He shuddered and emptied the glass. Immediately he turned away and got the bottle to work again.
“And you actually saw it?”
“Not quite. I was just one of a crowd down at ground level. But I couldn’t have missed it by more than a minute.”
He came back and sat down heavily.
“Poor little Flower. And there was no harm in her at all. Not real harm, nothing to call for this dreadful thing.”
He seemed more upset than I would have expected. But then I can never be sure what to expect from anybody any more.
“Did she live here?”
“No. I’ve no idea where she lived. She would come when she wanted, and leave when she was ready. I don’t ask people where they live.”
“Then you don’t really know much about her?”
I must have sounded sceptical, because Somerset grinned at me wryly.
“You don’t understand, do you Preston? You, and people like you don’t understand. Where you come from, everyone has to have a full name, address, occupation, social security. They have to have a certain credit standing, high or low, but they must have it. Not everyone in the world wants to be classified like that. Half the people who come to this house, they exist only within these four walls. Where they come from, who they are, I don’t know half the time. Flower was one of those.”
“You’re going to be a mine of information for the police.”
“I shall tell them what I can. If indeed they come to me.
I looked at him quickly.
“Why wouldn’t they? You can bet they’ll talk to everyone who ever laid eyes on her.”
He nodded.
“Without doubt. But unless she happens to have my name written down in her purse, there’s no reason why they should even think of me. Our connection was ten uous, to put it mildly. She didn’t live here, didn’t work for me. We haven’t any real connection at all.”
So he didn’t need to concern himself. He could just go on lounging around listening to his music and chewing on his lotus, having tenuous connections with people who got shot in the head on clifftops, or pushed out of eighth storey windows.
“They’ll be here,” I promised, “And a lot rougher than last time.”
“I see.” He looked at me sideways. “Look, I appreciate the trouble you’ve taken coming out here to tell me about poor Flower. It’s late at night, and I have a visitor coming. How would you like a thousand dollars?”
“I came out here,” I told him slowly, “In the hope I’d catch you burning the papers, or whatever. To give it to you straight, Somerset, I’d a half-assed notion it could have been you killed her.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“A thousand dollars is a wonderful aid to clear thinking.”
“No thanks, I already have a client.”
“You could be important,” he mused. “Yes very important, if this investigation gets out of hand. Let me help you think. What time did this thing happen?”
“Around nine forty—nine forty-five.”
“And you came straight from there out to this house? Well, you needn’t bother to answer. The distance involved and the time you arrived tells me that. You had to come directly here.”
“So what does that prove?”
“I was already here,” he pointed out.
“True. But you could have been here just five minutes ahead of me. Five seconds for that matter.”
“Exactly. Now think, how did I get here?”
“We have things called automobiles these days. You could probably afford one if you saved your pennies.”
“Good, good. I have three to be precise. You will find them out in the garage. And an experienced detective ought to be able to judge whether they’ve been out recently. Come.”
I followed him out into the garden and round to the big white garage. He snapped switches and waved an arm.
“Help yourself,” he invited.
I prowled around, laying hands on cold engines and exhaust pipes.
“None of these have been riding tonight,” I admitted.
“Thank you. I could have come home on the trolley car of course, but we don’t have a line out here.”
Whether I liked it or not, I could not deny the very strong evidence that he was telling the truth. And the killer would hardly call a cab at the scene of the crime and have himself driven straight home.
“So why the thousand dollars?”
He leaned against the wall of the garage watching my inspection.
“Look at it from my point of view. Today, the police came. I was only one of a dozen people, possibly more. A routine enquiry into Brookman’s death. By tonight they’ll have realized I know nothing and they’ve probably written me off the books. But they will find it extremely odd if they have to come again tomorrow in connection with a second murder. Very odd indeed. Even in police work, I imagine coincidence has its reasonable limits. I’d like you to forget my involvement in this.”
I patted the bonnet of a this year’s shiny Cadillac.
“Save your money Mr. Somerset. Cops’ll be here by morning, anyway.”
He frowned quickly.
“You’re determined to make trouble for me?”
“Not me. I won’t say a word. And I’d appreciate it if you’d keep me out of this. You know, tit for tat?”
“Then how——”
Very patiently, I spelled it out for him.
“This is homicide. To you, a cop is a cop, and you see hundreds of them every day. But there are only a handful who deal with cases of homicide. It’s routine that every man looks at the corpse where there’s no identification, or even if there is. So the men who came to question you today will see Flower, either tonight or tomorrow morning. And they will remember where they last saw her. And they will be back to ask you what you know about it. Could I give you a small piece of advice?”
“I see. Yes, I see that,” he muttered. “This is terrible. What did you say, advice? What kind of advice?”
“When they come, keep your thousand dollars in your pocket. They can get very stuffy about things like that.”
But he wasn’t
