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“What have those things to do with the fire — fires?”

Pedley gazed down at the caterpillars of traffic crawling southward out of Central Park. “I’m not one of these geniuses who can lean back with a pipeful of hashish and dream up the answers. But Lownes was incinerated because he had some peculiar hold on his sister. You said yourself he knew where the body was hidden. His sword of Damocles seems to have been that leather case, or what’s in it.”

Ross interrupted his shaving to say, “Photos. Indiscreet, from what Leila says. Possibly worse than that.”

“That’s the bunkola. Only thing that would hurt her to any extent is something that could be published. If there were pictures and they were indelicate, they couldn’t be published. Conclusion; something besides glossy prints in the Florentine case.”

“How do you dope out these things?”

“With mirrors. Take another trip through the looking glass with me. I see an arsonist who faces a fifteen-thousand-volt hotfoot up at Sing Sing. He’s so afraid of it, he touches off a second blaze to keep Kim Wasson from telling what she knows. And, sure as hellfire, he’s not going to stop there. He might as well be electrocuted for a sheep as a lamb. Which is the same as a death warrant for anyone else who may be able to point the finger his way. Including especially you.”

The waiter came. Pedley signed the check with Ross’s name, laid a half dollar on the tray, helped himself to a cup.

Ross came out in batik shorts and a burgundy shirt with collar points that reached halfway to his belt. “Why me? I’m simply a guy trying to make a clean dollar. I keep my nose strictly out of affairs which don’t concern me.”

“You’re working for La Lownes. Even if you’re not wise to whatever it is in her past that needs hiding, you’re more’n likely to know the party who’s willing to burn down the town to prevent her secret from being made public.”

“I never heard a breath of scandal about her.”

“Wouldn’t be scandal. You’d know how to cover that. Or tone it down. Or even build it up, make capital of it. My weegee board says it has to be something more serious than a breach of promise. Say, something illegal.”

“Not for all the dough in Morgan’s. I’d have had wind of anything like that, positively.”

“You see? Just claiming you’d know puts you in a position where you’d do well to consider the merits of the steel, or indestructible, casket as compared to ordinary, or soft, pine. Climb into your pants.”

“Give me time to make a call!”

“To your lawyer? Sure. Amery was signed out of the hospital at six-fifteen. About three-quarters of an hour ago.”

“You keep close tabs on folks you’re interested in, don’t you?”

“Only way. By now, your barrister is probably out at his Long Island place, sleeping off a dose of bromides. The number’s Great Neck seven-two-four-one-four.” Ross used the phone for a while, said yes? and no! a few times, hung up.

“Shows what a miraculous system you have for checking up on people. Paul isn’t there.”

“We can’t be right all the time. Where is he?”

“Left for his office. Only stayed home long enough to change his clothes. He had a hurry-up call.”

“From—?”

“Staro. Ned’s bodyguard.”

“I’ve been wondering where that lad was.”

“He’s at Amery’s office. In the Tower Building.” Ross tied his necktie hastily. “Mrs. Amery said there was trouble of some sort.”

“Forgive her for understating. Grab your hat.”

Chapter Eighteen

Office Into Shooting Gallery

A trim secretary with a sleek, satin-blond bun on the nape of her neck, smiled mechanically over the law journal she was marking.

“Mister Amery’s not in yet. Oh! Good morning, Mister Ross.”

“It’s lousy, Miss Bernard.” Ross nodded. “Mind if we wait in the sanctum sanctorum?”

“Not at all.” She opened a heavy, paneled door to the inner office. It didn’t look like a lawyer’s place of business to Pedley.

There were no bookshelves of brown-backed tomes. Instead, the walls were covered with framed photographs of theatrical celebrities. Autographed, To my bosom, pal. Smuch love, Paul, A friend in need, indeed — and all the other clichés.

The near-great and once-great of Broadway were here; Pedley knew most of the famous faces that looked down on what might have been a pleasant study in a private home. He turned to the secretary.

“We expected to run into another gentleman who has an appointment, miss.”

“There hasn’t been anyone.” She looked blank, examined the memo pad on the enormous mahogany flat-top. “Mister Amery has no appointment until eleven. He shouldn’t come in at all, after that terrible experience yesterday.”

Ross took the chair beside the desk. “They let him out of the hospital this morning.”

“Yes. But the doctor said he really should have a nurse around for a while; he’s in no shape to go out.”

“I can testify—” Amery came through the door abruptly — “that the doctor was right. I feel like ice breaking up in the Hudson.”

He certainly didn’t look good, Pedley thought. Strips of plaster held a wad of cotton in place along the lawyer’s jaw; a wide band of gauze served him in place of a collar. His eyes were rabbit-pink from the smoke; his skin was the shade of mildewed canvas. The wheeze was still in his voice.

“Get the Lownes files for me, Miss Bernard. Everything but the transfers. Morning, Terry—” Amery noticed the marshal, scowled. He took off his balmacaan. “I promised my physician I’d avoid excitement.” He sat down heavily at the big desk. “That was before I knew you were going to be here, sir.”

Pedley said bleakly, “I can’t take time out to be sorry every time somebody has a coughing spell. But I’ll try not to be too great a strain on your constitution.”

The lawyer gestured in deprecation. “Let’s not start with a misunderstanding. I don’t want any consideration on my account. I shouldn’t have come here at all, today, if I’d consulted my own preferences.”

“So what? You came here to meet this ex-bodyguard of Ned Lownes. Staro’s a client of yours, isn’t he?”

“Indeed not!” The lawyer’s chin lifted, resentfully. “I wouldn’t represent that hoodlum for any fee you care to name.”

“Put it the other way, then,” the marshal retorted. “He wanted to consult you. Why?”

“You still haven’t got it quite right.” Amery extracted a pink capsule from a small round box, popped it into his mouth, poured a glass of water from the Thermos set at his elbow, washed the pill down. “Staro telephoned me at my home. Claims to have information about a leather case that had been Ned’s property. Apparently there’s been some trouble about it.”

“What’s this private convoy know about it?”

The attorney didn’t answer immediately. He swiveled around in his chair, stared out the window, pressed his lips together. Finally he swung back to face Pedley. “I don’t see any good reason why I shouldn’t tell you. We’re both working toward the same end, I assume.”

The marshal was noncommittal. “I’m after the person who set a couple of fires, myself.”

“I’m interested in clearing Miss Lownes from any suspicion of connection with those fires. Amounts to the same thing.” The lawyer made his recital brief. Some time previously, according to Staro, Lownes had ordered his hired hand to take possession of the Florentine case in the event of a sudden fatality to his employer. The case was to be turned over to Amery. When the bodyguard heard about the theater fire, he hurried to Lownes’s hotel rooms, searched for the case but couldn’t find it.