“Not necessarily,” said Jason. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t, and,” he added after a moment’s pause, “there’s no particular reason why I should.”
“The shooting,” said Corning, “took place right across the street. If you’d been home, you’d probably have been a witness.”
“But,” said Jason, “I wasn’t home.”
“Rather a peculiar thing,” Corning told him, “that the shooting should have been in this neighborhood, and you should have been foreman of the Grand Jury which indicted a man for murder.”
“Murders,” Jason said, “have been committed in all parts of the city. I don’t know that there’s any reason a man can’t be held up in this neighborhood simply because I happen to he on the Grand Jury.”
“The evidence,” persisted Corning, “shows that Grosbeck and Harry Stanwood were driving in an automobile. Stanwood is a little bit hazy as to just why they happened to stop here. They had been sitting in the car for some fifteen or twenty minutes before the holdup, and, as I have said, the car was directly across the street from this house.”
“As I remember the evidence that was introduced before the Grand Jury,” Jason said, “that’s an accurate statement.”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” asked Corning, “that there might have been a reason that the killing took place in this neighborhood?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean has it ever occurred to you that the murder might have been committed here because you were foreman of the Grand Jury?”
“What would that have to do with it?”
“It may have been that Grosbeck wanted to see you, and was waiting across the street for you to come home so that he could see you as soon as you arrived.”
“What makes you think that?” Jason inquired with mild curiosity.
“Because it is very possible it was so. Have you any reason to believe that Grosbeck was waiting in this neighborhood to see you?”
“No.”
“Do you know why Grosbeck was there?”
“No.”
“Do you know anything about Grosbeck?”
“No.”
“Had you ever met him, or talked with him before the murder?”
“No.”
“How long after the murder did you come home?”
“It must have been fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“Did you hear Stanwood telling the officers what had happened?”
“You mean after I came home on the night of the murder?”
“Yes.”
“No, I heard nothing. My wife told me about what had happened. She heard the sound of the shot. She was in bed. She thought at first it was a truck that had backfired. That’s all I know about it.”
“Did she hear the murderer running away?” asked Corning.
“You mean his steps on the pavement?”
“Yes.”
“No. I think she heard the men who ran towards the car after Mr. Stanwood raised the alarm.”
“If,” said Corning, “she heard the steps of the murderer running away from the scene of the crime, she could have told, from the sound of the steps, whether or not the man was lame, couldn’t she?”
“Perhaps; but she didn’t hear any steps. I’m afraid she can’t help you as a witness, Mr. Corning. I’ve talked the matter over with her in great detail. She knows nothing that would help your client.”
“Does she know anything that would hurt him?” Corning asked.
“No. She heard the shot, that’s all.”
Ken Coining said: “Thank you. I’m sorry I disturbed you,” and pushed his way through the door.
The Columbino was a cabaret where fairly good liquor could be obtained. An orchestra played dance music, and a half-dozen entertainers put on a varied vaudeville program between dances. B. W. Flint sat alone at a table, eating slowly, pausing from time to time to stare at the dancers or watch the entertainers.
Ken Corning stood by the hat-check stand, and watched Flint for a few minutes. He tried to find if Flint exchanged any signals or significant glances with anyone else in the room.
After his inspection had yielded him nothing, Ken Corning walked into the cabaret, and moved over to Flint’s table.
Flint looked at him with keenly appraising eyes, and a face which showed no expression whatever, either of hope or surprise.
Ken Corning dropped into the chair across the table.
“Well?” asked Flint.
Ken Corning reached into his pocket and took out a sealed manila envelope. His eyes were fastened on Flint’s face as he pulled the envelope into sight.
Flint looked at the envelope just as he had looked at Ken Corning, without any particular expression.
Ken Corning toyed with the envelope.
“What assurance have I,” he asked, “that if I do what you want, you can do what you said you would?”
Flint’s answer was prompt and pointed. “You haven’t any assurance,” he said, “except my word.”
“But I don’t know you,” said Corning.
“Exactly,” Flint said.
Corning studied the smoke which eddied upward from his cigarette.
“Suppose you should double-cross me?” he asked.
“How could I double-cross you?”
“That’s easy enough. You could use the contents of that envelope to trap my client.”
“If I wanted to double-cross you,” said Flint, “I would have had detectives stationed around here. I would have given them a signal as soon as I found out you had the envelope, and they would grab you and take the envelope from your possession. After you pass it over to me, I have no way of connecting it with you or your client except by my testimony, and your word is as good as mine.”
“If no one sees me when I hand it to you,” said Corning.
“Well, no one needs to see.”
“All right,” said Corning. “That sounds reasonable. I’ll go out and get in a taxicab and wait. You go straight down the street for two blocks and wait at the comer. I’ll follow you and get out. You get in the same taxicab, look under the seat cushion, and you’ll find the envelope.”
“You’re going to a lot of unnecessary trouble,” Flint told him. “You could hand it to me here, under the table.”
“No, I’d rather have it that way,” said Corning.
Flint shrugged his shoulders.
“Wait until I can get my waiter and pay my check.”
Ken Corning walked from the cabaret, found a taxi at the door and sat in it until he saw Flint leave the cabaret and walk swiftly down the street.
“Cruise along behind that man,” he told the driver.
As the cab ground into slow motion, Ken Corning pulled the manila envelope from his pocket and slipped it under the cushions of the seat. He kept peering about, to make certain that no one was following Flint. At the comer of the second block, Flint stopped. Corning tapped on the glass and handed the driver a dollar bill.
“I’m leaving you here, buddy,” he said. “That man waiting there at the corner is going to signal you.”
The cab driver turned to flash Corning a single suspicious glance, but pocketed the dollar bill and grinned as he pulled into the curb. Corning stepped out of the cab without looking at Flint, turned and walked rapidly back towards The Columbino. Flint raised his arm and signaled the cab.
Ken Corning’s roadster was parked at the curb, facing the direction in which the cab was headed. He climbed into the roadster as Flint was entering the cab, and stepped on the starter. As the cab swung out into the middle of the street, Ken Corning snapped home the gearshift and eased in the clutch. His roadster purred into traffic behind the taxicab.
Following the taxicab was an easy matter. Flint was evidently in a hurry, and had instructed the cab driver to step on it. The cab went at high speed straight down the boulevard, turned to the left, roared into speed again, and slowed as it came to the neighborhood in which the murder of Samuel Grosbeck had been committed.