“I've nothing to say.” He didn't stop walking.
“But Professor, I only want to ask you...?”
“I told you, I have nothing to say!”
“I'm Norm—” I never finished the sentence for he actually dashed down the subway stairs.
Wiping my sweaty face I felt angry and bewildered. But I hadn't ran a block on a hot day for any brush-off. I raced down the steps and caught him at the change window.
He said, “Will you stop annoying me? I told you I—”
“Professor, I'm Norman Connor from Matt Anthony's publishing house. I only want to ask you some questions about Matt, and I can't understand your rude—”
“I'm sorry,” he said quickly. “I... eh... assumed you were somebody else. I was rude and I apologize.”
“Perhaps it was my fault, grabbing your shoulder. I was up to your hotel yesterday. Didn't the clerk tell you?”
“He merely said a man had been asking for me.” We stood there beside the subway change booth, awkwardly silent for a moment. Then I asked, “Shall we go into a bar for beers and talk?”
“No. We can go back to my room. I have beer there.” We walked up Broadway and over to the hotel without saying a word. The clerk waved merrily at us as we rode a dirty self-service elevator to the 6th floor. The Professor unlocked a door and took off his coat. What they had done with the 'hotel' was to take an old apartment house and make each room into a kind of unit. This one must have been the maid's room in the 'old days.' It was just wide enough to walk by the narrow bed. There was a small window, an improvised closet, a chair, and in one corner water was running slowly on something covered by a rag in the tiny sink.
Brown grinned at me as he said, “I imagine you must be puzzled by my performance on Broadway. I thought you were an FBI man. I've been stopped and harassed by them, and local agents, so often I've found the best policy is not to talk to them at all. In fact, I'd be more at ease this second if you showed me some identification, Mr.—eh —”
“Norm Conner,” I said, pulling out a thick envelope the efficient Miss Park had sent in the morning mail—a number of synopses of fall books. Brown glanced at these, as he motioned for me to take the chair. He sat on the unmade bed. When he handed them back he said, “I apologize, if you feel one is needed, Mr. Connor. Take off your coat. Beastly hot. I'm trying to rent a fan. What can I do for you?”
“I trust I'm not putting you out, Professor—”
“No point in calling me 'professor,' I haven't been one in months. You're not putting me out at all: Saturday is not a day for job hunting. Are you Mart's editor?”
“Oh, no. I'm the advertising manager of Longson and—”
“Hmmm. I'm not sure there is any real need for advertising in the world. Sets up false standards. But we won't argue the matter.”
I wiped my face, wishing he'd let me finish a sentence. “Mr. Brown, I'm going around interviewing everybody connected with the case. Longson feels they would like to help Mr. Anthony. We know he needs money and we're considering reissuing one of his old books. This would hinge on advertising. I feel I need a clear picture of what happened to work up the proper ad campaign.”
“Why? And take off your coat.”
“The 'why' is the reputation of the firm,” I said, hanging my jacket on the back of the chair. “I suppose you know the D.A. is asking for murder in the first degree?”
“I've followed the papers.”
“Then you must see our position. We publish a large list, including many textbooks. We can't jeopardize our textbooks by... well... bluntly by being too closely associated with a murderer—if he is one.”
“Young man, do you realize the nonsense you're spouting? Another form of guilt by association. Hell, you're merely trying to sell books. In this case, some of Matt's.”
“Perhaps my choice of words was wrong. The point is, everything depends upon the type of ad campaign we wage. We would like to make some money for Matt but—”
“And for Longson.”
“Professor... Mr. Brown, take it easy. I'd like to know from you exactly what happened out there, your opinion as to whether it was murder or manslaughter.”
“My opinion is that Matt didn't kill his wife.”
“You think it was a pure accident?”
“I don't think he killed her.”
“But he's confessed it. There's no doubt about his—”
“No matter what Matt signed or said, I don't think he killed his wife. I've known Matt for a long time. For an intelligent man to kill takes a certain amount of courage. Matt's a coward. Even if I didn't know him, I could tell that from his writing, his preoccupation with violence.”
“But why would he sign a confession? Do you think he was third degreed into signing it?”
“I don't know why he signed. I don't think he was given the third degree—he's too well known to be subjected to that. It's allegedly against the law to rubber hose a prisoner. Yet it isn't against the law to lie to him, tell him, for example, his wife has informed upon him, that he might as well talk. To believe that your wife or friends have turned you in, is that any less torture than the lash of a hose?”
I felt I was drifting in a lot of talk, tried to pull myself together. “Wait a minute, Mr. Brown; you think he's a coward. From what I know of him, his sailing the ocean, his war record, his brawls—that's hardly the portrait of a
