Green sighed. “Maybe I’m the bedbug, after all,” he murmured. “And how about my first and most important question — what else have they dug up?”
“Nothing more that they could make sense of. They’ve got a lot of arms and legs that might have been Gino or Costain or who-have-you.” Green’s voice droned on: “I’m still curious about whether Gino and Costain got to Tony’s before the fireworks. Has anybody tried to locate them?”
“Uh-huh. Gino was supposed to leave for Boston on a late train, after he went to Tony’s. A business trip according to his wife. She don’t know whether he reached Tony’s or whether he made the train or not. She’s going nuts. Then I reached Costain’s girl and she said Lew started for Tony’s about midnight, said he was going to stop by a couple places first. She hasn’t heard from him since. She’s jumping up and down and yelling and screaming, too, and calling me back every two minutes.”
There was silence for several seconds, then Green’s voice concluded dreamily:
“Don’t forget, Blondie, that Lew Costain has, or had, more enemies than any other picked dozen highbinders in this town. Maccunn had one, or at least you’re trying to hang his chill on one. Whether Costain reached Tony’s or not, he was headed there, and in some strange way that seems more important to me than the fact that Sallust wanted Maccunn’s blood. With all due respect to the Kessler theory, of course... And don’t forget the fifty...”
The phone clicked, an electric period.
Kessler looked like he was going to take a large bite out of the transmitter for a minute, then he hung up slowly and turned back to his typewriter with enormous disgust.
Haley, the City Editor, was working feverishly, trying very hard not to whistle. He, for one, had hated Maccunn as a slave driver, and now it looked like he’d be moving into the big oak-paneled office on the seventh floor and be writing M.E. after his name.
He looked up as Kessler hung up the receiver, yelled: “Anything new?”
Kessler shook his head. “Nothing new, only that guy Green is losing his mind.”