The operator didn’t take long to get Keever. I gave it to him fast in a kind of double-talk we used, and he knew the case was hot.
“Hold everything till I get there,” he said. “I’ll round up a car full of detectives, and we’ll take the town over.”
“I guess you’ve never met Hinchman. It’ll take more dicks than you can bring in a train.”
“I’ll have a warrant for Hinchman before a shyster can say habeas corpus! Only chase out to Brown’s and keep him on ice. I can’t understand why you let him out of your sight. Are you drunk?”
“Definitely not. By the time you get here I’ll have not only Brown on ice but Ditson’s murderer as well.”
Keever didn’t believe me, but underestimating me is an old habit with him. I figured it would take him a good two hours to round up the five goons he’d hired on state pay to wear badges and pass themselves off as investigators, and get to Midtown. Far from taking over Midtown, those bums couldn’t have taken over an atoll if it had been defended by a cockroach.
I figured I had to work pretty fast. I took the elevator down and started across the lobby. A bulky form stopped me.
“Just a minute,” said Hinchman. “I was just coming to see you. Westfall told me about the Ditson girl having the thirty grand. I’m booking her for murder. She must have figured that pushing her old man out of a window was a sure way to keep him from losing the dough all over again.”
“O. K., only why do you have to see me first? Can’t you pinch a hundred and twelve pounds of pin-up without help from the A. G.’s office?”
“I came for that second thirty grand, Corbett. It’s evidence.”
“That’s why I’m keeping it in the hotel safe. The clerk looks honest.”
“I suppose I don’t.”
When we finally stopped arguing and got to the Broadhurst, Mary Ditson was gone and so was her thirty grand.
“I knew it!” said Hinchman. “She took a powder. She killed her old man — this proves it!”
“Maybe. Couldn’t be that Westfall dropped by and picked her up?”
“A snatch? Not Westfall. He’s strictly legit.”
“I suppose there’s nothing more legit than a little piece of murder. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about Parker and Souders going over the cliff.”
“Dozens of people have gone over it. They haven’t invented a guard rail strong enough to hold the drunks. Those two boys were soaked all the time.”
“They weren’t tonight before they had their ‘accident.’ They were cold sober when they told me they’d let me know about turning state’s evidence.”
Hinchman paled. Then he quickly recovered.
“They didn’t know nothing. But this Ditson girl does. If it ain’t too late to stop her lamming out of town, I’ll have her confession signed and sealed in a matter of hours.”
He had a fair chance at that, for the Broadhurst clerk said she’d only checked out ten minutes before. He ran out with my blessing, for the Ditson dame had pulled a honey, running out like that. I believed Hinchman about Westfall not having the guts for a snatch. Dealing with me was going to be tough enough, but dealing with the FBI would be even tougher. I’m a modest little devil at that.
A cab hauled me out to Carl Bronson’s. He was still up.
“I know there’s no use in my going to bed, Corbett. I can’t sleep for thinking of Sheila.” He buried his hands in his face.
“I want you to think some more. Whether I crack this case tonight depends on you. You’re the only eye-witness of Ditson’s leap that I know of. Now, get this — Ditson didn’t dive, he was pushed.”
Bronson’s brows lifted in incredulous amazement.
“But I tell you, I saw him! Nobody was there in the window with him! He was standing on the sill, and he stepped off!”
“You’re cockeyed. You think you saw him step off because you were psychologically unprepared to see anything else. Usually when somebody goes out the window of a building it’s under his own power. It’s rarely a case of murder. So your prejudiced brain projected an image instead of a picture of the real thing. You’ve got to shake up that image and let the parts fall back where they belong. Then maybe you’ll see somebody there in the window with Ditson or at least somebody’s hands and arms.”
Bronson eyed me speculatively. “If you know what you’re talking about — and I think you don’t — you’re really trying to tell me that psychoanalysis would clear my memory.”
“That’s a ten-dollar word for it. Do it. Then maybe we’ll get someplace, as the saying goes.”
I watched while Bronson sat back and rubbed the bridge of his nose in his version of a mental kick in the pants. Suddenly he sat up straight.
“But this whole thing’s crazy! Why should anyone kill Ditson? He was penniless. I gather that he had no enemies.”
“I’ll bring you up to date, Bronson. Ditson had been paid off. His daughter was there at the time, and she socked the dough in her purse. Later she laid it away in the hotel safe, then she got another idea and took a ride. Hinchman should catch her. But even if he doesn’t, the fact remains that Ditson was paid off. His murderer might not have known about his daughter taking the money away. So he might have sapped him too hard and tossed him onto the asphalt to cover up.”
Bronson was visibly impressed.
“That does change things. I’ll think harder now.”
He went back to rubbing his nose again. I knew he could rub the skin away without changing the picture he carried in his mind. So I said: “Let’s go talk to Dwight Brown. He’s thrown in with me. Maybe he can help you.”
Bronson looked up. “Dwight? You mean he’s fallen out with Westfall over this? Say, that’s serious. When Dwight got drunk he used to tell me a few things he knew about Westfall and his crowd. Westfall is a tough character to fall out with.”
“It’s all right. Dwight’s in a hidden lodge out beyond Briarton Cliff.”
“Impossible! He doesn’t have such a place!”
“That’s why he has it, because it’s impossible that he should have it. You surely know the facts of life, Mr. Bronson.”
Bronson seemed shocked at such discretion. But he didn’t argue. He got a hat, and backed his car out of the garage. I paid off my cab and climbed in with him. Then I got out Dwight’s map and gave directions.
There was a mob of cars parked around Briarton Cliff. It seemed every neighbor had driven over to see the wreck about a hundred and forty feet below. The cliff was no grade — it was a rock ledge dropping sheerly. A fire burned briskly below.
“Get along!” said a highway patrolman as I signaled Bronson to stop.
I flashed my badge and said: “How come the fire? The boys went over a long time ago.”
“Lots of rubbish down there. There were signs up forbidding dumping, but people dumped anyway. This is no main road — people had plenty of chance.”
I took a look at the guard rail. I’m no engineer, but I’d say the highway department had done its darnedest here. To go through that rail a car would have to be traveling at least sixty. My professional curiosity was aroused. I wondered how Westfall’s expert had managed it.
“Get along,” I told Bronson. “I haven’t much faith in this map. We may be all night finding Dwight.”
We weren’t quite that long. But we were a good hour and a half checking false leads consisting of by-roads that Dwight had forgotten to mark. Finally we parked beside what had to be the lodge. At least there was a light inside, and Bronson identified Dwight’s car.