desk.
‘Maybe you might recognise her.’
I looked at the photograph and then turned quickly away.
It was a horrible photograph.
Rima lay in a pool of blood on the floor. She was naked. Her body had been horribly cut, stabbed and mutilated.
‘You don’t recognise her?’ Keary asked in his tough cop voice.
‘No! I don’t know her! I don’t know Mandon! Is that clear?’ I said. ‘I can’t help you! Now will you please get out of here and let me get on with my work?’
But he wasn’t a man to be bullied. He settled himself more firmly in his chair as he said, ‘This is a murder case, Mr. Halliday. It’s your bad luck that in some way you are connected with it. Have you ever been to Santa Barba?’
I very nearly said I hadn’t, but realised in time that I might easily have been recognised in the town, and to deny being there could get me into serious trouble.
‘Yes, I have,’ I said. ‘What of it?’
He was all cop now, leaning forward, his chin thrust out.
‘When was that?’
‘A couple of weeks ago.’
‘Can you get it nearer than that?’
‘I was there on May 21st and again on June 15th.’
He looked slightly disappointed.
‘Yeah. We’ve already checked. You stayed at the Shore Hotel.’
I waited, thankful I hadn’t been caught in a lie.
‘Can you explain, Mr. Halliday,’ he went on, ‘why a man in your position should stay at a joint like the Shore Hotel? Any particular reason?’
‘I just don’t happen to be fussy where I stay,’ I said. ‘It was the first hotel I came to so I stayed there.’
‘Why did you go to Santa Barba?’
‘Why all these questions? What business is it of yours where I stay and why?’
‘This is a murder case,’ he said. ‘I ask the questions: you answer them.’
Shrugging, I said, ‘I had a lot of figures to prepare. I couldn’t get any peace here what with the telephone and the contractors disturbing me so I went to Santa Barba. I thought the change of air would do me good.’
Keary rubbed the end of his fleshy nose with the back of his hand.
‘What made you book in under the name of Masters?’
I was ready for that one. My mind was now working a shade faster than his.
‘When you have a photograph in
He stared at me, his hard green eyes as blank as stones.
‘The same reason why you stayed in your room all day?’
‘I was working.’
‘When did you get back here?’
‘I went first to San Francisco. I had business up there.’
He took out a notebook.
‘Where did you stay?’
I told him.
‘I left on Thursday night and arrived back here at midnight,’ I said. ‘If you want confirmation of that you can check with the ticket collector at the station who knows me well, and with the taxi driver, Sol White, who drove me home.’
Keary wrote in his notebook, then with a grunt he heaved himself to his feet.
‘Well, okay, Mr. Halliday. This will take care of it. I don’t reckon to bother you again. I was just tying up the loose ends. After all, we know who killed her.’
I stared at him.
‘You know? Who killed her?’
‘Jinx Mandon. Who else do you imagine killed her?’
‘It could have been anyone, couldn’t it?’ I said, aware that my voice had suddenly turned husky.
‘What makes you think he did it?’
‘He’s a criminal with a record for violence. The cleaning woman told us these two were always quarrelling. Suddenly he blows and we find her dead. Who else would kill her? All we have to do is to catch him, rough him up a little and he’ll spill it. Then we pop him into the gas chamber. There’s nothing to it.’
‘To me that doesn’t prove he did it,’ I said.
‘Doesn’t it?’ He lifted his heavy shoulders in an indifferent shrug. ‘I like him for the job, and the jury will like him too.’
Nodding to me, he opened the door and went out.
II
So Rima was dead!
But I felt no relief, only remorse. I had been responsible for her death.
With her had died my past. I had now only to sit tight and do nothing to be free of the threat of arrest.
But suppose they caught Vasari! Suppose they sent him to the gas chamber for a murder I knew he hadn’t committed?
I knew he hadn’t murdered Rima. Wilbur had done it and I could prove he had done it, but to prove it I would have to tell the police the whole story, and then I would be put on trial for the Studio guard’s murder.
Was this nightmare never going to end?
I thought: You have saved yourself; to hell with Vasari! He is a criminal with a record for violence.
Why should you sacrifice yourself for him?
During the next six days the pressure of work and the rushed visits to the sanatorium to see Sarita so occupied my mind during the day that I was free of the tormenting thought that I had been responsible for Rima’s death. But at night, when I was alone in the dark, the picture of her lying in the pool of blood, her body covered with vicious stab wounds, haunted me.
I watched the newspapers for any news of the murder. It had started off as headline news, but quickly dwindled to a small paragraph on the back page. The papers said the police were still looking for Mandon who, they hoped, would help them in their inquiries, but, so far, there was no trace of him.
As one day followed the next, I began to be more hopeful. Maybe Vasari had got out of the country.
Maybe he would never be found.
I wondered what had happened to Wilbur. Several times I was tempted to call the Anderson Hotel in San Francisco to find out if he was back there, but I decided against it.
Sarita was still making progress. I went to the sanatorium every evening, and spent an hour talking to her, telling her about the bridge, what I had been doing, how I was managing without her.
Zimmerman said he felt confident now that she would be able to walk again, but it would take time.
He thought in another two weeks she could go home. She would have to have a nurse to take care of her, but he thought she would make quicker progress in her home than remaining at the sanatorium.
There was now no further news of the murder in any of the papers. I told myself that it was going to be all right. Vasari must have got out of the country. They were never going to find him.
Then, one evening on my return from the sanatorium, as I stopped my car outside my apartment block, I saw a large man leaning against the wall as if waiting for someone.
I recognised the big, heavy figure immediately: it was Detective Sergeant Keary.
