Honest Money Read online

  “If no one sees me when I hand it to you,” said Corning.

  “Well, no one needs to see.”

  “All right,” said Corning. “That sounds reasonable. I’ll go out and get in a taxicab and wait. You go straight down the street for two blocks and wait at the comer. I’ll follow you and get out. You get in the same taxicab, look under the seat cushion, and you’ll find the envelope.”

  “You’re going to a lot of unnecessary trouble,” Flint told him. “You could hand it to me here, under the table.”

  “No, I’d rather have it that way,” said Corning.

  Flint shrugged his shoulders.

  “Wait until I can get my waiter and pay my check.”

  Ken Corning walked from the cabaret, found a taxi at the door and sat in it until he saw Flint leave the cabaret and walk swiftly down the street.

  “Cruise along behind that man,” he told the driver.

  As the cab ground into slow motion, Ken Corning pulled the manila envelope from his pocket and slipped it under the cushions of the seat. He kept peering about, to make certain that no one was following Flint. At the comer of the second block, Flint stopped. Corning tapped on the glass and handed the driver a dollar bill.

  “I’m leaving you here, buddy,” he said. “That man waiting there at the corner is going to signal you.”

  The cab driver turned to flash Corning a single suspicious glance, but pocketed the dollar bill and grinned as he pulled into the curb. Corning stepped out of the cab without looking at Flint, turned and walked rapidly back towards The Columbino. Flint raised his arm and signaled the cab.

  Ken Corning’s roadster was parked at the curb, facing the direction in which the cab was headed. He climbed into the roadster as Flint was entering the cab, and stepped on the starter. As the cab swung out into the middle of the street, Ken Corning snapped home the gearshift and eased in the clutch. His roadster purred into traffic behind the taxicab.

  Following the taxicab was an easy matter. Flint was evidently in a hurry, and had instructed the cab driver to step on it. The cab went at high speed straight down the boulevard, turned to the left, roared into speed again, and slowed as it came to the neighborhood in which the murder of Samuel Grosbeck had been committed.

  Ken Corning slowed his car, switched out the lights, and pulled in close to the curb. The taxicab ahead of him swung abruptly to the right, came to a stop. Flint got out, paid off the driver, and ran across the sidewalk, up the steps which led to a porch, then across the porch.

  The residence was that of Edward Jason, the foreman of the Grand Jury.

  Ken Corning sat in the roadster and smoked for some fifteen minutes. At the end of that time, Flint had not left the house. Corning stepped on the starter, tossed away his cigarette and drove back to his office.

  Jangling peals of the telephone bell greeted Ken Corning as he fitted his latch-key to the door of the office. He hurried across the room, scooped the receiver to his ear and said: “Hello.”

  Helen Vail’s voice was guarded.

  “Chief,” she said, “I’ve been trying to catch you for an hour.”

  “Something important?” he asked.

  “Yes. I wonder if you can come over.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the Monadnock,” she said. “I’ve got apartment 318.”

  “All right,” he told her. “I’ve got one more job to do before I get there. It’ll be about half an hour.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” she told him. “Don’t knock, just walk right in.”

  Corning took the elevator to the street and walked three blocks to an office building. On the seventh floor he entered the offices of the Intercoastal Detective Agency.

  He gave his name to a young woman at the switchboard and asked for Tom Dunton.

  “Third door on the left,” she said. “The last office.”

  Corning opened the door, walked along the corridor, and entered a small office barely large enough to contain a desk and two chairs. A man of about fifty, with broad shoulders, got to his feet and extended his hand.

  “Hello, Corning. Haven’t seen you for a long while.”

  Corning shook hands, sat down, and started in talking business.

  “A man named Oscar Lane,” he said, “arrested for purse snatching. Bail has been fixed in the sum of five hundred dollars cash or one-thousand-dollar bond. No one has bailed him out. He’s in jail.”

  “All right,” said Dunton. “What can we do?”

  “Bail him out,” said Corning.

  He took a wallet from his coat pocket and counted out currency. When he had finished, he pushed the pile across to Dunton. Dunton picked it up and counted it, then reached for a receipt book.

  “Five hundred dollars,” he said. “Who do we say is putting it up?”

  “Take some name that sounds like an alias—John Jones or Sam Black, or something like that. Get a man who looks a little seedy to go in and put up the bail. He’ll say that Lane is a friend of his.”

  “And then, what?”

  “After you get him out on bail, I want him shadowed. I want to know where he goes and with whom he talks. Put enough men on the job to keep him under constant surveillance. Don’t let him get away no matter what happens.”

  “Sometimes you can’t help it,” Dunton told him. “You know that. A man can always give an operative the slip.”

  “This is one of the times you’ve got to help it,” Corning told him.

  “We’ll do the best we can,” Dunton said.

  Corning took the receipt, folded it, pushed it into his pocket, and turned to the door.

  “How’s the Fred Parkett case coming?” asked Dunton. “Going to get him off?”

  “Maybe.”

  “They say it’s a cinch he’s going to be convicted. Some of the wise guys were telling me there was nothing to it. I told them that any case you were handling was loaded with dynamite for the prosecution. I offered to bet even money that you get him off. Was it a good bet?”

