He answered the telephone himself.
‘What do you make of him, Justin?’
‘I don’t think he did it,’ Francon said briskly. ‘But that doesn’t mean I can get him off. I’ll try, but it looks pretty hopeless. The frame’s too good. Whoever planted the evidence knew his business. The money is damning. Shall we get together tomorrow morning at my office? We’ll have a look at it from every angle and see what we can do. Make it ten. All right?’
‘I’ll be there,’ I said.
‘Don’t expect too much, Vic. I don’t like to say it, but I think he’s a dead duck.’ ‘He isn’t dead yet,’ I said shortly and hung up.
III
Justin Francon sat in his desk chair with his legs hanging over one of the arms, his thumbs hooked into the armholes of his vest, a dead cigar jutting out of his face.
He was a thin, small, leathery man with a straggly black moustache, high cheekbones, a big, bony nose and small, bright black eyes. He reminded me of a ferret. You wouldn’t think to look at him he was the smartest lawyer on the Pacific Coast, but he was. He was in a class of his own, and had more millionaire clients in his fee-book than any other lawyer in the country.
Paula, Kerman and I sat in a half-circle before the massive desk. Francon allowed us the doubtful privilege of studying his profile while he stared out of his office window at the golden beach stretched out twenty storeys below him. The silence mounted in the big air office while he turned the facts over in his mind.
Finally, he shrugged, swung his legs off the arm of the chair and faced us.
‘Nothing you’ve told me would convince a jury that Pereli didn’t murder Souki or kidnap Dedrick,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to get me some ammunition. Right now we haven’t a damn thing. There’s enough evidence on Perelli to convict him without the jury leaving the box. You’ve got to face it. Feeling is running high. He won’t get a fair trial. His record’s against him. Unless you hand me something pretty substantial to hit the D.A. with, there’s nothing I can do for him except talk a lot of hot air that won’t get him anywhere. They intend to indict him on Souki’s murder, but if, in the meantime, they find Dedrick’s body, they’ll hook the two killings together, and it’ll be all over bar the gas chamber.’
He stared at his dead cigar, frowning, then dropped it into the trash basket.
‘Now let’s see what they’ve got on him. They’ve found the gun in his apartment. If I worked hard enough, I could convince a jury the gun was a plant. The fishing-rod could be disposed of too. Anyone can have a fishing-rod. But the money is something no one will believe was planted. That’s where the fellow who planted it showed he has brains. A hundred thousand is a whale of a lot of money. We’re agreed on that, aren’t we?’
I nodded.
‘All right. Well, so far the one thing we can’t get around is the money. The oilskin wrappers could have been planted, but once the jury makes up its mind the money wasn’t planted, then there’s no reason why the gun, the oilskin wrappers or the rod should have been also planted, and that makes the DA’s case watertight. You see that, don’t you?’
Yeah, but all the same, we know the money was planted. Couldn’t you persuade the jury that the kidnapper, to save his own dirty hide, would be willing to part with a fifth of his spoils?’
Francon shook his head.
‘I don’t think so. It’d be too much of a risk. If Perelli had a good alibi, we might get away with it, but he hasn’t. And another thing, his fingerprints are on the gun.’
‘I heard that, but I don’t believe it.’
Francon nodded his head.
‘If s a fact. I’ve seen them.’
But Perelli didn’t handle the gun.’
‘He says Brandon gave him the gun and asked him if he could identify it. He handled it all right, but he handled it after it was found.’
‘For Pete’s sake! You’re not going to let Brandon get away with that, are you?’
‘It’s Perelli’s word against the Captain of Police. Who do you think would be believed?’
There was a long pause, then he went on, ‘So you see how it stacks up. I’ve got to have something hot and meaty to go into court with, and if I don’t get it, I’m passing up the case. That’s the position. I’ve got to have something to work with. Its up to you to give it to me.’
‘I’ll dig up something if it kills me,’ I said. ‘The only way for us to crack this case is to start right from the beginning and dig until something turns up. I have an idea at the back of my mind that this isn’t just a gang of kidnappers at work. I may be right off the beam, but it’s a hunch that’s growing stronger every day.’
‘I don’t follow you,’ Francon said, frowning at me.
‘I don’t exactly follow myself,’ I said and grinned. ‘I do know that Franklin Marshland’s damn’ pleased that Dedrick is among the missing. I’m going to find out why. He looks a harmless little guy, but every now and then you catch a look in his eyes and you suddenly realize he could be dangerous. The wedding was secret. Why? Suppose Marshland’s at the back of the kidnapping? Suppose he realized that Serena had married a crook who was only after her money? Suppose he decided to get rid of Dedrick and staged a faked kidnapping? I’m not saying this happened, but it’s an idea. Suppose this Mary Jerome is hooked up in some way to Dedrick’s past. You see what I mean? If this is an ordinary kidnapping job, and the kidnappers are just a gang from anywhere, then we’re sunk. But if this is an inside job, if Marshland’s at the back of it, then maybe we can crack it.’
Francon was looking interested now.
‘You might have something there, Vic. It’s worth trying.’
‘It’s the only thing we’ve got. I’m going after Mary Jerome. She was first seen at the Acme Garage, and that’s where I’d going to start to look for her. If I can trace her from the garage to Ocean End on the night Dedrick was kidnapped then I may come across something on the way. I’m going to dig into Souki’s past. No one’s bothered with him yet. Then there’s Dedrick himself. I’m sending Jack to Paris right away to get hold of every scrap of information about Dedrick he can find. All this may be a waste of time, but it’s our only chance. We’re digging a big plot of ground in which something valuable may or may not be buried. If we don’t dig, we won’t find it, and if it’s not there to find then, it’s just too bad.’
‘I think Mary Jerome’s a good line of investigation,’ Franco said, pulling at his long, bony nose, ‘but I can’t see any point in bothering about Souki.’
‘That’s just why I’m going to do it. No one’s bothered to look at Souki. He’s just the corpse. I’m leaving nothing to chance. I can’t afford to.’
‘Well, all right, but don’t waste too much time on it. You wouldn’t know if Perelli had an enemy, would you? Someone must have hated him pretty badly to have hung that frame on him.’
‘Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that. There’s one man who’s tailor-made for the job. A nasty little rat named Jeff Barratt. He’s a reefer-addict and a thorough bad egg. He has an apartment opposite Perelli’s. I went on to tell Francon how I had called on Barratt and how Perelli had saved my life.
‘Does Brandon know this?’ Francon said, interested.
‘No; but if he did, it wouldn’t make him change his mind. I’m going to dig into Barratt’s background. That fishing-rod is something you couldn’t easily conceal. Someone had to carry it into Perelli’s apartment. I’m hoping whoever it was was seen.’ I stood up. ‘Well, we’d better get moving. As soon as I have something for you, you’ll have it.’