“You could tell me exactly what this is all about and see if I believe it.”
He looked thoughtful as he put on his coat. “My name is Flannagan. Paul Flannagan. And yours?”
“Elizabeth Dean.”
“May I use your phone, Miss Dean?”
He dialed Lamport’s number. Into the mouthpiece he said, “This is Flannagan speaking. I’m in a phone booth around the corner and thought I’d tell you to call off the police hunt. A waste of time, now. I knew what you were doing as soon as you told your receptionist to call Lieutenant Durcher. An unusual name, Durcher, and I happen to know him. I doubt whether he’d have arrested me under any circumstances, but the story would have reached the papers and made me a laughing stock. My attempt to compel you to withhold testimony. My reputation’s a vulnerable point, in view of my work. You tried a neat trick but it was obvious that you didn’t switch off your outer office communication. The only obvious thing you’ve done thus far. And thanks for an interesting afternoon. You enabled me to meet an extremely attractive young lady, and that doesn’t happen every day.”
He hung up. “I think I can go in safety now, Miss Dean. As for the explanation I was going to give you — suppose we postpone it till dinner this evening. Say the lobby of the Astor, about seven o’clock. Will that suit you?”
It did, but the meeting between Paul Flannagan and Elizabeth Dean is no part of this story, except that as a result she changed her job from the Lewin Office Supply to the publicity office of the Academy of Police Science.
About a week before Seely was due to stand trial in Smyrna for assault with intent to kill, Lamport came to see him by appointment. It was the first time the two men had spoken at any length since the shooting. Seely, embarrassed, older and more haggard than when Lamport had last seen him, offered cigars and a highball before he came to the point of the interview.
“I’ve been thinking about this, Warren. You claim I shot you. I can’t find it in me to doubt your word, even though I have no recollection, no consciousness of the act. They say that men can do things automatical, without volition or realization of the nature of what they’re doing. Maybe. If it’s possible, maybe that’s what I did. A kind of temporary insanity. That’s the plea Tannick advises me to make.”
“I’d like to think that was the reason, Bart. Even so, it’s tough on me.”
“On you? You’re not threatened with jail — how is it tough on you?”
“To be the means of sending you to prison,” said Lamport steadily. “If there were some way out—”
Seely stared at the ash of his cigar. “Unless you give your testimony, there’s no case against me. But Tannick made you an offer and you turned him down.”
Lamport nodded. “I thought the two of us could talk it over together. If I don’t testify after I’ve been subpoenaed, I’m in for a lot of trouble.”
“I’ll pay for that trouble. Anything you want.”
Lamport leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling. “Suppose, instead of shooting a man — shooting me, to be exact — you’d done something else. Some other crime. Were driven to it by necessity, by circumstances you couldn’t control. Suppose you took money which you were handling in a capacity of trust.”
Seely sat up suddenly. “The C.P.A.’s been going over my books. He hinted at a shortage which he hadn’t checked yet. You mean you’ve been defrauding me?”
Lamport was staring at Seely now, staring with that sharp penetrating look. “I wouldn’t care to admit that. But if you found you could lodge a charge against me, and if instead of doing it you made good the money and dropped the charge, then it might be worth my while to keep away from Smyrna.” Lamport swallowed. “Pure coincidence that I have this means of defending myself.”
Seely said, “How much?”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand. Say another two hundred and fifty to set me up.”
Seely broke into a broad grin. “For half a million you’ll drop the Smyrna charge? I’ll have the money in three days.”
“Cash,” said Lamport.
“Cash,” repeated Seely. “And now that we have it settled, how did the shooting really happen?”
Lamport shrugged. “If I told, my position would be considerably weakened.”
The door opened and little Flannagan walked in. “Got it on the dictagraph, Seely. It worked the way I told you. Here are the warrants against Lamport for false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and extortion.”
Lamport leapt to his feet. “Say, what is this?”
“The showdown.” replied Flannagan. “The evidence was nothing to get. All I wanted was your admission of Seely’s innocence.”
Lamport stiffened. “That’s something you’ll never get!”
“ ‘If I told,’ ” quoted Flannagan, “ ‘my position would be considerably weakened.’ Wouldn’t convince the Smyrna woodsmen, but it’ll convince a New York jury, and that’s where the actions for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution will be brought. There won’t be a trial in Smyrna.”
Lamport shrugged.
“You have some evidence? Or are these purely obstructive tactics?”
“Judge for yourself. When Seely cleaned and loaded his gun, he dropped one of the bullets without realizing. Dropped it in the prunes and left an empty chamber in his gun. The laboratory can prove it because the cartridge case, despite the heat, still had a minute coating of sugar and syrup and prune particles.
“What happened was that when you poured the prunes into your pudding, you poured the bullet too. Whether you dropped it, whether you spilt the pot or it boiled over, I don’t know. But that bullet landed in the fire and the heat discharged the bullet. No gun ever fired it!”
“You’re crazy!” thundered Lamport.
“That’s what I thought at first, when I found a bullet without rifling marks and a cartridge case without any marks at all. It took too clever and quick-thinking a man to engineer. But after my interview with you the other day, I learnt not only how quick-thinking you were, but also how worried. There was no reason to try to frame me on an extortion charge, but you saw a chance to force me out of the picture and you grabbed it. The gambler mind taking a long chance. Same thing as at Smyrna.
“A bullet dropped in the fire and then exploded, wounding you. You saw a chance to get something on Seely. You needed that because you’d been embezzling his funds. You held off until now, though you had this in mind right from the beginning.”
Lamport laughed. “Sure I did!” His hand whipped from his coal and leveled the automatic. “But the only real evidence you have is that dictagraph and you’re getting the record for me right now and smashing it to bits!”
Flannagan narrowed his eves. “It in the next room.”
“Put your hands up and Hand next to each other. Now walk ahead slowly. You’re both covered.”
Flannagan had to lower his hand to turn the door knob. He was close to the door as he entered the next room. When he dived, his speed was double quick because the door was swinging one way and he was leaping the other.
He landed on his knees, whirling and snapping up his revolver in the same instant. The big automatic thundered and the door jerked and showed a splintered panel. Flannagan backed slowly to the corner and held his breath. If he’d judged Lamport right, Lamport wouldn’t leave without taking the last desperate gamble of shooting it out.
Flannagan waited. Seely was behind the big upholstered couch across the room. Flannagan saw the door move slightly and something emerge from it. He held his fire, his eyes darting from the object he hadn’t identified to the door hinge and then back again.