Brett Halliday - Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 27, No. 2 — September 1945)

For the time being, I said: “As a matter of fact, I’ve been wondering just who did see Ditson take his dive. Would you mind my taking a look at the file?”

“Help yourself,” sneered Hinchman. “Some of the boys will tell you where it is, if you can’t find it.”

When a clerk had reluctantly handed over the file, I found about enough stuff to convince anybody who had already seen Ditson’s body that he was dead. There just wasn’t anything there. It did mention the name of Carl Bronson as the only person who had witnessed Ditson’s leap. I remembered the name. Carl Bronson was the owner of the convertible into which the body had fallen. The girl, Sheila Brown, had been his fiancée.

It didn’t take much imagination to see how tough a deal like that would be on Bronson. He’d temporarily parked his car in the hotel’s no-parking zone and run across the street to where his investment brokerage office was located. His statement in the file said he’d turned back to wave to Sheila when he’d reached the opposite curb. She waved back, then he happened to look up.

Ditson was standing in the window. At that moment he leaped. Bronson said he simply couldn’t utter a sound. He stood there and watched the falling body. He said he knew it was going to fall into the convertible, and he tried to warn Sheila with gestures. But she just laughed at him as if she thought he was crazy. Still stricken speechless, he watched Ditson’s body crush her.

This had taken place the evening before at about 9:10 P.M., when dusk was beginning to fall. Apparently nobody else had seen Ditson leap, or at least, if anybody had, the police hadn’t bothered to find him. All mention of the cause for Ditson’s suicide, even of his letters, published in the newspapers the evening before, was omitted from the file. This was natural enough, perhaps, for Ditson had accused the cops of giving him the bum’s rush when he’d complained about his losses at the Silver Dollar.

I handed back the file to the waiting clerk and walked out of the building. A cop was busy writing up a ticket for my car. I’d parked it in a space marked: Reserved for Police Cars Only. I didn’t tell the cop who I was, because I didn’t think it would mean anything if I did. I pocketed the ticket and drove off. It was only four-thirty in the afternoon, and I thought maybe I could catch Spain Westfall.

The delegation of Reform Committee members had said Westfall occupied a suite in the biggest office I building in Midtown. That would be the Clayton Building, for you could see li.it almost any place in town. It was fifty stories high — why it was that high, I didn’t know. Westfall’s name was listed as Westfall, Inc., so I took an elevator to the thirtieth floor, where the suite was located.

The receptionist sat in the foyer, and I gathered that Westfall had the whole floor. I gave her my name, and right away she ushered me into Westfall’s private room.

“You’ve kept me waiting,” said Westfall. “I supposed I’d be your first stop in Midtown.”

He was a medium-sized man of about fifty-five. His hair was graying. His face was intelligent, and his eyes showed a sly sense of humor. He held out his hand, and I shook it.

“Sit down, Corbett — I’ve heard about you. Believe it or not, I’m really glad to see you in Midtown. There’s something wrong about this whole Ditson deal, and maybe you’re just the man to put his finger on it.”

“I thought maybe you were the man. You don’t deny owning the Silver Dollar, do you?”

Westfall laughed. “Of course not! I’m the man higher-up that the Reform Committee is always trying to get something on. Yet I’ve never denied ownership of any property they said I owned. Why should I?”

I thought about the set-up with the local cops and said I didn’t see any real reason why he should. None of Westfall’s gambling places had been running for a day, and apparently he had resigned himself to keeping them that way for several months. I thought the Reform Committee was a little late in filing its complaints with Keever’s office — I’d been sent to Midtown to lock the stable door after the horse had been stolen.

“This thing has really got me upset,” Westfall conceded. “I don’t like the kind of publicity it makes. I don’t force people to come into the Silver Dollar or any place like it. And I don’t like to see people who can’t afford to lose. This Ditson was strictly a fool. What’s worse, he’s a welsher. It isn’t him I care about — that Brown girl was a swell little kid. She used to come into the Silver Dollar and drop a little dough — quite a little dough, in fact. But she had more of it than she knew what to do with. Yes, Corbett, she was all right in every way.”

“It was all so unnecessary. I can’t understand why a smart operator like you wouldn’t have taken care of Ditson before he dived. It doesn’t make sense.”

Westfall’s face hardened.

“I sent two of my boys with thirty grand to the Maramoor not forty-five minutes before Ditson jumped. I haven’t seen either of them since.”

“You’re not kidding?” He just looked at me, and I didn’t repeat the question. “All right, I believe you. So the guys went south with your dough. So you should give me their names and description so I can find them.”

Westfall laughed. “Oh, I’ll find them, all right.” He laughed again, but I didn’t. His two muggs wouldn’t have laughed either, if they had seen the look in Westfall’s eyes.

“Of course Westfall’s lying,” Keever said over the long-distance phone. “I’m amazed at you, Ben. You should know better than to believe a crook like Westfall. He never sent any thirty thousand over to the Maramoor or even five. He’s taking you for a ride.”

I didn’t argue. Keever always knew all the answers. He had all of his knowledge of human nature summed up in a few rules of thumb. It was so much easier than admitting that no two human beings are completely alike, and that none of them is completely predictable.

Westfall was a racketeer in Keever’s eyes, and that meant nothing he said could be believed. There was no use arguing, so I didn’t.

“Well, what do you want me to do? You sent me up here to bust up the gambling in Midtown, and now that I’m here, it’s already busted up. You want me to come back to Capital City?”

Keever’s inner explosion sounded over the phone.

“What am I paying you for? Don’t you knew Westfall and all those other rats will open up again unless you nail somebody to the cross? I want some indictments! Get the chief of police! Get the sheriff! Get the district attorney! They’ve all had their hands out, and I want them all indicted!”

“Do you mind if I have dinner first, or do you want all that done before eight o’clock?”

Keever hung up. I hung up. I thought it would be a good idea to drink dinner instead of eating it. I’d just considered a half-dozen pros and a few cons when there was a rap on my door. My door bore the number 1231. You guessed it. I’d checked in at the Maramoor a couple of doors down from Ditson’s room, 1229. I had a nice view of the asphalt, and I couldn’t look at it without thinking of Ditson. Other people seemed to have remembered, too. There weren’t any parked cars in the reserved space down there.

“Are you sure,” I asked the girl in my doorway, “that you haven’t made some mistake? You can’t want to see me because you don’t know me. I don’t even know who gave you my name.”

“But I do know you, Mr. Corbett, at least by reputation. You see, I’m Mary Ditson.”

“Oh.” I remembered reading that Ditson had had a daughter. Her picture hadn’t been in the papers, so I made her open up her handbag and shell out sufficient identification.