“I will that,” O’Gar promised, and I hung up.
The “wagon” in which the three policemen had answered Cara Kenbrook’s call carried us down to the Hall of Justice, where we all went into the captain of detectives’ office. McTighe, a lieutenant, was on duty.
I knew McTighe, and we were on pretty good terms; but I wasn’t an influence in local politics, and Tennant was. I don’t mean that McTighe would have knowingly helped Tennant frame me; but with me stacked up against the assistant city engineer, I knew who would get the benefit of any doubt there might be.
My head was thumping and roaring just now, with knots all over it where the girl had beaned me. I sat down, kept quiet, and nursed my head while Tennant and Cara Kenbrook, with a lot of details that they had not wasted on the uniformed men, told their tale and showed their injuries.
Tennant was talking—describing the terrible scene that had met his eyes when, drawn by the girl’s screams, he had rushed into her apartment—when O’Gar came into the office. He recognized Tennant with a lifted eyebrow, and came over to sit beside me.
“What the hell is all this?” he muttered.
“A lovely mess,” I whispered back. “Listen—in that nickel gun on the desk there’s an empty shell. Get it for me.”
He scratched his head doubtfully, listened to the next few words of Tennant’s yarn, glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, and then went over to the desk and picked up the revolver.
McTighe looked at him—a sharp, questioning look.
“Something on the Gilmore killing,” the detective-sergeant said, breaking the gun.