“I’ll say!”
Then, as the reporter thought a minute, he added: “It would maybe make the D. A. sore, though.”
“Why?”
“Oh, some of the people might get to figuring there was something funny about a witness that the D. A. had to keep all buttoned up that way. When it came to trial you might be able to catch someone on the jury with the argument that the thing was a political frame-up.”
“A dirty political frame-up,” corrected Corning. “Don’t forget the adjective.”
“Okey then, a dirty political frame-up.”
“Going to get the photographer?” asked Corning.
Nixon squinted his eyes.
“Stick around,” he said. “I’ll phone. Don’t get chummy with the other boys. The boss might risk rubbing the D. A. the wrong way, if we got an exclusive.”
Corning nodded, sat down and lit a cigarette.
Inattentively his eyes, watching the crowds on the street, strayed aimlessly. The big, overstuffed chair was placed in front of the plate-glass window, and he could see the people hurrying to and fro.
His eyes rested on a roadster in which two men sat. They seemed interested in the front of the hotel Corning remembered that they had passed the taxicab in which he had been riding. He watched them.
The car was a police car. The two men were plain-clothes officers. Corning could not remember having seen either of them before, but the maimer in which they wore their clothes, held their heads, stared at the entrance of the hotel, labeled them for what they were.
Ken Corning smoked up his cigarette. Reed Nixon came back to him.
“I’ve got the photographer,” he said, “all planted with a flashlight and a camera that won’t attract attention. He’ll follow you down the corridor. Go up to the third floor and turn to the left when you leave the elevator.”
Ken Corning got to his feet, grinned, and walked to the elevator.
Reed Nixon strolled to the stairways, vanished from sight.
Ken Corning left the elevator at the third floor, turned left and walked down the corridor. He checked the numbers on the doors as he went past them.
When he had passed 318 and was approaching 320 a man who had been standing in the corridor came towards him.
“What you looking for, buddy?”
“Three twenty-four.”
“Got a pass from the D. A.?”
“No,” said Corning gravely. “I’m Corning, the lawyer who is representing Mr. Dangerfield. I understand that there’s a witness here who knows something about what happened. I want to talk with him.”
The man grinned.
“Well,” he said, “he don’t want to talk with you.”
Corning’s face was baby-faced in its utter innocence.
“Well,” he said, “if he’d tell me that, it would be all I’d want. That would show that he was biased in favor of one side of the case, you see; and I could spring it on him when I cross-examined him.”
The man frowned, stared fixedly at Ken Corning.
“Say, listen, what you doing? Taking me for a goof?”
Ken said: “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“A goof.”
The man pushed his way forward.
“Okey. That’s enough out of you. On your way. I don’t want any more of your lip, buddy.”
Ken Corning stood his ground.
“I wish to see Mr. Robert Durane,” he said.
“On your way, guy. Beat it!”
The man pushed out a big hand. Ken Corning pivoted from the hip, just the fraction of a deft turn, but it served to take his shoulder out of the path of the pushing hand. The big man lost his balance as he came forward. Ken Corning’s foot moved slightly. As the man took a swift step forward to catch his balance, his foot tangled with Corning’s. He sprawled flat on his face.
Corning moved forward, twisted the knob of room 324.
He heard a roar of rage behind him.
The door opened.
Ken Corning saw a man seated in a chair in front of a table, playing solitaire. He was smoking a cigar. He looked up as the door opened, and Ken saw that there was a livid scar down the right-hand side of his face, that t he man had hulking shoulders, a thick neck...
Another man who had been seated on the bed, reading, jumped forward. His form bulked in the doorway and blotted out Corning’s gaze of the interior of the room.
“Got a pass?” he asked.
An avalanche of human indignation descended upon Ken Corning from the rear. He felt powerful hands grasp his shoulder, felt himself spun around. A fist lashed out and caught him on the side of the face.
At that moment something went “Pouff!”
The corridor lighted up with the powerful glare of a flash gun.
Ken Corning dodged the next blow. The man from the interior of the room rushed him. Hands gripped his coat. He was pushed down the corridor. A foot impacted the small of his back, and he gave a swift leap to take him out of the way of another foot that sent a vicious kick.
Corning flashed a glance over his shoulder, then buckled down to the business of running, making time down the corridor. He hurled himself around the corner of the stairs. The bigger men made slow work of negotiating the turn.
Ken Corning distanced them on the stairs. They were slow and clumsy in their footwork. They followed him down the first flight, and part of the way down the second flight. When they found that pursuit was fruitless, they raised voices in maledictions.
Ken Corning kept right on going.
He paused to adjust coat and necktie on the mezzanine. A mirror showed him that one eye was swelling badly. The side of his face felt sore to the exploring touch of his fingertips.
He grinned. After a few minutes he walked down to the lobby, strolling through it casually.
He met Reed Nixon near the doorway.
The reporter said, under his breath:
“Gee, guy, you gave us a break!”
“You get the picture?” asked Corning.
“And how! He caught a picture just when the guy was socking you with a right. But when they both started chasing you, it was a break we’d been looking for. Our photographer stuck in another plate, dashed down the corridor, stuck his camera in the room and set off another flash.
“We’re rushing ’em over to develop ’em. We think we got a peach of the mystery witness that they’re trying to keep under cover. If we did, we’ll play it up strong. It’ll mean the D. A. will be sore, so we might as well go the whole hog. If I can sell the Chief on it, I’m going to give you a big play.”
“Okey, thanks,” said Corning, and walked out.
He was careful not to look directly at the automobile with the two officers, but was equally careful to observe, out of the corner of his eye, that the machine crawled into motion.
He walked to a drug-store on the comer and called his office.
“Anything?” he asked Helen Vail when he heard her voice on the line.
“I’ll say. You got an answer to your ad.”
“Fine. What was it?”
“Telephone call to meet the party at the Fleming Hotel He said you knew the name he’d be registered under. He’s in Room 526.”
“Okey,” said Corning. “If he calls in again, tell him that I’m on my way out there, but that a couple of dicks are trailing me in the hope that I’ll lead them to him, so I’ll have to take it a little easy.”
“You going to ditch them?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “this is my day for taking the police department for a ride. I’m going to kid ’em along strong.”
He hung up, walked out and caught a cab.
He noticed that the police car fell in behind.