An hour later he had every detail. There was silence in the dressing room. Everybody else had gone home, having tired of waiting around to find out about the excitement in the alley. Dan looked at Kim.
“It was your duty to report all this to the police, Hale,” he said, “even if she didn’t want it reported.”
“I realize that now, and I’m sorry,” Kim said humbly.
Dan smiled at me. “You’re the daughter of Joe Ryan. You tell me what my next step is?”
“What Dad used to call footwork. Find out where everybody was at the time I stopped the bullet. Eliminate those that have a good alibi. Double check those that don’t to see if you can uncover motive. If you find one with a good motive and no covering alibi, try to prove they did it. If you can’t prove it, set some sort of a trap so they’ll commit themselves.”
He stood up. “Right.” He turned on Kim. “A good thing you’ve got a permit for the gun of yours, lad. Now get this girl back to her place.” He turned to me. “You’ve had a shock. You will stay in your apartment until I tell you you can leave it. You will eat there every meal. Stay away from windows and don’t open the door unless you know who is on the other side, and even then only when you’ve got me or Hale here in the apartment with you.”
I gave him a startled look. “Hey, there! You seem to forget that I have a job here. Remember? Do re me fa so?”
“Doctor’s orders, Hank. You set one foot outside the apartment and I give this whole thing to the newspapers. I can keep it out by telling the captain that it’s the only way to keep the criminal off guard.”
Kim nodded in agreement. I looked helplessly at him and then at Uncle Danny. “All right. All right,” I said wearily. “Take me home, Kim.”
When we got back to the apartment, Baldy and Betty were sitting side by side on the couch. They both looked up when I swung the door open. Betty looked a bit rumpled and Baldy looked a bit flushed.
Betty brought in some beer and they listened while Kim told them the full story of the latest attack on me, including the fact that I’d have to stay in the apartment. Baldy and Betty both nodded their agreement with the plan. Kim looked at Baldy.
“Chum,” he said, “I think that you should have been sleeping this evening instead of being a gay blade. Wasn’t that the agreement?”
Baldy looked hurt. “You misjudge me, boss. I turned the canary over to you at six. I bought a steak. I went back to my hotel. I went to sleep at eight. I slept until two. Insomnia. I guessed it was about time Betty got home from her date. I called her at twenty to three. She was in. I was hungry. I invited myself over. Okay?”
Betty had been very quiet ever since Kim had told of the attempt on my life. Her usually cheerful and placid face had looked strained.
To cheer her up I said, “Two dates in one night, Betty! You’re really getting around.”
“Did you leave your window open when you left?” she asked me.
“No.”
She turned to Kim. “When I got back from my date, a few minutes before Baldy phoned, I heard a noise in Hank’s room. I opened the door and went in, thinking that she might have gotten through unusually early. Her window was wide open and I thought that was funny because three days ago some men came up and put a ventilator on the window, the kind that lets air in without anybody being able to open it any further from the outside.”
Kim jumped up. “Come on, Baldy,” he said. “You gals stay right here. Maybe they boobytrapped the bedroom.”
Betty and I sat and watched each other with wide eyes. After the shot that came through my bedroom window I had had the trick ventilator installed, and I had also bought thick curtains that could be drawn across so that no one could see into the bedroom. Betty had helped me move the furniture around. I had told her it was because I was sick of the old arrangement. Actually, I hadn’t wanted anybody hitting the target with a second shot fired by guess through the locked window and the heavy curtains.
And somebody had opened the trick window!
In a way, that one little thing frightened me more than even the shot that had knocked me sprawling off the steps. Remembering the fall, I noticed that I was getting stiff and sore.
The living room, which had always seemed so cheery, had clots of dark shadow in the corners. We heard the distant murmur of the voices of Kim and Baldy. Once, Betty shuddered. She crossed over and sat on the arm of my chair. We held hands like a couple of frightened schoolgirls. In a low voice, I told her of the two attempts she knew nothing about. She held my hand even tighter. Her plump fingers were cold.
In fifteen minutes they came back to the living room. Kim had a smudge of dirt across one cheek. Both men looked relieved.
