The janitor watched them with gloomy suspicion.
Murphy found the recording.
Jake grabbed it eagerly and slipped it into the player alongside the desk, put the phones to his ears, and flicked the switch to start the machine...
He listened for two minutes, and then he said, “Well, I’ll be damned,” in an astonished voice. And yet he wasn’t surprised.
“What’s up?” Murphy asked.
Jake took the phones from his ears and removed the cylinder from the player. “There’s no time to go into it now, Murph. But here’s what I want you to do. I need this recording and a portable dictaphone at Riordan’s suite in the Blackstone Hotel in about an hour. Can you handle that?”
“Yeah, we’ve got a couple of portables at Headquarters. You want one of them, and this cylinder, too?”
“Yes, and for God’s sake don’t let anything happen to the record.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Murphy said laconically, and dropped it into his outside coat pocket.
“Hey!” the janitor said. “You can’t take things out of here.”
“I’ll leave a receipt,” Jake said, and sat down at a typewriter. He rattled one off and signed Lieutenant Martin’s name to it with a flourish.
“Well, that’s different,” the janitor said.
Murphy drove Jake down to the Blackstone. The traffic going south was light and they made excellent time. The snow had changed to rain now, a heavy slanting rain that blurred the windshield and haloed street lights with a misty corona. Murphy dropped Jake at the hotel and drove on to Headquarters to get the portable dictaphone.
There was a crowd under the marquee waiting for cabs, and the rain-coated doorman was in the street, blowing his whistle at passing cabs with pointless optimism.
Jake elbowed his way through the press of people and trotted up the steps to the lobby. He started for the elevators but saw Martin and Gregory Prior standing at the desk talking to the room clerk. Changing directions he came up behind them and tapped Martin on the shoulder.
Martin turned, and his face was hard. “We’re too late. Riordan checked out an hour ago. The clerk tells us he had a ticket on the TWA flight to the coast.”
“What flight?”
“The ten thirty-five. We can catch him at the airport.”
Prior nodded to Jake. “I’ve got a car outside,” he said to Martin. Prior was hatless and there were drops of rain in his close-cropped hair. “I’ve got an interest in Riordan, too, you know.”
“Well, let’s go,” Martin said. “We can both take a crack at him, but not until we get him.”
They started for the door and Jake had to hurry to keep up with Martin’s long, determined strides. They pushed through the revolving door as a cab pulled up at the hotel.
The occupant struggled through the cluster of people trying to engage the cab; and Jake saw that it was Sheila.
“I hoped you’d be here,” she said. “I gave Toni a sleeping powder and she’s all right. What’s going on?”
Prior cleared his throat. “We’ve got to hurry.”
Jake said to Martin, “Can I bring her along?”
“Sure, bring her along,” Martin said.
Prior’s car was halfway down the block. They were soaking wet when they climbed in, Jake and Sheila in the rear, Martin and Prior up front. Prior drove down Wabash, then over to Roosevelt Boulevard to Archer Avenue, the diagonal artery leading to Municipal Airport.
“What’s going on?” Sheila said.
“Dan Riordan has flown the coop. Wasn’t that a damn foolish thing for him to do, Prior?”
“He knew we had him,” Prior said, rubbing a gloved hand over the windshield and leaning forward over the wheel for better visibility. “Possibly he figured he’d be better off trying to get out of the country with as much cash as he could raise. He might manage to stay at liberty quite some time, say in South America.”
Prior drove expertly. They reached the airport at ten thirty-four.
Martin was out of the car before Prior brought it to a complete stop.
There was a restless stir of movement in the large, brightly-lighted waiting room, as passengers streamed out the doors leading to the field, and red caps trundled luggage after them in four-wheeled trucks. The monotonous, weary voice of the announcer describing flights and weather in other sections of the country lent a charged excitement to the atmosphere.
Martin made straight for the TWA information desk.
“The ten thirty-five is ready to take off now, sir,” the clerk said, answering his question. “I’m afraid you’re late.”
Martin drew his wallet and showed the clerk his badge. “We may have to hold that flight,” he said.
“Oh.” The clerk raised his eyebrows. “I’ll try to contact the dispatcher. Will you need any help?”
“I don’t think so,” Martin said.
Prior came in, spotted them and hurried over. “Everything okay?”
Martin nodded. “Let’s go.”
He led the way to the field with Prior and Jake at his side. Outside the night was changed to brilliant whiteness by the rows of beacons lining the runway.
Prior suddenly grabbed Martin’s arm. “Look.” They all stopped and watched the gleaming, four-engined plane that was hurtling down the runway. It drove into the opaque mist of rain and finally cleared the ground and faded almost imperceptibly into the horizon, its blinking wing lights flashing like fireflies in the dark.
“Well,” Jake said. “That was a nice exit.”
“He won’t get far,” Martin said. “He should know that.”
They drove back to the Loop after Martin had dispatched a wire to police in Kansas City asking them to take Riordan into custody. Martin said he wanted them to come with him to Riordan’s apartment.
“What kind of a warrant do you have for him?” he asked Prior a little later.
“We don’t have a warrant yet and we don’t need one, unless he refuses to cooperate. First, he’ll have a hearing before the committee, which has the authority to subpoena any persons or records it requires.”
“You’re pretty sure of your case?”
“I’d rather wait a bit, but the Senator has the bit in his teeth.”
No one talked for a while after that and they drove toward the city with nothing but the lashing rain and wind against the car to break the silence.
Finally Prior said, “Why do you want to go back to Riordan’s apartment?”
“There are still some odds and ends,” Martin said. He lit a cigarette and looked out the window at the dreary rain, and no one said anything else.
When they reached the Blackstone, Martin said to Prior, “Take Sheila into the lobby and wait for us, will you? I want to talk to Jake a second.”
“All right.”
“Alone at last,” Jake said, as Prior and Sheila ran across the sidewalk and up the steps to the lobby. “What’s on your mind?”
Martin turned and rested his arm on the back of the front seat. He drew on his cigarette and the tiny flare of light revealed the smile on his face.
“What did you find at the Autowrite place?” he said mildly.
Jake was reaching for a cigarette but his hand stopped in mid air. “You son of a bitch,” he grinned. “You made an errand boy out of me.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I knew what you were thinking, so I saved myself the trip. You see, there were only three things could have happened to May’s last record. One, it would be in her home. Two, the murderer would take it with him. Three, it would be at the Autowrite place getting typed.”
“You called Miss Swenson, then?”