“But when the police grabbed the doc’s wife and charged her with his murder, I saw my way into the whole roll. All I had to do was sit tight and wait until they convicted her. Then the court would turn the entire pile over to Edna.
“I had the only evidence that would free the doc’s wife: the note he had written me. But I couldn’t — even if I had wanted to — have turned it in without exposing my hand. When he read that fake piece in the paper, he tore it out, wrote his message to me across the face of it, and sent it to me. So the note is a dead give-away. However, I didn’t have any intention of publishing it, anyhow.
“Up to this point everything had gone like a dream. All I had to do was wait until it was time to cash in on my brains. And that’s the time that the real Humbert Estep picked out to mess up the works.
“He shaved his mustache off, put on some old clothes, and came snooping around to see that Edna and I didn’t run out on him. As if he could have stopped us! After you put the finger on him for me, I brought him up here.
“I intended salving him along until I could find a place to keep him until all the cards had been played. That’s what I was going to hire you for — to take care of him.
“But we got to talking, and wrangling, and I had to knock him down. He didn’t get up, and I found that he was dead. His neck was broken. There was nothing to do but take him out to the park and leave him.
“I didn’t tell Edna. She didn’t have a lot of use for him, as far as I could see, but you can’t tell how women will take things. Anyhow, she’ll stick, now that it’s done. She’s on the up and up all the time. And if she should talk, she can’t do a lot of damage. She only knows her own part of the lay.
“All this long-winded story is so you’ll know just exactly what you’re up against. Maybe you think you can dig up the proof of these things I have told you. You can this far. You can prove that Edna wasn’t the doc’s wife. You can prove that I’ve been blackmailing him. But you can’t prove that the doc’s wife didn’t believe that Edna was his real wife! It’s her word against Edna’s and mine.
“We’ll swear that we had convinced her of it, which will give her a motive. You can’t prove that the phony news article I told you about ever existed. It’ll sound like a hophead’s dream to a jury.
“You can’t tie last night’s murder on me — I’ve got an alibi that will knock your hat off! I can prove that I left here with a friend of mine who was drunk, and that I took him to his hotel and put him to bed, with the help of a night clerk and a bellboy. And what have you got against that? The word of two private detectives. Who’ll believe you?
“You can convict me of conspiracy to defraud, or something — maybe. But, regardless of that, you can’t free Mrs. Estep without my help.
“Turn me loose and I’ll give you the letter the doc wrote me. It’s the goods, right enough! In his own handwriting, written across the face of the fake newspaper story — which ought to fit the torn place in the paper that the police are supposed to be holding — and he wrote that he was going to kill himself, in words almost that plain.”
That would turn the trick — there was no doubt of it. And I believed Ledwich’s story. The more I thought it over the better I liked it. It fitted into the facts everywhere. But I wasn’t enthusiastic about giving this big crook his liberty.
“Don’t make me laugh!” I said. “I’m going to put you away and free Mrs, Estep — both.”
“Go ahead and try it! You’re up against it without the letter; and you don’t think a man with brains enough to plan a job like this one would be foolish enough to leave the note where it could be found, do you?”
I wasn’t especially impressed with the difficulty of convicting this Ledwich and freeing the dead man’s widow. His scheme — that cold-blooded zigzag of treachery for everybody he had dealt with, including his latest accomplice, Edna Estep — wasn’t as air-tight as he thought it. A week in which to run out a few lines in the East, and — But a week was just what I didn’t have!
Vance Richmond’s words were running through my head: “But another day of imprisonment — two days, or perhaps even two hours — and she won’t need anybody to clear her. Death will have done it!”
If I was going to do Mrs. Estep any good, I had to move quick. Law or no law, her life was in my fat hands. This man before me — his eyes bright and hopeful now and his mouth anxiously pursed — was thief, blackmailer, double-crosser, and at least twice a murderer. I hated to let him walk out. But there was the woman dying in a hospital...
Twelve
Keeping my eye on Ledwich, I went to the telephone, and got Vance Richmond on the wire at his residence.
“How is Mrs. Estep?” I asked.
“Weaker! I talked with the doctor half an hour ago, and he says—”
I cut in on him; I didn’t want to listen to the details.
“Get over to the hospital, and be where I can reach you by phone. I may have news for you before the night is over.”
“What — is there a chance? Are you—”
I didn’t promise him anything. I hung up the receiver and spoke to Ledwich. “I’ll do this much for you. Slip me the note, and I’ll give you your gun and put you out the back door. There’s a bull on the corner out front, and I can’t take you past him.”
He was on his feet, beaming.
“Your word on it?” he demanded.
“Yes — get going!”
He went past me to the phone, gave a number (which I made a note of), and then spoke hurriedly into the instrument.
“This is Shuler. Put a boy in a taxi with that envelope I gave you to hold for me, and send him out here right away.”
He gave his address, said “Yes” twice, and hung up.
There was nothing surprising about his unquestioning acceptance of my word. He couldn’t afford to doubt that I’d play fair with him. And, also, all successful bunko men come in time to believe that the world — except for themselves — is populated by a race of human sheep who may be trusted to conduct themselves with true sheeplike docility.
Ten minutes later the doorbell rang. We answered it together, and Ledwich took a large envelope from a messenger boy, while I memorized the number on the boy’s cap. Then we went back to the front room.
Ledwich slit the envelope and passed its contents to me: a piece of rough-torn newspaper. Across the face of the fake article he had told me about was written a message in a jerky hand.
I wouldn’t have suspected you, Ledwich, of such profound stupidity. My last thought will be — this bullet that ends my life also ends your years of leisure. You’ll have to go to work now.
The doctor had died game!
I took the envelope from the big man, put the death note in it, and put them in my pocket. Then I went to a front window, flattening a cheek against the glass until I could see O’Gar, dimly outlined in the night, patiently standing where I had left him hours before.
“The city dick is still on the corner,” I told Ledwich. “Here’s your gat” — holding out the gun I had shot from his fingers a little while back — “take it, and blow through the back door. Remember, that’s all I’m offering you — the gun and a fair start. If you play square with me, I’ll not do anything to help find you — unless I have to keep myself in the clear.”
“Fair enough!”
He grabbed the gun, broke it to see that it was still loaded, and wheeled toward the rear of the flat. At the door he pulled up, hesitated, and faced me again. I kept him covered with my automatic.