Ken Corning opened the book.
At the place where the handkerchief and pencil had been was the division point between that part of the book which had been filled with shorthand, and the blank pages. Ken Corning thrust this notebook into his pocket. He closed the desk, switched out the lights in the offices and departed as quietly as he had come.
When he left the building, he removed the gloves which had been on his hands. He went at once to a telephone, called the Gladstone Hotel and was relieved to hear Helen Vail’s voice over the wire.
“How’s everything?” he asked.
“Fine as silk.”
“Anybody spot you?”
“Nope.”
“Can you slip over to the Antlers right away?”
“Give me ten minutes,” she said. “I’m dressed formal.”
“Dressed! I didn’t know you took any clothes with you! You weren’t foolish enough to go after a suitcase, were you?”
She giggled.
“You gave me expense money. I figured I’d be conspicuous if I didn’t dress. You should see the gown. It’s a darb, and cheap, too! It only cost—”
He groaned.
“Ten minutes then,” he said, and hung up.
He caught a cab. Went to his room in the Antlers, and Helen Vail pushed open the door within three minutes of the time he had finished washing his hands.
She wore a low cut gown which accentuated the curves of her figure. Her eyes were laughing, radiant. She drifted over to him, whirled so that he could see the back, and wiggled her shoulders.
“Isn’t it a darb? It only...”
“If you think that’s a legitimate expense, you’re crazy,” he told her. “Snap out of it. This is a murder case, not a picnic.”
She grinned.
“Murder case for you, picnic for me,” she said. “I didn’t have a darned thing to do all day except sprawl around and kick my toes at the ceiling.”
Then, at the look on his face, she came close to him, put an arm on his shoulder.
“Don’t be sore, Ken. I was kidding you about the gown. Mrs. Colton bought it for me. She has a charge account. She couldn’t just sit around staring at the blank walls of a hotel room. She had to go down to dinner. You’re a lawyer. You don’t know women. She’d have brooded over things and had hysterics if I’d left her in that room.”
He pushed the girl away, held her at arm’s length, stared into her eyes with his own eyes hot with wrath.
“You little fool, do you mean to tell me that you went to a department store, or wherever it was, and used Mrs. Colton’s charge account with her written okey?”
She nodded.
“Why, they’ll trace you from that. That’ll give them the link they want. They’re dragging the city for that woman. Someone’s leaked. They’re moving heaven and earth to drag her over to the D. A.’s office to question her on this Ladue business. Look at the evening papers!”
And he slammed an evening paper down on the bed so that the big headlines could be read as they streamed across the page.
“Sex Slant in Slaying!” read the headlines. Down below in smaller type were other headlines: “Slayer’s Spouse Seeks Lawyer! D. A. Awaits Wife as Witness!”
She came close to him again.
“I’m sorry, Ken. But I’m not a fool. I fixed things so they’d never be able to trail me, and I engaged a private dining-room in the hotel, and I had a girl friend I could trust come in, and we had a nice little dinner, and Mrs. Colton’s all pepped up again, and ready to see it through. She was getting weepy and had the suicide complex again this afternoon.”
He patted her shoulder.
“I guess it’s all right. It’d have been hell if your foot had slipped and they’d picked you up.”
She grinned at him.
“But my foot didn’t slip,” she pointed out. “And, anyhow, all life’s like that. It’s fine if your foot don’t slip. But there’s always that chance of slipping, and that’s what makes it so much fun.”
She smiled up into his face. He pulled her suddenly towards him.
“Oh-oh!” she said, “You’ll get powder on your coat if you do that!”
And, laughingly, she freed herself.
Ken Corning sighed, lit a cigarette, pulled the notebook out of his pocket.
“That your system of shorthand?” he asked.
She lost her bantering manner and instantly became serious. She sat down on the bed, crossed her knees, put the notebook out on her lap, started studying the notes.
“I can read it,” she said. “It’s my system. She didn’t write it any too legibly. Guess she could read her notes after they were cold. It’d take me a little while to get the sense of it. I can get words here and there.”
“Okey,” he said. “I’m guessing that nobody dictated to her today. Take that last bunch of shorthand that’s there, and see if you can make it out.”
The girl ran through the pages, found the last one, started frowning as she deciphered the words. Her lips moved soundlessly at first, and then made audible words.
“... ‘party of the second part, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged’... then there’s something I can’t make out... ‘hereby bargains and sells, remises and forever quitclaims to the said party of the first part, all and singular, the lands, tenements and hereditaments.’... There’s a lot of description. You don’t want that, do you? It’s surveyor’s description. So many chains from a certain point, and then boundaries in feet and tenths of feet.”
Ken Corning’s eyes were narrowed to slits.
“Quitclaim deed, eh? Who’s the party of the first part?”
She glanced back along the page.
“Some corporation. The Home Builders Realty Corporation.”
Ken Corning’s face showed keen disappointment. Helen Vail let her eyes travel down the shorthand notes. “That seems to be all that it is,” she said, “a regular quitclaim.”
Ken Corning said: “Why would they make a quitclaim if they had title to the property? You’d think they’d either have assigned a contract or else given a grant deed. Maybe it was a flaw in the title... Wait a minute, Helen. Go back of that. What’s the thing in the book that’s just before that quitclaim?”
The girl thumbed back the page, let her eyes wander down the page. Suddenly she caught her breath in a quick gasp.
“Listen to this: ‘Whereas the said undersigned, the said Charles C. Perkins, utilized the said confidential information to fraudulently and feloniously procure a transfer of title to The Home Builders Realty Corporation, a dummy corporation, organized, owned and controlled by the said Charles C. Perkins...”
Ken Corning made a dive, grabbed the notebook from her hand.
“That’s enough. Get out of that damned dress. Get it off!”
She stared at him with wide eyes.
“Says which?” she asked.
He waved his hand towards the door.
“Get started. Back to your hotel. Get out of that bunch of glad rags.”
He pushed her towards the door. “Get into your office clothes. When I give you a ring, you go to the office, open up the door and turn on the lights. If anyone asks you questions tell them I telephoned you to come to the office to take some dictation. Tell them you don’t know where I telephoned from. And don’t let on that you know the wire is tapped. I’ll probably telephone you and start talking a bunch of stuff over the telephone. You follow my lead.”
She nodded. He opened the door, pushed her into the corridor.
“And listen,” he told her, “that’s one bunch of instructions you’re not to take liberties with. You disobey those, and I’ll break your neck. Understand!”