“You thought there was a chance you might be looked for, because it was your gun. Pyle had left his fingerprints on it when he took it away from you and you had carefully preserved those fingerprints. But I figured Mary Bagley for your friend, and knew that if she had been your friend, she’d have hung around your shooting gallery and learned how to shoot pretty well. I also figured that if she got a raw deal she’d be pretty likely to hunt you up to champion her cause, so you’ve walked into my little trap.”
“You can’t prove a damned thing!” said Pete.
Corning shrugged his shoulders.
“I can raise a reasonable doubt in front of a jury,” he said, “so that they won’t convict Pyle, and I rather think they’ll convict you.”
Pete’s right hand suddenly flicked to his shoulder. There was a glitter of motion, and Ken Corning found himself staring into the black muzzle of an automatic.
“Well,” said Pete, “I’m not so sure that you’re going to keep in good health, myself. You look unhealthy to me.”
Corning stole a glance back to the closet door.
Nothing happened.
Little glittering lights played across the dark surface of the eyes which bored into his.
“Don’t, Pete!” said the girl in a hissing voice. “You can’t get away with it.”
“The hell I can’t!” said Pete.
“Not here! Not here. Take him for a ride.”
The lights continued to play about the eyes, but a look of cunning came over the face.
“That,” said Pete the Polack, “isn’t a bad idea. Get your hat, guy, and start walking out. Walk easy and natural.”
Ken Corning got his hat, started for the door. Pete the Polack moved up close to him. Corning reached for the knob of the door.
“Never mind,” said Pete. “The broad will open the door. Go ahead, Mary.”
The girl pulled the door open. Pete moved close to Ken Corning, Ken Corning started through the door, scooped out his right arm, caught the girl about the waist, and flung her back against the man with the gun.
Pete cursed, jumped to one side. Corning side-stepped before Pete had the gun free. He fired. The bullet ripped a hole in the side of Corning’s coat as it went past. The girl screamed, dropped to the floor.
Corning lashed out his right fist. The girl cursed, rolled over, grabbed Corning’s left leg and sunk her teeth into the calf.
Pete the Polack reeled backward under the impetus of the blow, but flung up the gun again. Corning tried to kick his foot loose from the grip which held it. The girl clung to him tightly, her arms locked around Corning’s leg.
There were swift steps in the corridor behind Corning. A voice shouted: “Stick ’em up!”
Corning ducked. Pete fired. The girl’s grip weakened. A gun behind Corning roared booming reverberations. Pete flung his weapon slightly to one side, fired again. Corning was conscious of someone behind him stumbling, lurching against the plastered wall, then slowly slumping downward with fingers scraping along the plaster.
Corning leaped over the girl’s kicking legs, faced Pete the Polack. He saw the gun coming up, lashed out with both hands, trying to catch the hand which held the gun. Pete jumped back, and Corning flung himself forward in a tackle. He heard the roar of two shots fired in rapid succession, felt the jar of lead thudding into the huge torso, heard Pete groan, felt him sway, then heard a peculiar sputtering noise as blood bubbles came to the lips of the man and broke. The form went limp in his arms.
Ken Corning turned and straightened. One of the plain-clothesmen stood in the room, his face twisted with hatred, an automatic in his hand.
“The dirty — killed the squarest dick that ever walked in shoe leather!” he said.
Mary Bagley sat up and screamed. The plainclothesman grabbed her wrist, dragged her across the floor. Pete the Polack made gurgling noises and tried to talk.
“I think,” said Corning, “he wants to make a confession. You’d better listen.”
“I don’t give a damn what he confesses to!” the officer said.
“He killed my pal. If my bullet hasn’t killed him, he’s going to get the death penalty.”
“Well I care,” said Corning. “This man killed Frank Glover.”
A look of infinite weariness took the glitter from the hard black eyes. The head nodded. More blood sputtered from the lips, and the eyes glazed.
“Grab that girl!” said Corning. “She can give us the whole story.”
Mary Bagley got to her knees, stared at the face of Pete the Polack.
“My God, he’s dead!” she screamed.
It was one o’clock when Ken Corning got Helen Vail on the telephone.
“You can go home now,” he told her. “It’s all over.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“A frame-up,” he said. “Glover’s own bodyguard wanted to get rid of him and take over his lay. They wanted to frame the crime on Pyle whom they also wanted out of the way. They worked the frame-up and exploded a torpedo at the same time a crack-shot plugged Glover from Mary Bagley’s apartment. That was Pete the Polack who had his own grudge against Glover and jumped at the chance. They’d decoyed the radio car into the neighborhood by a fake call. Pyle was framed all the way along.”
“Was that why you pulled the shooting gallery stuff?” she asked.
“Yes. It was a thousand to one chance, but I had to get Mary Bagley’s boy-friend out in the open and just where I could work on him.”
“Any action?” asked Helen Vail.
“A little,” he told her. “I gave the cops a tip that should have had them in my room. They got the numbers mixed and got in the wrong room. It wasn’t until the shooting started that they got into action. Pete plugged one of the dicks right through the heart.”
“Did you get a confession?” asked Helen Vail.
“Yes, from the girl. After Pete fired the shot he knocked the silencer off the gun, ran down stairs, and when he saw Pyle go by, planted the gun behind the billboard and disappeared.”
“You coming back to the office?” she asked.
“No,” he told her. “I’m going out and hunt up Lampson. He’ll tell the truth now.”
“You mean about the crime?”
“No. I mean about the frame-up they tried to work on me.”
“He won’t dare to talk,” she told him. “Not with his record.”
Ken Corning laughed grimly.
“When I get done with him,” he said, “he won’t dare to keep silent. These fellows started this funny business and now I’m going to start fighting the devil with fire.”
“Be careful your fingers don’t get burned,” she warned.
“I,” he told her, “am the one guy in this hookup that’s got asbestos gloves.”
Blackmail with Lead
Ken Corning stopped at the battered table, which ran the length of the jail room, and looked through the coarse wire screen into the face of Sam Driver; a face that was twitching nervously.
“If I’m going to be your lawyer,” said Ken Corning, “I’ve got to have all there is to know about your case.”
Sam Driver fidgeted uncomfortably in the chair on the other side of the screened partition. He acted as though he could already feel a current of electricity coursing through the chair, burning the life from his body.