  Ken Corning narrowed his eyes and looked at Tom Dunton.

  “If Oscar Lane,” he sand, “gets out of jail and gets in touch with Dick Carr, a detective, go ahead and bet ail the money you can get.”

  “Are you telling me this so that I’ll be sure to keep Lane shadowed?” asked Dunton, grinning.

  “I’m telling you that so you can win some money,” Corning told him, and walked out of the office.

  Ken Corning pushed his way into apartment 318.

  Helen Vail was stretched out in an overstuffed chair, with her feet on a davenport. She seemed very much at ease.

  Ken Corning looked around the apartment. “Something’s wrong with you,” he said.

  “What’s wrong? Haven’t I done what you told me to?”

  “That’s just the trouble,” he said. “You haven’t cut any corners yet.”

  “I know when to cut corners and when to do just what I’m told,” she said. “Any time I’ve disregarded instructions it’s worked out all right,”

  “Any time it doesn’t, you’re canned,” he told her. “What’s the dirt?”

  “Mabel Fosdick’s checking out,” she said. “She’s going somewhere. I think she’s leaving for good.”

  “Know where she’s going?”

  “It’s some place out of the state. I don’t know just where. She’s not supposed to tell anybody.”

  “How about the other girl, Edith Laverne?”

  “She’s staying here apparently.”

  “Thought the girls had jobs here.”

  “They have. But Mabel Fosdick had something offered her that will take her out of the state. She’s packing up and intends to get out a little after midnight.”

  “What kind of girls are they?” asked Corning.

  “Mabel Fosdick is on the square. I’d trust her,” said Helen Vail. “The Laverne woman is different. She’s one of those mealy mouthed women who are always worrying about their reputations, and all that stuff. Mabel Fosdick is
right out in the open with everything she does.”

  “You think it’s unexpected, this business of Mabel Fosdick’s getting out?”

  “Yes, I’m certain it is. I was commencing to get friendly with her.”

  “Has some man been calling here this evening?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “She’s mysterious about it?”

  “Yes, whatever it is. It’s some job that has been given her, and she’s been told not to say anything about what it is, or where it’s going to take her.”

  “What’s Mabel Fosdick going to do with her furniture? Is she going to take it with her?”

  “The apartment’s furnished. All she’s got is her personal belongings. She has a big trunk, a small trunk, two or three suitcases, and a hat box.”

  “You’ve been up there?”

  “I helped her pack.”

  “Good girl.”

  “I can tell you something else—she keeps a diary.”

  “Now,” said Ken Corning, “you’re getting somewhere. That diary is what I want. Could you get a chance to look in it?”

  “No, it’s one of the kind that are locked and have a key. She was right there all the time and I didn’t have a chance to get it.”

  “Where is it, in one of the suit-cases?”

  “Yes.”

  Ken Corning looked at his watch.

  “Okey,” he said. “You took the apartment under an assumed name?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right. You’d better vanish.”

  “What are you intending to do?”

  “I don’t know. What’s the number of Mabel Fosdick’s apartment?”

  “Four nineteen. It’s on the floor above.”

  “She’s in there now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know if she’s got her tickets purchased?”

  “I think her tickets have been sent to her.”

  “What does she look like?” asked Corning.

  “She’s about as tall as I am; about twenty-four or twenty-five years old. She’s got a gray coat with a fur collar. She’s a brunette, and runs pretty heavy to lipstick. But she’s a good kid and she looks it. Trim and pretty, but not loud.”

  “How about your clothes?” asked Corning. “Have you everything so you can put it in one suitcase?”

  “Sure. That’s what you told me to do.”

  “Okey, kid. Get that suitcase packed, and beat it. Leave me the key. I’m going up and stick around on the upper floor for a little while.”

  “Promise me you won’t get into trouble,” she said.

  He smiled at her, shook his head, and walked out.

  Ken Corning climbed the stairs to the floor above, spotted apartment 419, took up his station at the end of the corridor, and waited.

  He waited less than five minutes when the door of the apartment opened and a trim, well-dressed young woman stepped into the corridor, pulled the door closed behind her and walked swiftly to the elevator.

  Corning waited until he heard the door of the elevator cage slam shut, then moved down the corridor and bent over the lock on the door of the apartment. His third skeleton key clicked back the bolt, and he walked in.

  The apartment was similar to the one occupied by Helen Vail. Baggage was stacked up in a neat pile, as though awaiting the call of a transfer man.

  Corning started in on the suitcases, and found the diary packed in the first. He made no attempt to examine the diary there, but closed up the suit-case, took the diary with him, and went back to Helen Vail’s apartment. Helen Vail had gone.

  Corning picked the lock on the diary, sat down and read it carefully. When he had finished reading, he put it into his pocket and went back to Mabel Fosdick’s apartment and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again, and then when there still was no answer, once more opened the door and stepped into the apartment.

  The baggage was gone.

