Honest Money Read online

  “Exactly,” he told her.

  “Then the bills were planted earlier in the evening.”

  He nodded.

  “But,” she said, “where would they get the bills to plant? The man who planted them must have been the murderer.”

  “He must have known the murderer,” Corning told her. “It looks like a frame-up and a tip-off. Somebody who was anxious to have Parkett convicted planted the evidence and then tipped off the police that they’d find it.”

  “And that’s the reason the purse snatcher tried to grab my purse?”

  “Yes. You can see how they worked it,” Corning said. “The purse snatcher planted the money in your purse earlier in the evening. Then he made a grab at the purse, and did it so clumsily that he was caught and knocked down. The plainclothesman may, or may not, have been a plant. He wanted to look into your purse. You looked in and saw the two one-hundred-dollar bills. They figured you wouldn’t say anything about them, but would come to me. They tipped off Malone to come up here and look in your purse.”

  “Why did he pull that stuff about a search warrant?” she asked.

  “I walked into that,” he told her. “The fact that I wouldn’t let them search the office without a warrant suggests that I had something to conceal. It’s simply one more thing to explain.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He stared down at the two one-hundred-dollar bills on the blotter.

  “Did you hear the name of the purse snatcher who was arrested?” he asked.

  “Yes. It was Oscar Lane.”

  “All right,” he told her. “I’ll take care of that. Leave the money here. Now here’s something I want you to do. This murder was committed on December ninth, at 10:15 p.m. I think Stanwood is on the square. He identifies Parkett simply because Parkett wore an overcoat and a cap, had a limp, and carried a cane. I don’t think he ever saw the face of the man who fired the shot; not clearly, anyway. But he’s been over it so many times with the detectives and the District Attorney’s staff that he thinks he remembers the man’s face.”

  “How about these two men, Longwell and Monteith, who identify Parkett so positively?” she asked.

  “I’m coming to those two,” he said. “I think they’re professional witnesses.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I think they were planted. I don’t think they were within a mile of the place at that time.”

  “You mean the police planted them?”

  “I mean,” he said, “that somebody planted them. They are simply in the case to convict Parkett. I don’t know why, or who’s back of them, but I do know this: they’ve got girl friends. I’ve had detectives look that up. There’s a girl named Mabel Fosdick, and one named Edith Laverne.

  “They live in the same apartment house, the Monadnock, and they work in the same office—the Streeter Finance Corporation. I want you to go to the Monadnock Apartments, take an apartment there, and get acquainted with those two girls. You’ll have to work fast. I want you to find out if they were out with Longwell and Monteith on the night of December ninth. There’s a chance that they were together as a foursome, or a chance that one of the men may have been with one of the women.”

  “And thus case comes up tomorrow?” she asked.

  He looked at the clock and grinned. “Today,” he told her.

  “Aren’t you going to get some sleep?” she inquired solicitously.

  He shook his head and motioned towards the door. He was drawing a fresh cup of coffee from the percolator as she stood in the doorway, raised her hand in a mock military salute, and vanished.

  It was late in the afternoon when Ken Corning came in from court, carrying his brief case and two books under his arm.

  “I haven’t heard anything,” she said, “about the money.”

  “You won’t,” Corning told her. “They’ll save that for the last.”

  “Then they’ll call you as a witness?” she inquired.

  He shook his head, smiling. “No,” he told her, “they’ll let the story leak out to the newspapers.”

  “I thought the jurors weren’t supposed to read the newspapers.”

  He looked at her and grinned, but said nothing. After a moment, he set the brief case and law books on her desk, and lowered his voice.

  “Get anything on the two women?” he asked.

  “I’ve moved out there and talked with one of them a little while this morning, just casually. How much time have I got, chief?”

  “The case will last about a week.”

  “How does it look?”

  “Bad,” he told her. “And yet I think Parkett’s innocent. His story sounds like it. Usually a guilty man tries to conceal something, This man doesn’t. He says that he was walking along the sidewalk when the officers picked him up. That he’d been moving right along. He admits that he was on the prowl, but he says he didn’t have a rod with him.”

  “What do the officers say?”

  “They didn’t find a gun. They didn’t find anything else.”

  “How did they know he was there?”

  “They just picked him up. But Parkett says that Dick Carr, the detective, cruised past him in a radio car but didn’t see him. After he had gone, Parkett kept on his prowl, looking for something easy. About twenty minutes afterwards the police closed up the district, and Carr picked him up.”

  “You think it’s a frame-up?” she inquired.

  “He’s either guilty,” he told her slowly, “or else it’s a deliberate frame-up.”

  They were silent for a moment. Helen Vail knew the political background of York City well enough to realize that it was readily possible to frame a man for murder. Ken Corning had been there for less than a year. During that time he had fought the crooked politicians who controlled the municipal affairs. Gradually he had made a name for himself, and his reputation had brought him business. That reputation had been founded upon but one thing—his ability as a fighter. He asked for no quarter and gave none.

