The Danger Zone and Other Stories

Chapter One

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 Law — Private. The seventh door was lettered, Frank C. Dillon — Attorney At Law — 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.”

Chapter Two Hard as Nails

Gilbert Best completed his canvass of the city directory. He had four Ellen Hanleys listed. Two of them were housewives; one was a milliner; the other was a stenographer. He also had three Miss Hanleys whose first names were not given, but were indicated only by initials and whose first initials were “E.”

They were, respectively, E. L. Hanley, E. M. Hanley, and E. A. Hanley.

Best selected the Ellen Hanley who was a stenographer as being his best bet. She resided in an apartment on Ninety-first Street. He made note of the address, climbed into his light, fast car, found the apartment without difficulty, jabbed his finger against the bell, and, within a second or two, heard the buzz of the electric door release. He pushed the door open, barged up a flight of stairs, and found an apartment door half open on the second floor, the figure of a young woman silhouetted against the light which came from the apartment.

“Miss Hanley?” asked Best.

“Yes, what is it?”

“I want to talk with you.”

She seemed dubious, but Best smiled amiably and pushed past her into a modest, one-room apartment.

“Nice place,” said Best.

“Thank you,” she said in tones of rather frigid formality. “Don’t you think you’re taking in quite a bit of territory?”

“What do you do for a living?” asked Best.

“Work — when I can get it.”

“What are you doing now?”

“Looking for work.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Got what?”

“Work.”

She stood by a soft wood table that had been stained to make it resemble mahogany. “Go on,” she said, “what’s the catch?”

“You’re a stenographer?”

“Yes.”

“Out of work?”

“Yes.”

“Any relatives or dependants?”

“No, not here. I’ve been supporting my mother, when I had anything to send her. She’s in Denver.”

“That’s a break,” Best said.

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to Denver.”

“Listen, big boy, I wasn’t born yesterday. If you’ll come down to earth and tell me exactly what it is you’re fishing for, we’ll get along a lot better.”

Best looked professionally serious. “I’ve got a job for you,” he said. “It’s a job I’ve got to send someone on personally. I want a stenographer who can take down shorthand so she can make a complete report. I’m working on a case. It doesn’t matter to you what sort of a case it is. I want you to go to Denver. I want you to cover all of the hotels in Denver. I want you to look for a man named Walter Manning. If you find him, I want you to get acquainted with him. Find out what he’s doing in Denver, who sent him there and who’s paying his expenses. Then report to me.”

Best took a card from his pocket, handed it to her.

“Oh,” she said with quick interest in her voice, “a detective, huh?”

“Some people say I am.”

Quick hope glean in her face. “Then it’s on the square.”

“What is?”

“The job.”

“Of course.”

Best opened a wallet, pulled out bills. “Here’s money for the trip to Denver,” he said. “Better take a plane. Stay at the Brown Palace Hotel. Register under your own name — Ellen Hanley. When you’ve finished covering the hotel registers, wire me what you find.”

“But suppose he’s there and not registered under his own name?”

“That won’t make any difference. You just ask the question.”

“When do I leave?”

“Quick as you can pick up a bag. And,” said Best casually, “you’d better leave me the keys to this apartment.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to use it.”

“Use my apartment?”

“We might say,” Best remarked, still holding open his wallet, “that I’m going to rent it.”

She leaned against the table. “Listen,” she said, “I’ve had nothing on my stomach except coffee and doughnuts for so long I’d hate to tell you about it. There’s two month’s rent due on the apartment. If you want it, you’ve got to pay that rent. If you’re going to talk turkey with me, you’ve got to do it over a table in the restaurant downstairs, after you’ve advanced me enough for a sirloin steak and some longbranch potatoes. Now when do we start?”

Best grinned at her. “Now,” he said.

Evelyn Rane sat in Gil Best’s private office and shoved a fountain pen rapidly over a pad of legal foolscap. From the tip of the fountain pen flowed smooth signatures, each one that of Ellen Hanley, and each one matched with a surprising accuracy the signature of Ellen Hanley which that individual had signed in Dillon’s private office the day before.

Best nodded approvingly. “You got it down now,” he said. “Try and develop a little more speed, Evelyn.”

She nodded, increased the swing of her forearm.

“A nice, smooth job,” Best remarked approvingly. “I can believe that story now about the way you forged a pardon when you were sent up.”

She looked up at him, a face that was neither unsophisticated, nor yet hard. Her eyes were wide, dark and mysterious. When she spoke, her voice had a soft, cooing quality.

“Gil,” she, said, “please don’t talk that way about me. I know it’s just a joke, but someone might hear you and not know you were joking. I told you I got my gift with a pen from studying penmanship when I was a little girl. I had one of those old-fashioned professors — a relic of the gay nineties. He used to make me draw beautiful doves with flourishes of the pen. You should have seen his business cards, Gil, they were written by hand with more flourishes to the square inch than—”

Best laughed, opened the drawer of his desk, took out a printed dodger with its conventional front and profile views, its smear of fingerprints.

The photographs were those of Evelyn Rane, photographs which had been taken some five years earlier when her face held a look of cherubic innocence.