  Ken Corning looked at his watch, nodded and went back to Helen Vail’s apartment. He put in ten minutes making certain that there was nothing left in the place which could identify Helen Vail as the tenant who had kept it for so short a time. When he had finished, he left the key on the table, walked out of the apartment, and pulled the door shut after him. The spring lock clicked into place.

  The midnight train was clicking over the switches when Ken Corning approached the slim girl in the gray coat with the fur collar.

  “Miss Fosdick?” he asked.

  She looked up at him speculatively, and nodded coolly.

  Ken Corning said: “I want to get a little information from you. It’s a matter of some importance. Do you remember the night that you went to the hockey game with Arthur Longwell, Jim Monteith and Edith Laverne?”

  She spoke in a cool, collected voice. “May I ask just what business it is of yours?”

  “It happens,” he said, “that it’s rather important. If you don’t answer it might interfere with your trip.”

  “You’re a detective?”

  “I’m simply telling you that it might interfere with your trip.”

  She sighed. “Yes,” she said, “I remember the occasion.”

  “Do you remember the teams that were playing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember the date?”

  “I’m not certain that I do. It was some time in the winter—in December, I think.”

  “Do you remember which team won, and the score?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you suppose it was on the ninth of December?”

  “I’m sure I couldn’t tell.”

  “Could you tell if you consulted your diary?”

  She gave a little convulsive start and stared at him.

  “Yes,” she said, “I think so. Why?”

  Ken Corning reached into his pocket and pulled out her diary.

  She gasped. “Why, what are you doing with that? That’s mine. You’ve no business taking that! You must have stolen it from my suitcase!”

  “We’ll talk about that a little later,” lie told her. “Let’s look at the date in the diary and see if you can tell exactly what evening that trip took place.”

  She didn’t open the book, but stared at him with blazing eyes.

  “You had no business to read my diary,” she said.

  Ken Corning planted his feet wide apart, braced his body against the swaying motion of the tram, and stared down at her.

  “All right,” he said. “Now I’m going to tell you something. Samuel Grosbeck was murdered on the night of December ninth. Fred Parkett is being tried for that murder. Jim Monteith and Arthur Longwell are going to swear that they were in the vicinity and saw a man running away; that they recognized the man as the defendant, Fred Parkett; that the date was December ninth, and the hour was 10:30 p.m.

  “Those men weren’t there at the time. They’re simply giving testimony to help convict the defendant. They knew that you could give evidence that the four of you were sitting in a box at the rink at the very moment the two men claimed to have been near the scene where Grosbeck was murdered. As a result, they’re getting you out of the state.”

  She stared at him with an agony of conflicting expressions on her countenance.

  “In fact,” said Corning, “you have wondered somewhat about this position and why it was offered to you. You have known generally that Longwell and Monteith were going to be witnesses in this murder case. You haven’t taken the trouble to check back and find out the date and time of the murder, and then consult your diary. I suggest that you do so now.”

  “They wouldn’t do anything like that,” she said. “They couldn’t. They’re not that type.”

  By way of answer, Ken Corning opened the diary to the date of December ninth, and pushed the open volume into her lap.

  “Read it,” he said. “You don’t even need to rely on the diary for it. If you remember the hockey game, the records show that it took place on that particular date, and that it wasn’t over
until eleven fifteen—more than an hour after the time the two men swear they were at the scene of the murder.”

  His eyes red and swollen from loss of sleep, Ken Corning propped his elbow against the side of the telephone booth, and wearily closed his eyes as he listened to the squawking noises which came over the receiver.

  “Did you cover the rooming-house,” he asked, “where you say Lane went?”

  Tom Dunton’s voice showed a trace of impatience.

  “Of course we covered the rooming-house,” he said. “We checked every man and every woman who went in there, and shadowed them when they went out.”

  “And you’re sure Dick Carr wasn’t one of the people who went in?” asked Corning.

  “Hell!” said Dunton explosively. “I guess I know Dick Carr when I see him, don’t I? I tell you, Dick Carr didn’t come near the place, and, as nearly as I can find out, there wasn’t any other detective that did.”

  “Anybody that looked a little bit suspicious, or off-color?” asked Corning.

  “There was only one man,” said Dunton, “and that was a bird about sixty years old, with spectacles that had a black ribbon running down from them. He was clean-shaved, hatchet-faced, tight-lipped, and he looked as though he was afraid somebody was going to catch him. We followed him when he left, and he got in a car that had a chauffeur. The chauffeur drove him off ”

  “Get the number of the car?” asked Corning.

  “Yes. We got the license number and we’re looking it up … wait a minute, here it comes now. Here’s the dope on the car. It’s owned by a man named Stanwood, Harry Stanwood, of 9486 North Bronson.”

  Ken Corning frowned.

  “Does that mean anything to you?” asked the detective as Corning continued to be silent.

  “Yes,” said Corning, “it means a lot. I don’t know just what it means, but I think it’s what I wanted to know. I’ll call you back later on, maybe.”

  He hung up the receiver and strode out of the telephone booth. The weariness seemed to have gone from his face, and in its place was a look of keen concentration; the look which is on the face of a chess player as he contemplates the men on the board at a critical stage of the game.