  The door of the outer office opened, and a man of about fifty-five, with keen, wary eyes and tight lips, walked into the room. He looked at Ken Corning, then at Helen Vail, then back at Ken Corning.

  “Mr. Corning,” he asked, “the lawyer?”

  Ken Corning nodded, stood to one side, and indicated the door to his private office. The man walked with quick, purposeful strides across the room.

  “What name?” asked Helen Vail.

  The man flashed her a single swift glance and said: “B. W. Flint.”

  Helen Vail made a note with her pencil in the day book in which she listed the people who called.

  Ken Corning followed his visitor into the private office, and closed the door.

  Flint turned on him.

  “You’re the attorney representing Fred Parkett.”

  The man’s restless eyes flashed swiftly over Ken Corning in shrewd appraisal.

  “I came,” he said, “to help you and your client.”

  Corning nodded, indicated a chair, walked to the swivel-chair back of his desk and sat down. Then Flint leaned forward and lowered his voice.

  “When Parkett went through Grosbeck’s clothes,” he said, “he found some money, and lie found a brown manila envelope that was sealed.”

  Ken Corning shook his head patiently. “The trouble with that is,” he said, “that Parkett wasn’t there at all.”

  “It might make it better for him if he was there,” Flint said quietly.

  “Now what does that mean?” Corning wanted to know.

  “It means simply,” said Flint, “that if you could get your client to tell you just what he did with that manila envelope that was taken from Grosbeck’s pocket, and could produce that manila envelope and turn it over to me, your client might get immunity.”

  “If Parkett shows up with that envelope, it would be pretty good evidence that he committed the murder.”

  Flint made an impatient gesture. “Let’s put it this way,” he said. “If Par
kett committed that murder, it’s a cinch he’s got the envelope.”

  “All right,” Corning remarked. “It’s the same in either event. When he surrenders the envelope, it means that he’s convicted himself of murder. And yet you say he can get immunity. I’m just mentioning this thing so you can see how foolish your proposition is, and what a sucker I’d be even to listen to it.”

  Flint got to his feet and stared intently at the lawyer.

  “I think we understand each other all right, Mr. Corning,” he said,

  “Where can I meet you, say, some lime tonight, about nine o’clock?”

  “I could come to your office.”

  “Not quite so hot,” said Ken Corning, “Pick out some place where I can meet you.”

  “The Columbino is a good place,” Flint told him. “I’ll be there, dining. You can meet me there.”

  “You’ll be alone?” asked Corning.

  “Of course.”

  “Do you know what was in the envelope?” asked Corning.

  Flint hesitated a moment, then shook his head.

  “No,” he said, “I don’t. The people who are working with me do.”

  “And who are those people?” Corning asked in a tone of voice which showed he hardly expected a reply, but was asking the question mechanically.

  Flint smiled. “Those people,” he said carefully, “are big enough to get immunity for Fred Parkett.”

  “Well,” Corning said, “that sounds reasonable.”

  Flint smiled. “You mean,” he said, “it sounds hopeful.”

  “Nine o’clock tonight,” said Corning, pushing back his chair.

  Flint nodded, hesitated for a moment, half extended his hand, then turned and walked out of the door.

  “At The Columbino,” he called over his shoulder, and closed the door behind him.

  Ken Corning heard his quick steps as he crossed the outer office, then the click of the outer door opening and closing.

  Corning walked swiftly to his outer office.

  “Whom do I charge that call to, and how much is the charge?” asked Helen Vail, indicating the name of B. W. Flint, which she had written in her day book.

  “I think we’ll charge it to experience,” said Corning. “Could you write a good love letter?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean a nice love letter. Spread it on pretty thick.”

  “Whom do I write to?”

  “To Samuel Grosbeck,” he said. “You can start it: ‘My dearest, dearest Sammy,’ and go on from there.”

  “What do you want to do with it?”

  “I want to put it in a brown manila envelope, seal it up, and hand it to the man who was just in here. I want to see if he knows enough about the stuff he wants, to know that the love letter isn’t it.”

  “What will he do when he gets it?” she asked.

  “That,” Corning told her, “is one of the things I want to find out. Make it fairly long. I want the envelope to be pretty bulky. You can sign it any name you want.”

  Stepping purposefully from his car, Ken Corning strode up the cement walk, climbed the four steps to the porch and jabbed his finger against the doorbell.

  Steps sounded on the inside of the house, and a sad-faced woman opened the door and looked at him lugubriously.

  “Is Mr. Jason home?” asked Corning.

  “What do you want?” she inquired, without answering his question.

  “My name is Corning,” he told her, “and I want to see Mr. Jason on a matter of business.”

  “He’s eating his dinner now.”

  “I’ll wait until he finishes,”

  She stood staring at him for a moment, then moved silently to one side.

  “Come in,” she invited.

  Corning walked into the hallway, and the woman marched flat-footedly into a room which opened on the left. She indicated a chair. “Sit down,” she said.

  Ken Corning dropped into the chair and waited. The house was not large, and the odor of cooked food penetrated to the room where he sat. The dining-room was evidently next to it. Corning heard a chair scrape back. He got to his feet as a tall, slender man with a bald head came into the room.