Evelyn Rane stared at the dodger. She scraped her chair back from the table, got to her feet, slid her tongue along the line of her lips.

“Gil,” she said in a harsh, strained voice, “where did you get that?”

“I dug it up,” he told her. “I always figured there was something fishy about that story of the old-fashioned penmanship teacher. I got you to press your hands against the glass top on the desk a month or so ago. There was a fine coating of oil on the glass. I got your fingerprint classification, and—”

“You dirty two-timing crook! You cheap tin-star, gumshoe, stool pigeon!” she blazed. “You damn blackmailing rat! What do you want? Go ahead and spill it, you’ve got me. What is it? What’s the price?”

Gil laughed, motioned to the chair. “Sit down, Evelyn,” he said, “I just wanted you to understand that we understood each other.”

Her nostrils were wide now. She was breathing heavily.

“It makes such a hell of a lot of difference,” the detective said, “if two people have confidence in each other. I always like to have operatives that I know I can trust. So many of them give a detective a double-cross. Now you know that you can trust me, and if anything should happen that I couldn’t trust you, it would be — well, it would be too bad, that’s all, because I like to trust people.”

“So that’s it,” she said.

“That’s it.”

She picked up the pen again, tried to sign the name, but her hand trembled so that she could hardly hold the pen.

“Damn you,” she said softly, and looked up at him, once more, with eyes that had lost their hard glitter, and were dark pools of mysterious invitation.

“You’re hard, Gil,” she said softly.

“I have to be,” he told her, without the slightest change of expression.

He took a key ring from his pocket, slipped off a key, tossed it to her. “Take some suitcases,” he said, “and move into that apartment on Ninety-first Street, the one that I gave you to use as a residence.”

She stared at the key with surprised eyes. “Then that’s not a phony address?” she asked.

“No,” he said, “it’s a real address.”

“You want me to live there?”

“Yes.”

“Under the name of Ellen Hanley?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” she said, “you think people are going to call on me.”

“Right.”

“But listen you boob, they’ll check up on how long I’ve been living there.”

Gil laughed. “When they do,” he said, “they’ll find out that Ellen Hanley has lived in that apartment for more than three months.”

“Gil,” she said, “you do some of the damndest things!”

He nodded and smiled. “It’s my artistic temperament,” he said. “I like to do everything artistically, and I hate to leave a back trail that anyone could follow.”

She picked up the key, twisted it about with long, sensitive fingers. “Gil,” she said, “you’re hard. Just as hard as nails. You’ve got a polite exterior, but underneath you’re ruthless as hell.”

The detective grinned at her. “Let’s talk about me, he said, after you get your work done. You know what you’re to do?”

“Yes.”

“O.K., then. Get started.”

Chapter Three Alias Ellen Henley

Evelyn Rane, with a look of suffering innocence on her wide, black eyes, stared at the frosted glass of the door for a moment, standing in such a position that her indecision would be apparent to anyone in the office who might be glancing at the ground glass panel on the door.

After a moment she knocked timidly with her gloved knuckles.

A typewriter ceased clacking. There was a period of silence during which Evelyn Rane knocked again.

There was the sound of steps back of the door. It opened, and a woman of about thirty-five surveyed Evelyn Rane with skeptical eyes.

“What is it?” she asked.

“This is Five Hundred and Three, Transportation Building?” asked Evelyn Rane.

“Yes.”

“I’m Ellen Hanley.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I sent a questionnaire here,” Evelyn Rane said. “It was an application for employment. I didn’t hear anything about it, so I thought I’d call in person.”

The older woman frowned. “I see,” she said at length. There was pity in her glance.

“I don’t think you’ll get any employment here,” she said in a low voice.

“Oh, but I’ve got to see the person who received the questionnaire,” Evelyn Rane said. “I can’t leave a stone unturned. I thought I had answered the questions very well indeed. I must see the man who has charge of the employment, and—”

A door from an inner office jerked open. A man who wore spectacles as though they were in some way a badge of scholarship, whose face held a cherubic look of beaming good-fellowship, said: “What is it, Gertie?”

The older woman sighed, made a gesture of resignation, indicated Evelyn Rane with a wave of her hand.

“Ellen Hanley,” she said.

The man in the doorway frowned. “Hanley?” he said. “Hanley... Ellen Hanley? It seems to me that—”

The woman interrupted quickly. “Ellen Hanley,” she said, “submitted a questionnaire, Mr. Wigmore. You may remember sending out a questionnaire in response to Miss Hanley’s application for employment.”

The man in the doorway still looked blank.

“It was a questionnaire,” his secretary prompted, “to determine the qualifications of applicants for a position, and in particular, their state of health.”

Sudden light dawned upon Wigmore’s face. His manner became fairly beaming. He rubbed his hands together, bowed and smiled.

“Yes, yes, yes,” he said. “Yes, indeed. Come right in, Miss Hanley. I remember you perfectly now. Come right into my office. Now let’s see, Miss Hanley, you said, as I remember it, that you were in excellent health, did you not?”

Evelyn Rane nodded.

Wigmore’s hand rested on her shoulder, slid down her arm to her elbow. With a gentle pressure he guided her toward the inner office.

