Lennox shrugged. “I ought to know.”
“Sure, you know.” Spellman sounded mad. “The question is, are you telling? Where were you tonight?”
“A number of places.” Lennox named half a dozen restaurants and clubs. Nance and I were seeing the town.”
“Yeah? Sure she didn’t come up here with you?”
“Certain. We met Mary Barker at the last joint we made and Nance went home with her for the night. You can check if you want to.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll check. Then after you left her—what?”
“I stopped in Fred Logram’s place on the Boulevard, had a glass of beer, and came down here.”
“Talk to any people there?”
“Sure, several. Are you going to run me in for that?”
Spellman spread his hands. “Dammit ! I’d like to get you in a place where you’d have to talk, just once. You’ve got too much drag.”
Lennox said, pleasantly, “You never learn, Floyd. Every time you tangle with me, you get it in the neck. I’m not going to skip town. I’ll be around, and you know it. What about letting me go home.”
Spellman hesitated. “Who’ll I report this to?” He indicated Jarney’s body.
Lennox shrugged. “I don’t know. Spurck’s trainer probably would. His name’s Hopkins, but I don’t know where you’d reach him tonight.” He rose. “Still want to hold me?”
Spellman said: “You’d better come in and talk to the D.A. in the morning. I still think you’re not telling all you know. Hey! Hold on! Supposing you wait until I can check your alibi with Nancy Hobbs. What’s Mary Baker’s number?”
Lennox smiled as he gave it, but not from mirth. He was wondering just how long it would take Spellman to learn that he had been with Betty Donovan in Fred Logram’s place, how long it would take the police to find the cabman who had driven him to the hotel.
He heard Spellman talking on the phone, then saw him cross the room and confer with the coroner’s man. Finally the detective captain turned around.
“Okey! I guess you can go. Both Nancy Hobbs and the Baker dame say you were with them from ten-thirty until twelve, and Doc tells me that Jarney died around eleven, as near as he can judge, but listen, Bill. Why don’t you help a guy? Why do you always have to play dirty?”
Lennox shrugged and turned towards the door. “See you in the morning.”
“You’d better.” Spellman’s voice followed him into the hall.
Bill rode down in the elevator with the boy who had identified him, conscious of the lad’s curious glances and, crossing the lobby, stepped out to the sidewalk. As he climbed into a cab he looked around and saw Harker loafing just inside the doorway. He smiled grimly as he gave the driver his apartment address. Evidently Spellman wasn’t as satisfied as he had appeared. Lennox debated trying to throw the trailer off the track and decided against it. After all, it was hardly worthwhile.
He settled back on the seat and stared at the rain-clouded windows. It was raining steadily now, not a pouring deluge, but a steady fall which slanted against the windshield. He closed his eyes and, leaning back, thought it over. The more he thought, the greater the puzzle grew. He decided that the girl had not killed Jarney, but he could not figure out the reason for her actions. He had assumed that she was in love with the rider, but certainly she had given no indication of it on finding his body. Grief, yes, surprise, but certainly not the grief of love. What then? Lennox gave it up as the cab stopped before his apartment hotel. He paid the driver and sprinted across the wet walk to the doorway.
Here he paused for a moment and stared up the dark street to where another cab had stopped, halfway up the block. Harker would have a wet night for watching, he thought, as he went on to the desk and paused for a moment. “Listen, Tom. Will you do something for me?”
The clerk said, eagerly, “Sure, Mr. Lennox. Anything.”
“Just forget that phone call and number, will you? I don’t think they’ll bother, but the cops might be asking questions, and it would gum up a swell girl. You can take my word that there’s nothing to that call that—”
The clerk winked, and Lennox turned towards the elevator. If the clerk wanted to think things, let him, as long as he kept his mouth shut.
6
BILL LENNOX was up and dressed, ready to go downtown, when the phone rang. He wondered if it were Betty Donovan, and hoped that it wasn’t. It might be possible that Spellman had got ambitious and put a man on the switchboard below. He crossed the room and picked up the instrument. A man’s voice said, “Is this Lennox, William Lennox?”
