Well,” she said, “it’ll be good publicity for your side of the case. Makes it look as though the district attorney had something he was trying to cover up, eh?”

“That’s right. That’s the way I played it.”

“Fine. Where you been all afternoon?”

“Going around, leg work. They got to my witness and bought him off.”

She stared at him.

“The police?”

“Oh, no. Of course not. The police were all regular, just sore because any witness told anyone what he knew before he’d talked with the police. According to them, a witness is either a witness for the state, or else he’s a liar.”

Her eyes were wide and alarmed.

“But, Ken, what happened? Who did it?”

“Same old stunt,” he said. “There’s a leak around the detective bureau. And when the cops get a case worked up they figure that all evidence that conforms to their theory of the case is the truth; that all evidence that doesn’t is framed.

“Anyhow, the detectives reported to the D. A., and there was a leak. The guys that are mixed up in the political expose that Copley was figuring on decided that they couldn’t afford to have this chap, Briggs, give his testimony. So they sent a fixer out there with a wad of dough and a fake job at the ends of the earth some place.

“Naturally, Briggs didn’t want to testify anyway. The fixer persuaded him that his testimony wouldn’t amount to anything one way or the other, held out the bait of a job and a cash advance, and Briggs just simply faded from the picture. You can’t blame him.”

She stared at him with stricken eyes.

“But, Ken,” she said, “that was your whole case.”

“I know it,” he told her, his face a mask.

“But what can you do? You got Dangerfield to surrender on the strength of that witness. Now you’ve lost him — and Amos Dangerfield is in jail.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“The fortunes of war,” he said.

But his voice contained something which had been kept from the expression of his face, a cold, hard something.

“What can you do?” she asked.

“I can fight the devil with fire,” he told her. “I started out to play a decent ethical game. They come along and pull this stunt. It’s crooked. All right. Now let them watch out. I’ll pull some fast ones myself.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t like that, Ken. You know they’re laying for you. If they can get you suborning perjury or fixing a jury or anything like that, they’ll railroad you right over the road.”

“Yes,” he said, tonelessly, “If they can, they will.”

She stared at him.

“I found another witness,” he went on in that same dispassionate tone of voice. “They won’t get him. I’ve got him buried.”

“Witness to what?” she asked, and her voice lacked enthusiasm. It was as though she doubted the testimony of this witness, even before hearing what it would be.

“Do you know,” he said musingly, “that this mystery witness of theirs, this Bob Durane, must be the man that drove the death car. They’re using him both as the man to pull the murder, and as the star witness for the prosecution.”

“You mean the D. A. is?” she asked.

“Of course not. Don’t be silly. The D. A. isn’t in the thing. But he’s got a political office, and he knows the side of the bread that has the butter. D. A.’s are human just the same as anybody else is human.”

“Well,” she said, “what you talking about then?”

“I’m talking about the gang that did this and want to make Dangerfield the fall guy. Briggs got a look at the face of one of the men who wheeled the car out. It had a scar on the cheek, and the man answers the description of this guy, Durane, who is the star witness for the prosecution.”

“How you going to prove it with Briggs gone?” she asked.

He walked wearily across to his desk, picked up the receiver, and gave a number. After a moment he said: “Is Reed Nixon there?... Put him on, please... Hello, Nixon? This is Corning... Yeah... Fine stuff. You’ve given me the breaks, now I’m going to give you one... Yeah, I’ve got another witness... Yeah. This one saw the whole thing. It’s a fact. He’s a taxicab driver. He was parked in a cab that was at the curb. He was sitting there with the lights out, waiting for the owl street car to come along. He figured he’d pick up the street car and trail it, hoping that one of the passengers who got off somewhere would give him a short ran instead of walking for a few blocks in the dark.

“Well, he saw the car come, and then he saw the two machines, and he saw Copley get off the car, and saw the murder. But as the death car went by, the lights of the street lamps Hashed in it for a second, and he saw the face of the man who was driving. He swears that he can identify that man if he sees him again. The man had on a light hat and a tweed suit, and there were other things about him that can be identified.