“Yes, yes, yes,” he said with the purring satisfaction of a cat that has just chanced upon a saucer of thick cream. “I remember you perfectly. I was very much impressed by the answers you gave me in the questionnaire. Very much impressed, indeed. Do come right in.”

The tired-eyed secretary returned to the typewriter at which she had been working. Her eyes watched the door of the private office as it slammed shut. It was a good two minutes before she sighed and returned to the task of pounding the typewriter.

In the inner office, Sam Wigmore fairly oozed solicitous hospitality. He placed Evelyn Rane in a chair, nodded his head in beaming satisfaction.

“I am so glad you called,” he said. “I was going to write you and ask you to call, but I kept putting it off. Now tell me, Miss Hanley, you were in an accident I believe you said. I am, of course, very much concerned about the personal health of the applicants for employment. I am afraid that an accident would incapacitate you from the rather exacting work that I require.”

“I’m strong enough to stand up to anything,” said Evelyn Rane.

The beaming eyes of the chief counsel for the Airline Stageways surveyed her approvingly.

“I’m quite sure you are, my dear, but would you mind standing up, flexing the elbows and knees... Ah, that’s it... that’s fine. No inhibition of motion whatever. Complete use of the limbs. And how about the lungs, my dear? Can you take a deep breath? Let’s see the chest expansion... Ah, yes, very fine, but by the way, Miss Hanley, suppose we make a good job of this while we’re at it. Just be seated again, please.”

Wigmore’s finger jabbed down on a pearl push-button. The door to the outer office opened and his secretary surveyed the pair with eyes that held no expression, a face that was a mask.

“Ask Doctor Carr to step in here, please,” said Wigmore. “Tell him that it’s very important.”

The secretary nodded. The door slammed.

Wigmore went on with purring complacency: “You understand that our most important positions,” he said, “require women who are in good health. Of course, we wouldn’t submit you to a detailed examination, my dear Miss Hanley, unless we felt that your other qualifications were quite satisfactory. In fact, I may go so far as to say that the question of your health is all that stands between you and a very remunerative situation. As I said, I was on the point of asking you to drop in, and—”

The door to the private office opened, a tall, bald-headed individual in a white coat, from the pocket of which protruded the ear pieces of a stethoscope, stepped into the office.

Wigmore got to his feet. “Bob,” he said, “this is Ellen Hanley. You may remember the name. Ellen Hanley. I need only to call your attention to the fact that Miss Hanley signed a questionnaire and submitted it to us for the purpose of securing employment.

“And Miss Hanley, this is Doctor Bob Carr, one of my associates. He would like to ask you a few questions, would like to look you over. Would you mind stepping into his office with him? It will be just a superficial examination, nothing that will cause you the slightest embarrassment.”

Evelyn Rane looked a trifle dazed, permitted herself to be escorted from the office. Ten minutes later the telephone rang and Bob Carr’s cautious voice came over the wire to Wigmore’s receptive ear.

“Listen, Sam, there’s something phony about this.”

“How do you mean?”

“That girl’s as sound as a nut. She’s too good. Are you sure she’s the one?”

“Sure,” said Wigmore enthusiastically. “We had an operative contact the woman who had been in the smash, talk it over with her and all that stuff, and the operative saw her write the letter asking for the questionnaire.”

“Well, if this woman’s ever been in an accident, she doesn’t show it.”

“Sure she doesn’t, just another one of those cases, although we figured there were some pretty serious injuries. A rib punctured a lung, and the results have been pretty bad.”

“Well,” Doctor Carr said, “this woman’s rib never punctured her lung.”

Wigmore frowned thoughtfully. “Just in order to make sure,” he said, “I’ll send in that questionnaire. You get her to sign her name and see if the signatures check up. Find out where she’s living now and I’ll check back on her to make sure she’s not a phony.”

Wigmore hung up the telephone, pressed the buzzer for his secretary, and said: “Get that Ellen Hanley questionnaire into Doctor Carr’s office right away.”

Evelyn Rane, attired in the most filmy of negligees, lounged in the Ninety-first Street apartment smoking a cigarette. From time to time she looked at the watch on her left wrist, and frowned. Once she stood up, examined herself approvingly in front of the mirror, stood between the mirror and the window so that the light from the window, filtering through the thin silk, showed in frank outline the curved contours of her body.

She was smoking her third cigarette when the buzzer exploded into sound.

She promptly pressed the electric door release, gave herself one last look in the mirror, pinched out the cigarette, and when she heard a tap on the panels of the door, opened it a bare three inches.

“Why, Gil Best!” she exclaimed, “you’re not due here for half an hour. I wasn’t expecting you until I got some clothes on.”

“I’m half an hour late,” the detective said.

“Why it can’t be. My watch must have stopped.”

He frowned. “Come on, Bright Eyes, quit stalling and let me in.”

“But I’m not dressed.”

“You’ve got something on, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but I wasn’t exactly dressed to receive company.”

Best muttered an exclamation, pushed the door open, walked in and sat down.

“I just this minute got out of a bath,” Evelyn Rane said.

Best walked across to the davenport, sat down, stared approvingly at Evelyn Rane, then shifted his eyes from the steady insistence of her frank gaze.

“How did you come out?” he asked.