Bill’s brows drew together. The voice sounded familiar. He had a good memory for voices, yet—He said: “Yeah. What is it?”
The voice said: “This is a friendly tip to stick by your own racket. No one ever got hurt, playing his own game.”
“I don’t get you.” Lennox wanted to keep the man talking, wanted a chance to listen, to place the voice.
The man laughed shortly. “You’re a wise guy, Lennox. From what I hear, you come damn’ near running this town, but don’t try to run the race track. Someone might not like it. Someone might do something about it.”
Lennox almost cried out with surprise. His mind had been groping, trying to connect the voice with something, and mention of the race track did it. He almost said, “Claude Custis,” and didn’t. Instead, he said, “I think that you must have made a mistake.”
“No mistakes,” Custis’s voice told him. “We don’t make mistakes. We bury them.” There was a click at the other end of the wire, and Lennox hung up slowly, stared for a moment at the silent instrument, then went downstairs and got a cab.
7
DISTRICT ATTORNEY PIKE looked up from his desk as Lennox came into the office and nodded. “How are you, Bill?”
Lennox settled himself into a chair. “I’ll live.” He found a cigarette and rolled it thoughtfully between his fingers. “Thought I’d better come down and have a little talk. Spellman suggested it.”
Pike’s face got grave. “Listen, Bill. This office has always been on the level with you, hasn’t it?”
Lennox moved his shoulders slightly. The D.A. wasn’t a bad guy. A politician, yes, with his eye on the main chance, but fairly honest, fairly smart. Ordinarily, Lennox would have told him what he knew, but he couldn’t tell him in this case, couldn’t talk, yet. Betty Donovan was Bert’s sister, and if he told what he knew, she’d be picked up, questioned, probably held. He didn’t want that, not until he knew more about the affair.
She might be guilty, of course, but Lennox had played his hunches for years, and his hunch said she wasn’t. If that were true, it would merely block the trail to the real murderer if the cops got her. He said: “Sure, you’ve been a good guy, Pike, aside from a little unpleasantness now and then.”
“Well,” the D.A. was leaning forward, “why don’t you play the game with us then? Why don’t you come clean, Bill? There was a girl with you at the hotel last night. We found that she met you in Hollywood, that she rode downtown with you in a cab, and that she rode up to Jarney’s floor in the same elevator. At least the descriptions we get from the cabman and the elevator boy tally. Who was she? What did she have to do with Jarney’s death?”
Lennox hesitated for just a moment. He was used to thinking fast, to making quick decisions. He said: “Okey. There was a girl with me, but she didn’t have a thing to do with Jarney’s death and there’s no use in dragging her into this mess and get a load of bad publicity.
Pike tried to make his eyes hard, to match his tone. “Now listen, Lennox. It’s for us to decide whether she’s tied up with this jockey’s death. That’s what we’re here for. If I give you my word that the papers won’t learn anything about it until after we’ve investigated her story, will you tell me who she is?”
“No.”
Surprise crept into the District Attorney’s eyes, buried a moment later by anger. He was not used to being defied. Years of office had given him the habit of authority. His anger sh
owed in his voice when he said, “Do you know what concealing evidence in a murder rap means?”
Lennox’s voice was bored. “Don’t read the law to me. Pike. I know it as well as you do. I should. I’ve heard you fellows talk about it often enough. Okey, I’m not going to answer until I’m convinced in my own mind that telling you will help find Jarney’s killer. So what are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll, by—” Pike was on his feet. “I’ll hold you. Ill make you talk.”
Lennox stared up at him. “Listen, Pike. You don’t have to get hard with me. You can’t make me talk, and you know it. Pick me up on any charge you want to name, short of murder, and I’ll be out in half an hour. I called Sam Marx before I came down here.”
The District Attorney sat down slowly. “All right, Bill.” He had gained control of himself. “I guess you’re right, but it’s not playing the game.”
Lennox said: “Since when did you ever play the game? If I told you the girl’s name, it would be on page one of every paper in town. I didn’t kill Jarney. I don’t know who did; but the girl we’re talking about didn’t, and there’s no use dragging her into the mess. She happened to be with me when we found the body. It was a lousy break, but I could stand the publicity, and she couldn’t.”
