“Who is it?”
“I don’t like to mention names but you know, I’m the driver of the stage.”
There was still silence over the wire. “You know — Walter Manning,” Best blurted.
“What is it you want?” Wigmore asked.
“Listen,” Best said, letting his voice rattle in the swift utterance of one who is excited and afraid, “there’s a couple of process servers snooping around. They have found out where I am. In some way, there’s been a leak somewhere. I’m going to go someplace away from here and make it snappy. Can you tell me where to go?”
“You’re sure they’re after you?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I can’t tell you everything over the telephone. You tell me some place to go, and then I’ll report from there.”
“Can you get away O.K.?”
“Yes, I think so.”
There was a period of silence, during which the wire buzzed with faint static noises. Then there was the rustle of paper.
“You can get a train out of there at three five. Go to Big Springs and register at the Palace Hotel.”
“Do you think I’d better use the same name?” asked Best.
“No. Register under the name of Pete Freeman, from San Francisco.”
“O.K. You’ll have to send me some money.”
The voice at the other end of the wire rasped into harsh impatience. “Money, hell!” said Wigmore. “We’ve been doing nothing but sending you money! What the hell do you think you’re pulling?”
“Listen,” Best said, putting a whining note into his voice, “you haven’t sent me so much, and it’s expensive, being on the dodge this way. And that ain’t all. A guy told me the other day that claimed to know, that you folks figured to string me along with a lot of promises and keep me out of the way until after the trial, and then you were going to tie a can to me and turn me loose.”
“That’s all baloney. You know we’re standing back of you. We don’t blame you.”
“I know, but it makes me nervous just the same, and I’ve got to travel. I had a little bad luck yesterday. You know, sitting around here without anything to do gets monotonous. I got in a poker game and lost some — not much — but some. I’ve got to have some money if I’m going to travel.”
Wigmore’s voice was fairly quivering with rage. “You keep out of poker games!” he said. “What you’re trying to do is stick us up. You think we’re afraid of your testimony, and you can stick us. Now, you try anything like that and you’re likely to wind up in jail. And don’t think I’m kidding, either!”
“I’m not trying anything like that, but a guy’s got to have expense money, hasn’t he?”
“I’ll send you a check for a hundred dollars and that’s got to last you for a week.”
“Gee, that Big Springs place is expensive. Ain’t that kind of a resort?”
“Not at this season of the year. You get down there and there’ll be a check for a hundred dollars in the mail.”
“Now listen,” Best said, “that’s a strange place. I’ll get my mail under the name of Pete Freeman, but if I go to the bank to cash a check, it’s got to be under the name of Walter Manning, because that’s the way my driving license is made out and all of my credentials.”
“Sure,” Wigmore said, “I understand that. You catch that train and keep out of poker games. What’s more, you’d better have some confidence in the company and not listen to all this line of hooey that’s handed you.”
He banged the receiver back on the line, and Gilbert Best dropped his own receiver, signaled to his secretary to sever the connection.
He grinned at the secretary. “Get me,” he said, “time tables of all lines that run into Big Springs. Check back on the trains in all directions and segregate those that have station stops at five minutes past three in the afternoon. Get a description of Walter Manning from the application for driver’s license on file in the Motor Vehicle Department. Send an operative to any of the places where trains that run to Big Springs stop at five minutes past three in the afternoon. Cover the hotels until you find a man answering the description of Walter Manning. He’ll be registered under an assumed name. He’ll be a man who’s hanging around the hotel, more or less. He could be contacted in the lobby of the hotel. Get an operative who can contact him and build up an acquaintanceship. Manning will be hungry for companionship.”
His secretary nodded efficiently. “Anything else?”
“Yes, take a wire to Ellen Hanley at the Brown Palace Hotel, Denver, Colorado, tell her to go by plane to Big Springs at once and register under her own name at the Palace Hotel there. Tell her to await further instructions. Get me some cash and my traveling bag.”
“Where are you going?”
“The Palace Hotel at Big Springs,” he said. “If you want me, you can reach me under the name of Pete Freeman. That’s the name that I’ll be registered under. I’m going down there to work on a case.”
The Big Springs resort was favorably known among vacationists. During the height of the summer season every available accommodation would be taken. Now the Palace Hotel was operating at approximately one quarter of its normal capacity.
Gilbert Best registered at the hotel under the name of Pete Freeman.
“Mail?” he asked.
The clerk thumbed through a pile of letters, took out a long envelope which bore no more definite information as to the identity of the sender than the fact that it came from Room 503 in the Transportation Building.
Best took the letter to his room, slit the envelope and took out the letter addressed to Pete Freeman at the Palace Hotel at Big Springs.
The letter was written in a slightly more conciliatory tone than had marked Wigmore’s conversation. It enclosed a check of Airline Stageways, Inc., payable to the order of Walter Manning, in the sum of one hundred dollars. It went on to assure the addressee that his cooperation was being keenly appreciated; that the company would endeavor to reciprocate in the future; that it would not much longer be necessary for Mr. Freeman to remain “in seclusion,” and that the writer appreciated the strain of inactivity, but went on to mention the importance of retaining good employment in these days of almost universal unemployment.
It was a cordial, friendly letter, one that was well designed to appeal to both friendship and loyalty.
It was signed with the scrawling signature of Sam C. Wigmore.
Best placed the letter in his inside coat pocket, reached for his telephone, and, when he heard the voice of the operator on the wire, said: “I’m expecting a young woman by the name of Hanley to register at the hotel. When she does, please notify me at once.”
He then took off his shoes, coat and vest, tossed pillows up on his bed, stretched out at luxurious ease and proceeded to read a magazine.
Toward evening, Best telephoned his office, learned that operatives had contacted a man who answered the description of Walter Manning, who was registered at the Cosmopolitan Hotel at Pleasantville under the name of Charles Allen. The operatives had already established a contact. Allen was lonely and anxious for human companionship.
Best gave terse instructions. “Send a wire,” he said, “to Charles Allen at the Cosmopolitan Hotel at Pleasantville that will say, simply: ‘Unforeseen developments necessitate your immediate departure. Go Palace Hotel Big Springs, register under name of Pete Freeman and await further instructions.’ Sign the telegram — ‘Sam Wigmore’.”
He hung up the telephone, switched on the lights and had finished bathing and dressing when he received word that Ellen Hanley had arrived and was in Room 309.
Best grinned into the telephone. “An unexpected change in my plans,” he said, “is going to necessitate my departure this evening. Will you arrange to have my bill ready, please.”