“Like I told you over the telephone. O.K.”

“Did they fall for it?”

“Hook, line and sinker.”

“What happened?”

“I met the guy who looks like a motion-picture parson.”

“That’s Wigmore.”

“Yes.”

“What did he do?”

“Had me kick and stretch and flex my joints. Then he called a doctor.”

“A guy named Carr?”

“Yes.”

“He’s their regular stand-by. What did Carr do?”

She tittered and said: “He led up to it by degrees. He was interested. I was just an unsophisticated little girl. He and his office nurse went over me with a fine tooth comb, then he got suspicious and telephoned Wigmore. Wigmore sent in the questionnaire. They asked me to sign my name and write some stuff about my history, then finally the doctor came out and asked me if I’d been in an automobile accident. I told him no, that the only accident I’d referred to in the questionnaire was a street car accident where I’d received a slight strain to the ankle, but no broken bones. That was what you told me to say, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Did they fall for it?”

“It made a commotion.”

“What happened?”

“The office was turned upside down. They were as busy as bees in a hive. They made me sign my name at least a dozen times, and watched me to see that I wasn’t slipping anything over on them. I sold them on the idea that they’d got the questionnaire from the wrong woman. Wigmore was so mad that he damn near died. I heard him get on the telephone and fire the woman investigator who had tricked Ellen Hanley into submitting the questionnaire.”

“So then what?”

“So then after the commotion had died down, I pretended to become very indignant and threatened to sue the whole outfit for damages because they had tricked me and trifled with me. I told them I saw it all now, that it was all a plant, and I accused Doctor Carr of faking the whole examination so that he could get my clothes off and paw me over. You should have seen his face when I pulled that one. It was as red as a boiled beet.”

“So then what?”

“So then they offered me a job at a hundred dollars a month. I laughed at them. They offered me a job at a hundred and fifty.

“I demanded five hundred for a cash settlement, and then I pulled a fast one.”

“What was it?”

Evelyn Rane glanced coyly at the eager detective as she continued. “I reached out and picked up the questionnaire off Doctor Carr’s desk and stuck it in my purse. I told them I was going to save it for evidence.”

“Good girl.”

“I could see,” she went on, “that the thing that bothered the doctor the most, was the talk about professional intimacies. I spread it on thick.”

“Did they make a settlement?”

“No, they wouldn’t make a cash settlement. They offered me a job.”

Best held out his hand. “Where’s the questionnaire?” he said.

She crossed to the table, opened her purse, took out a folded paper, handed it to the detective.

Best read it over. As he read, he shook his head lugubriously.

“The damn little fool,” he said.

He shoved the questionnaire into his pocket. “They got your address?”

“Yes.”

“They’ll be checking up on you.”

“I know it.”

“Think you can bluff it out all right?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t let them get your fingerprints.”

“Think I was born yesterday? They’re frightened now — afraid that they’re going to run into a damage suit.”

“They may have been for awhile,” Best said, and grinned, “but when Wigmore gets to figuring out that the net result of all this business was that he lost the questionnaire which was his biggest piece of evidence against Ellen Hanley, he’ll smell a pretty big rat. They’ll come around and check you up. If they find you’re not Ellen Hanley, they’ll probably talk about arresting you for larceny of the paper.”

“Larceny my eye,” she said, “I folded it up right in front of their noses, and I’ve still got that charge of unprofessional conduct against Doctor Carr.”

“That bothered them?” Best asked.

“That bothers them.”

Best got to his feet, reached for his hat.

“Aw stick around awhile, Gil, you’re not going.”

Gil Best pointed to the ashtray with the two cigarette stubs, the third half-smoked cigarette. “Next time,” he said, “that you just get out of a bath, don’t smoke two and a half cigarettes while you’re waiting for the bell to ring.”

He moved toward the door.

Evelyn Rane came after him like a tiger. The silk negligee flowed out behind her, her face white, her eyes dark with rage.

“Damn you, Gil Best,” she said, “what are you insinuating? What kind of a girl do you think I am? I don’t have to put up with your dirty cracks just because—”

He opened the door, turned back to look at her, and smiled approvingly. “A damn good line,” he said. “Save it for the boys from the Airline Stageways.”

When he had closed the door, she stood staring at it for several seconds, then ran to the davenport, flung herself down on her face and sobbed, long-drawn, convulsive sobs that shook every inch of her frame.

Chapter Four Shyster Trap

Gilbert Best’s secretary imitated the cooingly sweet notes of the telephone operator.

“Long-distance call for Mr. Samuel C. Wigmore,” she said. “Is Mr. Wigmore there?”

“Yes,” said a feminine voice. “Who’s calling?”

“A party named Manning. Will you put Mr. Wigmore on the line?”

“Is Mr. Manning on?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. Hold the line.”

A moment later, Wigmore’s voice said cautiously: “Hello, what is it?”

Best, seated on the edge of his desk, with a French telephone held to his ear, said in a strained voice: “You know who this is, Mr. Wigmore.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t like to mention names but you know, I’m the driver of the stage.”

There was still silence over the wire. “You know — Walter Manning,” Best blurted.

“What is it you want?” Wigmore asked.

