“Recently, I’ve realized that what I thought was clever planning was just an accident. The car actually did have a flat tire, and Carl Gail had been using Edith Forbes’ car. He’d used it the night of the murder. He had to put the gun he’d used some place where it wouldn’t be found. Under the front seat on top of the tools looked like a good place. He didn’t expect to be searched, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Figure out for yourselves what happened. Cromley Dalton would never on earth have driven out to Spred’s house with Bode and Mansfield. He’d never on earth have left Bode and Mansfield in the car and gone up to talk with Layton Spred himself. Nor would Bode and Mansfield have let him.
“What happened is a damn sight more apt to run like this. Dalton was conducting a hammer and tongs campaign. Bode and Mansfield had been running the police department. Carl Gail had been their contact man with the underworld, collecting the pay-off money. Cromley Dalton got the dope on the play. He was getting evidence that couldn’t be contradicted. Gail and Bode decided they were going to kill him. They made Mansfield come in on it. He didn’t want to.
“Gail managed to get Spred’s gun when he was out there at dinner. They fired a couple of shells and saved the bullets, leaving the empty cartridges in the gun. They ambushed Dalton, shot him from behind, drove out and planted his body by the alley at Spred’s house, rang Spred’s doorbell, and when he came to the door, started to run toward the back.
“Naturally, Spred, being a hot-headed southerner, did just what they expected he would do — pulled a gun from his pocket and ran around the porch. Gail fired two blank cartridges. Spred rose to the bait, raised his gun, and fired wild into the darkness, and that was all they needed. Bode and Mansfield notified the police.
“It took Gail to plant the empty shells in Spred’s gun, Bode to switch bullets at the police post mortem, substituting a bullet fired from Spred’s gun in place of the one that had been taken from the body. That’s the only way the facts make sense.”
Bode said, “You’re crazy. In addition to that, you’re a damn liar. Furthermore, you’re going to be arrested for defamation of character, for compounding a felony—”
I pushed him aside and walked over to where Mansfield was sitting. I grabbed him by the necktie, jerked him over to the edge of the chair, put my palm under his chin, and pushed his head up so he had to look me in the eyes.
“The trail is forking for you right now, Mansfield,” I said. “Take the side which leads toward law and order, and you’ll probably get off with a life sentence as having been an unwilling accomplice. Try to back these crooks up, and you’ll be climbing the thirteen steps to the gallows. You know what they’ll do when it comes to a showdown. They’ll sell you out and make you the patsy!”
Bode lunged for me and said, “Captain Jones, arrest him.”
I clipped Bode on the jaw. Gail came for me. I caught him in the pit of the stomach with the ball of my foot. The police captain scrambled toward me.
“Go on, Mansfield,” I said. “Speak up. It’s true, isn’t it?”
Mansfield gulped twice, and said, “It’s true,” just as the captain’s hand came down hard on my shoulder.
I said, “Okay, Captain Jones, you heard that confession. Mr. Boniface has heard it. Your police commissioner is a murderer. There’s going to be a new police commissioner. Now’s the time for you to reach your decision. Are you going to stay with a sinking ship, or are you going to take the transfer?”
Mansfield said, “My God, I never did want to do it! I haven’t been able to sleep since.”
A shot rang out behind me. The back of the chair just behind Mansfield’s head dissolved into splinters.
I whirled around. Bode had recovered from my punch and had a gun in his hand. “You damn squealer,” he yelled at Mansfield, and raised the gun again.
I think he intended to escape — if he had any definite plans. But he clearly intended to give Mansfield a one-way ticket before he left.
I looked across at Boniface. He was nearest to Bode. “Grab him,” I cried.
Boniface stood there as white and as useless as a hunk of dough.
I went for Bode.
I saw the business end of his gun looking like the entrance to a subway, pointed directly at my forehead. I went forward in a football tackle, trying to hit him low just below the knees.
I knew I wasn’t going to make it from the time I left the ground, and so did Bode. There was a sneer on his face as he depressed the muzzle of the gun, drawing a bead on me just as a quail hunter takes a bead on a flying bird.
Suddenly a shot rang out.
I hit the floor and was surprised as hell to find I could still get up. Bode was staggering around the room, his right arm limp and nerveless at his side. Captain Jones had made his choice — with a big forty-five.
I decided I might as well be nonchalant and started dusting off the knees of my trousers. I’d have lit a cigarette, only I knew my hand would have trembled so I couldn’t have held the match.
Boniface dropped back into his chair and was saying, “A fine way to bring a case to law! A fine way!”
I felt something puffing at my coat, looked down and saw that Ray Mansfield was on his knees.
“Don’t let them!” he pleaded. “You’re the only one who can straighten this thing out. They told me if I squealed they’d pin all of it on me.”
“Better keep your mind on your work,” I told Captain Jones. “Bode’s shifting that gun to his left hand.”
The captain took care of that.
Mansfield went on yammering.
The police captain said, “I’m leaving it up to you to square me with the public. You’re a witness that I didn’t let Bode keep me from doing my duty. I acted.”
“Me, too,” the plain-clothes man interrupted. “Don’t leave me out of this.”
I reached for my cigarette case then, and said, “I seem to be important as hell around here. Jones, you’d better put handcuffs on Gail while he’s out. He’s the brains of the outfit.”
VII
We sat in old E.B. Jonathan’s private office, and from the way Cedric Boniface had told the story, you’d have thought I should have gone into the law library and committed hari-kari.
“It was,” he concluded, “the most disgraceful exhibition of crude, vulgar violence I have ever seen. I warn you, Mr. Jonathan, that such tactics will result in the loss of our professional reputation. I am willing to admit that the case was solved, but only because I kept my head sufficiently to realize the full import of the statements made by the witnesses.
“The damning thing, the incredible thing, is that Peter Wennick, a man in our employ, should have actually gone out to the scene of the crime and planted evidence. If he had found that gun and thought it had any significance he should have reported it to the police. I demand that Wennick be discharged. We cannot afford to jeopardize our reputation.”
Old E.B. looked at me sternly over the tops of his bifocals. “Wennick,” he said, “you have heard the charges made by my junior partner. Because of your zeal, I am not going to let you out. But I warn you that if anything of this sort happens in the future, you will be discharged without so much as a day’s notice. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” I said.
Cedric Boniface got up and stalked pompously from the office. At the door he turned and said, “This is against my better judgment. If you keep him on, you will have to assume full responsibility.”