Honest Money Read online

  “Yes.”

  She got to her feet.

  “I’ve told all I know of the case to the authorities and to the newspapers. I haven’t time to discuss it any more. I’m going out this evening and I want to get dressed. I’ll have to ask you to excuse me.”

  She walked to the door. Gone was the suggestion of intimacy about her maimer. She held the folds of the silken gown tightly about her. Her head was up, the eyes cold and distant. She turned the knob of the door and held it open.

  “Did you know when Perkins went into the inner office?” asked Ken Corning.

  Wordlessly, she held open the door.

  “Can you tell me what the nature of the business was between Ladue and Perkins?”

  She continued to stand at the door, holding it open, silent, distant, hostile. Ken Corning whirled on her.

  “All right, young lady. I gave you the opportunity to save yourself a lot of trouble. This is a murder case. There’s a life at stake, and if you think you can pull a line like that and make it stick you’re sure going to be surprised.”

  She said two words, cold, crisp words.

  “Get out!”

  Ken Corning went into the corridor. The door slammed behind him. He heard the rasp of the key and the click of the lock.

  He stood in the corridor, jaw protruding, eyes narrowed, lips clamped in a firm, straight line. Then he walked swiftly and purposefully towards the elevator.

  The police had finished with the office of Harry Ladue.

  The man who made maps and diagrams had taken measurements. The police photographer had taken various and sundry photographs of the arrangement of the offices, the sprawled body, the exact location of the various articles of furniture at the time the crime had been committed.

  The corporation of which Ladue had been the guiding head had appointed a man to fill the vacancy caused by death. There had been some attempt to make the business carry on. The new man had familiarized himself with the important matters which were pending; and now the offices were closed for the night.

  Out on the streets there was still a little afterglow of light from the sky. In the building all was dark, except that night lights glowed in the corridors. Through the windows on the front of the offices came the colored lights of electric signs, one second glowing a deep red, then shifting to green, then vanishing.

  Ken Corning moved down the corridor like some sinister shadow.

  He was fighting the political powers that controlled the city. Already there was a warrant out for his arrest—a warrant that would never have been issued save for the fact that he was on the wrong side of the political fence.

  If he slipped up he could count upon no mercy. The powers that were in the saddle would have railroaded him to the penitentiary without an instant’s hesitation. The underworld which was dependent for its very existence upon a complacent toleration on the part of those political powers had already once tried to take Ken for a ride.”

  And Ken Corning was carrying on.

  He prowled about the corridor, looking for the fuse box which controlled the lights in the various offices. He found the box, a little recessed receptacle built into the wall, covered with a metal door which swung out on hinges.

  Ken Corning tried the door of the office marked Ladue Investment Corporation—Entrance. The door was locked. He slipped a ring of keys from his pocket and tried them patiently, one after the other. On the third try he found a skeleton key which would operate the lock.

  He went in and switched all the lights on in both offices. Then he went to the fuse box and experimented with the round fuses which were screwed into their places.

  He found one which controlled a segment of the wiring.

  He unscrewed it, and the lights went off in the private office. He screwed it in, and the lights went on. He smiled grimly, closed the door of the box and again entered the offices.

  The desk of the secretary was in a corner by the door which led to the private office. That desk was locked, but the lock was of a pattern which yielded readily. Ken Corning went through the desk. He found a shorthand notebook. It was filled with pothooks and dashes which meant nothing to him. He found another one. There was a pencil thrust in between the leaves of this book. There was also a handkerchief between the same pages.

  Ken Corning opened the book.

  At the place where the handkerchief and pencil had been was the division point between that part of the book which had been filled with shorthand, and the blank pages. Ken Corning thrust this notebook into his pocket. He closed the desk, switched out the lights in the offices and departed as quietly as he had come.

  When he left the building, he removed the gloves which had been on his hands. He went at once to a telephone, called the Gladstone Hotel and was relieved to hear Helen Vail’s voice over the wire.