“Listen,” Best said, letting his voice rattle in the swift utterance of one who is excited and afraid, “there’s a couple of process servers snooping around. They have found out where I am. In some way, there’s been a leak somewhere. I’m going to go someplace away from here and make it snappy. Can you tell me where to go?”

“You’re sure they’re after you?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I can’t tell you everything over the telephone. You tell me some place to go, and then I’ll report from there.”

“Can you get away O.K.?”

“Yes, I think so.”

There was a period of silence, during which the wire buzzed with faint static noises. Then there was the rustle of paper.

“You can get a train out of there at three five. Go to Big Springs and register at the Palace Hotel.”

“Do you think I’d better use the same name?” asked Best.

“No. Register under the name of Pete Freeman, from San Francisco.”

“O.K. You’ll have to send me some money.”

The voice at the other end of the wire rasped into harsh impatience. “Money, hell!” said Wigmore. “We’ve been doing nothing but sending you money! What the hell do you think you’re pulling?”

“Listen,” Best said, putting a whining note into his voice, “you haven’t sent me so much, and it’s expensive, being on the dodge this way. And that ain’t all. A guy told me the other day that claimed to know, that you folks figured to string me along with a lot of promises and keep me out of the way until after the trial, and then you were going to tie a can to me and turn me loose.”

“That’s all baloney. You know we’re standing back of you. We don’t blame you.”

“I know, but it makes me nervous just the same, and I’ve got to travel. I had a little bad luck yesterday. You know, sitting around here without anything to do gets monotonous. I got in a poker game and lost some — not much — but some. I’ve got to have some money if I’m going to travel.”

Wigmore’s voice was fairly quivering with rage. “You keep out of poker games!” he said. “What you’re trying to do is stick us up. You think we’re afraid of your testimony, and you can stick us. Now, you try anything like that and you’re likely to wind up in jail. And don’t think I’m kidding, either!”

“I’m not trying anything like that, but a guy’s got to have expense money, hasn’t he?”

“I’ll send you a check for a hundred dollars and that’s got to last you for a week.”

“Gee, that Big Springs place is expensive. Ain’t that kind of a resort?”

“Not at this season of the year. You get down there and there’ll be a check for a hundred dollars in the mail.”

“Now listen,” Best said, “that’s a strange place. I’ll get my mail under the name of Pete Freeman, but if I go to the bank to cash a check, it’s got to be under the name of Walter Manning, because that’s the way my driving license is made out and all of my credentials.”

“Sure,” Wigmore said, “I understand that. You catch that train and keep out of poker games. What’s more, you’d better have some confidence in the company and not listen to all this line of hooey that’s handed you.”

He banged the receiver back on the line, and Gilbert Best dropped his own receiver, signaled to his secretary to sever the connection.

He grinned at the secretary. “Get me,” he said, “time tables of all lines that run into Big Springs. Check back on the trains in all directions and segregate those that have station stops at five minutes past three in the afternoon. Get a description of Walter Manning from the application for driver’s license on file in the Motor Vehicle Department. Send an operative to any of the places where trains that run to Big Springs stop at five minutes past three in the afternoon. Cover the hotels until you find a man answering the description of Walter Manning. He’ll be registered under an assumed name. He’ll be a man who’s hanging around the hotel, more or less. He could be contacted in the lobby of the hotel. Get an operative who can contact him and build up an acquaintanceship. Manning will be hungry for companionship.”

His secretary nodded efficiently. “Anything else?”

“Yes, take a wire to Ellen Hanley at the Brown Palace Hotel, Denver, Colorado, tell her to go by plane to Big Springs at once and register under her own name at the Palace Hotel there. Tell her to await further instructions. Get me some cash and my traveling bag.”

“Where are you going?”

“The Palace Hotel at Big Springs,” he said. “If you want me, you can reach me under the name of Pete Freeman. That’s the name that I’ll be registered under. I’m going down there to work on a case.”

The Big Springs resort was favorably known among vacationists. During the height of the summer season every available accommodation would be taken. Now the Palace Hotel was operating at approximately one quarter of its normal capacity.

Gilbert Best registered at the hotel under the name of Pete Freeman.

“Mail?” he asked.

The clerk thumbed through a pile of letters, took out a long envelope which bore no more definite information as to the identity of the sender than the fact that it came from Room 503 in the Transportation Building.

Best took the letter to his room, slit the envelope and took out the letter addressed to Pete Freeman at the Palace Hotel at Big Springs.

The letter was written in a slightly more conciliatory tone than had marked Wigmore’s conversation. It enclosed a check of Airline Stageways, Inc., payable to the order of Walter Manning, in the sum of one hundred dollars. It went on to assure the addressee that his cooperation was being keenly appreciated; that the company would endeavor to reciprocate in the future; that it would not much longer be necessary for Mr. Freeman to remain “in seclusion,” and that the writer appreciated the strain of inactivity, but went on to mention the importance of retaining good employment in these days of almost universal unemployment.

It was a cordial, friendly letter, one that was well designed to appeal to both friendship and loyalty.

It was signed with the scrawling signature of Sam C. Wigmore.