“You can spill that yarn all over the front page of your paper if you want. I’ve got this witness buried where he can’t be found until Fm ready to produce him. I don’t like the way the D. A.’s office messes around with my witnesses. I’m going to let him tell his story from the witness stand.”

Ken Corning sat silent, grinning wearily into the transmitter, while the receiver made rasping metallic noises.

“Sure,” he said at length, “use it as a rumor if you want to. I’d rather you made it seem it hadn’t come directly from me. You can label it as coming from ‘a source close to the defendant.’ Yeah, that’s the line. Okey. G’bye.”

He slid the receiver back on the hook.

Helen Vail looked at him with hurt eyes.

“If you suborn perjury,” she said, “and they can catch the witness before he testifies and break him down, they can still hook you for conspiracy or something, can’t they, Ken?”

He said, his voice flat and weary, “Are you asking me for legal advice, or just talking?”

“Neither,” she snapped. “I’m trying to tell you something.”

He shook his head.

“Go on home, kid. It’s way after five o’clock. There’s nothing to stick around here for any more.”

She put on her hat.

“Okey,” she said. “I’m going to find where Briggs went and make him come back.”

He shook his head listlessly.

“Not a chance, kid; they’re too slick for that. You won’t find even the ghost of a trail to follow.”

She said: “I won’t know until I try, will I?”

“Not if you won’t listen to me,” he said.

She started for the door, turned, walked back to the desk, stood by him for a moment, and then patted his cheek.

“ ’Night, Ken,” she said tenderly.

“ ’Night, kid.”

She walked swiftly across the two offices, let herself out of the outer door, and threw on the night latch.

Ken Corning sat at the desk, his eyes heavy, his chin resting on his hand, elbow propped on the desk.

Robert Durane was going out.

The two guards flanked him on either side. A uniformed police officer stood at the door of the elevator. There was another one in the lobby. At the doorway of the hotel a police car was parked at the curb, four officers strung out between the car and the hotel entrance.

The preparations would have indicated that a shipment of gold was being moved from a bank.

A little crowd collected. The crowd became more congested. The police started detouring the people out into the street, keeping them moving.

The door of the hotel swung open.

Robert Durane stepped out into the light of day. Cameras clicked as newshawks snapped pictures. The D. A.’s office had yielded to the pressure of the disgruntled ones who had been scooped by the Star.

Bob Durane looked worried. His head moved about, nervously. Plainly the crowd worried him. His eyes were cold and hard, but shifty. The scar on his cheek glowed lividly. The cheek seemed pale.

He looked towards the police car.

Two men sat in a roadster that had been parked at the curb just behind the police car. The top of the roadster was down, but the men had been apparently engrossed in their own affairs, and had attracted but little attention.

One of the men put on a cap.

It was the familiar cap of a taxicab operator. Now that the cap was on, it was apparent that his coat was also labeled with the insignia of the cab company.

Bob Durane moved across the stretch of sidewalk.

The motor in the roadster was purring steadily.

The man in the uniform of a taxi driver jumped to the seat of the roadster. He extended a long arm with a rigid, pointing finger. His voice sounded high above the noises of the street.

“That’s him! That’s the guy that drove the car!”

People stared. Bob Durane stopped abruptly. Two policemen pushed towards the roadster.

Ken Corning, seated in the driver’s seat of the roadster, yelled: “Sit down and hang on!”

The spectators saw, then, that the roadster was one of those cars with a small wheelbase which can be handled swiftly in traffic. They also saw that it had been skilfully parked with the front wheels warped so that the car could make a fast getaway.

The motor roared into sudden life. The rear wheels spun for half a revolution, and then the car shot out from the curb. One of the officers blew his whistle.

Bob Durane turned back towards the hotel, then hesitated.

The police car lurched forward. One of the officers yelled something. Bob Durane was pushed forward. The door of the police machine opened, Bob Durane was shot inside, One of the officers jumped in after him. The door slammed. Another officer caught the running-board of the police car. The siren screamed as the car roared into motion.

