“Save the comradely insults, Bailey. I’ll never forgive myself for thinking of you as a friend — when you were the man who eventually murdered Howard Conklin and tried to skid me to the chair.”
“I didn’t want to murder Conklin, Ham. But it was either murder him, silence him, or lose everything I’ve got, everything I live for — all the money and good time — and spend the rest of my active years behind prison bars for blackmailing Burt Morgan.”
“I should have known,” I said bitterly. “All the time we thought you were merely stretching letters of the law — shaking down a gambling joint here and there, tipping Conk and me to cases for a cut of the fee. But the bulk of your coin was blackmail dough.
“You had a couple breaks too, Bailey. For instance, York Rayfield’s actions one night years ago when he followed Burt Morgan, led Morgan to believe that it was Rayfield blackmailing him. You planned to make a break or two for yourself, also. You came here today, questioned Millie and me slyly to learn if Conk had told us anything about his present case. We said he hadn’t, but you still didn’t feel safe. You were afraid of me. You were also afraid to leave the murder of Conklin open to investigation by the whole department. That gave you a doubly strong motive for wanting to plant the blame on me, be on hand to nab me, and close the case in a hurry.”
He smiled mirthlessly. “It will be closed, Frazee. In a few seconds I’m going to blow your brains out. I’ll tell them you resisted arrest, see?”
“You’re an opportunist, Bailey. Just as you took advantage of opportunity in the very beginning — of all persons connected you were the one to know that Burt Morgan was dickering with old man Blodgett for the beach property. For it was you who told Morgan where Blodgett lived! Morgan never would have tipped Rayfield about the Roxlin Hotel deal in advance. They were too great rivals.
“I got the whole picture, Bailey, when Rayfield presented me with a staunch alibi in Millie Morgan’s apartment just before I came here. If Rayfield couldn’t have killed Conk, it meant someone else. Everything then pointed to you. And the master piece of the puzzle came from your own lips! When you entered this office and found me with Howard Conklin’s body earlier this evening you said a phone call, a tipoff, had brought you. You felt impelled to give a reason for your appearance, because you’d really been laying for me to come back here and walk in your trap. But now I know you were lying. No call was made to headquarters at the time you stated concerning Howard Conklin!”
“Yes, Frazee. I was laying for you — just as I was laying for you a few minutes ago when you left Millie Morgan’s apartment and came here. John Rayfield had phoned me that you were out cold in the apartment. When I arrived you were just leaving. I followed you, waiting again for opportunity, not wanting to shoot you on the street, Frazee. I wanted to get you in a corner.”
He raised the gun to fire.
The frosted glass panel in the door showered glass. I caught a fleeting picture of Millie Morgan’s wooden purse, which she had thrown, and I also glimpsed two cops.
As Bailey spun about I crashed into him. The cops hauled us off the floor, and from the way they handled Bailey I knew he was in for a rough Lime at headquarters.
Millie was warm and her perfume made me giddy. “I watched as you left the apartment, Ham. I saw Bailey fall in behind you. I got here just us these two policemen came. They said you’d made a call about a murder case. You’d acted mysterious and the call had been traced. We — the two policemen here and I — listened outside the door while you and Bailey talked just now.”
“We heard enough to burn him,” one of the cops said. He looked at Hailey and added: “When you have a country with as much freedom as the good old U.S.A., you’re bound to have an occasional rat sneak into a place of public trust. But he never lasts long. Too many free people against him. Folks will know when we get through with Bailey that cops don’t like snakes getting their filthy fingers on a shield.”
“You’ll have to drop down to headquarters with us, Frazee. We’re gonna call the D.A. now and get him out of bed,” the other cop said.
“It’s a pleasure,” I said.
Millie and I detoured by way of a restaurant and I had ham and eggs. She drank coffee and watched me stow the grub away. She said, “Gracious, those eggs look awful.”
“Could you cook ’em better?”
She said she could. Maybe sometime she’ll talk herself into another job with Hamilton Frazee. A job cooking for him, among other things.