Then Best walked down the corridor and tapped on the door of 309.
After an interval, the door opened and Ellen Hanley’s face broke into a smile of welcome.
“Come in,” she said. “I had a great trip. Gee, it’s swell, riding around in planes. I never got so much kick out of anything in my life! I thought I’d be frightened, but I wasn’t. It’s simply swell. And they tell me that it’s just as safe as traveling by automobile.”
Gilbert Best entered her room, sat down on the edge of the bed, lit a cigarette.
“Sometime tomorrow,” he said, “a man’s going to register here by the name of Freeman. I want you to get acquainted with him and then start going out with him.”
“Do I try to find out anything from him?”
“No, just be friendly with him. Keep playing around with him. Go places and string him along.”
“And don’t try to find out anything?”
“Not a thing.”
“Anything else?”
“Just wait for instructions.”
“This,” she observed, “is the swellest job I ever had in my life.”
“Get a kick out of it, sister,” he told her, “because it ain’t going to last long.”
He returned to his own room, to find the telephone ringing. His office was on the line. His secretary said: “Mr. Dillon, the lawyer, rang up and said that you could discontinue work on that Airline Stageway case because he already had the matter well in hand.”
The detective’s laugh was scornful. “You ring up Dillon,” he said, “and tell him that he hasn’t got anything in hand and that if he compromises that case before he sees me tomorrow, he’s going to be the sorriest mortal in the world.”
He hung up the receiver, crossed to the desk, took out some of the hotel stationery and scrawled a note addressed to Sam C. Wigmore at 503 Transportation Building.
Dear sir: — You may not know it, but Ellen Hanley is registered at this hotel. She’s the real Ellen Hanley that you want, and if you want to know where she is, you’ll find her playing around with a man who’s registered here as Pete Freeman. I don’t mind seeing that you are double-crossed, but I hate to see you paying for the privilege. If you don’t believe what I say, send one of your men down here to make a check or telephone the house detective. Never mind who I am. I’m just a friend who likes to see fair play.
Best sealed the letter in an addressed envelope, took it to the desk.
“Will this go out tonight?” he asked. “No, not until tomorrow morning,” the clerk told him.
Best grinned and dropped the letter into the mail box.
Chapter Five
Compromise
Gilbert Best shoved his way through the door marked Frank C. Dillon — Attorney At Law — Office Hours 10:00 to 12:00 — 2:00 to 4:30 — Entrance. Norma Pelton’s teeth flashed in a smile.
“How’s the girl?” asked Best.
“Fine as silk, Gil. What’s the good word?”
“Oh, so-so. What’s Dillon doing? Is he busy?”
“He’s been having a lot of telephone calls from Wigmore. He’s virtually got that case compromised.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He’s sore at you.”
“Why?”
“He thinks that you got him when he was pretty low and stuck him for a bunch of money to handle a case that was a cinch anyway.”
“Yeah,” Best said. “Tell him that I’m going in.”
“You mean that you’re here in the office?”
“No, that I’m going in.”
“He won’t like that.”
“You mean he’d like to keep me waiting for ten or fifteen minutes.”
The eyes twinkled. “Well, I didn’t say exactly that.”
Best snorted. “Tell him,” he said, “that I’m on my way in.”
He strode across the office, pushed open the door marked, Private, crossed the law library and heard Dillon’s voice registering protest in the telephone transmitter before he was halfway across the office.
Best timed his entrance to the private office to coincide with the banging of the receiver back on its hook.
“You’ve got a crust, busting in on me when I’m busy,” said Dillon.
“Oh, were you busy?”
“Of course I’m busy. I’m busy trying to make up some of that money you swindled me out of.”
“Meaning what?” asked Best, his eyes cold.
“Meaning that I had a cinch case against the Airline Stageways, and you went ahead and threw a scare into me and made me put up a lot of money to pay you for doing a bunch of stuff that was unnecessary. And, worse than that, you made me kick through to support that Hanley woman in idleness.”
“She’s got a cough,” Best said. “She should go down to Arizona or some place for awhile.”
“Well, I’ve got a compromise through for her. She can go to Arizona or any place.”
“Oh, you’ve got a compromise through?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Well,” said Dillon, “I don’t know as it’s any of your particular affair, because I haven’t seen that you’ve done anything very wonderful on the case, but, just between us, it’s a compromise of twenty thousand dollars.”
“How much is your fee?” asked the detective.
“That,” said Dillon in tones of positive finality, “is none of your damn business.”
Best grinned, and said: “When you wanted me in on the case, you mentioned you had lost ten thousand dollars on a compromise that was figured at twenty thousand. That leads me to believe you’ve got her sewed up for a fifty-percent fee.”
“What if I have?” Dillon demanded. “Best, I’m getting damn tired of the way you do things. You could be a good detective if you’d follow instructions and confine yourself to doing the things you’re told to do. But you take in too much territory. You want to tell me how I am going to try my cases, how I am going to deal with my clients. You want to bust in here unannounced. You want to be the big shot in this business, and you can’t make it stick.”
“Oh, can’t I?”
“No, you can’t.”
“And you’ve compromised for twenty thousand?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you get my message telling you not to?”
“It happens,” said the lawyer with paunchy dignity, “that I am responsible to my clients for handling matters to their satisfaction and protecting their interests. When I start taking orders from a private detective, I want to know it.”
“So you didn’t think you needed me?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Don’t think I did you any good?”
“Not a damn bit. I know you didn’t. Wigmore said he had intended to compromise all along for twenty thousand, but that the matter had slipped his mind because the file had been misplaced in his office. He said he was satisfied there was a real injury there and that he wanted my client to have sufficient money to restore her to health.”
The detective sighed. “Just when I thought,” he said, “I was doing you some good.”
“You weren’t,” Dillon said. “You should pay me back the money that I advanced to you.”
Best looked at the floor with a woebegone expression.
Dillon elaborated upon the idea he had expressed and warmed to his task as he grew more indignant.
“You stuck me for a bunch of money for my client and for seven hundred and fifty dollars as a retainer for your services. It was out of all reason. You didn’t do a thing for the money. I probably could have you jailed for obtaining money under false representations. As a detective, you’re a frost — a pain in the neck. You had some luck in a couple of cases you handled for me, and like a fool, I thought it was due to your ability. The amount of money you stuck me on this thing was simply outrageous, and I’m telling you frankly, Best, I want it back.”