“An actress, huh?” Pike almost licked his lips, and Lennox stared at him with disgust. He’d been feeling like a heel, not coming clean, but now he didn’t. Jarney’s death meant publicity to Pike, nothing more. He rose and stared down at the man at the desk.
“Am I free to go?”
The District Attorney managed a smile. “Sure, Bill, but listen. If you learn anything—”
Lennox went out. In the hall he stopped for a moment. He knew that he wasn’t clear yet, that the cops and the D.A. investigators would tail him if they could. He knew that Pike hadn’t released him because he wanted to. He was free because Pike was politically ambitious, and behind Lennox was the squat, rounded figure of Sol Spurck, head of the State Central Committee.
Bill’s mouth twisted grimly as he rode down to street level and stepped out onto the sunlit street He wondered what the telephone call that morning had meant. Had Custis killed Jarney? Or, rather, had the gambler had the rider killed? Custis wasn’t the type to take chances in cold blood if he could find someone else to do it for him.
For seconds Lennox stood there, thinking it over. His impulse was to face Custis, to have a showdown; then he shrugged. He couldn’t do that yet.
He had to know where Betty Donovan fitted into the picture. He didn’t want the girl hurt. She seemed a swell kid, and she was Bert’s sister.
His next impulse was to talk to her, but that was what Pike would expect him to do. Instead, he flagged a cab and told the man to take him out to the studio.
The noon papers carried banners. Police Hunt Mystery Girl. Studio Executive Questioned in Jockey’s Death. Lennox read them as he lunched at the Vine Street Brown Derby. As he was leaving the restaurant, two reporters stopped him on the sidewalk. He refused to comment, and took a cab back to the studio. Spurck’s secretary said that the producer wanted to see him. Lennox grinned sourly and went into the thickly carpeted room to find Spurck behind the enormous desk.
“What’s on your mind, Sol?”
Spurck spread his hands. “He asks me what’s on my mind? Honest, Bill, a minute’s peace I ain’t had this morning, y’understand. First it is the D.A.’s office, then the papers, then the D.A.’s office. Can’t they have one good murder in this town without your mixing in?”
Lennox didn’t laugh. “Take it easy, Sol.”
“He wants I should take it easy?” Spurck appealed to the ceiling. “Honest, Bill. How much publicity like this can the studio stand?”
“Now, listen. I don’t see where the studio comes into it.”
Spurck seemed suddenly short of breath. “You don’t see? Look once, what the Star has, the schlemiels.” He pulled forth a folded paper and tossed it on to the desk.
Boxed on the center of page one was a list of General’s female stars with an enormous question mark and a caption, Is One of These the Mystery Woman?
Lennox stared at it, his eyes narrowing. The Star was more or less of a scandal sheet, willing to go to almost any length for a sensation. He said, slowly, “I don’t know what we can do about it.”
Spurck’s chubby finger indicated the list. “Is it one of them?”
Lennox shook his head. “She isn’t in pictures, Sol.”
“Then tell who she is. Honest, Bill, I’m telling you, we can’t afford nothing like this now. You gotta tell.”
Bill’s mouth set. “Listen, Sol. I’ll have to play this the way I see it.”
For a moment it seemed that Spurck would have a stroke. “Is that your loyalty?” he demanded, finally. “After all I have done for you—I find I am nursing a—a coyote to my bosom.”
Lennox rose. “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” he said, looking at his watch. “Think I’ll go out to the races.”
“Go!” Spurck was on his feet. “Go, and don’t come back, and when you see my secretary, tell her she should call the papers and say that you are fired.” He sank heavily into his chair and scowled at the paper on his desk.
8
LENNOX left the office and relayed the message to the secretary. She grinned at him uncertainly. “Suppose it’s safe for me to send it out? He’ll probably change his mind in half an hour.”
Lennox shrugged. “That’s up to you, Honey. Billy doesn’t work here any more.” He slapped on his sun-faded felt and closed the door.
