His motions impeded somewhat by the top coat which flapped about his legs and restrained the free swing of his- shoulders, Moraine shot across a right hook. It was a glancing blow. He could hear the other man’s labored breathing, saw him lunge. Light caught the drawn face, showing the red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes, pale skin, the angle of an unshaven jaw. There were haggard circles under the eyes.
Richard Hartwell.
Moraine caught the wrist that held the gun, turned it downward. Barney Morden came through the door on the run — a hundred and ninety pounds of beef and action. His right fist struck with a smashing impact. Moraine felt Hartwell’s arm grow limp in his grasp, saw the man sink to the floor.
Barney Morden stooped, grabbed him by the collar.
“What the hell!” he said, and dragged the inert form into the office.
A nickel-plated revolver lay on the floor of the corridor. Phil Duncan picked if up, looked at it, frowned, broke the cylinder open and stared at Moraine with a puzzled expression on his countenance.
“It isn’t loaded,” he said.
Hartwell stirred on the floor, opened his eyes, sighed. Morden prodded him with his foot. “What the hell’s the idea, guy?” he asked.
The man moaned and said nothing.
Duncan looked inquiringly at Sam Moraine.
“That,” Sam Moraine said, “is Dr. Richard Hartwell.”
“And we’ve been looking all over hell’s half-acre for him!” Barney Morden exclaimed. “And so have the federals. The son-of-a-gun was parked outside the door, waiting for Sam to come out so he could shoot a load of lead into his guts.”
He stooped, picked up Hartwell by the collar, and raised him to a sitting position. His left hand slapped Hartwell’s face sharply.
“Come on, guy,” he said; “snap out of it. You’ve got some talking to do.”
Hartwell opened his eyes and stared with punch-groggy concentration at Morden’s face.
“What’s the idea?” Morden asked. “What were you trying to do?”
“I want to kill him.”
“Why?”
“He broke up my home.”
“What makes you think he did?”
“I know he did He’s my wife’s lover.”
Phil Duncan said, “You’re mistaken, Doctor. He just acted as intermediary. He paid over the ten thousand dollars to the kidnapers.”
Dr. Hartwell’s eyes lost their glazed look. They glittered with hatred.
“That’s a damn lie. He was with her all the time. She wasn’t kidnapped. He lured her away from me. They were on a honeymoon together. Then they hatched up this scheme to get ten thousand dollars. It was going to make a nice little dowry for them.”
“You didn’t pay the ten thousand, did you?” Duncan asked.
“No. Doris Bender did. But Ann is a gold digger. She didn’t care where it came from just so she got it. This is the man that put her up to it.”
“How long,” asked Morden, “have you been waiting outside that door?”
“I don’t know, an hour I guess.”
“Where were you when I came in?”
“When you fellows came in, I heard you coming and ducked around the bend in the corridor each time, and waited until after you’d gone in.”
Sam Moraine caught Phil Duncan’s eye.
“He’s going to get into trouble sooner or later with that gun. I guess we’d better put charges against him, and hold him in jail until after he’s calmed down some. You can get a doctor to give him a hypodermic, can’t you?”
“He’s going to jail, all right,” Barney Morden said grimly. “There’s been too much hide-and-seek around this stuff.”
He turned back to Dr. Hartwell.
“What the hell was the idea of sticking that gun into Moraine’s stomach?”
“What do you suppose? I was going to kill him. Then I was going to kill myself.”
“But your gun isn’t loaded,” the district attorney said.
Hartwell started to say something, then a spasm of expression crossed his face.
“Isn’t loaded!” he screamed.
“No. There isn’t a shell in it.”
Hartwell started to get up from the chair. Morden pushed him back. Hartwell kicked, lashed out with his arms, tried to bite at Morden’s restraining hands.
“He’s nuts,” Barney Morden said.
Hartwell quit kicking. Profanity streamed from his lips. He shook his fists at Moraine.
“By God,” he said, “I’d forgotten. That’s the son-of-a-bitch that took the shells from my gun. By God, you’ll find those shells in his wastebasket. Give them to me!”
Phil Duncan stared curiously at Sam Moraine, then crossed to the desk, picked up the wastebasket, and gave it a preliminary, shake. He could hear the rattle of solid objects. He pulled out some of the papers, looked down into the wastebasket and said to Barney Morden, “At that, the chap’s right.”
“Yes,” Moraine said, “he busted into the office and Natalie Rice saw the gun. She thought he was going to use it on me. Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn’t.”
“I didn’t intend to at the time,” Hartwell said. “I wanted to find my wife’s kidnapers.”
Barney Morden gave a low whistle, and said, “Well, you’ve got to hand it to this guy, Moraine, for one thing. When he starts mixing into a case, he mixes in it from more different angles than any guy we’ve ever had to monkey with.”
“He took the shells out of my gun and gave it back to me,” Dr. Hartwell said. “I intended to go right down and buy some more shells, and then I was so excited I forgot about it. And then when I found out that he had broken up my home, I must have gone crazy. I just wanted to kill him. I forgot about everything else. I almost caught up with him before he came to the office, but he got in the elevator just ahead of me. I had to take the next elevator up. I’ve been waiting for him to come out ever since.”
Duncan said, sternly, “Do you know that the only reason you’re not going to be hung for murder is that this man took those shells out of your gun?”
“I’d never have been hung for murder,” Hartwell said. “I was going to kill myself after I shot him.”
“As a matter of fact,” Moraine remarked, “he never had a chance to pull the trigger. I knocked him off balance with my left, hit him with my right, and grabbed the gun. I didn’t know, of course, it wasn’t loaded. It certainly gave me a thrill.”
“Well,” Morden told him, grinning, “you wanted to mix around in criminal cases so you could get a thrill out of them. Now you’re getting one with a vengeance.”
Moraine turned to face Dr. Hartwell.
“Who told you I was intimate with your wife, Doctor?”
“None of your damned business.”
Moraine regarded Phil Duncan thoughtfully.
“I was calling on Doris Bender,” he said. “I think she was going to do a little high-pressure vamping, but someone who had a key to her apartment opened the door and walked in. She passed me off as Ann Hartwell’s boy-friend in order to square it. Now then, do you know who it is I’m referring to, the one who had the key to her apartment?”
“No, I don’t,” Duncan said.
“You’d better find out,” Moraine told him, “because apparently Dr. Hartwell got his misinformation about me from this same source.”
“Or else,” Duncan said, slowly, “someone is deliberately making you a fall guy.”
“Or else,” Barney Morden added ominously, “this guy is outsmarting both of us, Chief.”
Moraine whirled on him angrily, but Duncan caught his arm.
“Steady, Sam,” he said, “we’re all upset about this thing.”
Moraine hesitated a moment, then turned again toward the door.