Westmore Street?”
“It has to do with the Almore case,” I said. “George Talley worked on the Almore case—until he was pinched for drunk driving.”
“Well, I never worked on the Almore case,” Webber snapped. “I don’t know who stuck the first knife into Julius Caesar either. Stick to the point, can’t you?”
“I am sticking to the point. Degarmo knows about the Almore case and he doesn’t like it talked about. Even your prowl car boys know about it. Cooney and Dobbs had no reason to follow me unless it was because I visited the wife of a man who had worked on the Almore case. I wasn’t doing fifty-five miles an hour when they started to follow me. I tried to get away from them because I had a good idea I might get beaten up for going there. Degarmo had given me that idea.”
Webber looked quickly at Degarmo. Degarmo’s hard blue eyes looked across the room at the wall in front of him.
I said: “And I didn’t bust Cooney in the nose until after he had forced me to drink whiskey and then hit me in the stomach when I drank it, so that I would spill it down my coat front and smell of it. This can’t be the first time you have heard of that trick, captain.”
Webber broke another match. He leaned back and looked at his small tight knuckles. He looked again at Degarmo and said: “If you got made chief of police today, you might let me in on it.”
Degarmo said: “Hell, the shamus just got a couple of playful taps. Kind of kidding. If a guy can’t take a joke —”
Webber said: “You put Cooney and Dobbs over there?”
“Well—yes, I did,” Degarmo said. “I don’t see where we have to put up with these snoopers coming into our town and stirring up a lot of dead leaves just to promote themselves a job and work a couple of old suckers for a big fee. Guys like that need a good sharp lesson.”
“Is that how it looks to you?” Webber asked.
“That’s exactly how it looks to me,” Degarmo said.
“I wonder what fellows like you need,” Webber said. “Right now I think you need a little air. Would you please take it, lieutenant?”
Degarmo opened his mouth slowly. “You mean you want me to breeze on out?”
Webber leaned forward suddenly and his sharp little chin seemed to cut the air like the forefoot of a cruiser. “Would you be so kind?”
Degarmo stood up slowly, a dark flush staining his cheekbones.
He leaned a hard hand flat on the desk and looked at Webber.
There was a little charged silence. He said: “Okay, captain. But you’re playing this wrong.”
Webber didn’t answer him. Degarmo walked to the door and out.
Webber waited for the door to close before he spoke.
“Is it your line that you can tie this Almore business a year and a half ago to the shooting in Lavery’s place today? Or is it just a smoke screen you’re laying down because you know damn well Kingsley’s wife shot Layery?”
I said: “It was tied to Lavery before he was shot. In a rough sort of way, perhaps only with a granny knot. But enough to make a man think.”
“I’ve been into this matter a little more thoroughly than you might think,” Webber said coldly. “Although I never had anything personally to do with the death of Almore’s wife and I wasn’t chief of detectives at that time. If you didn’t even know Almore yesterday morning, you must have heard a lot about him since.”
I told him exactly what I had heard, both from Miss Fromsett and from the Graysons.
“Then it’s your theory that Lavery may have blackmailed Dr. Almore?” he asked at the end. “And that that may have something to do with the murder?”
“It’s not a theory. It’s no more than a possibility. I wouldn’t be doing a job if I ignored it. The relations, if any, between Lavery and Almore might have been deep and dangerous or just the merest acquaintance, or not even that. For all I positively know they may never even have spoken to each other. But if there was nothing funny about the Almore case, why get so tough with anybody who shows an interest in it? It could be coincidence that George Talley was hooked for drunk driving just when he was working on it. It could be coincidence that Almore called a cop because I stared at his house, and that Lavery was shot before I could talk to him a second time. But it’s no coincidence that two of your men were watching Talley’s home tonight, ready, willing and able to make trouble for me, if I went there.”
“I grant you that,” Webber said. “And I’m not done with that incident. Do you want to file charges?”
“Life’s too short for me to be filing charges of assault against police officers,” I said.
He winced a little. “Then we’ll wash all that out and charge it to experience,” he said. “And as I understand you were not even booked, you’re free to go home any time you want to. And if I were you, I’d leave Captain Webber to deal with the Lavery case and with any remote connection it might turn out to have with the Almore case.”
I said: “And with any remote connection it might have with a woman named Muriel Chess being found drowned in a mountain lake near Puma Point yesterday?”
He raised his little eyebrows. “You think that?”
“Only you might not know her as Muriel Chess. Supposing that you knew her at all you might have known her as Mildred Haviland, who used to be Dr. Almore’s office nurse. Who put Mrs. Almore to bed the night she was found dead in the garage, and who, if there was any hanky-panky about that, might know who it was, and be bribed or scared into leaving town shortly thereafter.”
Webber picked up two matches and broke them. His small bleak eyes were fixed on my face. He said
