Ken laughed and said: “Sure I do. Perkins was one of them. He was the detective who barged into the office here. He’s a cheap heel who does dirty work for the Dwight machine.”
“But,” she said, “you told the officers that you couldn’t recognize any of them.”
Ken Corning laughed mirthlessly and said: “Of course I did. I’d never get anywhere trying to pin anything on Perkins. He’d produce an alibi and get acquitted. Then they’d turn around and prosecute me for perjury. I’m bucking a machine in this town, and the machine is well entrenched with a lot of money back of It. I’m not a fool!”
“How about the man who pretended to be a Federal officer?” she asked.
“He’s got to take the rap. They’ve got the goods on him. They might have managed to make some sort of stall there, only I knew it was coming. I had worked the wallet that the waiter had planted on me out of my pocket. When they opened the door of the limousine I tossed the wallet in with my left hand before I grabbed at this guy’s gun and socked him with my right.”
She shuddered and said: “Oh, Ken, I don’t like it.”
He stood with his feet planted far apart, his jaw thrust forward, hands thrust into the pocket of his coat.
“I like it,” he said, “and I’m going to make them like it. I’m going to bust this town wide open. They’re going to stop me if they can. They’ll try to frame me, try to take me for a ride, try to freeze me out. I’m going to stay! I’m going to be here after they’re gone.”
“But, Ken,” she objected, “you’ve done all this work and risked your life and we only get a hundred and fifty dollars out of it.”
Ken Corning nodded and laughed.
“A hundred and fifty dollars,” he said, “and it’s honest money.”
Then he walked into his private office and the door clicked shut.
Helen Vail could hear him moving around in the inner office. He was whistling cheerfully as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
She opened the drawer of her desk, took out a ledger which was innocent of entry, took a pen and wrote in a hand which trembled slightly: “People versus Parks — cash retainer $150.00.”
The Top Comes Off
Lawyer Ken Corning was reading a printed pamphlet which contained the advance decisions of the supreme court when his office door opened and Helen Vail, his secretary and only helper, came slipping into the room.
Corning looked up and frowned. Helen Vail’s eyes were big.
“She’s a beauty, Ken!”
“Who is?” he asked.
“The jane that’s outside.”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t know. She won’t give it.”
Ken Corning’s frown deepened. “Listen, kid,” he said, “this is a law office, and we’ve got to run it like one. I’m just getting started here, but that isn’t any reason we’re going to let anybody ritz us. Go back and get her name.”
Helen Vail stood with her back against the door, slim, straight and pretty. Her lips were pressed together. Her eyes showed concern.
“Listen, Ken, that’s why I came in. I tried to get her name. I told her if I didn’t get it she couldn’t see you. She said that she couldn’t see you then, and got up to go. I called her back and told her I’d see what I could do. She’s pretty, and she’s been crying.”
“How old?” asked Corning.
“Her face says twenty-five, her hands say thirty. You know, the backs of her hands.”
“Yes,” said Corning, “I know. What else?”
“She’s got trim ankles, a sport outfit that cost money, and there was a diamond ring on her engagement finger, but it’s gone. You can see where she’d been wearing it.”
“Maybe it was a wedding ring,” said Corning.
“No. She’s still got the wedding ring. She’d been wearing two. The diamond’s gone.”
Ken Corning put down the advance decision. “Okey,” he said, “shoot her in. But don’t leave that outer office no matter what happens. This may be a frame. After the way I dented the political ring that runs this burg, you can figure they’ll frame me if they get half a chance.”
Helen Vail nodded. Her eyes brightened.
“I’m glad you’re going to see her,” she said. “I like her, and I was afraid you were going to get obstinate and turn her away.”
Ken Corning grinned.
“Be your age, kid! Do you think I’d turn away a good-looking woman who’s been crying and who has just hocked a diamond ring? I’d be crazy. Send her in and I’ll find out how much she got for the ring.”
Helen Vail opened the door and said: “You may come in. Mr. Corning will see you now.”
Ken Corning heard swift, nervous steps. Then Helen Vail stood to one side, and he found himself looking into a pair of steady dark eyes, an oval face with skin that might have given inspiration to an artist painting an ad for a facial cream.
Her teeth showed as the lips twisted into a mechanical smile, but the eyes did not smile. There was no sign which Corning could observe which indicated that the woman had been weeping; but Ken Corning knew women well enough to know that Helen Vail would have been right about it.
He indicated a chair. “Sit down,” he said.
She sat down.
“You’re Ken Corning, and I’ve heard about you,” she observed.
He smiled.
“You’ve got a good ear for news, then. I haven’t been here very long, and I haven’t had very much business.”
She nodded, a quick little jerk of the head that seemed swiftly decisive, exactly the sort of a gesture of crisp affirmation which one would have expected from her.
“You handled that Parks case. I don’t suppose it was big business exactly, but you ran up against Boss Dwight, and you won out.”
Corning said: “Who told you Carl Dwight was interested in that case?”
She answered promptly and in a voice which held more than a trace of mockery. “A little bird,” she said.
Ken shrugged his shoulders. His face became a cold mask. “All right,” he said. “What did you want to see me about?” Her voice lost its mockery, her manner its assurance.
“About George Colton,” she said.
Ken Corning stared at her, then gestured towards the folded morning newspaper which lay on the desk. “You mean the man...”
“Yes,” she said. “I mean the man who’s smeared all over the front page of the newspaper, the one who’s accused of murdering Harry Ladue.”
Ken Corning stiffened. His eyes became wary and watchful.
“What about him? What do you want me to do?”
“Defend him.”
“Perhaps he’d prefer to pick his own lawyer,” said Corning. “Are you authorized to act for him?”
Slowly, she shook her head.
“Then you can’t retain me to act as his attorney.”
“Could I retain you to act as my attorney, to... to do anything that you could for him?”
Ken Corning fastened his eyes upon hers. Then he said: “That would depend upon several things.”
“What?” she asked.
“The size of the retainer, for one thing.”
She opened her purse, took out thirteen fifty-dollar bills. The bills were crisp and new. She laid them down on the desk. As she laid them down, one at a time, her lips moved soundlessly, counting, When the last bill had been placed there she looked up at Ken Corning.
“That,” she said, “is the retainer.”
Ken Corning said: “It must have been a big diamond.”
She gasped, stared at him, then clenched her left hand and dropped it below the desk. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
Ken Corning made no move to reach towards the money. He let it lie there on the desk, cool, crisp and green.
“The next thing I’d want to know,” he said, “is who you are.”