  “How’s everything?” he asked.

  “Fine as silk.”

  “Anybody spot you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Can you slip over to the Antlers right away?”

  “Give me ten minutes,” she said. “I’m dressed formal.”

  “Dressed! I didn’t know you took any clothes with you! You weren’t foolish enough to go after a suitcase, were you?”

  She giggled.

  “You gave me expense money. I figured I’d be conspicuous if 1 didn’t dress. You should see the gown. It’s a darb, and cheap, too! It only cost—”

  He groaned.

  “Ten minutes then,” he said, and hung up.

  He caught a cab. Went to his room in the Antlers, and Helen Vail pushed open the door within three minutes of the time he had finished washing his hands.

  She wore a low cut gown which accentuated the curves of her figure. Her eyes were laughing, radiant. She drifted over to him, whirled so that he could see the back, and wiggled her shoulders.

  “Isn’t it a darb? It only …”

  “If you think that’s a legitimate expense, you’re crazy,” he told her. “Snap out of it. This is a murder case, not a picnic.”

  She grinned.

  “Murder case for you, picnic for me,” she said. “I didn’t have a darned thing to do all day except sprawl around and kick my toes at the ceiling.”

  Then, at the look on his face, she came close to him, put an arm on his shoulder.

  “Don’t be sore, Ken. I was kidding you about the gown. Mrs. Colton bought it for me. She has a charge account. She couldn’t just sit around staring at the blank walls of a hotel room. She had to go down to dinner. You’re a lawyer. You don’t know women. She’d have brooded over things and had hysterics if I’d left her in that room.”

  He pushed the girl away, held her at arm’s length, stared into her eyes with his own eyes hot with wrath.

  “You little fool, do you mean to tell me that you went to a department store, or wherever it was, and used Mrs. Colton’s charge account with her written okey?”

  She nodded.

  “Why, they’ll trace you from that. That’ll give them the link they want. They’re dragging the city for that woman. Someone’s leaked. They’re moving heaven and earth to drag her over to the D. A.’s office to question her on this Ladue business. Look at the evening papers!”

  And he slammed an evening paper down on the bed so that the big headlines could be read as they streamed across the page.

  “Sex Slant in Slaying!” read the headlines. Down below in smaller type were other headlines: “Slayer’s Spouse Seeks Lawyer! D. A. Awaits Wife as Witness!”

  She came close to him again.

  “I’m sorry, Ken. But I’m not a fool. I fixed things so they’d never be able to trail me, and I engaged a private dining-room in the hotel, and I had a girl friend I could trust come in, and we had a nice little dinner, and Mrs. Colton’s all pepped up again, and ready to see it through. She was getting weepy and had the suicide complex again this afternoon.”

  He patted her shoulder.

  “I guess it’s all right. It’d have been hell if
your foot had slipped and they’d picked you up.”

  She grinned at him.

  “But my foot didn’t slip,” she pointed out. “And, anyhow, all life’s like that. It’s fine if your foot don’t slip. But there’s always that chance of slipping, and that’s what makes it so much fun.”

  She smiled up into his face. He pulled her suddenly towards him.

  “Oh-oh!” she said, “You’ll get powder on your coat if you do that!”

  And, laughingly, she freed herself.

  Ken Corning sighed, lit a cigarette, pulled the notebook out of his pocket.

  “That your system of shorthand?” he asked.

  She lost her bantering manner and instantly became serious.

  She sat down on the bed, crossed her knees, put the notebook out on her lap, started studying the notes.

  “I can read it,” she said. “It’s my system. She didn’t write it any too legibly. Guess she could read her notes after they were cold. It’d take me a little while to get the sense of it. I can get words here and there.”

  “Okey,” he said. “I’m guessing that nobody dictated to her today. Take that last bunch of shorthand that’s there, and see if you can make it out.”

  The girl ran through the pages, found the last one, started frowning as she deciphered the words. Her lips moved soundlessly at first, and then made audible words.

