Kells said: “If you know where Miss Granquist is and can produce her within the next half-hour, I’ll talk to you.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Then the man said: “Wait a minute.” After a little while a woman’s voice said: “Gerry! For God’s sake get me out of this!...” The voice trailed off as if she had been dragged away from the phone. The man’s voice said: “Well?” Fenner came in, nodded to Kells. Kells said: “Okay. Bring her here.” He hung up. The phone rang again but he didn’t answer. He sat grinning at Fenner. Fenner said excitedly: “West Adams — about a block west of Figueroa.”
“That wasn’t even a good imitation of the baby.” Kells stood up. “But maybe they’ll come here and try to do business on that angle. That’ll be swell.”
“But we’d better get out there, hadn’t we?”
Kells said: “What for? They haven’t got her or they wouldn’t take a chance faking her voice. They’ll be here — and I’ll lay ten to one they don’t know any more about where Rose and the kid are than we do.”
Kells went back to his chair by the window. “I told Shep to plant some men at the print shop in case there’s trouble there. Did he?” Fenner nodded.
There was a knock at the door; Fenner said, “Come in,” and a boy came in with a bottle of whiskey and three tall glasses of ice on a tray. He put the tray on a table; Fenner gave him some change and he went out and closed the door.
At twenty minutes after eleven a Mister Woodward was announced. Fenner went into the bedroom, closed the door.
Woodward turned out to be a small yellow-haired man, wearing tortoise-shell glasses; about thirty-five. He sat down at Kells’ invitation, declined a drink.
He said: “Of course we couldn’t bring Miss Granquist here. She’s being sought by the police and that would be too dangerous. She’ll be turned over to you, together with a certified check for fifteen thousand dollars, as soon as the issue of the Guardian, the plates and the copy are turned over to us.”