“I want to know if those facts are correct,” said Corning.
“They are.”
“Can you add to them?”
She hesitated, sipped her coffee, looked up at him and said: “No.”
He kept his eyes on hers.
“Had there been someone else in the office that evening?”
“Which office?”
“The entrance office. Had anyone else gone in to see Ladue?”
“No.”
“How about the other office? Had anyone else gone in there? There’s a door that opens out to the corridor. It’s used as an exit from the private office, but a person could have come in there.”
“Not unless Ladue had let them in.”
“Well, did he let anyone come in?”
She sipped her coffee again.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Ken Corning drummed with his fingers on the edge of the table. His eyes dwelt upon the girl’s face in calm appraisal. “You were all three in the outer office?”
“At the time of the shooting. Yes.”
“Exactly who was in the private office at the time of the shooting, beside Ladue and Colton?” rasped Corning.
She said: “Why, I didn’t know that anybody was. If anybody had been it’s almost certain that Mr. Colton would have known it, isn’t it?”
Ken Corning stared at her. She lowered her eyes and sipped the coffee again.
Corning said: “The newspapers say the lights were turned off at the switch. Why would Colton have turned off the lights?”
She set down the coffee cup and let her eyes stare into his.
“If,” she said, “you’re Mr. Colton’s attorney, don’t you think that would be a good question to ask him?”
Ken Corning pushed aside a sugar bowl and salt cellar so that he could lean his elbows on the table. He thrust his weight forward on those elbows, his forearms crossed, the lingers gripping the bend of the elbow.
“All right,” he said, “if you feel that way about it, I want to know what there was about that inner office that you’re concealing!”
She reached for the coffee cup again, then raised her eyes to his. They were cool, impersonal.
“Am I concealing something?” she asked.
He nodded grimly.
“Yes,” he said. “Your answers ring true enough whenever I ask you about the outer office. But every time I mention that inner office you start reaching for that coffee cup. Now tell me what there is about that inner office that you’re not sure about.”
She locked her eyes with his, felt the full impact of those coldly questioning eyes of his, and lowered her own.
“Come on,” said Ken Corning. “There’s a human life at stake, you know.”
She spoke more slowly now, and in a lower tone. She seemed less sure of herself.
“We have an extension telephone system,” she said. “Miss Kent handles the incoming calls and puts through those that should go to Mr. Ladue, and weeds out the others. She stepped out of the office for a moment, and a call came in. I stepped over to her desk to put it through.
“It was a man by the name of Perkins. He’d been at the office before. I recognized his voice and, in addition to that, he gave me his name. I think he was a detective. He asked for Mr. Ladue and I put the call through. I should have hung up then, but I wanted to make certain that I’d handled it all right, because Mr. Ladue was very particular about his calls, so I waited on the line.
“I heard Mr. Perkins call Mr. Ladue by his first name. He said, as nearly as I can remember: ‘I’ve got some important information for you, Harry. I want to come right up.’ And Mr. Ladue said for him to come along; that the time limit was about up.
“That was all I heard. I went back to my desk. Miss Kent came in, but Mr. Perkins didn’t come in. At least he didn’t come to the outer office. After a while Mr, Ladue rang for Miss Kent to come in and bring her book. She stepped into the office, and I thought there was just a bit of surprise in her manner as she opened the door to the inner office. It was just the way she would have acted if she’d expected to find Mr. Ladue alone, and had found someone else in there with him.”
“That all?” asked Ken.
“That’s all.”
“I can’t very well go before a jury with that as a defense,” he told her.
She replied testily: “I didn’t say you could. You’re the lawyer, I’m not. You asked me for the facts, and I gave them to you. Incidentally, if you should mention that I told you this, as though I thought it was at all significant, I’d be out of a job — to say the least,”
He looked at her with thought-squinted eyes.
“It’s a corporation of some sort, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It handles real estate.”
“And Ladue was the head of it?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t he handle the purchase for the city of a big tract? Wasn’t there something about his getting options and selling them to the city?”
Her voice became utterly cold.
“If you wish to discuss the business affairs of my employers, you will have to ask your questions elsewhere. I am merely telling you what I know about the murder.”
Ken Corning said: “Can you describe this man, Perkins?”
“Yes,” she said. “He was at the office a few times. He’s about forty-five with very broad shoulders and a short neck. He carries his head pretty well forward, and has a pair of shrewd gray eyes that seem to twinkle at times. He usually wears a tweed suit...”
“I know him,” said Corning. “His name’s Charles C. Perkins. He works as a detective. I think he’s on the force.”
“I never did know,” said Nell Blake, “exactly what he did. And now, if you’ll pardon me, I’ll be leaving.”
“One question more. Have you asked Althea Kent about any of this?”
“Certainly not. You know what she told the newspaper reporters. I’m certainly not fool enough to go to her and insinuate that she was concealing any facts.”
Ken Corning reached for the lunch check by Nell Blake’s plate.
“Permit me,” he said
She drew herself up with dignity, taking the check and folding it in her fingers.
“I am perfectly capable of paying my own way,” she said, coolly, turned on her heel and walked away.
Ken Corning got the Gladstone on the telephone and asked for Miss Seaton in room five-thirty-six. After a few moments he heard Helen Vail’s voice over the telephone.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“In a speak down on Madison,” he said. “Know anything?”
“Lots,” she told him. “I got to thinking about the mail, and wondering if there might not be something important in it. I wanted to get it. So I went down to a public telephone booth and called the assistant janitor of the building.”
Ken Corning said: “You mean the one with the patent leather hair that’s got such a case on you?”
She giggled.
“Well,” he rasped, “go on What was in the mail?”
She giggled again, and said: “A circular from a house that wanted to save you money on socks and neckties, and another circular advertising a privately printed book that was being sold to doctors and lawyers — and anybody else that had the price.”
“That all?”
“That was all.”
“Well, what the devil? What’s so important?”
“It was what the assistant janitor told me,” she said. “He said the wire had been tapped. They’re fixed to listen in on your phone calls. He found it out by accident. He came into the office when they were working. They want... you know who... and they figure you’re in touch with her. They’re waiting for her to try and call up, or for you to call the office.”
Ken Corning rasped out a curse.
“Naughty, naughty,” she chided. “They’ll take the phone out if you talk that way. Central might be listening in, and she’s got tender ears.”