  “… ‘party of the second part, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged’ … then there’s something I can’t make out … ‘hereby bargains and sells, remises and forever quitclaims to the said party of the first part, all and singular, the lands, tenements and hereditaments.’ … There’s a lot of description. You don’t want that, do you? It’s surveyor’s description. So many chains from a certain point, and then boundaries in feet and tenths of feet.”

  Ken Corning’s eyes were narrowed to slits.

  “Quitclaim deed, eh? Who’s the party of the first part?”

  She glanced back along the page.

  “Some corporation. The Home Builders Realty Corporation.”

  Ken Corning’s face showed keen disappointment. Helen Vail let her eyes travel down the shorthand notes. “That seems to be all that it is,” she said, “a regular quitclaim.”

  Ken Corning said: “Why would they make a quitclaim if they had title to the property? You’d think they’d either have assigned a contract or else given a grant deed. Maybe it was a flaw in the title… . Wait a minute, Helen. Go back of that. What’s the thing in the book that’s just before that quitclaim?”

  The girl thumbed back the page, let her eyes wander down the page. Suddenly she caught her breath in a quick gasp.

  “Listen to this: ‘Whereas the said undersigned, the said Charles C. Perkins, utilized the said confidential information to fraudulently and feloniously procure a transfer of title to The Home Builders Realty Corporation, a dummy corporation, organized, owned and controlled by the said Charles C. Perkins… .”

  Ken Corning made a dive, grabbed the notebook from her hand.

  “That’s enough. Get out of that damned dress. Get it off!”

  She stared at him with wide eyes.

  “Says which?” she asked.

  He waved his hand towards the door.

  “Get started. Back to your hotel. Get out of that bunch of glad rags.”

  He pushed her towards the door. “Get into your office clothes. When I give you a ring, you go to the office, open up the door and turn on the lights. If anyone asks you questions tell them I telephoned you to come to the office to take some dictation. Tell them you don’t know where I telephoned from. And don’t let on that you know the wire is tapped. I’ll probably telephone you and start talking a bunch of stuff over the telephone. You follow my lead.”

  She nodded. He opened the door, pushed her into the corridor.

  “And listen,” he told her, “that’s one bunch of instructions you’re not to take liberties with. You disobey those, and I’ll break your neck. Understand!”

  She smiled at him, but her face showed a serious look as though she appreciated the gravity of the situation.

  “Think I’m a fool?” she asked. “I know when I can cut corners, and when I can’t. What’ll I tell the jane over there?” And she jerked her thumb in the general direction of The Gladstone.

  “Tell her nothing!” snapped Ken Corning. “She’ll have to wait until we see how things turn out before she gets any information.”

  Helen Vail turned with a swish of the evening gown, a glimpse of shapely ankles.

  “And that’s an instruction I’ll take liberties with,” she called over her bare shoulder as she flounced the wrap off her arm, spread it. She grinned back at him as she covered her shoulders, and then tripped towards the elevator.

  Ken Corning slammed the door shut, locked it, went to the telephone, called police headquarters. “Sergeant Home,” he said, when the operator at headquarters answered.

  Five seconds later he heard the deep bass voice of Sergeant Home, calmly reassuring, steady as a rock.

  Ken Corning said:

  “I’m a criminal. That is, there’s a warrant out for my arrest. It’s a frame-up. I know you to be a square shooter. I want to surrender. But I want to do it on one condition. That is that you come after me alone and in person, that you promise you’ll give me a chance to talk without interruption until I’ve stated my case.”

  Sergeant Home said: “I don’t make promises to crooks. Who is this, and what’s the warrant for?”

  “This is Ken Corning,” Ken told him. “I’m a lawyer. The warrant’s on a charge of assault and battery for beating up a damned nosey reporter who busted into my private …”

  “Yeah,” said the deep bass voice, “I know all about that. It ain’t so serious. If you hadn’t tried to conceal witnesses you might not have had any bail to put up. Why should I come after you personally?”

