• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

With an obvious attempt at controlling his rage, Dilwick nodded. He turned to me again. “Where did you get the other will?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I repeated.

“You letting him get away with this, Price?”

The trooper was on the spot. “Tell him, Mike.”

“I’ll tell you, Price. He can listen in. I found it among York’s personal effects.”

For a full ten minutes I stood by while the two of them went over the contents of the wills. Price was satisfied with a cursory examination, but not so Dilwick. He read every line, then reread them. I could see the muscles of his mouth twitch as he worked the thing out in his mind. No, I was not underestimating Dilwick one bit. There wasn’t much that went on that he didn’t know about. Twice, he let his eyes slide off the paper and meet mine. It was coming. Any minute now.

Then it was here. “I could read murder into this,” he grated.

Price turned sharply. “Yes?”

“Hammer, I think I’m going to put you on the spot.”

“Swell. You’d like that. Okay, go ahead.”

“Pull up your ears and get a load of this, Price. This punk and the Nichols dame could make a nice team. Damn nice. You didn’t think I’d find out about those pictures, did you, Hammer? Well, I did. You know what it looks like to me? It looks like the Nichols babe blackmailed Grange into making York change his will. Let York see those shots and Grange’s reputation would be shot to hell, she’d be fired and lose out on the will to boot. At least if she came through on the deal, all she’d lose was the will.”

I nodded. “Pretty, but where do I come in?”

“Right now. Grange got hold of those pictures somehow. Only Nichols pulls a fast one and tells York that Grange was the one who was blackmailing her. York takes off for Grange’s apartment in a rage because he had a yen for his pretty little niece, only Grange bumps him. Then Nichols corners you and you bump Grange and get the stuff off her, and the will. Now you turn it up, Nichols comes into a wad of cash and you split it.”

It wasn’t as bad as I thought. Dilwick had squeezed a lot of straight facts out of somebody, only he was putting it together wrong. Yeah, he had gotten around, all right. He had reached a lot of people to get that much and he’d like to make it stick.

Price said, “What about it, Mike?”

I grinned. “He’s got a real sweet case there.” I looked at the cop. “How’re you going to prove it?”

“Never mind,” he snarled, “I will, I will. Maybe I ought to book you right now on what I have. It’ll hold up and Price knows it, too.”

“Uh-uh. It’ll hold up . . . for about five minutes. Did you find Grange yet?”

He said nothing.

“Nuts,” I laughed, “no corpus delicti, no Mike Hammer.”

“Wrong, Hammer. After a reasonable length of time and sufficient evidence to substantiate death, a corpse can be assumed.”

“He’s right, Mike.”

“Then he’s got to shoot holes in my alibi, Price. I have a pretty tight one.”

“Where did you go after you left Alice’s apartment the other night?” Brother, I should have guessed it. Dilwick had put the bee on the Graham kid and the bastard copped a sneak. It was ten to one he told Dilwick he hadn’t seen me.

That’s what I get for making enemies. If the Graham kid thought he could put me on the spot he’d do it. So would Alice for that matter.

But there were still angles. “Go ahead and work on my alibi, Dilwick. You know what it is. Only I’ll give you odds that I can make your witness see the light sooner than you can.”

“Not if you’re in the can.”

“First get me there. I don’t think you can. Even if you did a good lawyer could rip those phonies apart on the stand and you know it. You’re stalling, Dilwick. What’re you scared of? Me? Afraid I’ll put a crimp in your doings?”

“You’re asking for it, punk.”

Price came back into the argument. “Skip it, Dilwick. If you have the goods on him then present it through the regular channels, only don’t slip up. Let you and your gang go too far and there’ll be trouble. I’m satisfied to let Mr. Hammer