“All right,” said Ken Corning, “what was it?”
“The car,” said Helen Vail, “is registered in the name of Stella Bixel. She’s the widow of the man who was killed by the burglar in the country cabin last fall. You may remember the case...”
“Okey,” said Ken Corning, crisply, “that’s good work, Helen. Come on back to the office.”
Corning looked across his desk, into the speculative eyes of Edward Millwright, the expert on handwriting, fingerprints and questioned documents, whom he had asked to come in to see him.
“Can you,” he asked, “get access to the police files, or to the Bureau of Criminal Identification records?”
The handwriting expert squinted his eyes thoughtfully.
“I have done so,” he said, “on cases where I was working with the police, and once or twice on cases where I had uncovered some evidence which the police thought would be of value.”
“Could you get somebody else to look up some information for you and pass it out?”
“I might.”
“All right,” said Corning, “here’s another question. I understand that recently they’re taking fingerprints of bodies that go through the morgue.”
The expert nodded.
“I am representing,” said Ken Corning, “a man named Sam Driver, who is accused of the murder of Harry Green, a gambler, panhandler, and general bum. I don’t think anyone ever claimed the body of Green. I think it was finally buried, after an autopsy, at county expense. The body went through the morgue, and I think fingerprints were taken.”
“All right,” said Millwright, “what do you want me to do?”
“I want you,” said Corning, slowly, “to find out what’s funny about the case.”
“How do you mean?”
“There’s something funny about the case — something that I don’t know anything about. I don’t think it’s anything connected with Sam Driver, so I think it’s something connected with Harry Green, the murdered man. I want you to get those fingerprints and check them.”
“I could get the fingerprints,” said the expert, “the records of the morgue are open. But I’m not so certain about checking them; not the way you want them checked, anyway.”
“Don’t you know some peace officer who could wire the classification in to some of the central identification bureaus?”
“I might work that, yes.”
“All right, do that; and furthermore, I wish you to check up the fingerprints with any police bulletins that may be floating around, on unsolved crimes.”
“In other words, you think there’s something fishy about this man, Green, is that it?”
“I don’t know,” Corning said slowly, “but I’m going to find out. There’s something funny about the case, and pretty powerful influences are bringing pressure to bear on me, to make me handle it in a certain way.”
“Why should powerful influences be mixed up m a case involving a hobo?” Millwright wanted to know.
“That’s what I want to find out,” said Corning.
Millwright nodded, got to his feet.
“With any kind of luck,” he said, “I can let you know inside of twenty-four hours; otherwise, it’ll just be a slow and tedious process, with the cards stacked against me.”
He was shaking hands with Millwright, when Vare, the private detective, came into the room.
Vare waited until the door had closed behind Millwright, then sat down and pulled a list from his pocket.
“Well,” he said, “I got a list of all of the Cadillacs that have been purchased in the last year. That is, of course, those that were purchased from the agency here in the city, or those that were registered as being owned in the city.”
“Does it give us anything?” asked Corning.
“Not a thing,” Vare said. “It was a crazy proposition thinking that it would. As I understand it, you figure Sam Driver may be hooked up with somebody who bought a Cadillac. Driver’s a hobo, a crook and a murderer. The list of the fellows who bought Cadillacs reads like a social directory. Everybody on this list has got some social position, except the three fellows who have stars opposite their names — they’re bootleggers.”
“Well,” said Corning, “a bootlegger may have some connection with a murderer.”
Vare grinned.
“Try to uncover it,” he said. “Those birds work pretty fast and play ’em pretty close to their chest. Try to nose into their business, and see what happens.”
Ken Corning’s forefinger slid down the list. Abruptly it came to a stop and he looked at the detective.
“I notice,” he said, “that Harrison Burman bought a Cadillac.”
Vare nodded.
“Burman,” he said, “is the owner of The Courier. That’s the paper that stands in with the big shots. It comes pretty near running the town.”
“Wait a minute — wait a minute!” said Corning. A strange light of excitement was growing in his eyes.
He grabbed a pad and wrote names on it, which Vare could not see — names set in the form of a circle with short lines leading from one to the next
In order as he scribbled, they were:
Green — Driver — Mrs. Bixel — The Courier — Jerry Bigelow — George Bixel — Harrison Burman. The name Burman completed the circle next to that of Green.
Ken Corning crumpled the sheet, looked at the private detective and grinned.
“Do you remember,” he asked, “a murder case that took place last October, a chap by the name of George Bixel?”
“Sure,” Vare said. “I remember something about the facts of the case. There was quite a bit of comment about it at the time. It was one of those lonely mountain cabins, and a crook pulling a hold-up, trying to get Mrs. Bixel’s jewelry. Her husband came in and tried to hold the guy for the police. The guy shot him and escaped.”
“Harrison Burman was up there in the cabin at the time, wasn’t he?” Corning asked.
Vare looked at the attorney, and his forehead puckered into a frown.
“What the hell are you driving at?”
“Nothing,” said Corning. “I’m just asking you about the case. You should remember it fairly well. It seems to me there’s a reward out for the murderer, or there was at one time.”
Vare nodded slowly.
“All right,” said Corning, “what are the facts, as nearly as you can remember them?”
“Bixel and his wife went up to the cabin,” said Vare. “It wasn’t Bixel’s cabin. It was a cabin they had secured from a friend somewhere. In fact, come to think of it, I think it was a cabin Burman had hired or owned, or something. Anyway, Bixel and his wife went up there and asked Burman to come up and join them for a week-end.
“While they were there,” he went on, “a yegg got into the room one night when Mrs. Bixel was dressing, and tried to stick her up for her jewels. George Bixel happened to come into the room. He grappled with the yegg, and Mrs. Bixel screamed. Burman was outside somewhere. He came in on the run, just as the shot was fired that killed Bixel, and the crook turned the gun on Mrs. Bixel. Burman struck at the crook and jiggled his arm so that the shot went wild. Then Burman tried to grab the man, but the man jumped to the window, took a shot at Burman, which missed, and jumped out and ran away. The police found the gun where he’d left it by the window.”
“Fingerprints on the gun?” asked Corning.
“Yes, fingerprints on the gun, and the police were able to trace it by the numbers, and I think they managed to identify the man who had pulled the job. He was an ex-convict; one who had been paroled. I can look it up in just a few minutes and let you know.”
“All right,” Corning said. “Look it up and telephone me.”
“Anything else?” asked Vare.