“Is that what you did?” I asked.
“I,” he said, “acted as a force of retributive readjustment. Dwight Chester-Smith, II, is a nincompoop, an innocuous nincompoop as yet, but a nincompoop, nevertheless. Too much money will eventually ruin him. He suffers from a surplus of unearned wealth. Estelle Whiting suffered from a shortage of earned wealth. I strove to rectify the situation.”
“I see,” I said. “And as for the law?”
“The spirit of the law was observed,” he said. “I’m a great respecter of the law, but when the spirit of the law conflicts with the letter of the law, I’m a man of spirit rather than of letters. How was it you described this choke-a-horse roll of money?”
“Slick and clean,” I said.
“Exactly,” he agreed, grinning. “However, I’d prefer to say clean as a whistle. How about four fingers of good Scotch?”
“Two,” I told him.
He grinned. “We’ll compromise on three,” he said.
And we did.
Take It or Leave It
I
I could tell there was some unusual activity in our office. A string of people kept marching back and forth past the door of the little cubicle in which I was supposed to be studying law. A procession of footsteps to and from old E.B. Jonathan’s office proved incontestably that he was the focal point of the activity, and when activity centered around E.B., it meant the case which was breaking was one of major importance.
I tried to discipline my mind to follow the phraseology in which Blackstone had couched legal doctrines. But my mind was on the hubbub. The door of my little office opened and Cedric L. Boniface, looking plump, prosperous and smug surveyed me.
“I won’t be able to discuss the doctrine of Mortmain with you this afternoon, Wennick,” he said. “I’m leaving at once for Marlin.”
“A case?” I asked.
“A murder case,” he said, and went out.
Boniface was like that. He took himself very seriously indeed — the damned staffed shirt. If he had any inkling that in place of being a somewhat backward law student I was playing the game I was, he’d probably have needed a psychiatrist to calm him down.
He thought he was the big trial lawyer who was bustling about solving mysteries and getting innocent persons acquitted. He was the trial lawyer, all right. But I got the dope for him even if he didn’t know it. However, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
He’d been gone about five minutes when Mae Devers came into the office. “E.B. wants to see you, Pete,” she said.
“When?” I asked.
“In about five minutes. As soon as he can get rid of Boniface.”
“You,” I said, “seem to know a lot of what’s going on.”
“Why not? I have an observing disposition.”
My arm circled her waist. “You also,” I said, “have a fine figure — if we’re going to take a physical inventory.”
“We’re not,” she said, laughing and pulling away. “At least not right now. I have work to do.”
She blew me a kiss from the doorway, and I heard the swift click of her heels as she walked toward the outer office.
About five minutes after that, Boniface went striding self-importantly down the corridor, taking pleasure in his “great man” pretense. The outer door slammed, and Mae gave me a buzz on the intercom, and said, “E.B. wants you now, Pete.”
I walked down the corridor into E.B. Jonathan’s private office. He sat behind the desk, pouches hanging under his eyes, deep lines etched into his face. His head was as bald as a peeled onion.
His eyes met mine. “Sit down, Pete,” he said.
When you looked into old E.B.’s eyes, you lost the feeling that you were dealing with an old man or a tired man. His eyes were bright and coldly efficient. There was no sentiment about E.B. He did things in his own way, and didn’t give a damn for ethics. He wanted results, and he usually got them. And he saw to it that he was well paid for his efforts.
“Read the paper this morning?” he asked. “About the murder up in Marlin?”
“No.”
“Well, Cromley Dalton,” E.B. said in a tired, world-weary voice, “was the editor of the Marlin Morning Star. He was murdered around ten o’clock last night. There’s a hot political situation up there with the city council and the mayor facing a recall election. I guess I don’t have to tell you that excitement is at a fever pitch.”
“Who’s arrested?” I asked.
“The mayor, Layton Spred.”
“The motive?” I asked.
“The Marlin Morning Star had been instrumental in getting the recall started. It had published a series of bitter personal attacks on the mayor. He’d threatened to shoot Dalton as he would a mad dog. Mayor Layton Spred is hot-tempered. Apparently he values personal honor and integrity very highly.”
“Any further details?” I asked.
“Dalton went to call on Spred about ten o’clock last night. Dalton rang the doorbell and stood in front of the door. From where he was standing he could look through a diagonal window down the corridor. Spred, on the other hand, could have looked through the same window and seen Dalton.
“Evidently Spred, coming down the corridor, saw Dalton’s face and pulled a gun from his hip pocket. Dalton didn’t wait for him to get to the door. He started to run back toward the car where his two companions were waiting. Then, seeing that he couldn’t make it, he swerved and ran around the end of the porch toward the back of the house. Spred ran out and dashed toward the porch, a gun in his hand.
“When the two men in the car saw him flourishing the gun and realized that Dalton had swung around toward the back of the house, they didn’t wait to see what was going to happen. They sent the speedometer soaring and got away from there fast. But just before they passed beyond hearing range they heard shots.
“They notified the police. The police found Dalton’s body lying just at the edge of the alley. He had been shot in the back. Death was instantaneous.”
“What,” I asked, “is Spred’s story?”
“Spred says that someone rang his doorbell, and that he went to the door just in time to see a shadowy figure running through the darkness across the lawn and around toward the back of the house. He says he was afraid the man had been planting a bomb. He ran to the edge of the porch and called to him to halt.
“The intruder turned and shot twice at him, and Spred raised his gun and fired once. He says that at the sound of his shot, the man turned and resumed his flight running in the direction of the alley. Spred went back and called the police, reporting that someone had taken a shot at him. The neighbors heard three shots. When Spred was arrested, officers took his gun. It had been fired three times.”
“That,” I said, “doesn’t make things look so good for Mr. Spred.”
“And Spred,” E.B. said, “is our client.”
“What,” I asked, “do you want me to do?”
“Boniface is going up to handle the case,” E.B. said. “We’ve been retained by Millicent Spred, the mayor’s daughter. The young woman is driving Boniface back to Marlin. Boniface will be registered at the Plaza Hotel. I have here a brief on appeal on which I desire his opinion. I’m sending you up on the three-ten train to deliver it. Ask him to telephone me what he thinks of it.”
I nodded.
“That,” E.B. Jonathan went on, “should make as good an excuse as any to get you on the ground. While you’re there, you’ll telephone me and tell me that it looks as though you could get a lot of practical knowledge being on the ground to help Boniface and watch what he does. That will account for your presence in town. Once you’re there, get on the job just as soon as you can, and do your stuff.”