“We don’t care to talk about that,” Grayson said promptly. “It is much too painful to us.”
I waited a moment and looked gloomy with them. Then I said: “I don’t blame you. I don’t want to make you. I’d like to get in touch with the man you hired to look into it, though.”
They looked at each other again. Mrs. Grayson didn’t shake her head this time.
Grayson asked: “Why?”
“I’d better tell you a little of my story.” I told them what I had been hired to do, not mentioning Kingsley by name. I told them the incident with Degarmo outside Almore’s house the day before. They pointed again on that.
Grayson said sharply: “Am I to understand that you were unknown to Dr. Almore, had not approached him in any way, and that he nevertheless called a police officer because you were outside his house?”
I said: “That’s right. Had been outside for at least an hour though. That is, my car had.”
“That’s very queer,” Grayson said.
“I’d say that was one very nervous man,” I said. “And Degarmo asked me if her folks—meaning your daughter’s folks—had hired me. Looks as if he didn’t feel safe yet, wouldn’t you say?”
“Safe about what?” He didn’t look at me saying this. He re-lit his pipe, slowly, then tamped the tobacco down with the end of a big metal pencil and lit it again.
I shrugged and didn’t, answer. He looked at me quickly and looked away. Mrs. Grayson didn’t look at me, but her nostrils quivered.
“How did he know who you were?” Grayson asked suddenly.
“Made a note of the car license, called the Auto Club, looked up the name in the directory. At least that’s what I’d have done and I saw him through his window making some of the motions.”
“So he has the police working for him,” Grayson said.
“Not necessarily. If they made a mistake that time, they wouldn’t want it found out now.”
“Mistake!” He laughed almost shrilly.
“Okay,” I said. “The subject is painful but a little fresh air won’t hurt it. You’ve always thought he murdered her, haven’t you? That’s why you hired this dick—detective.”
Mrs. Grayson looked up with quick eyes and ducked her head down and rolled up another pair of mended socks.
Grayson said nothing.
I said: “Was there any evidence, or was it just that you didn’t like him?”
“There was evidence,” Grayson said bitterly, and with a sudden clearness of voice, as if he had decided to talk about it after all. “There must have been. We were told there was. But we never got it. The police took care of that.”
“I heard they had this fellow arrested and sent up for drunk driving.”
“You heard right.”
“But he never told you what he had to go on.”
“No.”
“I don’t like that,” I said. “That sounds a little as if this fellow hadn’t made up his mind whether to use his information for your benefit or keep it and put a squeeze on the doctor.”
Grayson looked at his wife again. She said quietly: “Mr. Talley didn’t impress me that way. He was a quiet unassuming little man. But you can’t always judge, I know.”
I said: “So Talley was his name. That was one of the things I hoped you would tell me.”
“And what were the others?” Grayson asked.
“How can I find Talley—and what it was that laid the groundwork of suspicion in your minds. It must have been there, or you wouldn’t have hired Talley without a better showing from him that he had grounds.”
Grayson smiled very thinly and primly. He reached for his little chin and rubbed it with one long yellow finger.
Mrs. Grayson said: “Dope.”
“She means that literally,” Grayson said at once, as if the single word had been a green light. “Almore was, and no doubt is, a dope doctor. Our daughter made that clear to us. In his hearing too. He didn’t like it.”
“Just what do you mean by a dope doctor, Mr. Grayson?”
“I mean a doctor whose practice is largely with people who are living on the raw edge of nervous collapse, from drink and dissipation. People who have to be given sedatives and narcotics all the time. The stage comes when an ethical physician refuses to treat them any more, outside a sanatorium. But not the Dr. Almores. They will keep on as long as the money comes in, as long as the patient remains alive and reasonably sane, even if he or she becomes a hopeless addict in the process. A lucrative practice,” he said primly, “and I imagine a dangerous one to the doctor.”
“No doubt of that,” I said. “But there’s a lot of money in it. Did you know a man named Condy?”
“No. We know who he was. Florence suspected he was a source of Almore’s narcotic supply.”
I said: “Could be. He probably wouldn’t want to write himself too many prescriptions. Did you know Lavery?”