Metal crashed into crumpled wreckage. The crash was slight, but it was followed with a grinding noise. A light roadster, urn painted, with rusty fenders and battered body, had swung in so that the front wheels of the police car had smashed into it.

Traffic was blocked.

The car with the cab driver gained the comer and turned with swaying springs.

The woman who had been driving the roadster climbed out, her face ghastly white, eyes wide. She screamed hysterically.

A frantic police officer tugged at her car. The driver of the police car threw his gears into reverse.

“What the hell you trying to do?” he bellowed.

Helen Vail, her face made pale with white powder, stared at him with feverishly bright eyes.

“You started the siren!” she said. “That means get over to the curb. I tried to get over and you smashed into me!”

The officer swore some more. The police car banged forward. More metal rasped and crumpled. The car was free. “All clear!” yelled the officer. The police car roared into motion. A crowd collected about the battered roadster.

“Oh, dear,” said Helen Vail. “I must telephone!”

Officers pushed forward. The crowd opened to let Helen Vail slip through. The crowd closed in behind her, around the battered car. Officers started taking charge.

“Where’s the woman that was driving?” asked one.

“She went to telephone,” said someone in the crowd.

The officers waited.

Helen Vail did not return.

After a while they moved the roadster. The police car that did the moving threw a tow rope on the machine and dragged it to the police garage.

Exactly fifty-nine minutes later, newsboys cried through the streets. The Star was running an “extra.” “Read about it!” yelled the newsboys. “State’s star witness identified as driver of the murder car by taxi driver!”

Ken Corning sat in his office and grinned at Helen Vail.

“Good work, kid,” he said.

She sighed.

“About one more narrow squeak like that and I’ll be in the bug house.”

“I told you,” he said, “just to sort of get in the way and give me a chance to get to the corner. I didn’t want you to try and stall the thing up for a week.”

She grinned.

“That’s just my way of doing things,” she said. “I do ’em up brown. I figured that I could lock a bumper with them and make it take long enough for them to get loose to give you all the time you wanted. Did you have it?”

“Yes. I never even heard their car from the time I rounded the comer. It was a cinch.”

“What happened?” she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“It hasn’t happened yet, unless...”

He broke off as the telephone rang. He scooped the receiver to his ear. He said: “Hello,” and the receiver started in making metallic squawks.

Ken Corning listened. As he listened, a grin spread over his face.

“Okey,” he said, “thanks for the buggy ride... Hell’s bells, you reporters want to know everything... Well, son, that’s a little secret. You can state from me that the witness doesn’t want the notoriety, and he’s just a little afraid something might happen to him. When he goes for a ride he wants to be sitting at the wheel. Yeah... G’bye.”

He hung up the receiver, turned to Helen Vail.

“Nixon, of the Star,” he said. “Just called me to tell me that the case against Dangerfield had blown up. The star witness for the prosecution, Bob Durane, skipped out. They can’t find him anywhere. He gave his bodyguard the slip, and has utterly vanished. The D. A. announces that, under the circumstances, he won’t go farther with the case until additional evidence is uncovered.”

“What evidence?” she asked.

“Nixon wants me to produce my mystery witness and insists on an indictment for Durane.”

She looked at him fixedly.

“You going to do it?”

He grinned.

“Do I look crazy? It ain’t any crime to have a guy stand up in a roadster and yell: ‘That’s him!’ but when he walks in front of a grand jury and takes an oath and says the same thing, it’s likely to be something pretty serious.”

She said: “Is that why...?”

He nodded.

“That’s why I didn’t dare to let them catch up with us. I said I was going to pull a fast one, and I had to do it fast. It was a close call — but we made it.”

She said: “Will they ever try Durane for the murder?”

He grinned at her.

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “That’s one position the District Attorney could never afford to get trapped in.”

“Was that fellow really a taxi driver?” she asked him.

He lit a cigarette.

“You’re getting worse than the reporters,” he said.