She was anxious to be convinced but I wasn’t satisfied she’d do as I asked.
“Remember,” I added solemnly. “Whoever calls you, if anyone does, could be Brookman’s murderer. You wouldn’t want to take a chance with anybody like that.”
She nodded dejectedly.
“You’re right of course. And I will telephone.”
“Thank you.”
She watched me walk down to the car. I gave her a small wave as I drove away but she didn’t respond. It seemed to be my day for walking away from beautiful women.
CHAPTER FIVE
MY STOMACH KEPT MUTTERING about people with irregular eating habits, so I stopped over at a small Austrian place and helped myself to a portion of the gefillte fish. Along with this I washed down a glass or two of a special dry white wine they serve in there. I’m a great believer in keeping the eating varied. Sometimes it’s Chinese food, sometimes Italian, now and then I go kosher. But it seems wherever I go I can’t get away from people.
“Whatever happened to that big fat story I was going to get?”
I looked up as Shad Steiner pulled out the chair opposite and sat down.
“Join me,” I suggested.
“I already did. No story, huh?”
“I’m working on it. You going to eat?”
“I finished ten minutes ago. But thanks, I’ll join you in the wine. Hey waiter, another glass here.”
I watched sadly as he tipped most of the remaining contents of the bottle down his throat.
“That’s wine you know, not lemonade,” I told him bitterly.
He shrugged his shoulders and put down the glass.
“Don’t tell me about wine, please. My father worked in the vineyards all his life in the old country. I forgot more about wine by the time I’m ten years old than you’ll learn in your whole life. And don’t change the subject.”
“There’s nothing to talk about yet,” I said.
“There isn’t going to be, if you spend your whole life in wine shops. You ought to be out and around.”
“Out and around I have been. This is my first food today. Tell me, what’s the dirt on this Hugo Somerset?”
He thoughtfully shared out the remaining wine between us. One inch in my glass, three in his.
“Why would there be any?” he demanded.
“I had a talk with him today. An oddball, to say the least, and as you told me this morning, he sure knows some funny people. I thought there may be something else you know about him, I mean before this Brookman thing. He seems to have a lot of money, for instance. Where does it come from?”
Steiner peered at me across the table, the wise old face threaded with lines of suspicion.
“The guy is somewhat of a mystery,” he admitted grudgingly. “He doesn’t seem to have been born anywhere. He turns up here in Monkton about six years ago, a full-grown man. He sets up at the Beach End and starts living like money. If he has any business interests they’re certainly not in this town.”
“And he hasn’t been in any police trouble? No dames, no drunk parties?”
The newspaperman smiled and shook his head.
“Drunk parties?” he echoed. “People at Beach End don’t have drunk parties. They have a few friends in for cocktails. Or an evening of celebration. How many times do you read in the Globe about the honorable mister who’sit entertaining friends last night? It happens all the time. But drunk parties, uh uh. Such descriptions are not for Beach End wingdings.”
“How about all this artistic stuff? Did he ever really turn up somebody with talent?”
Steiner grinned knowingly and tapped at his nose with a bony forefinger.
“You have an odd habit of coming up with the same questions I do myself. But hours later, naturally.”
“Naturally. How about the answer?”
“I asked my Art Editor the same thing this morning. He couldn’t be certain off hand so he had the files checked. The answer, as they say, is in the affirmative. Mr. Somerset has delivered on about four occasions over the years. Unknowns that he seems to have found and promoted, all of them now well settled in their different fields.”
And that would agree with the way Somerset had talked to me that afternoon. In a way I was disappointed. I’d been hoping vaguely the whole bit was a huge con, nothing more than a cover for an elaborate blackmail network.
“Do you know whether the police had made any progress today?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. I’ve had one man spend a little time on it, and he didn’t come up with anything. After all it’s just a two-bit killing, nothing for any of us to get worked up about. When you consider the homicide turnover in this fair city, nobody has too much time to spare on a no-hoper like Brookman. Tonight, or maybe tomorrow, we’ll have a nice love-nest butchery, or something with some meat on it, then we can all forget about Brookman.”
He was right of course. In a way he was echoing what Jake Martello had said earlier. Neither police nor newspapers had enough time or resources to dig too deeply into a backyard affair like the Brookman killing. And it would look suspicious if I seemed too interested.
“You’re right Shad. I don’t think I’ll waste a lot more time on it myself. If I don’t come up with anything pretty fast, I’ll have to look for something more profitable.”
He nodded, but whether to indicate he agreed with me or not, I couldn’t tell. With Steiner, I never could tell.
We left the restaurant together, and he refused a lift, walking briskly away on the fifteen minute hike back to his home. I got in the Chev and went back to Parkside. After the heat of the day I thought I was entitled to a shower before the night shift. As I got out of the car I noticed a plain police sedan parked just ahead. I walked towards the entrance, and at the same time
