“Mr. Bronson will see no one,” somebody told me.
“He’ll see me. I’m from the attorney general’s office. Tell him to stick around till I get there.”
It took half an hour to do that. The Bronson place was in a swank residential development a few miles out. A maid led me through the house and out onto the terrace. Bronson was lounging in a summer chair.
“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Bronson, but I’ve got to. You see you’re the only witness to Ditson’s plunge.”
“That’s right. I don’t intend to stand in the way of an investigation. I’ll gladly tell you anything I know. I want somebody to pay for this.”
He looked as if he had been taking it pretty hard. And from Sheila Brown’s pictures in the papers, it looked as if he had plenty of right to take it that way. Bronson himself wasn’t much to look at — he had one of those faces that look like a mask for a calculating machine. His business was investment brokerage, so he was in character.
He was also a little bald, a fact which hadn’t shown up in his newspaper photo. I guessed his age to be an old thirty-seven. Sheila Brown had been twenty-two. I charged the incongruity up to the manpower shortage and let it go at that.
“The only thing I want to establish,” I told Bronson, “is whether Ditson definitely jumped.”
Bronson gave me a long, thoughtful look.
“What makes you think he didn’t?”
“A fair question. I’ve heard a rumor that Westfall sent thirty thousand bucks by way of a couple of his muggs to the Maramoor. The muggs haven’t shown up since. I thought maybe they got the bright idea of heaving Ditson out of the window and making it look like suicide. That way he wouldn’t be around to squawk about not getting the thirty thousand.”
Bronson looked me over as though I had large ears.
“But that’s preposterous! The money didn’t show up after Ditson’s suicide. Westfall must know they didn’t deliver it, so they certainly gained nothing by killing Ditson, assuming your theory is correct, which it isn’t.”
“Oh, it isn’t? You know that, do you?”
“Of course. I’ve already told my story many times. Ditson wasn’t pushed, he jumped. I saw him. He was standing in the window. He just stepped off. Then he turned over and over. His head was down when he... when—”
Bronson covered his face with his hands.
“For God’s sake, Corbett, why make me go into that?”
“I’m sorry. I only thought that Westfall’s boys might have counted on his thinking the cops who searched the room afterward might have got the thirty grand.”
“Then why haven’t they shown up? They can’t be banking on any such idea, otherwise they would.”
“I guess I’ll have to agree on that. But I thought the idea was worth running down. After all, I don’t have a lot to go on.”
“Well, I hope you raise hell in this town. I’ve been fed up for years with the bunch of crooks running it.”
“Then you didn’t approve of your fiancée going to the Silver Dollar?”
Bronson straightened. “Who told you she did?”
“She did go there, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but not with me. I wouldn’t be caught dead inside one of those joints. I can’t afford it, in my business. Pretty soon people who let me handle their money would begin to wonder if I was gambling it away.”
“Then who took Miss Brown there?”
“Her brother. He practically lives at the Silver Dollar, I hear. Dwight’s a nice boy, but he makes a fool of himself. I give him five years, and he’ll have his inheritance down the sewer. And Sheila’s, too, now that she’s gone.”
I got up. “Well, thanks. I’m glad I got to talk to you, though you’ve knocked my bright idea in the head. I’m sorry about your loss, really I am.”
“Thanks. Give ’em hell. Drive all those rotten crooks out of town!”
“I’ll do my best.”
Chapter Two
Double Take
Mary Ditson looked so cute when I picked her up at the Broadhurst that I wished I’d bothered to shave. I tried to make up for it by taking her to the swellest place in town, the Maramoor Ionian Room. Of course it all went on the expense account.
“Who was your father’s worst enemy?” I asked her.
“Himself.”
“I know, but I mean other people. Did he have any serious enemies?”
“I’m positive he didn’t have. There wasn’t a soul in our town who didn’t love Dad — and pity him. The poor man thought he was a super gambler. Actually he never won in all his life.”
“This town you lived in across the state line — it’s not very big, is it?”
“Ten thousand. Nobody very rich. Dad was a pretty shrewd real estate operator — he had to be to make up for his gambling losses. I worked in his office and tried to keep him in line.”
“Couldn’t he have made somebody pretty mad on some of his real estate deals?”
“Say, what are you driving at?”
“An answer to my question.”
“Well, I suppose there were people who got peeved. Like Jim Newell. He really was burned up for a while when he found how much Dad would have given him when he bought his building for that chain store.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere! Where’s this Jim Newell now?”
“Greenlawn Cemetery. I think that transaction killed him.”
“Yes, it’s killing me, too! So the guy’s dead! Well, did he ever make anybody mad who’s still alive?”
“I just can’t think of anybody offhand.”
“Suppose you work on it.”
“You really suspect foul play? You really think somebody might have murdered Dad?”
“I’ve just got a hunch. Suppose the thirty thousand was actually paid to him. He’d advertised in all the newspapers that he was going to commit suicide. That made a perfect set-up for anybody who wanted to come along, pick up the thirty grand and toss him out of the window.”
“But Mr. Bronson saw him jump!”
“He thinks he did. But remember that your father’s falling body killed his girl. My bet is that Bronson has no very clear idea of what happened. A shock like that addles your brain. Besides, even if his girl hadn’t been killed, I wouldn’t put too much stock in his story. When I went to FBI school I turned in a report of a fake killing that said five shots were fired. There were only three. And I’m supposed to be a detective!”
I thought maybe I’d said the wrong thing then, for she gave me an odd look.
“Suppose we get out of this joint. I only brought you here because it’s expensive. I think it smells. We should be able to find a nice place that isn’t so stuffy.”
“I’m glad you said that. Let’s try the Silver Dollar.”
I gave her a double-take. “But it’s closed!”
“Only the gambling room part. The nightclub side is still running. I found that out.”
She’d also found out the Silver Dollar was on the south edge of Midtown, actually just over the corporation line. The cab had hauled us about five blocks before I noticed the tail.
It was one of those cabs that are converted passenger cars. There was no glass partition between us and the driver. I said: “Fellow, is there any place between here and the Silver Dollar that’s nice and quiet?”
Mary Ditson said: “Why, Mr. Corbett, I—”
“Don’t get any wrong ideas,” I told her. “We’re being followed. I’d like to find out why.” Again I addressed the driver. “Have you thought of some place by now?”
He turned around, about half scared.
“Listen, mister, what are you getting me into?”
“A ten-spot tip. Don’t get hot and bothered. I’m the law.” I flashed my badge.