'Keep your shirt on,' Ken said. 'I've been to the police and explained. They caught the killer last night, and I'm in the clear.'
Parker gaped.
'They got the killer? Then you didn't do it?'
'Of course not, you dope!'
'Oh! Well, I don't want anything more to do with you. You're a damned dangerous influence. You've ruined my home.'
Ken asked the question that had been torturing him for the past few hours: 'Did you tell your wife I went to see Fay?'
'Tell her?' Parker's voice shot up. 'Of course not! You don't think I'd tell her I gave you an introduction to a tart, do you? It's bad enough now, but she would never have forgiven me.'
Ken drew in a deep breath of relief. He suddenly grinned, and clumped Parker on his back.
'Then this lets me out!' he said. 'You'll keep quiet about this to Ann, won't you?'
Parker scowled at him.
'I don't see why both of us should be in the soup. It'd serve you damn well right if I did tell her, but I won't.'
'Honest?' Ken said, looking at him.
'Yes,' Parker growled. 'No need for the two of us to be in the dog-house.'
'That's swell. Brother! I've been sweating it out since I had her letter. I heard this morning. She's coming back in five days' time. Her mother's going into a home. She should have gone weeks ago, and now Ann's persuaded her. She's coming back next Monday.'
Parker grunted.
'It's all right for you, but I'm in a hell of a fix.'
'How's Maisie this morning?'
Parker shook his head.
'She's looking like a saint with indigestion. She's horribly quiet and
polite and distant. I'll be in the dog-house for months before she gets over it.'
'Buy her an expensive present: a fur coat for the winter,' Ken suggested.
'That's right: spend my money for me. How can I afford a fur coat?'
'You were a mug to have told her, anyway. You needn't have. If you had used your head you could have cooked up some yarn.'
Parker nodded gloomily.
'I know. I've been thinking about that. I was a mug, but that sergeant rattled me.'
'We can't stand here all day. Get in if you want to.'
'Well, all right,' Parker said, and got into the car. 'But don't think it'll ever be the same between us, because it won't.'
'Oh, shut up!' Ken said shortly. 'You started the mess and you got what was coming to you.'
Parker gave him a surprised glance. He noticed Ken appeared to have acquired more character overnight. He looked tougher, more confident, and not the kind of man you'd pus** around.
'Who killed her?' Parker asked. 'What happened?'
'I know as much as you do,' Ken lied. 'I went to the police station, told the Lieutenant that I had been with Fay last night and waited to be arrested. He told me to go home as they had the killer. I didn't wait for a second invitation. I went.'
'I thought you had a good story for me,' Parker said, disappointed. 'That's damn dull.'
'I guess it is,' Ken said, his face expressionless.
As they drove into the parking lot behind the bank, Parker said, 'Are you going to tell Arm what happened?'
Ken shook his head.
'You may be a mug,' he said as he got out of the car, 'but I'm not.'
V
Five days later, Ken stood on the platform waiting for the train that was bringing Ann home.
He was feeling particularly virtuous. For the past four evenings he had worked ceaselessly in the bungalow and in the garden. All the various jobs that Ann had been asking him to do for the past months, and which he had put off, had been done. The garden had never looked better. The kitchen had been decorated. The windows had been cleaned. The broken hinge on the gate had been repaired; even the car had been polished.
The newspapers had been full of the shootings. The City's Administration had come under fire, and several prominent members had resigned, among them Captain Joe Motley, who felt that his work was becoming too arduous for his easy-going methods. Lindsay Burt's name kept cropping up in the papers as the next likely political leader, and the Herald was prophesying that Lieutenant Adams would shortly be elected Captain of Police.