  “Because I’ve got something that’s so hot I don’t dare to let it leak out around headquarters.”

  Home said: “Where’ll I find you, Corning?”

  Corning said: “I trust you enough to tell you where I am and let you come to me, but I don’t trust the gang up there, and I’m not sure the line’s clear. So you go to the corner of Seventh and Hattman Streets and stand there alone. Have a car parked at the curb with the motor running. I’ll get to you.”

  “Right away?” asked Home

  “Right away,” said Corning, and hung up.

  Ken Corning took a taxicab.

  “Go to the comer of Seventh and Hattman, park near the curb and keep your motor running,” he told the driver. “I’ll be down out of sight until I see the coast’s clear.”

  The driver said: “Listen, Buddy, I’m married and got a kid, so don’t put me in no hot spots.”

  “If that’s the case, you’ll need the extra dollar tip all the more,” said Corning, “and you won’t be in any hot spots.”

  The cab lurched into motion. Ken Corning sat back on the seat until the cab was within two blocks of the place, then he dropped down on the floor of the cab. When it had pulled in to the curb he spoke to the driver.

  “Okey,” he said. “Tell me if you see a police car parked, with the motor running?”

  “Yeah. There’s one just ahead.”

  Ken Corning pushed up a cautious head. Sergeant Home was standing on the sidewalk. He was alone. “Okey,” said Ken. “Drive up alongside it. Here’s the meter and a buck extra. When I open the door, you drive away.”

  The driver crept the cab forward. Corning got to the running-board of the police car. The cab lurched away. Corning slid over in the seat of the police car and pressed the horn button. Sergeant Home gave a swift start at the sound of the horn, and his eyes snapped to focus on Corning.

  He walked over to the car, went around it, opened the door and climbed in behind the wheel.

  “Hell,” he grunted. “How’d you get in here?”

  “Little secret,” Corning told him. “Drive slowly. I’m
spilling information. I’ve got to make a sale with you.”

  “On that murder case?” asked Home, slipping in the gears with the careful clumsiness which characterizes a big man when he is doing something which requires some deftness of touch.

  “On the murder case.”

  “Shucks. There ain’t a thing to that. Colton’s a fool. It was a fight over his wife. If he’d spill the truth he could probably make out a case of self-defense. He wouldn’t even have to use anything else.”

  Ken Corning said: “Nix on that stuff. Listen here. You know what’s going on in this city as well as I do. There’s a little ring that’s sold out to the underworld, only it ain’t so little. The mayor’s a figurehead in some things. There’s a power back of him that has interests in various places, and those interests are protected. See?”

  Home grunted.

  “What’s that got to do with murder?”

  “Just this. Ladue was on the square. He made some money buying property and selling it to the city, but he made it by legitimate business guessing, and by using his head. Some of the other crowd tried to horn in. They used a dummy, a detective by the name of Perkins.

  “Ladue found out about it and made Perkins disgorge. Otherwise he was going to blow the lid off the whole affair. Last night was the last minute he’d given Perkins. There was to be a blow-off if Perkins didn’t disgorge. All right. What did Perkins do? He framed it so Colton would be coming to the office while he was there. He sneaked in the side entrance. He and Ladue had been good friends. They called each other by their first names. Probably Ladue was deeply sympathetic with Perkins, the individual. It was the system that he was fighting.

  “So he slipped Perkins in to his private office. Colton came, The girl announced him. Perkins said he’d duck out and come back when Colton had gone, Colton wasn’t the sort Ladue could keep waiting.

  “So Perkins stepped out in the corridor. He went to the fuse box and unscrewed the fuse which gave light to Ladue’s office, the private office. Then he opened the corridor door. There was light enough for him to see what he was doing. It came from the little window over Ladue’s desk. He fired twice. He’s a dead shot. He tossed in the gun and went back to the fuse box. It was Colton’s gun.