Erle Gardner - Honest Money and Other Short Novels

Dike laughed scornfully.

“A man calls at my office. Later on he’s found murdered. I have been sitting here all the time. Simply because he came here you think that I should give up my career, eh?”

Corning played his bluff.

“Forget it,” he said. “I know what I’m doing. Parks talked before he died. It was on the road to the hospital. I rode with him in the ambulance.”

That statement shook Dike’s self-control. The eyes wavered. The mouth twitched. Then he gripped himself and was as granite once more.

“I presume he said I ran alongside his flivver and stabbed him!” he snorted.

Corning grinned.

“So you know it was a flivver, eh? Well, I’ll tell you what he said. He said that he and his wife were out driving and that they had an automobile accident. The car that they ran into was your car. You were in it, and there was another man in it, Carl Dwight, the head of the machine that’s milking the city of millions in graft money. The people had been demanding a change in the water department because of that very graft. The mayor made them a gesture by putting you in charge. You were supposed to put an end to the graft on water contracts. Yet you were out riding with Dwight, the man you were supposed to fight.

“You didn’t get the man’s name. But you found out about the woman. She was driving the car. You learned she was running a speakeasy. You thought it’d be a good plan to get her where her testimony wouldn’t count. So Dwight raided her place and framed a felony rap on her. She didn’t know the full significance of what she’d seen You thought it’d be a good plan to forestall developments. The testimony of a convicted felon wouldn’t go very far in a court of law.”

Corning ceased talking. His fists were clenched, his eyes cold and steady.

Dike’s gaze was equally steady.

“Corning,” he said, “you are a very vigorous and impulsive young man. You are also either drunk or crazy. Get out and stay out.”

Corning turned towards the door.

“I thought,” he said, “that I would have the satisfaction of telling you what I know, and showing you that you can’t gain anything by railroading this woman. Also you’ll either resign your post, or you’ll be mixed up in murder.”

Dike scooped up the telephone.

“When you go out,” he said, “tell my secretary to put the spring catch on the door. I don’t want any more crazy guys busting in here.”

Corning grinned at him.

“I’ll put the catch on the door myself,” he said, and pushed the thumb snap down, walked out and closed the door behind him. The typist paused in her pounding of the keys to watch him. The secretary stared with wide eyes. Corning walked to the corridor and took the elevator.

He stepped into a drug store on the corner and called police headquarters. He asked for the homicide squad, and got Sergeant Home on the line.

“This,” he said, “is a tip.”

“What is?” graffed the sergeant.

“What you’re hearing. A man named Parks was killed this afternoon. He’d been driving a flivver that had collided with a red car. Harry B. Dike owns a red car that’s been in a collision. Parks had been to call on Dike just before he got killed. Carl Dwight has been in some sort of a smash. There’s a cut on his forehead, and he walks with a limp. Sam Parks has a wife, Esther. You’ve got her in jail right now on a felony charge.”

Sergeant Home’s voice betrayed his excitement.

“Tell me, who is this speaking? Where do you get that dope?”

Ken snapped his answer into the transmitter.

“Have a man you can trust at the Columbino at eight tonight. Have him wear a white carnation and sit near the front door. Look up the information I’ve given you in the meantime.”

And Corning slammed the receiver back on the hook, waited a moment for a free line, and then called Harry Dike’s office on the telephone. The line was busy. He called three times with the same result. The fourth time he got Dike on the line, after some argument with the secretary.

“Corning,” he snapped crisply. “I’m giving you one last chance to get out of the tangle Dwight’s got you in. I’ll be at the Columbino tonight at eight. If you want to make a written statement and get out of the mess I won’t put the screws down.”

Dike’s voice was smoothly suave.

“Kind of you, I’m sure, but I don’t think I care to see you there. However... where are you now?”

Corning laughed into the transmitter.

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” he said, and hung up.

He waited in front of the drug-store, keeping in the background, yet being where he could watch the entrance to Dike’s office building.

Carl Dwight didn’t show up. But a speeding automobile, slamming into the curb at the fire hydrant, disgorged Perkins, the detective. Half a dozen minutes later a taxicab paused to let out Fred Granger, who was Dwight’s right-hand man.

Perkins came out, almost on the run, within fifteen minutes. Granger didn’t come out for half an hour. Dike followed him. Ten minutes after that, a police car bearing a detective stopped in front of the office building.

Ken Corning terminated his vigil, stepped into a barber shop, had a shave, hot towels, massage, haircut and shampoo. He was careful not to go near any of his regular haunts, or leave a trail which could be picked up.

The Columbino ran fairly wide open. Anyone could get in there who had the price. It went in somewhat for music, atmosphere and an aura of respectability. The liquor was very good.

It was early when Ken Corning walked into the place, exactly eight o’clock, and there were but few patrons, most of them eating, The dance floor would fill up later on, and by midnight the place would be going full blast.

A man in evening clothes, with a conspicuous white carnation in his buttonhole, had a table in the front of the place. Ken heaved a sigh as he saw that Home had investigated his tip, found out enough to go ahead on the lead.

Ken Corning ordered a full dinner with a cocktail at the start, a bottle of wine with the meal, a cordial afterwards. Momentarily he expected action, and the action did not come.

It was nine-fifteen when he reluctantly called for the waiter and paid the check. The man with the white carnation continued to sit by the door.

Evidently the powers that ruled the city had decided to ignore Ken Corning, and Ken was disquieted at the thought. Things were not turning out as he had anticipated.

The waiter was gone some little time. Ken waited for the change. The man in the dinner coat with white carnation looked at his watch, pursed his lips. Ken got the idea that this man had a definite time limit fixed. At nine-thirty, probably, he would leave.

The waiter returned.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but the manager wants to see you in his office. There’s a bit of trouble, sir.”

Ken got to his feet, followed the waiter. He was walking lightly, his hands slightly away from his sides, his head carried alertly, eyes watchful.

The manager stared coldly from behind the desk.

The waiter turned to go. Ken thought that something brushed against his coat. He couldn’t be sure. He glanced at the waiter’s retreating back.

The manager said: “I’m sure it’s a mistake, but it’s something I’ll have to investigate.”

“What is?” asked Corning.

“This,” said the manager, and placed on the desk in front of him the bill which Ken Corning had given the waiter. “It’s counterfeit.”

Ken laughed.

“Well,” he said, “it happens that I can give a complete history of that bill. It was paid me this morning by way of retainer in a legal matter, in the presence of my secretary. What’s more, I don’t think it’s counterfeit.”