“Yeah? Maybe he don’t want to talk with you.”
“Maybe,” said Corning. “And then again, maybe he does. You going to pass me in to see him, or have I got to get rusty about it?”
“If he asks us to pass you in, we’ll see that you get a pass as his lawyer,” said Graves.
“But, if I can’t see him,” said Corning, “how the hell can I get him to make the request of you?”
“That,” said Graves, chuckling, “is one of the problems that you’ve got in connection with the case. It’s your hard luck. It ain’t mine.”
“Okey,” said Ken. “As attorney for someone who is acting on his behalf I can file a writ of habeas corpus application and that’ll bring him into court. I’ll talk with him there if I can’t talk with him any other way.”
Graves spoke in icy tones.
“Going to get nasty, eh?”
“If I have to, yes.”
“Okey,” said Graves. “In that event you might be interested to learn that there’s a warrant out for your arrest. Assault and battery on the person of one Edward Fosdick, reporter for the Daily Despatch I believe I can add a count of malicious mischief in the breaking of one camera, too. Show up in court any time you want to, Corning, and the warrant will be served on you then.”
Corning gripped the receiver.
“How long has that warrant been issued?” he asked.
Don Graves chuckled.
“It’s on my desk for an okey on the complaint now,” he said. “I wasn’t certain that I was going to okey a warrant on it; but I’m doing it now, The more I think of it, the more it seems like an aggravated case. I wouldn’t doubt if you got a jail sentence.”
Ken Corning said: “Let me talk to the D.A. He won’t stand for all these shyster tactics that you use, Graves, and you know it.”
Graves said: “The D.A.’s busy. He won’t talk over the phone. You know that as well as I do. Why don’t you come to the office and make a squawk.”
“Yeah,” said Corning, “and have you get that warrant served on me, and me thrown in the can before I got a chance to see the D.A. I wasn’t born yesterday. You can just try and find me to serve that warrant, and you can just try to find out who my client is, and where.”
Graves said: “We know who she is. That don’t interest us any more. But there’s another angle to this case that we want to investigate. We’re interested in knowing where she is. And we’re going to find out. You can’t prepare to take part in this case and keep under cover at the same time.”
“The hell I can’t,” said Ken Corning, and slammed the receiver on the hook.
Helen Vail said, blowing cigarette smoke out with the words: “You shouldn’t lose your temper and cuss when you’re talking with Don Graves, Ken. He’s the kind that’s always trying to make people lose their tempers.”
Ken stared at her with his eyes cold as twin chunks of ice reflecting the glint of the Northern Lights.
“Before I get done with that bald-headed crook I’ll show him something. He’s hand in glove with Carl Dwight and the other crooked politicians that are running this town. The D. A., himself, wouldn’t stand for the stuff they pull, if he knew about it. He just leaves things in the hands of his deputies, and they’re a hot bunch of crooks! They’re giving that reporter a warrant just because they know that Mrs. Colton came to my office, and they think I’m hiding her.”
Helen Vail grinned.
“Well you are, aren’t you?”
He nodded grimly, reached for his hat.
“You bet I am,” he said, “and I’m going to keep on hiding her! That outfit up there is run by the newspapers. The reporters come in and yell for a fresh angle on the murder mystery, and the D.A.’s office has to dig it up for them. The more spectacular the better. Well, there’s just one way to beat that game. I’m going to get one jump ahead of them, and keep there.”
She watched him with speculative eyes.
“Be back?” she asked.
“Some time,” he said. “You stick around the Gladstone. Thought I told you not to leave that woman alone for a minute.”
She grinned. “That was because she was figuring on bumping herself off. She’s over it now She’s going to cooperate. It’s a wise steno that knows when it’s safe to disobey orders.”
He frowned down at her.
“You’re a wise little rat,” he said. “Some day that independence of yours is going to get you fired.”
She grinned at him, and he slammed the door.
“Lock it when you go out and turn the key in at the desk,” he called, and then went striding down the corridor. She could hear the pound of his heels on the carpet, all the way from the door of the room to the elevator shaft.
Nell Blake was plain, thirty-two and a man-hater. She did her hair back from her forehead in firm lines of rigid precision. She wore spectacles and made no attempt to disguise the fact. She scorned the use of cosmetics, and sat very erect. She was by far the most competent stenographer Harry Ladue had ever hired.
She sat at the lunch table and stared across at Ken Corning.
“So you followed me here to talk about the murder?” she asked.
Ken Corning nodded grimly.
“I don’t know you, and I don’t know anything about the murder,” said Nell Blake in firm, precise tones. “I don’t want to be annoyed, and unless you leave me I shall call an officer.”
Ken Corning grinned at her.
“Listen,” he said, “sooner or later you’re going on the witness stand, maybe more than once. I’m going to be the attorney for the defense, and I’m going to cross-examine you. If you’re willing to be fair with me, I won’t hurt you much with a cross-examination. But you try to ritz me now, and I’ll rip you wide open.”
She blinked her eyes from behind the spectacles.
“Oh,” she said, in a slightly altered voice, “you’re the lawyer, are you? I thought you were another reporter, trying to force a sex angle into the case.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to keep it out, if you want to know.”
The mouth was a firm, thin line. The eyes behind the spectacles were cool and calculating.
“Precisely what,” she asked, “was it that you wished to know? I have exactly one hour for lunch, and I don’t propose to waste it listening to some man talk in circles. If you want to interview me, get to the point and keep there.”
He leaned across the table.
“You were in the office at the time of the shooting?”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
“Adella Parks, the other stenographer; and Miss Althea Kent, his private secretary.”
“All right. Now you and Miss Parks had desks on one side of the outer office, and Althea Kent had hers in a corner near the door to the private office. That right?”
“Yes.”
“According to the newspaper accounts, George Colton came to call on Ladue. He gave his name to Miss Kent. She telephoned in to Ladue, and Ladue said to show him in. It was about nine o’clock at night. The office was working full blast trying to get out some letters in connection with a real estate campaign.
“Colton walked into the inside office and was heard to say: ‘Hello, Harry,’ then the door closed and there was silence for a few seconds, then the sound of two shots. When the door was opened, the inner office was in darkness, Ladue was lying on the floor, dead, and Colton was yelling that Ladue was shot.
“There was a gun on the floor. It was subsequently identified as having been Colton’s gun. He admits that it was his, but swears that he didn’t bring it with him. He says he was talking with Ladue when the lights went out and someone shot.”
Corning quit speaking.
“Well?” asked Nell Blake, in a coolly superior tone of voice.