“I don’t have to keep her out. She’s not in it.”
“Perhaps not. Did she know Philip Kampf?”
“I guess so. Sure she did.”
“How well did she know him?”
He shook his head. “Now you’re getting personal, and I’m the wrong person. If Phil was alive you could ask him, and he might tell you. Me, I don’t know.”
I smiled at him. “All that does, Mr. Aland, is make me curious. Somebody in this house murdered Kampf. So we ask you questions, and when we come to one you shy at, naturally we wonder why. If you don’t like talking about Kampf and that girl, think what it could mean. For instance, it could mean that the girl was yours, and Kampf took her away from you, and that was why you killed him when he came here yesterday. Or it could-”
“She wasn’t mine!”
“Uh-huh. Or it could mean that although she wasn’t yours, you were under a deep obligation to her, and Kampf had given her a dirty deal, or he was threatening her with something, and she wanted him disposed of, and you obliged. Or of course it could be merely that Kampf had something on you.”
He had his head tilted back so he could look down on me. “You’re in the wrong racket,” he asserted. “You ought to be writing TV scripts.”
I stuck with him only a few more minutes, having got all I could hope for under the circumstances. Since I was letting him assume that I was a city employee, I couldn’t very well try to pry him loose for a trip to Wolfe’s place. Also I had two more calls to make, and there was no telling when I might be interrupted by a phone call or a courier to one of them from downtown. The only further item I gathered from Jerome Aland was that he wasn’t trying to get from under by slipping in any insinuations about his co-tenants. He had no opinions or ideas about who had killed poor Phil. When I left he stood up, but he let me go and open the door for myself.
I went down a flight, to Meegan’s door, and knocked and waited. Just as I was raising a fist to make it louder and better there were footsteps inside, and the door opened. Meegan was still in his shirt sleeves and still uncombed.
“Well?” he demanded.
“Back again,” I said firmly but not offensively. “With a few questions. If you don’t mind?”
“You know damn well I mind.”
“Naturally. Mr. Talento has been called down to the District Attorney’s office. This might possibly save you another trip there.”
He sidestepped, and I went in. The room was the same size and shape as Aland’s, above, and the furniture, though different, was no more desirable. The table against a wall was lopsided-probably the one that Jewel Jones hoped they had fixed for him. I took a chair at its end, and he took another and sat frowning at me.
“Haven’t I seen you before?” he wanted to know.
“Sure, we were here with the dog.”
“I mean before that. Wasn’t it you in Nero Wolfe’s office yesterday?”
“That’s right.”
“How come?”
I raised my brows. “Haven’t you got the lines crossed, Mr. Meegan? I’m here to ask questions, not to answer them. I was in Wolfe’s office on business. I often am. Now-”
“He’s a fat, arrogant halfwit!”
“You may be right. He’s certainly arrogant. Now, I’m here on business.” I got out my notebook and pencil. “You moved into this place nine days ago. Please tell me exactly how you came to take this apartment.”
He glared. “I’ve told it at least three times.”
“I know. This is the way it’s done. I’m not trying to catch you in some little discrepancy, but you could have omitted something important. Just assume I haven’t heard it before. Go ahead.”
“Oh, my God.” His head dropped and his lips tightened. Normally he might not have been a bad- looking guy, with blond hair and gray eyes and a long bony face, but now, having spent the night, or most of it, with Homicide and the DA, he looked it, especially his eyes, which were red and puffy.
He lifted his head. “I’m a commercial photographer -in Pittsburgh. Two years ago I married a girl named Margaret Ryan. Seven months later she left me. I didn’t know whether she went alone or with somebody. She just left. She left Pittsburgh too, or anyway I couldn’t find her there, and her family never saw her or heard from her. About five months later, about a year ago, a man I know, a businessman I do work for, came back from a trip to New York and said he’d seen her in a theater here with a man. He went and spoke to her, but she claimed he was mistaken. He was sure it was her. I came to New York and spent a week looking around but didn’t find her. I didn’t go to the police because I didn’t want to. You want a better reason, but that’s mine.”
“I’ll skip that.” I was writing in the notebook. “Go ahead.”
“Two weeks ago I went to look at a show of pictures at the Institute in Pittsburgh. There was a painting there, an oil, a big one. It was called ‘Three Young Mares at Pasture,’ and it was an interior, a room, with three women in it. One of them was on a couch, and two of them were on a rug on the floor. They were eating apples. The one on the couch was my wife. I was sure of it the minute I saw her, and after I stood and studied it I was even surer. There was absolutely no doubt of it.”
“We’re not challenging that,” I assured him. “What did you do?”
