'I'm getting the feeling he did it,' said Johnny and exploded, 'I've absolutely got to have more than just a feeling . . .' (He didn't trust his feelings.)
'You tell Nan the rest of it,' Copeland said severely. 'Or I will. Have you talked to Grimes?'
'Not today.'
'You talk to him youseff,' said Copeland, 'and tell that girl the whole business. Quick.'
'You're right,' said Johnny. 'I'll tell her. No later than tomorrow.'
Johnny hung up, called Roderick Grimes.
Grimes was annoyed by Kate's story about housebreaking.
'No sense to it,' he fumed. 'If Dick Bartee killed Christy, then Dick Bartee got Christy's pin then and there out of the safe.'
'Supplied Nathaniel with it?'
'Right. So why the housebreaking? What would he or anybody else be looking for in Kate's house?'
'Nothing taken.'
'And that's helpful,' Grimes snapped. 'Well, I'll ponder it. Blood tests, eh? You watch the timing, lad. Looks like he'll rush the wedding. You don't want to prove he did it, afterwards.'
'Prove—' Johnny sent a groan the five-hundred-odd miles.
'You been shot at or anything?' Grimes asked curiously.
'Don't be ridiculous!'
'You think a killer won't kill twice?'
'In my case, he doesn't need to bother,' said Johnny savagely. 'I'm not getting anywhere.'
Grimes was silent.
'Copeland said to call you,' Johnny remembered. 'What's up? Any ideas?'
'A few,' Grimes said. 'By the way, do you own a hat?'
'A whati'
'Hat, I said.'
'I don't wear a hat,' said Johnny. 'What's that got to do with . . . ?' He :s^as in a state of sputtering frustration.
'I brood,' said Grimes. 'I brood, you know. I got an idea.'
'What?' barked Johnny.
Grimes said, after hesitating, 'For a title.'
'Title!'
'Yep. Pretty tricky. 'A Life for Two Pins.' How's that?'
'Just ducky,' said Johnny bitterly and slammed down the phone.
Grimes in his armchair with his fiction-oriented mindl Johnny felt lonely and futile. Maybe he ought to take Kate Callahan's advice. Let people go. Nan was in love and that was her fate, her foUy, or her privilege, and there wouldn't ever be a way to prove that Dick Bartee had killed poor Christy. If he had. Too long ago. Too many people dead, or gone. If Nan did marry Dick Bartee, McCauley would just have to bear it. Well? He was a saint, wasn't he?
Johnny Sims would have to bear it, too.
In San Francisco, Copeland was saying on the telephone
to Roderick Grimes, 'You didn't tell him, then? Well, it's hopeless, anyhow.'
'Who says it's hopeless?' Grimes protested. 'Sims doesn't wear a hat. I didn't think so.'
'Evidence,' said Copeland. 'What are you going to take to court? Six flower petals?'
'You are confused,' said Grimes cosily, 'between evidence and clue. Six petals of ceanothus, caught in the trunk seam of a rented car—that is a clue. Who said it was evidence?'
Copeland groaned.
'Let me outline it for you,' Grimes continued. 'I sit and think. Occurs to me, a killer wHl kill again. I note that Dick Bartee was here, in this city, the night that Emily Padgett died. With—if he is the ring-tailed doozer we suspect—a fine fat motive to get rid of her. So, I query the good doctor. He turns out to be uneasy about that heart. Also, a patient of his across the court from Padgett's room saw a man in there. Doc thinks it was Johnny Sims. Man wore a hat, however. Did not take it off. Discourteous, you see? Sims has good manners, as we know.'
'That's evidence?' said Copeland bitterly.
'That's a clue,' said Grimes. 'Who was the man with a hat on? Tripped the bhnds, he did. Well, I go poke around the airport on hypothesis. Very scientific. Bartee got off a plane close to seven that night, rented a car. Returned it on the Monday. Tuesday, I get there, and the car is in. Six flower petals in the trunk seam. Ceanothus. Even I can recognize. What else is blue?'
'You couldn't count the ceanothus in Cahfomia,' the lawyer said. 'It's second name is California hlac.'
', see?' Grimes went right on, 'and tall enough to shed on the trunk of a car. I went—personally, mind you—to
