The punk kid was way ahead of Boniface, “He can’t make that stick,” he protested. “No matter what he claims. He wasn’t picking anything up. I tell you, he took it out of his pocket and put it down, and even dusted off his hands with his handkerchief.”
“You,” I said, “have good eyes.”
“You bet I have good eyes,” he said, “particularly at night. But don’t worry, there was enough light for me to see everything. I saw the kind of clothes you were wearing, the way you wear your hat tilted to one side, the swing to your shoulders, the—”
“Forget it,” I said. “If you say you saw me climb over the hedge and put a gun in that flower bed, you’re a damn liar.”
Cedric Boniface heaved a sigh of relief. “Wennick,” he said, “I was hoping you could say that.”
“Well, I can say it all right, and what’s more, I can make it stick.”
The police captain said, “Don’t think you’re going to just pull that kind of stuff and get away with it. You’re going to answer a lot of questions, and you’re going to answer them right. Now, you had Edith’s car last night. Where do you go?”
I looked at him, and said, “Who wants to know?”
He turned to the plain-clothes man. “We’ll take him down to headquarters and question him there. We can do a lot better with a temporary detention cell at the end of the corridor. Maybe it won’t be so temporary.”
Boniface ran around like a mother hen chaperoning a chick under her wing when a hawk approaches. He put a fatherly hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be like that, Wennick,” he said. “Can’t you realize that these gentlemen represent law and order? Don’t you know that this attitude of insolent independence will get you nowhere?”
“For Pete’s sake,” I said, shaking off his hand. “Can’t you ever get over being so damned pompous always?”
Boniface’s jaw sagged. His face flushed a purplish red. “You damned up-start!” he said. “You have no right to speak to me that way—”
VI
Cedric Boniface broke off as the door opened and Preston Bode entered the room without the formality of knocking. Behind him was Carl Gail, and Ray Mansfield, who gave the impression of being in the party but not of it. His hangdog manner, nervously twitching fingers, and downcast, shifty eyes all showed his wish to be somewhere else.
“Who are these men?” Boniface asked.
The captain got to his feet, and saluted. “Preston Bode,” he said, “is the police commissioner. Ray Mansfield is councilman.” He didn’t say what Gail was.
Bode pushed a cigar up at an aggressive angle, surveyed Boniface, and said, “I know all about you. You’re Cedric Boniface. You’re Spred’s lawyer. And I’m commencing to find out a hell of a lot about this guy, Wennick. He’s the guy who does the dirty work. Well, this time he’s done just a little too much of it.”
“Now, what the devil are you talking about?” I asked Bode.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about. You planted that gun, and there’s no use denying it.”
“Now listen,” I told him. “I’m commencing to get tired of this. But just in case you want to wash a little dirty linen in public, kindly remember that your political future depends on Layton Spred’s acquittal, and you’re the one who controls the police force.”
“Well, I don’t control the district attorney,” Bode said. “And if you think I’d overlook my sworn duty in order to make political capital, you’re crazy. I wouldn’t condone crime no matter what depended on it. If you were my own brother, I’d adopt a fair, impartial attitude.”
I looked at Gail and felt myself frowning thoughtfully. “You,” I told him, “sure as hell do get around.”
He didn’t say anything.
Boniface said, “Really, gentlemen, I must call your attention to the fact that this is my suite in the hotel. I asked Mr. Wennick to come here so he could be confronted with witnesses and make any explanation which he could. I hardly intended to have the matter become a question of—”
“Never mind what you intended,” Bode said. “We’re running this town, and you’re in a pretty tough spot yourself.”
“I am?” Boniface exclaimed.
“You sure are.”
“Why, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Boniface said. “Are you presuming to question my ethics, Sir?”
“Forget it,” Bode said. “You’re representing Spred. Wennick is your man. Wennick goes out and pulls a fast one. Don’t tell me you weren’t in on it.”
As the full implication of the charge crashed home to Boniface, he sat down abruptly, all the color draining from his face.
I turned to the young punk. “You got the license number of that automobile?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said.
“And you saw me jump over the hedge?”
“That’s right.”
“You,” I told him, “are a damn liar. I parked the car two blocks from the place, and threw the gun over the hedge. I never left the alley.”
“That’s an admission,” Bode shouted. “He’s admitted now that he planted the gun. That’s a confession.”
“Sure, it’s a confession,” I said. “There’s no law against tossing a gun into a flower bed. Wake up, you dumb hicks, and don’t waste so much time trying to stampede me by getting a punk stool pigeon to bring in a perjured accusation. Of course, I took that gun out and threw it over the hedge. Now, I’ll tell you some more things about that gun.
“I went up to Gail’s apartment last night. I didn’t say anything, but I knew it had been suggested to him that it would be a swell idea to plant a gun with a couple of exploded shells out there on Spred’s grounds. He pretended to be indignant about the whole idea, but insisted that I take Edith Forbe’s car. When I started to drive the car, I found I had a flat tire. And when I went to get at the tools, I found this gun.
“I figured that Gail had been a lot smarter than I’d given him credit for. He didn’t want to get his Angers dirty, messing around with the thing, but he fixed it so that I could take the responsibility if I wanted to.
“I’m willing to admit that threw me all off the track. However, events of the last few hours have put me right back on the track.
“Now, let me ask you something. Why do you suppose I was wandering around here leaving myself wide open, asking someone to furnish a gun to toss into Spred’s flower patch?”
“Because you were desperate and trying to get Spred acquitted,” Bode said. “You admitted that yourself.”
“Nuts,” I said. “Let’s do a little constructive detective work here instead of talking just for face exercise. Let’s suppose that Layton Spred is telling the truth about what happened. People have been known to do that, you know. In that event someone framed him. Someone wanted to get Spred to fire a shot in the darkness.
“They knew the best way to do that was to get two shots fired out of the darkness at him. But in order to account for those two shots, they had to plant two empty cylinders in Spred’s gun. That means it was someone who had access to the house. The daughter was out. Spred was a bachelor and didn’t do any entertaining in his home. His secretary had the run of the place. Therefore, it looked as though she was nominated.
“I contacted her by accident. I wanted to see if she had a gun with two exploded shells in the cylinder. So I put on a nice act for her. She led me to her boy friend. The thing was handled so smoothly that it took me in. I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. I figured Edith Forbes and her boy friend must be innocent, that they had gone out of their way to give me some evidence to plant. I believed them but I couldn’t tip my hand by not doing my share, so I took the gun out and planted it.