And this time he evidently didn't, and the difference in his tone was obvious. 'Leon Manch was another name on Portia's client list. He was also Knox Hardesty's pipeline into the mayor's office. I called him yesterday afternoon and arranged to see him, and I guess he couldn't handle it. He jumped out a window last night.'
'He actually killed himself.'
'It looks that way.'
'He could have killed Portia Carr.' He said it not argumentatively but thoughtfully.
I nodded. 'He could have killed her, yes. But he couldn't have killed Fuhrmann because Fuhrmann made a couple of telephone calls after Manch had been officially pronounced dead. You see what that means, Claude?'
'What?'
'All you had to do was leave that little writer alone. You couldn't know it, but that was all you had to do.Manch left a note. He didn't confess to murder, but it could have been interpreted that way. I would certainly have interpreted it that way and I would have done everything possible to pin the Carr murder on Manch's dead body. If I managed it, Broadfield was clear. If not, he would stand trial himself. Either way, you would have been home free because I would have settled on Manch as the killer and the cops had already settled on Broadfield and that left nobody in the world hunting for you.'
He said nothing for a long time. Then he narrowed his eyes and said, 'You're trying to trap me.'
'You're already trapped.'
'She was an evil, filthy woman.'
'And you were the Lord's avenging angel.'
'No.Nothing of the sort. You are trying to trap me, and it won't work. You can't prove a thing.'
'I don't have to.'
'Oh?'
'I want you to come over to the police station with me, Claude. I want you to confess to the murders of Portia Carr and DouglasFuhrmann
.'
'You must be insane.'
'No.'
'Then you must think I'm insane. Why on earth would I do something like that? Even if I did commit murder- '
'To spare yourself, Claude.'
'I don't understand.'
I looked at my watch. It was still early, and I felt as though I'd been awake for months.
'You said I can't prove anything,' I told him. 'And I said you were right. But the police can prove it.
Not now, but after they've spent some time digging. Knox Hardesty can establish that you were a client of Portia Carr's. He gave me the information once I was able to show him how it was bound up in murder, and he'll hardly hold it back in court. And you can bet that somebody saw you with Portia in the Village and somebody saw you on Ninth Avenue when you killed Fuhrmann . There's always a witness, and when the police and the district attorney's office are both putting in time, the witnesses tend to turn up.'
'Then let them turn up these people if they exist. Why should I confess to make things easier for them?'
'Because you'd be making things easier for yourself, Claude.So much easier.'
'That doesn't make sense.'
'If the police dig, they'll get everything, Claude. They'll find out why you were seeing Portia Carr.
Right now nobody knows. Hardesty doesn't know, I don't know, no one does. But if they dig, they'll find out. And there will be insinuations in the newspapers, and people will suspect things, perhaps they'll suspect worse than the truth- '
'Stop it.'
'Everyone will know about it, Claude.' I inclined my head toward the closed door. 'Everyone,' I said.
'Damn you.'
'You could spare her that knowledge, Claude. Of course a confession might also get you a lighter sentence. It theoretically can't happen in Murder One, but you know how the game is played. It certainly wouldn't hurt your chances. But I think that's a secondary consideration as far as you're concerned, Claude. Isn't it? I think you'd like to save yourself some scandal. Am I right?'
He opened his mouth but closed it without speaking.
'You could keep your motive a secret, Claude. You could invent something. Or just refuse to explain.
No one would pressure you, not if you'd already confessed to homicide. People close to you would know you had committed murder, but they wouldn't have to know other things about your life.'
He lifted his cup of chocolate to his lips. He sipped it, returned it to its saucer.
'Claude- '
'Just let me think for a moment, will you?'
'All right.'