At the track he ducked the clubhouse and went directly to the grandstand. There was less chance of meeting anyone he knew, and he did not feel like talking. His eyes ran down the list of entries for the second race, stopped at the fifth horse as he noted, “Miss Elizabeth Donovan, owner.”
He’d come to the track in the hope of seeing her, and looked around the crowded stand, searching for sight of her face, but without success. Then he settled back to watch the race. It was a six-furlong event with nine starters; the girl’s horse, a black colt, was in fifth post position. Lennox trained his glasses on the gate, saw the starter’s flag drop, saw the horses break. It was an almost perfect start. For ten lengths the field held their positions, then the horse on the extreme outside pulled ahead and started to cut over towards the rail.
The girl’s horse was third on the rail, then fourth, as another horse passed him, going into the far turn. Lennox swore softly to himself. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if the rider was holding the horse out of it. And the colt was fast. Lennox had seen that in a brief flash of speed on the back stretch.
But colt and rider were fifth coming into the stretch, sixth at the finish.
His mouth grim, Lennox pulled a copy of the Racing Form from his pocket and examined it The horse had won once at Detroit and had a second and third at Chicago, with better horses. In the three starts he had made on the Coast, he had been badly beaten. It might be, of course, that the long trip out had knocked him out of training. Some horses, Lennox knew, did not ship well, but on the other hand, it had looked as if the boy wasn’t trying.
Bill rose and went down towards the betting shed. As he came down the stairway he saw a man and girl standing near a post across the crowded room. His brows drew together above his narrowed eyes as he recognized Betty Donovan and Claude Custis. For an instant he hesitated, then pushed towards them. He had almost reached them, was partially behind the post, when he heard Custis say, in a low voice which was barely audible to him, “That was a nice ride Gentry gave last race. We’ll win next time out.”
The girl did not answer. Her eyes were on the program in her hand, but Lennox saw her lips twist into a little smile, and anger flooded through him. This was the girl he was protecting, this was Bert Donovan’s sister. He almost stepped forward, then didn’t. He wanted a chance to talk to her, to talk to her alone, when Custis wasn’t around. Carefully he retreated through the crowd to the
stairs. From this point of vantage he waited until he saw the gambler turn and disappear towards the paddock.
For a moment the girl stayed where she was, staring down at the program in her hand, then came towards the stairs. The betting shed was emptying rapidly. It was almost time for the next race. The warning bell sounded, indicating that the horses were at the post, and still Lennox held his place. Betty did not see him until only a few feet separated them. Then she stopped, color flooding up into her face, her eyes widening.
Bill said, in a low voice, “I want to talk to you.”
“But—not—we’ll miss the race.” It was evident that she did not want to stop.
His right arm shot out, his fingers closing about her slender wrist. “Better talk to me, Kid. A couple of words, and the cops will be looking for you.” They were almost alone now. Outside, the roar of the crowd told that the race was being run.
Her face lost color until it was almost chalk-like. “You, you wouldn’t do that?”
He said: “Wouldn’t I? Listen. I tried to play fair, I tried to help you, and what do I find? I find that you’re running a gambling stable, that you’re purposely running them cold, losing until you get a price on your horse. I find you playing with the tough boys, with Claude Custis. You’ll either promise me now to quit, or I’ll turn you up on that Jarney killing.”
She said: “I didn’t do that. I swear that I didn’t, Bill. Please don’t turn me up yet, I’ve—” She was so pretty, so appealing, that he almost weakened.
“No sale, Kid.” His voice was harsh. “You’re going to promise me now to cut loose from Custis. Think of your brother. Think—”
She said, miserably, “I can’t, Bill, I—” Her eyes widened as she looked across his shoulder and, swinging around, Lennox found Custis not five feet behind him. The gambler’s thin lips parted in a little mocking smile.
“Hello, Bill!”
Surprise held Lennox silent for the moment. He had no way of knowing how long Custis had been standing there, how much he had heard. Bill had been too intent on what he was saying to the girl to notice anything. The race was evidently run. People were drifting back across the betting shed, lines forming before the payoff windows. He said, “Hello, Claude!” and watched the gambler narrowly.
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