She seemed to have been prepared for that question. She smiled at him. “I,” she said, “am a mysterious figure who wouldn’t appear in the case at all. You could enter me on your books as Madam X. From the moment I walked out of this office you’d lose sight of me. You couldn’t call me on the telephone, you couldn’t reach me, no matter what the emergency. You could do just one thing, go ahead and see that George — Mr. Colton, got whatever breaks you could give him.”
“And not let him know that you had retained me?”
“You could use your own judgment about letting him know that someone had retained you, but you wouldn’t even describe me, or let him know that it had been a woman who called on you.”
Ken Corning said, slowly: “Let’s pass that for a minute. This is a sensational murder case. The newspapers are hinting at a something that’s in the background and may develop at any minute. You want me to keep your identity secret because you’d be pilloried by the press if they could drag in a ‘beautiful woman’ angle. But there’s something specific you want me to do. What is it?”
She said: “I want you to drag his wife into it.”
Ken Corning raised his brows, said nothing.
She started to speak, rapidly: “He’ll have another lawyer who will be handling the case for him. I don’t know who that lawyer will be. But it’ll be somebody who will do just as George... Mr. Colton says. It’ll be somebody who will go before a jury with that story about someone else firing the shots from another room, and all that stuff that Mr. Colton told the newspapers.
“That’s all hooey. He shot Harry Ladue because Ladue had been too friendly with his wife. The unwritten law is the defense he should make, and he’d be acquitted on it. But if he sticks with this yarn about some mysterious person standing in the darkness of another room, or in the corridor and firing the shots, he’ll get the death penalty!”
Ken Corning’s eyes narrowed.
“Have you any scintilla of evidence of what you’re talking about?” he asked.
She nodded, reached in her purse, took out a sheet of stationery that bore the printed head of a cheap hotel. The stationery was covered with fine writing, in a feminine hand.
“Here,” she said, “is a list of the places where Ladue stayed with George Colton’s wife, and the names that they registered under. I want you to promise me that you’ll drag them into the case, rip the facts wide open.”
Corning said: “Through the newspapers?”
“I don’t care,” she said, “how you do it, just so it’s done. I don’t want Colton to think he’s shielding the name of a woman and go to his death because of it.”
Corning said: “So he’s shielding the woman, eh? That’s the reason he’s pulling this line about someone standing in the corridor and doing the shooting as he walked into the office.”
“Of course,” she answered.
Corning took the sheet of paper and looked at the dates, names of hotels and names of persons.
“The handwriting would all be by Ladue,” he said. “How could you prove who the woman was?”
“Get photographs of his wife, silly, and chase around through the bellboys. You can work up the case with that evidence. Just get the thing started and it’ll work up itself. There’s only one promise I want from you, and I want it made on all that you hold sacred. That is that I don’t want you ever to tell a soul that I called on you. You’ve got to swear that.”
“You mean,” he asked, “that a woman called on me?”
“No. I mean that you’ll never disclose my real identity.”
“But I don’t know it. You just mentioned that I’d never find it out.”
“I’ve changed my mind about that. I... I think you’ll find out who I am. You’ve got to promise.”
He pursed his lips. Tears came to her eyes. She reached into her purse and took out a small handkerchief. As Corning followed the motion of her hands he saw that the handkerchief was soggy, saw, also, the glint of blued steel in the purse.
He spoke calmly.
“Is the gun new?” he asked.
She gave a little gasp and clutched at the purse. Ken Corning reached over, clamped his hand on her wrist, raised his eyes to hers, and said: “So you’re Mrs. George Colton, eh?”
Had he struck her with his fist she would not have turned whiter. She stared at him with eyes that were dark with terror. “How... how did you know?”
He kept holding her wrist.
“And I’ll take the gun, so that you won’t get into any trouble with it,” said Ken.
She let go her hold on the entire purse, and, as Ken freed her wrist, leaned forward and put her hands to her face. “It’s horrible,” she said. “He’s trying to save my name. He doesn’t love me. But he’d take a death sentence rather than let the newspapers bandy my name about. I can’t let him do it. I’ve got to force him to make the facts public, and then—”
She paused.
“And then?” asked Ken Corning.
She motioned towards the purse which held the gun.
“Then—” she said, and pitched forward to the floor.
Helen Vail sopped a wet towel on the woman’s forehead and said: “What happened, Ken?”
He shook his head. “She kind of wobbled. Before I could catch her she’d gone into a nose dive. Her pulse is all weak and stringy. Guess she hasn’t had much sleep. She seems to have been on a terrific strain. Where’s that whiskey? Fine. Now hold her head while I see if we can get a little more down her.”
He poured whiskey past the white lips. The woman’s eyelids fluttered and she stared at them with fixed eyes that seemed glassy and unseeing, Like the eyes of a cat that is just recovering from a fit.
“Feel better?” asked Ken Corning.
She didn’t answer the question.
A knock sounded at the door of the private office. Ken Corning looked meaningly at Helen Vail. “Go out and see who it is. If it’s anybody that*s snooping around, hand ’em a stall.”
Helen Vail went to the door, opened it, tried to block the entrance with her slender body. A man pushed her to one side. Ken Corning saw the glitter of light from the windows reflected from the lense of a camera. He saw a long arm hold up something above Helen Vail’s head. Then there was a “poom” and the white glare of a flashlight exploded.
Ken Corning went forward, low to the ground like a football player charging the line. He went past Helen Vail like a charging bull. A man with a camera and a flashlight was running across the outer office. Ken Corning caught him at the door.
The man whirled as Ken’s hands sought the camera. He made a swift pass at Ken. Corning dodged the blow, brought his foot sharply down on the man’s instep, jerked at the camera. It came loose in his hand. Ken whirled it around his head, banged it down on the floor. He crossed his left, and, as the man staggered, got hold of his coat collar with one hand, jerked the door open with the other.
The man struck an ineffectual blow. Ken Corning leaned his weight against the struggling victim, pushed him down the hall, sped him on his way with the toe of a well-directed boot.
The man sprinted to the stairs, then whirled.
“You can’t get away with that!” he yelled. “I’ll have you in jail before night for assault and battery. My paper’s got some prestige and you can’t pull a stunt like that. I’ll show you who’s who in this man’s town.”
He was still talking as Ken snapped the door shut.
He walked into his reception-room, kicked the camera to fragments, jerked open the door of his private office, and said to Helen Vaiclass="underline" “Get her out of here, and keep her under cover!” Helen Vail stared at him.
“Who is she?” she whispered.
“Don’t ask me, and don’t ask her,” rasped Ken Corning. “Get her out of here. Take her down a floor and into the ladies’ restroom. Keep her under cover until you can sneak her out. If she can make it, better make a try for a hotel right now.”