Best placed the letter in his inside coat pocket, reached for his telephone, and, when he heard the voice of the operator on the wire, said: “I’m expecting a young woman by the name of Hanley to register at the hotel. When she does, please notify me at once.”

He then took off his shoes, coat and vest, tossed pillows up on his bed, stretched out at luxurious ease and proceeded to read a magazine.

Toward evening, Best telephoned his office, learned that operatives had contacted a man who answered the description of Walter Manning, who was registered at the Cosmopolitan Hotel at Pleasantville under the name of Charles Allen. The operatives had already established a contact. Allen was lonely and anxious for human companionship.

Best gave terse instructions. “Send a wire,” he said, “to Charles Allen at the Cosmopolitan Hotel at Pleasantville that will say, simply: ‘Unforeseen developments necessitate your immediate departure. Go Palace Hotel Big Springs, register under name of Pete Freeman and await further instructions.’ Sign the telegram — ‘Sam Wigmore’.”

He hung up the telephone, switched on the lights and had finished bathing and dressing when he received word that Ellen Hanley had arrived and was in Room 309.

Best grinned into the telephone. “An unexpected change in my plans,” he said, “is going to necessitate my departure this evening. Will you arrange to have my bill ready, please.”

Then Best walked down the corridor and tapped on the door of 309.

After an interval, the door opened and Ellen Hanley’s face broke into a smile of welcome.

“Come in,” she said. “I had a great trip. Gee, it’s swell, riding around in planes. I never got so much kick out of anything in my life! I thought I’d be frightened, but I wasn’t. It’s simply swell. And they tell me that it’s just as safe as traveling by automobile.”

Gilbert Best entered her room, sat down on the edge of the bed, lit a cigarette.

“Sometime tomorrow,” he said, “a man’s going to register here by the name of Freeman. I want you to get acquainted with him and then start going out with him.”

“Do I try to find out anything from him?”

“No, just be friendly with him. Keep playing around with him. Go places and string him along.”

“And don’t try to find out anything?”

“Not a thing.”

“Anything else?”

“Just wait for instructions.”

“This,” she observed, “is the swellest job I ever had in my life.”

“Get a kick out of it, sister,” he told her, “because it ain’t going to last long.”

He returned to his own room, to find the telephone ringing. His office was on the line. His secretary said: “Mr. Dillon, the lawyer, rang up and said that you could discontinue work on that Airline Stageway case because he already had the matter well in hand.”

The detective’s laugh was scornful. “You ring up Dillon,” he said, “and tell him that he hasn’t got anything in hand and that if he compromises that case before he sees me tomorrow, he’s going to be the sorriest mortal in the world.”

He hung up the receiver, crossed to the desk, took out some of the hotel stationery and scrawled a note addressed to Sam C. Wigmore at 503 Transportation Building.

Best sealed the letter in an addressed envelope, took it to the desk.

“Will this go out tonight?” he asked. “No, not until tomorrow morning,” the clerk told him.

Best grinned and dropped the letter into the mail box.

Chapter Five Compromise

Gilbert Best shoved his way through the door marked Frank C. Dillon — Attorney At Law — Office Hours 10:00 to 12:00 — 2:00 to 4:30 — Entrance. Norma Pelton’s teeth flashed in a smile.

“How’s the girl?” asked Best.

“Fine as silk, Gil. What’s the good word?”

“Oh, so-so. What’s Dillon doing? Is he busy?”

“He’s been having a lot of telephone calls from Wigmore. He’s virtually got that case compromised.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s sore at you.”

“Why?”

“He thinks that you got him when he was pretty low and stuck him for a bunch of money to handle a case that was a cinch anyway.”

“Yeah,” Best said. “Tell him that I’m going in.”

“You mean that you’re here in the office?”

“No, that I’m going in.”

“He won’t like that.”

“You mean he’d like to keep me waiting for ten or fifteen minutes.”

The eyes twinkled. “Well, I didn’t say exactly that.”

Best snorted. “Tell him,” he said, “that I’m on my way in.”

He strode across the office, pushed open the door marked, Private, crossed the law library and heard Dillon’s voice registering protest in the telephone transmitter before he was halfway across the office.

Best timed his entrance to the private office to coincide with the banging of the receiver back on its hook.

“You’ve got a crust, busting in on me when I’m busy,” said Dillon.

“Oh, were you busy?”

“Of course I’m busy. I’m busy trying to make up some of that money you swindled me out of.”

“Meaning what?” asked Best, his eyes cold.

“Meaning that I had a cinch case against the Airline Stageways, and you went ahead and threw a scare into me and made me put up a lot of money to pay you for doing a bunch of stuff that was unnecessary. And, worse than that, you made me kick through to support that Hanley woman in idleness.”

“She’s got a cough,” Best said. “She should go down to Arizona or some place for awhile.”

“Well, I’ve got a compromise through for her. She can go to Arizona or any place.”

“Oh, you’ve got a compromise through?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Well,” said Dillon, “I don’t know as it’s any of your particular affair, because I haven’t seen that you’ve done anything very wonderful on the case, but, just between us, it’s a compromise of twenty thousand dollars.”

“How much is your fee?” asked the detective.

“That,” said Dillon in tones of positive finality, “is none of your damn business.”

