Ken examined the front of the springs, the radiator, found further evidences of a collision, further bits of red paint. The accident had evidently been very recent.
Aside from those things, there was nothing to indicate anything whatever about the occupant of the car, or the errand upon which it had been driven.
Ken walked to the curb, looked at the crowd which was commencing to move along under orders of the uniformed police. The traffic was moving now, crawling past at a snail’s pace, horns blaring. An officer, accompanied by a woman, moved along the parked lane of cars, inspecting them.
Corning felt that this woman had seen the fat man emerge from a machine, but couldn’t identify the machine. Ken let himself drift away with the scattering spectators. He walked around the block, and back to his office. He climbed the stairs, smiled at Helen Vail’s white face.
“Was it...?”
He nodded, passed into the inner office. She came and stood in the doorway. Ken smoothed out the newspaper he had taken from the car Parks had driven. He spread it out.
A knife had cut away a section of the front page.
“Was it because he came here?” asked Helen, mustering her courage.
Ken Corning reached for the other afternoon newspaper he had been reading when the sound of the shots had interrupted him. He nodded absently as he spread the two front pages out on the desk, one over the other.
The paper from the death car showed the page of the other paper through the opening where the knife had cut. That which had been cut out was a picture with a small paragraph or two below it.
Ken looked at the picture.
It showed a man with a square-cut chin, shell glasses, a firm, thin mouth, high cheek bones and a high forehead. Below it appeared the words Mayor Appoints Harry B. Dike as New Head of Water Department.
Corning read the few paragraphs appearing below the headlines of the accompanying news article. Those paragraphs recited the enviable record Harry B. Dike had enjoyed in connection with his own business enterprises and such civic activities as had claimed his time. It also mentioned that Dike was firmly opposed to the granting of contracts and concessions to those who enjoyed political pull, and that, in the future, the water department would be conducted upon a basis of efficiency with all work thrown open to the lowest responsible bidders, although the department would reserve the right to let private contracts.
The article sounded very promising. It gave the location of Dike’s office in the Monadnock Building. The Monadnock Building was on Seventh Street, between Madison and Harkley.
Helen Vail watched Corning as he clamped his hat down on his forehead.
“Ken,” she said, “you’re going out... on this thing, into danger?”
Her face was a dead white. The eyes were starry and tender.
He laughed at her, saw the pale lips stiffen, quiver and tremble into the first sign of a sob, then lift into a half smile. He patted her shoulder, grinned at her.
“Listen, kid, I’m a newcomer here. I’m here to stay. Some of these chaps don’t recognize that fact yet, that’s all. It’s time they did. I’m just going out and let a few of them know that when I hung out my shingle in this town I did it with my eyes open. I planted my feet here, and I’m staying here.”
And he strode across the office, went through the outer door, made time to the street, caught a taxi. “Monadnock Building,” he said, as he settled back against the cushions, “and make it snappy.”
The cab lurched into motion.
“Man shot here a while back,” said the communicative driver. “Raised hell with traffic.”
Corning said: “Yeah,” without interest and the conversation languished. The cab swung in to the curb at Seventh Street, Corning paid the meter, consulted the directory of the Monadnock Building, found that Dike’s office was on the seventh floor, and took the elevator up.
There was no one in the reception office except a typist who was tapping frantically at the keys of a noiseless typewriter, and a rather stern-faced but pretty secretary who sat stiffly behind a desk in the corner of the room, three telephones in front of her.
Corning walked to her, smiled.
“I’m anxious to get in touch with a man who was to have met me here earlier this afternoon, but I had a puncture and was delayed. He’s a great big man, fat, about forty-eight, wearing a gray suit that’s in need of pressing...”
Her voice was crisply efficient.
“You mean Mr. Parks. He’s been here and gone.”
Corning made a gesture of disappointment, but his mouth clamped shut to keep from showing his elation.
“Mr. Dike’s in?”
“Yes. He’s busy. You haven’t an appointment?”
“No. Can you answer the question? What kind of a car does he drive?”
“A Cadillac. Ifs a sedan. Then he has a roadster, a Buick.”
“Thanks. I think I’m interested in the Cadillac. It’s a bright red, isn’t it?”
“It’s red, yes.”
“I’m afraid I’ve got to disturb Mr. Dike. Tell him it’s Mr. Corning, and that I’m in a hurry.”
She shook her head.
“He’s not to be disturbed. You haven’t an appointment, and...”
Corning gained the door to the inner office in a swift stride, without waiting for her to finish the sentence.
“And I’m in a hurry,” he said, and opened the door.
Harry B. Dike was even more dignified in his frosty appearance than the newspaper photograph would have indicated to a casual observer. The light glinted from the bald reaches of his high forehead. His eyes were steel gray and bored steadily out from behind his shell spectacles. He looked up from a desk which contained a sheaf of papers, stared at Corning and said: “Get out! I’m busy.”
His eyes went down to the papers.
Corning walked across the room.
Dike didn’t look up again. He was moving the point of a pencil along the typewritten lines of a document. “Get out,” he said, “or I’ll call a cop and have you thrown in for disturbing the peace. I’ve canceled my appointments. I don’t want any life insurance, any books or a new automobile.”
Corning sat down.
Dike scowled at him, banged the pencil down on his desk and reached for the telephone.
“I’m Kenneth D. Corning, attorney for Sam Parks, the man who called on you a little while earlier this afternoon,” he said.
Dike dropped the telephone. His eyes widened, darkened, then became fixedly steady in gaze and expression. He said coldly: “What’s that to me?”
“It has to do with your acceptance of the position of Superintendent of the Water Department,” said Corning. “I think it would be far better for you to refuse the appointment — particularly in view of the fact that Parks was murdered about twenty minutes ago.”
The face did not change by so much as a line.
“You mean that you think I had something to do with the murder?” asked Dike coldly.
Corning’s tone was equally cold.
“Yes,” he said.
The two men stared at each other.
“Corning,” said Dike, as though trying to place the name. “A newcomer here, eh? I presume you’re crazy. But if you’ve got anything to say, I’ll listen.”
Corning spoke, his tone dispassionate.
“He made the mistake of coming to you first. I presume he wanted a shakedown. When things didn’t go to suit him here he called me. It was Dwight’s men who put him on the spot. You probably weren’t directly connected with it. You notified Dwight, that’s all. You weren’t entirely surprised to hear of the murder, but you hadn’t exactly expected it.”
Dike got to his feet.
“All right. You’ve had your say. Now get out.”