Fenner took her through the hallway to the bedroom and turned on the light in the bath. He came back and sat down and picked up the telephone, asked for Mister Dillon. When the connection was made, he said: “I want you to bring up the yellow, sealed envelope that’s in the safe... Yes, please — and bring it yourself.” He hung up and turned to Kells. “All right,” he said: “I’ll play with you.”
Kells sat down and crossed his legs. He studied the glistening toe of his left shoe, said: “It’s going to sound like a fairy tale.” He looked up at Fenner. “Bellmann’s a very smart guy. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be where he is.”
Fenner nodded impatiently.
Kells said: “The smarter they are, the sappier the frame they’ll go for. Bellmann spent week-end before last at Jack Rose’s cabin at Big Bear.” He leaned forward and took his glass from the table. “Rose has been trying to get a feeler to him for a long time, has tried to reach him through his own friends. A few weeks ago Rose took a big place on the lake, not far from Bellmann’s, invited Hugg and MacAlmon — Mac is very close to Bellmann — up for the fishing, or what have you? They all dropped in on Bellmann in a spirit of neighborliness, and he decided that he’d been wrong about Rose all these years. Next day he returned the call. When Hugg and Mac came back to the city, they left Rose and Bellmann like that” — he held up two slim fingers pressed close together.
Granquist came in, sat down.
Kells turned his head in her direction. Without letting his eyes focus directly on her, he said: “That’s where the baby comes in.”
Fenner lighted a cigarette, coughed out smoke.
“She came out with friends of Rose from K. C.” Kells went on. “Bellmann met her at Rose’s and took her big. That was Rose’s cue. He threw a party — one of those intimate, quiet little affairs — Rose and a show-girl, Bellmann and—” he smiled faintly at Granquist — “this one. They all got stiff — I don’t mean drunk, I mean stiff. And what do you suppose happened?”
Kells paused, grinned happily at Fenner. “Miss Granquist had her little camera along, took a lot of snapshots.” He turned his grin towards Granquist. “Miss Dipsomania Granquist stayed sober enough to snap her little camera.”
Fenner got up and took Granquist’s empty glass, filled it. He looked very serious.
Kells went on: “Of course it all came back to Rose in the morning. He asked about the pictures and she gave him a couple rolls of film that she’d stuck into the camera during the night, clicked with the lens shut, blanks. She discovered that the lens wasn’t open when she gave them to him, they had one of those morning after laughs about it. Bellmann had a dark green hang-over; he didn’t even remember about the pictures until a day or so later, and then he wrote Miss Granquist a couple of hot letters, with casual postscripts: ‘How did the snapshots turn out, darling?’ cracks like that.”
Kells got up, stretched. “You see, it gets better as it goes along,” he said.
“What are the pictures like?” Fenner was standing near Granquist, his little pointed chin thrust towards Kells.
“Don’t be silly. They’re right out of the pocket of one of those frogs that work along the Rue de Rivoli.” Kells ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s not the point though. It’s not what they are, it’s who they’re of: Mister John R. Bellmann, the big boss of the reform administration, the Woman’s Club politician — at the house and in the intimate company of Jack Rose, gambler, Crown Prince of the Western Underworld — and a couple of, well — questionable ladies.”
“And exactly what am I buying?”
“The negatives and one set of prints. My word that you’re getting all the negatives and that there are no other prints. The letters. And certain information as to what Mister Bellmann and Mister Rose talked about before they went under... ”
The door-bell rang.
Fenner said: “That’ll be Dillon.” He went out into the hallway and came back with a sandy-haired, spectacled man. Both of them were holding their hands above their shoulders in the conventional gesture of surprise. Two men whom Kells had never seen before came in behind them. One, the most striking, was rather fat and his small head stuck out of a stiff collar. His tie was knotted to stick straight out stiffly from the opening in his collar. He held a short blunt revolver in his hand.
The fat man said: “Go see if the tall one has got anything in his pockets.”
The other man went to Kells. He was a gray-faced nondescript young man in a tightly belted rain-coat. He went through Kells’ pockets very carefully and when he had finished, said: “Sit down.”
Dillon shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and the fat man, who was almost directly behind him, raised the revolver and brought the barrel down hard on the back of his head. Dillon grunted and his knees gave way and he slumped down softly to the floor.
The fat man giggled quietly, nervously. He said: “That’s one down. Every little bit helps.”
Kells sat down on the divan and leaned back and crossed his legs.
The fat man said: “Put your hands up, Skinny.”
Kells shook his head.
The young man in the rain-coat leaned forward and slapped Kells across the mouth. Kells looked up at him, and his face was very sad, his eyes were sleepy. He said: “That’s too bad.”
Fenner turned his head, spoke over his shoulder to the fat man. “What do you want?”
“I don’t want you. Go sit down in that chair by the window.”
Fenner crossed the room, sat down.
The fat man said: “Reach back of you and pull the shades shut.”
Granquist said sarcastically: “Now pull up a chair for yourself, Fat.” She leaned forward towards the table. “Ain’t you going to have a drink?”
Kells said: “Don’t say ain’t, sweet.”
The fat man sat down in the chair nearest the door. His elbows were on the arms of the chair and he held the revolver loosely on his lap.
He said: “I want a bunch of pictures that you tried to peddle to Bellmann, girlie.”
“Don’t call me girlie, you—!”
Kells looked at Granquist, shook his head sadly. “That’s something you forgot to tell me about,” he said.
“I want all the pictures,” the fat man repeated, “an’ I want two letters — quick.”
Granquist was staring at the fat man. She turned slowly to Kells. “That’s a lie, Gerry. I didn’t crack to Bellmann.”
Fenner stood up. “I won’t stand for this,” he said. He thrust his hands in his pockets and took a step forward.
“Sit down.” The fat man moved the revolver slightly until it focused on Fenner’s stomach.
Fenner stood still.
Kells said: “Does the fellah who sent you know that if anything happens to me, the whole inside gets a swell spread in the morning papers?... ”
The fat man smiled.
“... The inside of Haardt and the barge and Perry, and the Sunday-school picnic at Big Bear?” Kells went on.
Granquist was watching him intently.
“I made that arrangement this afternoon.” Kells leaned sidewise slowly and put his empty glass on an end-table.
The fat man looked at Fenner, and Kells, and then he looked at Granquist and at the bag tucked into the chair beside her. He said: “That’s a dandy. Let’s have a look at it, girlie.”
Granquist stood up in one swift and precise movement. She moved to the window so swiftly that the fat man had only time to stand up and take one step towards her before she had moved the drape aside with her shoulder, crashed the bag through the window.
Glass tinkled on the sill.
Kells stood up in the same instant and brought his right fist up from the divan in a long arc to the side of the gray-faced young man’s jaw.