'I only wondered,' said Bart smoothly, 'whether he was proposing to raise money against his fiancee's inheritance, a month ago?'
Silence on the other end. The voice said finally, 'Sorry, Mr. Baitee, but if I tell my cUent's business I'd soon have 1 no clients. You know that.'
'Thank you,' Bart said.
Late afternoon, Johnny's phone rang. It was Marshall. 'TL.ike I to talk to you,' the lawyer said.
So Johnny went out to his car and drove to the lawyer's I office.
First, Marshall apologized again for nearly blowing Johnny
»
I up.
Johnny brushed this off. He had thought of one more check [ to make. He said, 'The night that Christy was killed, you ^ were at home, weren't you?'
'Right. Until McCauley caUed me from the jail.'
'He called you?' Johimy sat up. 'When was that?'
'Oh, one-thirty. Close to. I went right down.'
'Got up, did you? Went to see him?'
'Of course,' said Marshall. 'Although, I hadn't been to bed so I didn't have to get up.'
'Wait,' said Johimy. 'Now, slowly. One-thirty a.m., and you were not in bed?'
'I'd got involved in a bogk,' Marshall said. 'My wife died many years ago. I sometimes don't sleep too well.'
'You were reading?' gasped Johnny. 'Not in the dark, then?'
'Hardly. What's the matter^'
'Where were you reading?'
'In my den.'
'With the Hght on?'
'Of com-se.'
'The door closed?'
'Door of my den? That's never closed.'
Johnny said, 'You'll swear to that?'
'Yes, I will. What's the matterr
'I think you just broke Dick Bartee's second-string alibi and broke it good.'
So Johnny talked. A girl is awakened by sand on her windowpane. She sneaks downstairs in a dark house. Her father mustn't be aroused. She creeps out to the back porch. The boy shows her his watch. 'Midnight,' he says. Perhaps he says, 'Only midnight, see?'
'But Blanche would have known if your den hghts were on?' Johnny demanded.
'She couldn't have missed them,' Marshall said soberly. 'Blanche—and quiet all these years.'
'So Dick Bartee was not there at mignight!'
'My house wasn't dark until after one that night,' said Marshall, 'and I can swear to it.'
So Johnny said, 'He fooled her. If once, then possibly, twice.' He talked about the breaking in to Kate's place.
Marshall said, 'This . . . What are you going to do?'
'Call San Francisco.'
Johnny called Copeland's house. Mr, Copeland, a woman's voice told him, was not in and could not be reached, and the woman didn't like it, at all, because they had a social engagement.
Johnny eased himself oflF the phone.
Marshall said, 'Come home with me now, and we'll eat and kick it around. The legal side. What can you take to a judge? You've got no proof 1'
In San Francisco in a bar. Grimes said, 'Sol She saw a man with a hat on, coming out of Padgett's room. Fhie! Good!'
Copeland said, 'She saw that. We've got that. And the time, seven-thirty or close to. Trouble is, she did not see the man's face. She can't identify.'
'Listen,' Grimes said, '/'tt get together with the pohce. You get down to Hestia.'
'Me?'
'Right. Whatever sheriff is going to have to move on a Bartee to arrest him, may need his hand held.'
'Listen, you haven't got liim. You've got six blue petals,
