“Why? Why is the time of the murder so vital?”
“Because,” Moraine said, “Barney Morden has been selling you out — you can believe it or not. But Thorne and Barney Morden have been betraying you. Barney Morden took those files that were stolen from your office, and Thorne handled the financial end of it. And if that murder wasn’t committed at the time you think it was, you’d better find out where Barney Morden was at the time the murder was committed.”
“What the devil do you mean?” Duncan demanded, his face livid. “By God, Sam! You can’t throw mud all over my best friends just because your secretary happens to get mixed up in a murder case!”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” Moraine asked, “that Dixon might have been gathering evidence that was very embarrassing to Thorne? And that this evidence was scheduled to go before the grand jury to-day? And if that evidence had gone before the grand jury, Cad Thorne might have been indicted? While you’re looking for motives, you might take that into consideration.”
Moraine reached across Duncan’s legs, opened the door of the coupé.
As one in a daze, Phil Duncan, got to the sidewalk and stood staring at Moraine.
Moraine snapped home the gearshift lever.
“Be seeing you, Phil,” he said.
Chapter Fifteen
Sam Moraine drove his car rapidly around the block, brought it back to within twenty yards of where he had deposited the district attorney. He switched off the motor, lit a cigarette, settled back in the seat, and waited.
People pounded along the sidewalk, girls hurrying from offices to stores on errands, trial deputies leaving the district attorney’s office for various courtrooms, carrying brief cases bulging with papers. Everyone seemed in a hurry.
Moraine waited, smoking.
Traffic streamed by in the street. Occasional cars turned into the private parking place reserved for cars of the district attorney’s office.
Moraine, watching the traffic, saw a car driven by Barney Morden swing in toward the reserved parking place. Beside Morden sat Carl Thorne. The faces of both men were grim and tense.
Moraine flipped his cigarette to the street, twisted his key in the ignition, stepped on the starting motor, snapped the car into low gear and had shifted into second and was pouring gasoline into the motor as he went past the place where Morden was parking his car.
Moraine shifted his eyes to the rear view mirror, slammed on his brakes as though making an emergency stop. The tires screamed a protest. Moraine swerved the car so that his fenders almost touched those of the car nearest him. Then he released the brakes, snapped the gear shift back into high, and stepped on the accelerator.
His eyes flickered from the road ahead to the rear view mirror. Barney Morden’s car was leaving the parking place.
Moraine nursed his car into speed, made a sudden turn to the right, pushed the accelerator down close to the floor-boards.
He had gone two blocks when he heard the low, throbbing sound of the siren.
He continued to push the accelerator close to the floor-boards, keeping the car running at high speed. The moan of the siren became a shrill scream as Barney Morden’s powerful car pulled alongside and started crowding him into the pavement.
Pedestrians toned startled faces toward the two cars.
Barney Morden shouted, “Get over, Sam!”
Moraine looked up, let his face register a fleeting expression of alarm, then took his foot from the accelerator; gradually applied the brake, and slid m close to the curb.
Barney Morden stopped his car directly beside Moraine’s machine, and a little ahead, so that it would have been impossible for Moraine to have swung back out into traffic without first moving the investigator’s car.
Morden slid from behind the steering wheel. His broad shoulders squared, his jaw thrust forward, he walked around the front of Moraine’s car. Carl Thorne slipped out through the other door, walked around the rear of the car, and came up on Moraine from behind as Barney Morden put his left foot on the running board, slid his right hand back toward his hip-pocket, rested his left elbow on the door.
“What the hell’s the hurry?” he asked.
“Oh, hello, Barney. I saw you back there and waved to you, but I guess you didn’t see me.”
“Yeah,” Barney said, “you saw me all right, and started burning up the road making a get-away.”
Moraine let his face register injured innocence.
“Listen,” Morden said, “you’ve got the Chief bamboozled. You haven’t got me bamboozled. I want to ask you some questions.”
“Such as how fast I think I was going?” Moraine inquired.
“Baloney,” Morden said. “You know what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“I was in your office about ten forty-seven last night.”
“That’s right, Barney. You were,” Moraine said, as though the district attorney’s investigator had given the correct answer to some very complicated question.
Morden’s eyes narrowed.
“A jane called you up.”
“Right.”
“I took the call first. You may remember that.”
“I remember you grabbing the telephone before I had a chance to get it,” Moraine said.
“Figure it any way you want to,” Barney Morden said patiently. “I heard the jane’s voice over the wire.”
“What of it?”
“She was excited.”
“So many women get excited when they’re calling me up, Barney. It must be some subtle power that I have...”
Barney Morden hitched himself a little closer to the door of the car. His left forefinger jabbed Moraine in the chest.
“Forget the wisecracks,” he said. “I’m talking business. This isn’t a poker game. This is murder!”
“Murder!” Moraine echoed.
“You know it, buddy. Now, listen. After you got on the phone I was sitting close enough so I could hear something of what the girl said. It was telling you to come out there right away. You hung up the receiver and started yawning and pretending you were all fed up with sticking around the office, and that you were going some place, but you weren’t in any particular hurry. Now, that may have fooled the Chief, but it didn’t fool me.”
“Ha!” Moraine said. “You heard me talk with a woman, heard the woman tell me to meet her, and therefore you deduced that I was going to meet a woman. Clever, Barney. Clever, indeed.”
Carl Thorne, pushing forward, said, “Hell, Barney, let’s take him where we can really talk with him.”
“I’m afraid of what the Chief might do.”
“To hell with the Chief. You do what I say and you’ll be sitting pretty.”
Morden hesitated for a moment, then said slowly, “Sam, cut out the wisecracks and get down to brass tacks. Where did you go when you left your office?”
“Is it any particular business of yours?” Moraine asked.
“I’m making it my business.”
Moraine knitted his forehead in thought.
“Right now, Barney, I can’t remember. I may remember a little later on, but right now I can’t remember.”
Morden looked at Thorne. Thorne nodded. Morden jerked open the door.
“Get out,” he said.
“What’s the big idea?”
“Get out!”
“You’re making a mistake, Barney.”
Barney Morden’s face was set in grim, uncompromising lines.
“Get out,” he said slowly, and emphatically.
Moraine slid from behind the steering wheel.
Barney Morden made quick tapping motions over Moraine’s hips.
“Where’s that gun?”
“What gun?”
“The gun the Chief gave you permission to carry.”