Ken Corning stood in the doorway, took in the sight, and chuckled. Then he said: “Stand by for a time signal. When you hear the gong it will be precisely fourteen minutes past two o’clock in the morning!”
And then he made a deep, bonging noise in imitation of a gong.
Helen Vail stared at him, took her feet down from the desk, rubbed her eyes, and made little tasting noises with her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
“I presume,” she said, “you think you’re being funny. My — it is two o’clock, and after!”
He grinned at her.
“Gee, I’m sorry, kid. I busted that Colton case wide open, and we’re going to have notoriety of sorts. The ring has crawled in a hole and pulled the hole in after it. And, incidentally, they’re laying for me. If they ever get me now — Good-night!”
The girl got to her feet, straightened her skirts, then ran careful fingers up the seams of her stockings. “In other words,” she said, her head down, eyes inspecting her hose, “you clean forgot that I was waiting up here, in accordance with your iron-clad instructions!”
He said: “Aw, Helen, have a heart! I...”
She sighed and said: “Well, I had a hunch I should have done exactly what you told me until that telephone call came in, and then I had a hunch to go home. I should have followed that hunch!”
He smiled, a little wistfully, and said: “You talk as though good jobs grew on bushes. You can’t go home now, anyway. You’ve got to go find Mrs. Colton and break the news to her. She’ll be wild with suspense.”
Helen shook her head.
“Not that baby,” she said. “I got the bell hop to stake us to a quart of liquor before I changed my clothes and came up here. She’ll be bye-bye.”
Ken Corning sighed. “You sure do take liberties with my clients and my expense money. We’ve got to wake her up and tell her, anyway. She’ll be glad to know George Colton was framed all the way through. But it’s hell from my standpoint. Colton doesn’t even know I was representing him!”
And he grinned.
“Meaning you won’t get any more fee?”
“Meaning I won’t get any more fee,” he told her.
“Cheer up. You’ll get the fee for handling her divorce. She’s all washed up. She had been two or three years ago, but Colton wouldn’t let her break away. He’s one of those obstinate men who want to dominate everybody.”
Ken Corning shook his head and said: “No. I won’t handle her divorce. There’s been too much talk already. Perkins had a lot of dope and the tabloids will be hounding her again as soon as Perkins gets off the front page. She’s got to go to Reno, and she’s got to take the first train out.”
Helen reached for a red-backed legal directory.
“Oh, well,” she said, “we can at least look up some good attorney in Reno to send her to. Then we’ll get a cut on the fee.”
And she started thumbing over the pages, while, from the street outside, the calls of the early newsboys informed belated stragglers of the sensation which had broken in the Colton-Ladue case.
Close Call
Ken Corning stood in his office, feet planted well apart, eyes very cold. They surveyed the officer in coal-black appraisal, steady, hard, hostile, and with obvious annoyance.
“I tell you,” he said, “that I don’t know where Mr. Dangerfield is.”
“He’s your client,” said the officer.
“That doesn’t mean I’m his keeper, does it?”
The detective, who had been standing back of the officer, thrust his way forward.
“Just so there won’t be any misunderstanding about this, I want to state that we hold a warrant for the arrest of Amos Dangerfield. He’s charged with the murder of Walter Copley. Apparently he’s in hiding, and, apparently, he consulted you before he went into hiding.”
Ken Corning said: “All right. Now that you’ve got that off your chest, I still don’t know where he is.”
The detective sneered.
“And I presume you mean to imply that, if you did know, you wouldn’t tell us. Is that right?”
There was a knock at the door of the office.
“Come in,” said Ken Corning.
The door opened. Helen Vail, his stenographer, thrust her hatted head through the opening.
“I was a little late,” she said. “I heard voices, and wondered if you wanted anything.”
Corning smiled affably at the officer and the detective. “Yes,” he said, “I want you to come in here and be a witness. These gentlemen are trying to trap me into being an accessory after the fact. I wish you’d take a notebook and take notes of the conversation. And don’t bother about taking your things off.”
Helen Vail sized up the situation with alert, intelligent eyes.
She reached out through the opening in the door, snatched a notebook from her desk which was by the door, grabbed a pencil, dropped down into a chair, crossed her knees, opened the book on her knee, and said: “Go right ahead. I’m ready.”
Ken Corning said: “Your question was, I believe, whether or not I would tell you where Mr. Dangerfield was, if I knew. Permit me to remind you again that, as I don’t know, the question is beside the point.”
The detective said: “All right. Now you’ve got that off your chest, you’ll admit that we told you we had a warrant for his arrest?”
“Certainly,” said Corning.
“You’re a lawyer. You’d oughta know that it’s a crime to shield anyone accused of murder.”
Ken Corning smiled.
“This man came to you, charged with murder, and you advised him to skip out,” charged the detective.
“I most certainly did nothing of the sort,” replied Corning.
He was smiling now, a smile of cold scorn.
“You knew he was charged with murder.”
“I did not.”
“You knew he was going to be.”
“I am not a mind reader, nor am I a prophet.”
“You know it’s a crime for a lawyer to listen to a man confess to murder, and then advise him to skip out before a warrant can be issued.”
“Perhaps. How about if a man tells you he’s innocent of a murder, but thinks he may be charged with it?”
“Is that what Dangerfield told you?” asked the detective.
Corning’s voice was edged with scorn.
“Since you’re quoting law,” he said, “you might look up some more law and find that whatever a client tells his attorney is a confidential and privileged communication.”
The officer said to the detective: “We ain’t getting anywhere, Bill.”
The detective nodded.
“Listen, guy,” he said, “you’re new to York City. You’ll find out that you can’t be so damned high and mighty and make it stick. This place ain’t healthy for smart alecks like you.”
Corning strode forward towards him. His eyes were cold, scornful and very hard.
“I’ve heard all from you that I want to hear. Get out. My secretary has taken down your threat. It will be available if anything should happen to me.”
The detective laughed, a mirthless cackle of sound.
“Okey,” he said to the officer, “let’s go. Maybe when we come back we’ll have a warrant for this guy.”
Ken Corning stood in the center of the floor and watched them leave the office. When the door had clicked shut, Helen Vail dropped her notebook on the chair, thrust the pencil in her hair and took off her coat.