Corning moved towards the door. He noticed that the man who had worn the white carnation was moving towards the door also and that the man who had been with the red-haired girl was walking with him. The red-haired girl moved off towards the left and went into the women’s dressing room. The man who had worn the white carnation lit a cigarette. He seemed in no hurry. Ken Corning went out of the door painfully conscious of the pressure of the gun which was held against his ribs. The doorman looked at them and said: “Taxicab?”
McGovern shook his head and said: “No, I’ve got a car.”
The big limousine which had been parked near the curb with motor running slid smoothly up to the front of the cabaret and stopped. The doorman started to open the door and McGovern spoke sharply: “That’s all right,” he said, “I’m a Federal dick and this man is a prisoner. He’s desperate and may try to start something. Keep back, I’ll handle this!”
He reached out and opened the door. His gun prodded Ken in the ribs. “Get in,” he said.
Ken put his right foot on the running-board of the limousine. He could see two men seated in the back seat. They were grinning. Ken swung his body in a pivot, grabbing with his left hand at the gun which McGovern was holding against his ribs and pushing down with all his strength.
McGovern fired twice before Ken’s fist connected with his jaw. Neither shot hit. Somebody shot from the interior of the limousine but the bullet hit the plate-glass window, shattered it into a thousand fragments and deflected. McGovern went down like a sack of cement. Ken swung himself on him and reached for the gun. Over his shoulder he could see the swirl of motion from the interior of the limousine. A man jumped to the running-board while Ken was still struggling for the possession of the gun. Ken heard him say: “All right, guy, take a load of this!”
Two shots roared out as though they had been one explosion. The man who had stood on the running-board of the limousine pitched forward and struck on his face. Ken jerked the gun from the pocket of McGovern and saw that the man in the dinner jacket was standing on the steps of the cabaret, an automatic in his hand. The man who had been with the red-haired girl was standing on the sidewalk a little bit to one side with a double-action revolver spouting fire. The doorman was miming heavily, his gold-braided coat flapping grotesquely behind him. The limousine had lurched into motion. Somebody was rolling down the back window, which had not been shattered. Guns blazed over Ken’s head. A bullet whistled past his cheek. The two men standing in the front of the cabaret answered the fire.
Ken got McGovern’s gun in his hand and took a couple of shots at the limousine. He heard the bullets give forth a clinking sound as they struck against the metal of the body. The limousine swung far over to one side as it rounded the comer to the accompaniment of screaming tires.
The man in the dinner coat ran towards Ken as McGovern, recovering from the daze of Ken’s blow, started to struggle to his feet.
Ken said: “Those men were trying to take me for a ride. This guy posed as a Federal agent...”
McGovern spoke up and said: “I am a Federal agent. This crook’s been shoving the queer. He’s got a wallet of phoney stuff on him right now.”
The man in the dinner coat laughed and said: “Federal, hell! I know you, you’re Jim Harper, and you’ve done time!”
A uniformed policeman, on beat, ran up. The man in the dinner coat spoke to him sharply: “All right, Bell. Get the crowd back. I’ll handle what’s left of this.”
A curious crowd was commencing to form a ring around the men, and the uniformed policeman started to herd them back.
The man in the dinner coat said: “That’s all right, buddy, I know this guy, he’s a crook. You’re a witness in the Parks case, huh?”
Ken Corning stared at him with round eyes and shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I’m not a witness, I’m attorney for Mrs. Parks and I came here to meet a witness but he didn’t show up.”
The man in the dinner jacket stared at Ken Corning for a long five seconds. Then his right eyelid slowly closed in a solemn wink: “So,” he said, “that’s your story, eh?”
Ken Corning kept his face perfectly straight and his eyes perfectly steady. “That,” he said, “is my story and I’m sticking to it. I’m not a witness, I’m a lawyer. I was to meet a witness here. These guys tried to keep me from meeting him, that’s all.”
The man in the dinner coat said: “Who were they? Would you recognize any of them if you saw them again?”
Ken Corning shook his head.
“No,” he said, “the light wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t see them.”
The man in the dinner coat turned to the fake Federal agent. Ken Corning slipped away. No one tried to stop him. There was the sound of a police siren, approaching fast, as he turned the corner.
Ken Corning walked into his office.
The morning sun streamed in at the east window. Helen Vail stared at him with eyes that were dark with emotion, warm with pride.
“Got your name in the papers, didn’t you?”
He grinned at her.
“How about our client?” she asked.
He spread his hands, palm up, made a sweeping gesture.
“Gone. Case is closed, dismissed.”
“And all we get then is the hundred and fifty dollar retainer?”
Ken nodded.
“That’s all. The woman was driving the car. Her husband wasn’t with her. I figured that he must have been, but he wasn’t. Dike and Dwight had been having a secret meeting. They’d been out in the country at a road-house where they were safe. Coming back they were riding in the same car. Dike was driving and he was a little bit ‘lickered.’ The woman was driving the flivver and they had a smash. She was a little bit belligerent and insisted on taking down the license number of the automobile. They paid her for her damage but she acted a little suspicious so Dwight got the license number of her automobile and found out who she was. They knew that she was running a speak, and figured that she was too dumb to know what it was all about, but they wanted her out of the way, just the same. With the deal Dike was planning to pull, it would have been fatal if somebody had uncovered this woman as a witness, so Dwight decided that he’d get her convicted of a felony. That would have discredited her testimony if she’d ever been called as a witness.
“She probably was suspicious, because she told her husband about it. Nobody knows just how much she told him or how much he knew, but it’s a cinch that he knew enough to put two and two together when he saw Dike’s picture in the paper with the blurb about his taking over the Water Department and eliminating graft.”
Helen Vail watched him with wide eyes.
“Can we prove any of that?” she asked.
Ken Corning shook his head. “We can’t prove anything,” he said. “Wouldn’t do us any good if we could. They’ve dismissed the case against the woman, released her from custody and she’s gone. They probably made a deal with her, gave her some money and started her traveling.”
“Why would they do that?” asked Helen Vail. “Her testimony is just as damaging now as it ever was.”
Ken Corning smiled and motioned towards the morning paper.
“Read the news,” he said, “and you’ll notice that Dike has declined the appointment. He said that his private business was taking up too much of his time for him to make the sacrifice of accepting a public position.”
Helen Vail blinked her eyes thoughtfully and said: “How about the people in the automobile — don’t you know any of them?”
Ken Corning said: “You mean the ones who were trying to take me for a ride?”
She nodded her head.