  “Jason?” he asked.

  The man nodded.

  “I’m Corning, attorney for Fred Parkett.”

  The man’s face suddenly lit up with some swift flicker of expression which was instantly subdued. He nodded.

  “I’ve read about the case in the papers,” he said.

  “You were foreman of the Grand Jury which indicted Parkett, I believe,” said Corning.

  “I’ve read about the case in the papers,” Jason repeated.

  “I suppose that means you’re not going to talk about the Grand Jury business.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Jason. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t, and,” he added after a moment’s pause, “there’s no particular reason why I should.”

  “The shooting,” said Corning, “took place right across the street. If you’d been home, you’d probably have been a witness.”

  “But,” said Jason, “I wasn’t home.”

  “Rather a peculiar thing,” Corning told him, “that the shooting should have been in this neighborhood, and you should have been foreman of the Grand Jury which indicted a man for murder.”

  “Murders,” Jason said, “have been committed in all parts of the city. I don’t know that there’s any reason a man can’t be held up in this neighborhood simply because I happen to he on the Grand Jury.”

  “The evidence,” persisted Corning, “shows that Grosbeck and

  Harry Stanwood were driving in an automobile. Stanwood is a little bit hazy as to just why they happened to stop here. They had been sitting in the car for some fifteen or twenty minutes before the holdup, and, as I have said, the car was directly across the street from this house.”

  “As I remember the evidence that was introduced before the Grand Jury,” Jason said, “that’s an accurate statement.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you,” asked Corning, “that there might have been a reason that the killing took place in this neighborhood?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean has it ever occurred to you that the murder might have been committed here because you were foreman of the Grand Jury?”

  “What would that have to do with it?”

  “It may have been that Grosbeck wanted to see you, and was waiting across the street for you to come home so that he could see you as soon as you arrived.”

  “What makes you think that?” Jason inquired with mild curiosity.

  “Because it is very possible it was so. Have you any reason to believe that Grosbeck was waiting in this neighborhood to see you?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know why Grosbeck was there?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know anything about Grosbeck?”

  “No.”

  “Had you ever met him, or talked with him before the murder?”

  “No.”

  “How long after the murder did you come home?”

  “It must have been fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “Did you hear Stanwood telling the officers what had happened?”

  “You mean after I came home on the night of the murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, I heard nothing. My wife told me about what had happened. She heard the sound of the shot. She was in bed. She thought at first it was a truck that had backfired. That’s all I know about it.”

  “Did she hear the murderer running away?” asked Corning.

  “You mean his steps on the pavement?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. I think she heard the men who ran towards the car after Mr. Stanwood raised the alarm.”

  “If,” said Corning, “she heard the steps of the murderer running away from the scene of the crime, she could have told, from the sound of the steps, whether or not the man was lame, couldn’t she?”

 
; “Perhaps; but she didn’t hear any steps. I’m afraid she can’t help you as a witness, Mr. Corning. I’ve talked the matter over with her in great detail. She knows nothing that would help your client.”

  “Does she know anything that would hurt him?” Corning asked.

  “No. She heard the shot, that’s all.”

  Ken Coining said: “Thank you. I’m sorry I disturbed you,” and pushed his way through the door.

  The Columbino was a cabaret where fairly good liquor could be obtained. An orchestra played dance music, and a halfdozen entertainers put on a varied vaudeville program between dances. B. W. Flint sat alone at a table, eating slowly, pausing from time to time to stare at the dancers or watch the entertainers.

  Ken Corning stood by the hat-check stand, and watched Flint for a few minutes. He tried to find if Flint exchanged any signals or significant glances with anyone else in the room.

  After his inspection had yielded him nothing, Ken Corning walked into the cabaret, and moved over to Flint’s table.

  Flint looked at him with keenly appraising eyes, and a face which showed no expression whatever, either of hope or surprise.

  Ken Corning dropped into the chair across the table.

  “Well?” asked Flint.

  Ken Corning reached into his pocket and took out a sealed manila envelope. His eyes were fastened on Flint’s face as he pulled the envelope into sight.

  Flint looked at the envelope just as he had looked at Ken Corning, without any particular expression.

  Ken Corning toyed with the envelope.

  “What assurance have I,” he asked, “that if I do what you want, you can do what you said you would?”

  Flint’s answer was prompt and pointed. “You haven’t any assurance,” he said, “except my word.”

  “But I don’t know you,” said Corning.

  “Exactly,” Flint said.

  Corning studied the smoke which eddied upward from his cigarette.

  “Suppose you should double-cross me?” he asked.

  “How could I double-cross you?”

  “That’s easy enough. You could use the contents of that envelope to trap my client.”

  “If I wanted to double-cross you,” said Flint, “I would have had detectives stationed around here. I would have given them a signal as soon as I found out you had the envelope, and they would grab you and take the envelope from your possession. After you pass it over to me, I have no way of connecting it with you or your client except by my testimony, and your word is as good as mine.”