Best grinned, and said: “When you wanted me in on the case, you mentioned you had lost ten thousand dollars on a compromise that was figured at twenty thousand. That leads me to believe you’ve got her sewed up for a fifty-percent fee.”

“What if I have?” Dillon demanded. “Best, I’m getting damn tired of the way you do things. You could be a good detective if you’d follow instructions and confine yourself to doing the things you’re told to do. But you take in too much territory. You want to tell me how I am going to try my cases, how I am going to deal with my clients. You want to bust in here unannounced. You want to be the big shot in this business, and you can’t make it stick.”

“Oh, can’t I?”

“No, you can’t.”

“And you’ve compromised for twenty thousand?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you get my message telling you not to?”

“It happens,” said the lawyer with paunchy dignity, “that I am responsible to my clients for handling matters to their satisfaction and protecting their interests. When I start taking orders from a private detective, I want to know it.”

“So you didn’t think you needed me?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Don’t think I did you any good?”

“Not a damn bit. I know you didn’t. Wigmore said he had intended to compromise all along for twenty thousand, but that the matter had slipped his mind because the file had been misplaced in his office. He said he was satisfied there was a real injury there and that he wanted my client to have sufficient money to restore her to health.”

The detective sighed. “Just when I thought,” he said, “I was doing you some good.”

“You weren’t,” Dillon said. “You should pay me back the money that I advanced to you.”

Best looked at the floor with a woebegone expression.

Dillon elaborated upon the idea he had expressed and warmed to his task as he grew more indignant.

“You stuck me for a bunch of money for my client and for seven hundred and fifty dollars as a retainer for your services. It was out of all reason. You didn’t do a thing for the money. I probably could have you jailed for obtaining money under false representations. As a detective, you’re a frost — a pain in the neck. You had some luck in a couple of cases you handled for me, and like a fool, I thought it was due to your ability. The amount of money you stuck me on this thing was simply outrageous, and I’m telling you frankly, Best, I want it back.”

“Aw, gee, you wouldn’t make trouble for me over a lousy seven hundred and fifty bucks, would you?”

“It isn’t the seven hundred and fifty dollars so much, as it is the principle of the thing,” Dillon declared. “I want that money back.”

Best hesitated, pulled out his wallet. “It will leave me cleaned,” he said.

Dillon laughed sarcastically. “Just as I thought,” he said. “You pocketed the whole money and haven’t even spent a cent of it on expenses.”

Best said nothing, counted out seven hundred and fifty dollars in cash from his wallet, then opened the wallet to show the lawyer the interior.

“Just three one-dollar bills left,” he said.

Dillon held out his clammy hand for the money.

“Wait a minute,” Best said. “If you’re going to deal that way, I’m going to have a receipt for this money, and a complete release of any claim for what I’ve done in that case.”

Dillon nodded, jammed his finger on the button which summoned his secretary. When Norma Pelton entered the office, Dillon said: “Make out a receipt right away to Gilbert Best, for seven hundred and fifty dollars, show that the receipt is by way of complete settlement of any claim I may have against him for an overcharge, or obtaining money under false representation.”

Norma Pelton looked surprised.

“Also put in there,” Best said, “that by accepting the money, Dillon waives any benefit that might accrue to him from my services, and I agree not to make any charge against him for anything I’ve done.”

Norma Pelton’s blue eyes regarded Gilbert Best with thoughtful speculation. The detective’s right eye drooped in a slow, significant wink.

Norma Pelton suddenly turned away. “Very well,” she said.

She left the door open to the outer office. The men glowered at each other in silence while her typewriter exploded into clack noise, then she jerked the paper from the typewriter, brought it to the inner office.

Dillon read it and nodded. He took out his fountain pen. “Seven hundred and fifty bucks, Best,” he said.

Best passed the money across, as Dillon signed the receipt; he pocketed the paper and got up to go.

“I’m sorry,” Best said, “that you feel I didn’t do anything. I thought I did a lot.”

“I don’t know what you could have done,” Dillon said, “the compromise was concluded along the original lines that I’d discussed with Wigmore.”

“Well,” Best said drawlingly, “you’d always claimed that Wigmore cut corners and pulled shyster tactics in his cases. You wanted to get some dope on him, but you’d never been able to do it. I’ve got some proof that he spirited away this witness, Manning. I’ve got a letter signed by Wigmore and a check for a hundred dollars made out by the Airline Stageways, and charged on the stub to legal expense, a check that is referred to in Wigmore’s letter, and show that it was sent to this witness, Manning, in order to keep him out of sight, and intimates that he’s to suborn perjury if he has to, in order to keep his job. Then I’ve found Walter Manning and had a subpoena served on him so that he’ll have to appear and testify, and managed to make Wigmore think Manning had double-crossed him so that he won’t have anything to do with Manning anymore and is shivering in his boots for fear the whole thing is going before the grand jury.”

Frank Dillon heaved his paunchy figure from the chair, his mouth was sagging open, his eyes were bugged out in startled surprise.

“You’ve got what?” he yelled.

“Sure,” Best said, pulling the papers from his pocket, holding them in his hand. “There’s Wigmore’s signature on the letter, there’s the original uncashed check payable to Walter Manning, here’s the questionnaire that they tricked Ellen Hanley into signing, with her signature on it.

