“Suppose you let me have it,” I said.
Ackie looked worried. “I don’t know what the hell it’s about,” he said. “As far as we know, a servant at the lodge ’phoned the police around twelve o’clock this morning and reported hearing a shot fired downstairs in the front room. She was too scared to go down an’ investigate. Well, the cops went out there and spent a little while inside. I guess we’d never have heard of the business only one of our boys was at the desk when the call came through. He tipped the night editor, who thought it big enough to send someone up.
“Well, they sent Hackenschmidt and he gets nowhere. He ’phones for help and a wagon-load of boys go up. I guess they know Kennedy and hoped for free drinks all round, but Kennedy doesn’t show up. We ring him up and he answers the telephone, but as soon as we start askin’ questions he hangs up quick. The old man gets mad because Kennedy’s news, an’ he sends for me. I waste an hour tryin’ to get in, but don’t get to the first base. The old man then says for me to get you… quick.”
I rubbed my nose thoughtfully. “What do the cops say?”
Ackie shrugged. “Kennedy’s slipped ’em plenty. They say the maid was screwy an’ nothin’ has happened.”
I laughed. “You’d look mighty sick if it were true,” I said.
Ackie shook his head. “There’s somethin’ phoney goin’ on, an’ whatever it is is news. So you’re bein’ paid a hundred bucks to get in an’ find out just what.”
A hundred bucks! That was a laugh! If I got in there and there was something hanging to this, it was going to cost the Globe a lot more than a hundred bucks.
I said: “Maybe I shan’t get in.”
Ackie’s eyes opened wide. “You gotta get in,” he said, “the old man’s ravin’ mad now. You just gotta get in.”