towards me briskly, a small sharp man in a neatly pressed police uniform. He had reddish hair and red-gold eyes.
I yawned and said languidly: “What goes on, officer?”
He stared at me thoughtfully. “Little trouble next door to you. Hear anything?”
“I thought I heard knocking. I just got home a little while ago.”
“Little late,” he said.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” I said. “Trouble next door, ah?”
“A dame,” he said. “Know her?”
“I think I’ve seen her.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You ought to see her now . . .” He put his hands to his throat and bulged his eyes out and gulped unpleasantly. “Like that,” he said. “You didn’t hear nothing, huh?”
“Nothing I noticed—except the knocking.”
“Yeah. What was the name?”
“Talbot.”
“Just a minute, Mr. Talbot. Wait there just a minute.”
He went along the hallway and leaned into an open doorway through which light streamed out. “Oh, lieutenant,” he said. “The man next door is on deck.”
A tall man came out of the doorway and stood looking along the hall straight at me. A tall man with rusty hair and very blue, blue eyes. Degarmo. That made it perfect.
“Here’s the guy lives next door,” the small neat cop said helpfully. “His name’s Talbot.”
Degarmo looked straight at me, but nothing in his acid blue eyes showed that he had ever seen me before. He came quietly along the hall and put a hard hand against my chest and pushed me back into the room. When he had me half a dozen feet from the door he said over his shoulder: “Come in here and shut the door, Shorty.”
The small cop came in and shut the door.
“Quite a gag,” Deganno said lazily. “Put a gun on him, Shorty.”
Shorty flicked his black belt holster open and had his .38 in his hand like a flash. He licked his lips.
“Oh boy,” he said softly, whistling a little. “Oh boy. How’d you know, lieutenant?”
“Know what?” Degarmo asked, keeping his eyes fixed on mine. “What were you thinking of doing, pal—going down to get a paper—to find out if she was dead?”
“Oh boy,” Shorty said. “A sex-killer. He pulled the girl’s clothes off and choked her with his hands, lieutenant. How’d you know?”
Degarmo didn’t answer him. He just stood there, rocking a little on his heels, his face empty and granite- hard.
“Yah, he’s the killer, sure,” Shorty said suddenly. “Sniff the air in here, lieutenant. The place ain’t been aired out for days. And look at the dust on those bookshelves. And the clock on the mantel’s stopped, lieutenant. He come in through the—lemme look a minute, can I, lieutenant?”
He ran out of the room into the bedroom. I heard him fumbling around. Degarmo stood woodenly.
Shorty came back. “Come in at the bathroom window. There’s broken glass in the tub. And something stinks of gin in there something awful. You remember how that apartment smelled of gin when we went in? Here’s a shirt, lieutenant. Smells like it was washed in gin.”
He held the shirt up. It perfumed the air rapidly. Degarmo looked at it vaguely and then stepped forward and yanked my coat open and looked at the shirt I was wearing.
“I know what he done,” Shorty said. “He stole one of the guy’s shirts that lives here. You see what he done, lieutenant?”
“Yeah.” Degarmo held his hand against my chest and let it fall slowly. They were talking about me as if I was a piece of wood.
“Frisk him, Shorty.”
Shorty ran around me feeling here and there for a gun.
“Nothing on him,” he said.
“Let’s get him out the back way,” Degarmo said. “It’s our pinch, if we make it before Webber gets here. That lug Reed couldn’t find a moth in a shoe box.”
“You ain’t even detailed on the case,” Shorty said doubtfully.
“Didn’t I hear you was suspended or something?”
“What can I lose?” Degarmo asked, “if I’m suspended?”
“I can lose this here uniform,” Shorty said.
Degarmo looked at him wearily. The small cop blushed and his bright red-gold eyes were anxious.
“Okay, Shorty. Go and tell Reed.”
The small cop licked his lip. “You say the word, lieutenant, and I’m with you. I don’t have to know you got suspended.”
