anyway—the nearest known person to the murdered man when the shot was fired.
“To back all this up, he had let Miss Kenbrook go into the apartment building at 3:00 in the morning, in front of which a man had just been killed, without questioning her or mentioning her in his report. That looked as if he knew who had done the killing. So I took a chance with the empty shell trick, it being a good bet that he would have thrown his away, and would think that—”
McTighe’s heavy voice interrupted my explanation.
“How about this assault charge?” he asked, and had the decency to avoid my eye when I turned toward him with the others.
Tennant cleared his throat.
“Er—ah—in view of the way things have turned out, and knowing that Miss Kenbrook doesn’t want the disagreeable publicity that would accompany an affair of this sort, why, I’d suggest that we drop the whole thing.” He smiled brightly from McTighe to me. “You know nothing has gone on the records yet.”
“Make the big heap play his hand out,” O’Gar growled in my ear. “Don’t let him drop it.”
“Of course if Miss Kenbrook doesn’t want to press the charge,” McTighe was saying, watching me out of the tail of his eye, “I suppose—”
“If everybody understands that the whole thing was a plant,” I said, “and if the policemen who heard the story are brought in here now and told by Tennant and Miss Kenbrook that it was all a lie—then I’m willing to let it go at that. Otherwise, I won’t stand for a hush-up.”
“You’re a damned fool!” O’Gar whispered. “Put the screws on them!”