“They may have reached a compromise, but a compromise isn’t binding until the releases have been signed, and the money paid over. They can back out of a compromise anytime they want to.”

“What do you mean?” Dillon demanded. “What are you intending to do?”

“Why,” Best said, “I’m going over to the Airline Stage of course, and see how much Wigmore will pay to get this questionnaire back. That’s the plaintiffs signature on it all right, and she says in there plain as day that she received only superficial injuries in the accident, and has had a complete recovery. And then, of course, Wigmore should pay something to get that letter back that he wrote to Walter Manning. He wrote that sort of hastily, and it might look kind of bad for him if it was taken up before the Bar Association.”

“Good God!” said Dillon. He tried to talk, but could only make pawing motions with his hands. He dropped back into his chair, and finally found words.

“Get Wigmore on the telephone, Norma,” he said. “Get him right away. Tell him that my client simply refuses to consider a twenty-thousand-dollar compromise. Tell him that we won’t settle for a cent less than a hundred thousand dollars... No, you get him on the line. I’ll talk to him myself. Put through the call right away. Good God, to think that I almost lost forty thousand dollars. Why, I’d have settled for twenty. As it is now, he’ll pay a hundred. He’ll have to pay in order to get that stuff back.”

Best stretched and yawned. “I wouldn’t turn down that twenty-thousand-dollar compromise, Dillon,” he said.

The lawyer snorted. “That shows,” he said, “what a dumb boob you are. You certainly are lucky, that’s all. Damned if I know how you do it. It’s just luck, it can’t be brains. Why you poor boob, Wigmore has got to give almost anything I ask to get that letter back.”

“Yeah,” said Best, “I understand that, but what I meant was that you ain’t got the letter, and when Wigmore gets that letter back, and the questionnaire signed by Ellen Hanley, he won’t even compromise for twenty thousand bucks. He won’t pay you a damn cent. That’s why I didn’t think it would be wise for you to turn down that twenty-thousand compromise.”

The detective pulled open the door of the law library, and at that moment the telephone on Dillon’s desk exploded into noise.

Dillon made clawing motions at the air, as though trying to pull the detective back with his right hand, his left reached for the telephone.

“Hello... For God’s sake, Best don’t go!... Hello, yes Wigmore... Hold the line. For God’s sake, Best listen!... No, no, Wigmore, I can’t tell you... Yes, I asked my secretary to get you, but... For God’s sake, Best!... Best!... Best!...”

The detective by that time had crossed the outer office. He tipped Norma Pelton a wink. “The big stuffed shirt,” he said.

There was the sound of running steps. The paunchy lawyer waddled into the room, his face the color of ashes.

“For God’s sake, Gil, old kid,” he said, “don’t treat me like this. Don’t turn me down. I’ll give you anything you want.”

“No,” Best said, “our business relations are at an end. The work I did on the case wasn’t done for you, it was freelance work. I can sell it to the highest bidder.”

“But I’ll bid for it,” Dillon said. “My God, I’ll give you five thousand dollars.”

“Wigmore,” said Best, “would probably give me fifty. It would get him out of a jam personally, and enable him to get rid of that Hanley case without paying out anything by way of compromise.”

“No, no, no, you don’t understand—”

Best turned to face Dillon.

“Listen,” he said, “you big stuffed shirt, I know you like a book. You four-flushing, loud-mouthed, grandstander, now here’s once you’re going to talk turkey. If you want that letter from Wigmore and that questionnaire, you’re going to agree that you won’t charge Ellen Manley more than twenty percent of whatever amount you receive, and you’re going to pay me twenty percent. The rest of the money is to go to her.”

Norma Pelton looked up from the switchboard. “Mr. Wigmore is still on the line,” she said. “He’s sputtering—”

Dillon danced up and down in an ecstasy of rage. “You damn robber!” he shouted. “You damn—”

Best started for the door. Dillon lunged for him, flung his arms around the detective’s shoulders, looked imploringly at Norma Pelton.

“For God’s sake, Norma,” he said, “tell him to wait.”

The flabby hands tugged at the detective’s shoulders.

“Come on in, Gil old kid,” he said. “I’ll play ball with you. Come on in.”

Best turned, vanished through the door marked, Private, with the lawyer pushing along behind him.

It was fifteen minutes later when Best emerged from the office.

“How’s tricks?” asked Norma Pelton.

Best grinned at her. “Pretty good. I told Dillon that I heard he’d been reducing wages because business was bad. I told him I thought business was picking up with him.”

She grinned. “What did he say?”

“You listened in on the conversation with Wigmore?”

“Yes. It was the funniest thing I ever heard in my life.”

“Well,” Best said, “to make a long story short, that ten-percent cut becomes a twenty-percent increase.”

“I could kiss you,” she said, “if I weren’t afraid you’d take it seriously.”

Gilbert Best strode toward the desk.

The switchboard buzzed into activity and Norma Pelton started to plug a line into Dillon’s phone.

“The boss wants me,” she said.

Best leaned over, jerked the plug out of her fingers, tilted her face to his. “Let him wait,” he said. “The stuffed shirt.”