out-of-state request gets a very low priority on our schedule. You can understand that, Mrs Kipper?'
I admired the way he was taking her into his confidence — even confessing a little weakness with a small chuckle.
'Oh sure,' she said, still stunned. 'I can understand that.'
'But the name caught my eyes,' Detective Stilton went on. 'Only because I had interviewed Godfrey Knurr in connection with your husband's unfortunate death. So I knew who he was and where I could find him.'
She didn't say anything. She was pulling herself together, sipping her coffee and lighting another cigarette.
Fussing. Doing anything to keep from looking at us.
'Then,' Stilton continued, speaking gently and almost reflectively, 'before we had a chance to reply to the request from the Gary police, Mr Bigg came to us, representing the attorneys he works for. They wanted us to dig deeper into the case of a missing client of theirs. A Professor Yale Stonehouse. He had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Well, we looked into it and discovered that prior to his disappearance he had been the victim of arsenic poisoning. Mr Bigg?'
I whipped out the chemical analyses and held them up before her eyes. I don't think she even read them, but she was impressed. They were official documents. I began to appreciate Detective Stilton's insistence on such evidence.
They could be true or false, but printed foolscap carried weight.
'So,' Percy went on, sighing, 'we dug deeper and discovered that the poison had apparently been administered by Glynis Stonehouse, the daughter of the missing man. In addition, we found out that Glynis has been having an affair, is still having an affair, with the Reverend Godfrey Knurr. We do not know for sure, but we suspect that Professor Stonehouse has been murdered and that Knurr is deeply involved. So we are here, Mrs Kipper, to ask you to help by telling us what you can about this man. He's already charged with blackmail and wife desertion. It's only a matter of time before we can bring a first-degree homicide charge against him.'
For a moment I thought we had her. She stood up, circled her chair, started to sit down again. Then she stalked off to a far corner of the room, twisting her hands.
We watched her. She stood, facing a blank wall, then turned and came back. The air vibrated; you could feel it.
I had to admire her. She had been rocked, there was no doubt of that, but she rallied. I thought of the word
'spunk.'
She sat down again, carelessly this time, sprawled. No longer the queen. She dug a last cigarette from the crumpled pack. Percy Stilton was there with his lighter. She inhaled deeply, let the smoke escape lazily from her nostrils.
The silver-blonde hair was damp and tangled. The profile had lost its crispness; the bruise bulged an entire side of her face. The eyes seemed muddy, the thin lips were tightened and drawn. The chin she once carried so high had come down; there was soil in the wrinkles of her neck.
Her body had slackened; the breasts sagged under the peignoir, the thighs had flattened.
Is it possible to suffer from an excess of sympathy? At that moment I felt sorry for her. She was being buffeted 422
cruelly, but was far from surrender.
'This is very, uh, distressing,' she said finally.
'I can imagine,' Detective Stilton said.
I nodded madly.
We stared at her, silent again.
'All right,' she burst out, 'the man was a — a — '
'Close friend of yours?' Percy suggested.
'Not exactly,' she said quickly, already cutting her losses.
'More like a — a — '
'Spiritual adviser?' I said innocently.
She looked at me sharply.
'Yeah,' she said, 'spiritual adviser. For a few years. All right — bad news. Now he turns out to be a bummer. He's wanted. But what's it got to do with me?'
The use of the slang — the 'yeah' and the 'bummer' — was the first indication I had that she was slipping back to her origins. The grand lady was fading.
Stilton, the gentleman, still treated her with soft politesse, leaning towards her with a manner of great solicitude.
'Let me tell you what we've got, Mrs Kipper,' he said.
'Warrants have been issued for Knurr's arrest and the arrest of his paramour, Glynis Stonehouse. In addition, we have search warrants for her home, his home, and his houseboat. Sooner or later we're going to pick him up.'
'So?' she said. 'Pick him up. It's got nothing to do with me.'
Percy sat back, crossed his knees, selected a cigarette from his case and lighted it with slow deliberation.
'I think it does,' he said, looking at her steadily. 'I think it has a great deal to do with you. In addition to the out-of-state charges and complicity in the disappearance of Professor Stonehouse, the Reverend Godfrey Knurr will also be charged with the murder of Martin Reape.'
'Who?' she croaked. 'Never heard of him.'
'No?' Stilton said. 'Your late husband employed him.'
He motioned towards me. 'Mr Bigg, the cancelled cheques, please.'
I dug into my briefcase, came up with copies of Martin Reape's bills and the cancelled cheques. I showed them to her. She looked at them with smoky eyes.
'Martin Reape was a private detective,' Stilton went on inexorably. 'He was pushed to his death beneath the wheels of a subway train. We have the testimony of two eyewitnesses placing the Reverend Godfrey Knurr at the scene of the homicide at the time it occurred. Reape's widow was also murdered. We have evidence proving Knurr's complicity in that homicide as well.'
He lied so skilfully I could hardly believe it. His lies were 'throwaway' lines, spoken casually, as unemphasized as if he had mentioned 'Chilly out today.' They were absolutely believable. He was stating falsehoods and giving them no importance. He was saying, 'These things exist; everyone knows it.'
Tippi Kipper had gone rigid. She was motionless.
Frozen. I think that if I had flicked her flesh, it would have pinged. She was in an almost catatonic state. Every time she had adjusted to a blow, thought she had countered it, Stilton had jolted her again. He kept after her, feeding her confusion.
'So,' he said, 'on the basis of this and other evidence, the investigation into the circumstances of your husband's death has been reopened, Mrs Kipper. If you doubt that, I suggest you call the New York Police Department and verify what I am saying. We now believe your husband was murdered.'
'Murdered?' she cried. 'Impossible! He left a suicide note.'
Detective Stilton held out a hand. I gave him the notes I had taken from Tippi Kipper's dressing room. Percy held them up before her.
'Like these?' he asked stonily.
She glanced at them. Her face fell apart.
'Where did you get those?' she yelled.
'I, uh, obtained them,' I said.
She whirled and glared at me.
'You little prick!' she said.
I bowed my head.
'As I said,' Percy went on relentlessly, 'the investigation into your husband's murder has been reopened. We know how it was done: Knurr staying in an empty room overnight, going upstairs, killing the victim, running downstairs, going out the door only to turn around and ring the bell, coming right back in again while all of you were
