'He's dead.'
'Is this a gag?'
'Nope. He died last night. You won't see him any more unнless you go to the morgue.'
The Saint lighted a cigarette slowly, glancing back at the door through which he had just entered with the same puzzled frown deepening on his face.
It was a masterpiece of tuning and restrained suggestion. If Condor was disappointed because he didn't draw one of the conventional gaffes of the 'Who shot him?' variety, he didn't show it. He said: 'I told her not to say anything. Wanted to see how you took it.'
'I may be dumb,' said the Saint, 'but I think I'm missing something. Are you an undercover man for a Gallup Poll, or what is this?'
Condor flipped his lapel.
'Police,' he said gloomily. 'Sit down, Mr. Templar.'
The Saint sank into a deep leather armchair and exhaled a long drift of smoke.
'Well I'm damned,' he said. 'What did he die of?'
'Murder.'
Simon blinked.
'Good God-how?'
'Shot through the head. From behind. In his study, at his house.' Condor seemed to resign himself to the conviction that he wasn't going to catch any revelations of premature knowledge, and opened up a bit. 'Sometime around half-past one. The cook thought she heard a noise about that time, but she didn't wake up properly and figured it was probably a car backfiring outside. Miss Warden was working there until about midnight, when he came in, and she says he was all right when she left about half an hour later.'
Simon nodded.
'I saw him at Ciro's before that'
'What time did he leave there?'
'I wouldn't know. It was probably around eight-thirty when I saw him, but I don't know how much longer he stayed. I wasn't paying much attention.'
'You with anyone?'
'April Quest.'
'How did Ufferlitz seem?'
'Perfectly normal... Are there any clues?'
'We haven't found any yet. The killer seems to have been good and careful. Even emptied the ashtrays.'
Simon drew at his cigarette again and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He found an ashtray on the small table at his right elbow and tapped his cigarette over it. The rest of the table was littered with a pile of back numbers of the Hollywood Reporter and Variety. Right on top of the pile was a Reporter of yesterday. So Byron Ufferlitz hadn't had it with him to scribble that note on; and if he had written it in his office before leaving he wouldn't have used the Reporter for paper. Of course he could have picked up another copy, but -- 'The only thing is,' said Condor, 'Ufferlitz knew the guy who killed him. The servants didn't let anyone in, except Miss Warden, so Ufferlitz must have done it himself.'
'Suppose the guy let himself in?'
'Then he couldn't have gone into the study until not more than an hour before he shot Ufferlitz. But he still smoked enough to have to empty three ashtrays. So Ufferlitz knew him well enough to keep talking to him.'
Simon nodded again. It was his own old deduction, but it indicated that Ed Condor was at least not totally blind and incompetent. The Saint wondered how much more he had on the ball. Certainly he was not a man to be careless with.
'I see,' Simon said. 'So you sit here waiting for people who knew him to drop in.'
'Yeah. I've seen two writers and the director-Groom. Now you.'
'Have you had any good reactions?' Simon asked with superb audacity.
Condor nibbled his toothpick with the corners of his mouth drawn down unhappily.
'Nope. Not yet. It hasn't been anybody's morning to pull boners.' He went on without any transition: 'What time did you go home last night?'
'I took Miss Quest home about one o'clock.'
'When were you home?'
'We talked for a while. I didn't notice the time, but I guess I was home in about half an hour ...'
Condor's black eyes that missed nothing were fixed on him steadily, and Simon knew almost telepathically that the night elevator operator at the Chтteau Marmont had already been consulted. But he had had several hours to remember that that would have been an inevitable routine, eventually, anyнway.
'... the first time, that is,' he continued easily. 'Then I went out again. I didn't have any liquor in the apartнment, and I wanted another drink. I went to a joint on Hollyнwood Boulevard and had a drink at the bar, and went home at closing time.'
'What joint was that?'
Simon told him the name of a night spot which did a roaring if not exactly exclusive trade, where he knew that nobody would be able to say positively whether he had been in or not.
'See anyone you knew there?' Condor asked nevertheless.
'No. In fact, if you want a cast-iron alibi,' Simon admitted with an air of disarming candor, 'I'm afraid I can't give it to you. Do I need one?'
'I dunno,' Condor said glumly. 'How long would it take you to drive from your apartment to Ufferlitz's?'
'I haven't the least idea,' said the Saint innocently. 'Where does he live?'
The detective sighed. In any other circumstances Simon could almost have felt sorry for him. He was certainly a trier, and it just wasn't doing him any good.
He said: 'On Claymore, in Beverly Hills. You could drive there in ten minutes easy, even missing a few lights.'
'But I thought Ufferlitz was shot at one-thirty. I was home just about then.'
'You aren't sure. And the cook isn't sure either. She only thinks it was about one-thirty. She could be five minutes wrong. So could you. That makes enough difference for you to have been there. Maybe the shot wasn't at one-thirty anyway. Maybe she did hear a car backfiring, and the shooting was some other time. Like when you say you were out having a drink.'
'What do the doctors say?'
'They can't fix it as close as that. You ought to know.'
'I suppose not,' said the Saint. 'Still, you make it a bit tough for a guy. You want me to have an alibi, but you don't know what time I'm supposed to have an alibi for.'
Condor removed his toothpick, inspected it profoundly, and put it back.
'I got another time,' he announced finally.
'What's that?'
'Ufferlitz called the Beverly Hills police station and said he thought someone was prowling around his house, and asked for a patrol-car to come by. That call was received at exactly eight minutes of two.'
A subcutaneous tingle pin-pointed up between the Saint's shoulder-blades-even though he had always been sure that that patrol car had never arrived by accident. But his face showed nothing more than a rather exasperated bafflement.
'For Pete's sake,' he said, 'how many more times have you got to cover?'
'Just that one.'
'But that makes the other time all haywire.'
'Could be. I said, maybe the cook never heard the shot. She went to sleep again.'
Simon consumed his cigarette meditatively for a few seconds. Then he looked at Condor again with a slight lift of one eyebrow.
'On the other hand,' he remarked, 'can anyone swear that Ufferlitz made that call? Maybe the murderer made it himнself, just to confuse you. Maybe you ought to be very susнpicious of anybody who has got a perfect alibi for eight minutes of two.'
