“Well, that’s only Farr,” Madvig began.
Ned Beaumont cut him short. “Only Farr, and that’s the tip-off. Rutlege or Brody or even Rainey might clip you on their own, but if Farr’s doing anything it’s a pipe he knows the others are with him.” He frowned at the blond man’s stolid face. “You can stop believing me any time you want to, Paul.”
Madvig made a careless gesture with the hand he had held to his chin. “I’ll let you know when I stop,” he said. “How’d you happen to drop in on Farr?”
“Harry Sloss called me up today. It seems he and Ben Ferriss saw you arguing with Taylor in China Street the night of the murder, or claim they did.” Ned Beaumont was looking with eyes that held no particular expression at the blond man and his voice was matter-of-fact. “Ben had gone to Farr with it. Harry wanted to be paid for not going. There’s a couple of your Club-members reading the signs. I’ve been watching Farr lose his nerve for some time, so I went in to check him up.”
Madvig nodded. “And you’re sure he’s knifing me?”
“Yes.”
Madvig got up from his chair and went to the window. He stood there, hands in trousers-pockets, looking through the glass for perhaps three minutes while Ned Beaumont, sitting on the desk, smoked and looked at the blond man’s wide back. Then, not turning his head, Madvig asked: “What’d you say to Harry?”
“Stalled him.”
Madvig left the window and came back to the desk, but he did not sit down. His ruddiness had deepened. Otherwise no change had come into his face. His voice was level. “What do you think we ought to do?”
“About Sloss? Nothing. The other monkey’s already gone to Farr. It doesn’t make much difference what Sloss does.”
“I didn’t mean that. I meant about the whole thing.”
Ned Beaumont dropped his cigar into the spittoon. “I’ve told you. If Taylor Henry’s murder isn’t cleared up pronto you’re sunk. That’s the whole thing. That’s the only thing worth doing anything about.”
Madvig stopped looking at Ned Beaumont. He looked at a wide vacant space on the wall. He pressed his full lips together. Moisture appeared on his temples. He said from deep in his chest: “That won’t do. Think up something else.”
Ned Beaumont’s nostrils moved with his breathing and the brown of his eyes seemed dark as the pupils. He said: “There isn’t anything else, Paul. Any other way plays into the hands of either Shad or Farr and his crew and either of them will ruin you.”
Madvig said somewhat hoarsely: “There must be an out, Ned. Think.”
Ned Beaumont left the desk and stood close in front of the blond man. “There isn’t. That’s the only way. You’re going to take it whether you like it or not, or I’m going to take it for you.”
Madvig shook his head violently. “No. Lay off.”
Ned Beaumont said: “That’s one thing I won’t do for you, Paul.”
Then Madvig looked Ned Beaumont in the eyes and said in a harsh whisper: “I killed him, Ned.”
Ned Beaumont drew a breath in and let it out in a long sigh.
Madvig put his hands on Ned Beaumont’s shoulders and his words came out thick and blurred. “It was an accident, Ned. He ran down the street after me when I left, with a cane he’d picked up on the way out. We’d had–there’d been some trouble there and he caught up with me and tried to hit me with the stick. I don’t know how it happened, but pulling it away from him I hit him on the head with it–not hard–it couldn’t’ve been very hard–but he fell back and smashed his head on the curb.”
Ned Beaumont nodded. His face had suddenly become empty of all expression except hard concentration on Madvig’s words. He asked in a crisp voice that matched his face: “What happened to the cane?”
“I took it away under my overcoat and burned it. After I knew he was dead I found it in my hand, when I was walking down to the Club, so I put it under my overcoat and then burned it.”