“How about your clothes?” asked Corning. “Have you everything so you can put it in one suitcase?”
“Sure. That’s what you told me to do.”
“Okey, kid. Get that suitcase packed, and beat it. Leave me the key. I’m going up and stick around on the upper floor for a little while.”
“Promise me you won’t get into trouble,” she said.
He smiled at her, shook his head, and walked out.
Ken Corning climbed the stairs to the floor above, spotted apartment 419, took up his station at the end of the corridor, and waited.
He waited less than five minutes when the door of the apartment opened and a trim, well-dressed young woman stepped into the corridor, pulled the door closed behind her and walked swiftly to the elevator.
Corning waited until he heard the door of the elevator cage slam shut, then moved down the corridor and bent over the lock on the door of the apartment. His third skeleton key clicked back the bolt, and he walked in.
The apartment was similar to the one occupied by Helen Vail. Baggage was stacked up in a neat pile, as though awaiting the call of a transfer man.
Corning started in on the suitcases, and found the diary packed in the first. He made no attempt to examine the diary there, but closed up the suit-case, took the diary with him, and went back to Helen Vail’s apartment. Helen Vail had gone.
Corning picked the lock on the diary, sat down and read it carefully. When he had finished reading, he put it into his pocket and went back to Mabel Fosdick’s apartment and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again, and then when there still was no answer, once more opened the door and stepped into the apartment.
The baggage was gone.
Ken Corning looked at his watch, nodded and went back to Helen Vail’s apartment. He put in ten minutes making certain that there was nothing left in the place which could identify Helen Vail as the tenant who had kept it for so short a time. When he had finished, he left the key on the table, walked out of the apartment, and pulled the door shut after him. The spring lock clicked into place.
The midnight train was clicking over the switches when Ken Corning approached the slim girl in the gray coat with the fur collar.
“Miss Fosdick?” he asked.
She looked up at him speculatively, and nodded coolly.
Ken Corning said: “I want to get a little information from you. It’s a matter of some importance. Do you remember the night that you went to the hockey game with Arthur Longwell, Jim Monteith and Edith Laverne?”
She spoke in a cool, collected voice. “May I ask just what business it is of yours?”
“It happens,” he said, “that it’s rather important. If you don’t answer it might interfere with your trip.”
“You’re a detective?”
“I’m simply telling you that it might interfere with your trip.”
She sighed. “Yes,” she said, “I remember the occasion.”
“Do you remember the teams that were playing?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember the date?”
“I’m not certain that I do. It was some time in the winter — in December, I think.”
“Do you remember which team won, and the score?”
“Yes.”
“Do you suppose it was on the ninth of December?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t tell.”
“Could you tell if you consulted your diary?”
She gave a little convulsive start and stared at him.
“Yes,” she said, “I think so. Why?”
Ken Corning reached into his pocket and pulled out her diary.
She gasped. “Why, what are you doing with that? That’s mine. You’ve no business taking that! You must have stolen it from my suitcase!”
“We’ll talk about that a little later,” lie told her. “Let’s look at the date in the diary and see if you can tell exactly what evening that trip took place.”
She didn’t open the book, but stared at him with blazing eyes.
“You had no business to read my diary,” she said.
Ken Corning planted his feet wide apart, braced his body against the swaying motion of the tram, and stared down at her.
“All right,” he said. “Now I’m going to tell you something. Samuel Grosbeck was murdered on the night of December ninth. Fred Parkett is being tried for that murder. Jim Monteith and Arthur Longwell are going to swear that they were in the vicinity and saw a man running away; that they recognized the man as the defendant, Fred Parkett; that the date was December ninth, and the hour was 10:30 p.m.
“Those men weren’t there at the time. They’re simply giving testimony to help convict the defendant. They knew that you could give evidence that the four of you were sitting in a box at the rink at the very moment the two men claimed to have been near the scene where Grosbeck was murdered. As a result, they’re getting you out of the state.”
She stared at him with an agony of conflicting expressions on her countenance.
“In fact,” said Corning, “you have wondered somewhat about this position and why it was offered to you. You have known generally that Longwell and Monteith were going to be witnesses in this murder case. You haven’t taken the trouble to check back and find out the date and time of the murder, and then consult your diary. I suggest that you do so now.”
“They wouldn’t do anything like that,” she said. “They couldn’t. They’re not that type.”
By way of answer, Ken Corning opened the diary to the date of December ninth, and pushed the open volume into her lap.
“Read it,” he said. “You don’t even need to rely on the diary for it. If you remember the hockey game, the records show that it took place on that particular date, and that it wasn’t over until eleven fifteen — more than an hour after the time the two men swear they were at the scene of the murder.”
His eyes red and swollen from loss of sleep, Ken Corning propped his elbow against the side of the telephone booth, and wearily closed his eyes as he listened to the squawking noises which came over the receiver.
“Did you cover the rooming-house,” he asked, “where you say Lane went?”
Tom Dunton’s voice showed a trace of impatience.
“Of course we covered the rooming-house,” he said. “We checked every man and every woman who went in there, and shadowed them when they went out.”
“And you’re sure Dick Carr wasn’t one of the people who went in?” asked Corning.
“Hell!” said Dunton explosively. “I guess I know Dick Carr when I see him, don’t I? I tell you, Dick Carr didn’t come near the place, and, as nearly as I can find out, there wasn’t any other detective that did.”
“Anybody that looked a little bit suspicious, or off-color?” asked Corning.
“There was only one man,” said Dunton, “and that was a bird about sixty years old, with spectacles that had a black ribbon running down from them. He was clean-shaved, hatchet-faced, tight-lipped, and he looked as though he was afraid somebody was going to catch him. We followed him when he left, and he got in a car that had a chauffeur. The chauffeur drove him off.”
“Get the number of the car?” asked Corning.
“Yes. We got the license number and we’re looking it up... wait a minute, here it comes now. Here’s the dope on the car. It’s owned by a man named Stanwood, Harry Stanwood, of 9486 North Bronson.”
Ken Corning frowned.
“Does that mean anything to you?” asked the detective as Corning continued to be silent.
“Yes,” said Corning, “it means a lot. I don’t know just what it means, but I think it’s what I wanted to know. I’ll call you back later on, maybe.”
He hung up the receiver and strode out of the telephone booth. The weariness seemed to have gone from his face, and in its place was a look of keen concentration; the look which is on the face of a chess player as he contemplates the men on the board at a critical stage of the game.