Ned Beaumont said, “‘Lo, Walt,” and by turning slightly towards the door escaped the necessity of either taking or pointedly ignoring the shorter man’s proffered hand. “Let’s get out of this racket.”
Ivans said something that was blurred by the din of metal driving metal into wood and they went to the open door by which Ned Beaumont had entered. Outside was a wide platform of solid timber. A flight of wooden steps ran down twenty feet to the ground.
They stood on the wooden platform and Ned Beaumont asked: “You know one of the witnesses against your brother was knocked off last night?”
“Y-yes, I saw it in the p-p-paper.”
Ned Beaumont asked: “You know the other one’s not sure now he can identify Tim?”
“N-no, I didn’t know that, N-ned.”
Ned Beaumont said: “You know if he doesn’t Tim’ll get off.”
“Y-yes.”
Ned Beaumont said: “You don’t look as happy about it as you ought to.”
Ivans wiped his forehead with his shirt-sleeve. “B-b-but I am, N-ned, b-by God I am!”
“Did you know West? The one that was killed.”
“N-no, except that I went to s-see him once, t-to ask him to g-go kind of easy on T-tim.”
“What’d he say?”
“He wouldn’t.”
“When was that?”
Ivans shifted his feet and wiped his face with his sleeve again. “T-t-two or three d-days ago.”
Ned Beaumont asked softly: “Any idea who could have killed him, Walt?”
Ivans shook his head violently from side to side.
“Any idea who could’ve had him killed, Walt?”
Ivans shook his head.
For a moment Ned Beaumont stared reflectively over Ivans’s shoulder. The clatter of the nailing-machines came through the door ten feet away and from another story came the whirr of saws. Ivans drew in and expelled a long breath.
Ned Beaumont’s mien had become sympathetic when he transferred his gaze to the shorter man’s china-blue eyes again. He leaned down a little and asked: “Are you all right, Walt? I mean there are going to be people who’ll think maybe you might have shot West to save your brother. Have you got–?”
“I-I-I was at the C-club all last night, from eight o’clock t-t-till after t-two this morning,” Walter Ivans replied as rapidly as the impediment in his speech permitted. “Harry Sloss and B-ben Ferriss and Brager c-c-can tell you.”
Ned Beaumont laughed. “That’s a lucky break for you, Walt,” he said gaily.
He turned his back on Walter Ivans and went down the wooden steps to the street. He paid no attention to Walter Ivans’s very friendly “Good-by, Ned.”
4
From the box-factory Ned Beaumont walked four blocks to a restaurant and used a telephone. He called the four numbers he had called earlier in the day, asking again for Paul Madvig and, not getting him on the wire, left instructions for Madvig to call him. Then he got a taxicab and went home.
Additional pieces of mail had been put with those already on the table by his door. He hung up his hat and overcoat, lighted a cigar, and sat down with his mail in the largest of the red-plush chairs. The fourth envelope he opened was similar to the one the District Attorney had shown him. It contained a single sheet of paper bearing three typewritten sentences without salutation or signature:
Did you find Taylor Henry’s body after he was dead or were you present when he was murdered?
Why did you not report his death until after the police had found the body?
Do you think you can save the guilty by manufacturing evidence against the innocent?
Ned Beaumont screwed up his eyes and wrinkled his forehead over this message and drew much smoke from his cigar. He compared it with the one the District Attorney had received. Paper and typing were alike, as were the manner in which each paper’s three sentences were arranged and the time of the postmarks.
Scowling, he returned each to its envelope and put them in his pocket, only to take them out again immediately to reread and re-examine them. Too rapid smoking made his cigar burn irregularly down one side. He put the cigar on the edge of the table beside him with a grimace of distaste and picked at his mustache with nervous fingers. He put the messages away once more and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling and biting a finger-nail. He ran fingers through his hair. He put the end of a finger between his collar and his neck. He sat up and took the envelopes out of his pocket again, but put them back without having looked at them. He chewed his lower lip. Finally he shook himself impatiently and began to read the rest of his mail. He was reading it when the telephone-bell rang.