He had a lot of questions as we went out and got into his car. I answered most of them with: “Wait, you’ll see.”
But in the car he went suddenly limp and slid down in his seat.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I can’t,” he mumbled. “I’ve got to—help me into the house—the doctor.”
“Right,” I said, and practically carried him into the house.
I spread him on a sofa, had a maid bring him water, and called his doctor’s number. The doctor was not in.
When I asked him if there was any other particular doctor he wanted he said weakly: “No, I’m all right. Go after that—that man.”
“All right,” I said.
I went outside, got a taxicab, and sat in it.
Twenty minutes later a man went up Chappell’s front steps and rang the bell. The man was Dick Moley, alias Harrison M. Rockfield.
He took me by surprise. I had been expecting Chappell to come out, not anyone to go in. He had vanished indoors and the door was shut by the time I got there.
I rang the bell savagely.
A heavy pistol roared inside, twice.
I smashed the glass out of the door with my gun and put my left hand in, feeling for the latch.