I just gaped at it.
I didn’t even have strength enough to scream when the voice spoke from the doorway.
“Don’t tell me I’ve lived all these years to be mistaken at my age,” it said.
The words were light, but the brown eyes I whirled to see were intent.
“Oh, I didn’t think you’d be home yet,” I gasped weakly, like a fool.
“So I gather.” Mr. Kistler walked toward me, still intent. “How’d you get in here?”
“My key fits—Keep away! I’m going downstairs!”
“That’s what you think.”
I tried to dart past him, but he lunged and caught me by the shoulders; I opened my mouth to scream, but his hand closed over it. He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled me down beside him, his hand still over my mouth.
“Feel that hand? Well, I’m going to clap it right back if you start to yell. Now talk fast, baby. You’ve got some explaining to do.”
He lifted his hand from my mouth, holding it ready about a foot in front of my face; he held my left arm captive against his side; his arm across my back held my right.
“I was trying to—” I opened my mouth again, to scream.
He promptly clamped the hand down.
“See? It doesn’t work. When you’re ready to talk and not yell, nod so I’ll know.”
I nodded, gasping for air. His hand covered most of my nose, too; I could just as well be killed as smothered to death. I wasn’t too frightened to think that out.
“Well, I was looking for clues.”
“I see. The lady detective.”
“Yes. I thought over who it might be if she was killed. If she was murdered, I mean. And you seemed the least likely.”
“I seem the least likely, so you come in my room looking for clues.”
“That was to eliminate you.”
“I see.”
“I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything against you; we could work together on finding out who did the murder, if she was murdered.”
“Articulate, aren’t you?”
“Certainly.”
“Too damn much so. And what did you find?”
“I—nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Yes.”
“Look at me.”
I looked at him as innocently as it is possible for me to look, but I was sweating inside.
“Aw, baby,” he said, his grimness dissolving a little, “is this a nice way to behave?”
“Now may I go?”
The grimness came back.
“No, you don’t. Wait a minute. What were you looking at when I came in?”
“There wasn’t anything.”
“Under that cover on the chest you were looking.”
“No. I was just going to look under there.” I was panic-stricken now, and I must have shown it. If he knew I’d found . . .
“Liar. I’m always sticking junk under there. Okay, let’s see what’s under there now.”
He carried me along with him, one arm around my neck with its hand on my mouth. I couldn’t stop him.
He lifted the cover with his free hand.
There it was before us both.
The hand dropped from my mouth.
I opened my mouth for screaming. This time it wasn’t a hand that stopped me; it was the dumbfounded look on his face.
“Whew!” he said unextravagantly. He turned, stared at me.
He began laughing, went back to the bed, sat weakly down, laughed until his face was dark red.
“Oh, baby, that’s funny. Oh, God, that’s funny. The sins of the transgressor come home to roost. Oh, God!”
“I don’t think it’s funny.” It was my turn to be grim. “The police won’t, either.”
He stopped in the middle of a laugh, his mouth still open.
“No. I guess they won’t, will they?”
“No, I guess they won’t.”
“Ye gods and little brass fishes. Here—sit down.”
“No, I’ll go downstairs, I think.”
“I think not. You sit right here on the bed.”
He pushed me onto it, stood in front of me, his hands jammed in his pockets.
“I suppose I’ve got to tell you.” His eyebrows were crowding his nose again. I could almost see his mind working, fast, behind his eyes.
“Don’t bother to use your imagination. I know fiction when I hear it. A copywriter writes so much of it.”
“This isn’t going to be fiction. It’s going to be a lot worse. Truth.”
“Your turn to talk.”
“Friday. That Friday night. A week ago. I wasn’t working.”
“That’ll be a big help to you.”
“I’ve already told Strom. He could see why I’d twisted the truth a little Friday night, and I knew he’d check on my alibi. I didn’t expect you to.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. You see, the paper goes out on Thursdays. So by Friday afternoon we’re all cleaned up, and we usually celebrate. A couple fellows and I went into a bar for a drink, and we met a couple girls. They said they were getting set to start on a long hard journey, so we helped ’em to get set. One thing led to another—Say, you’re a big help, you are.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Well, the hell with it. These girls didn’t go to Chicago—that’s where they were headed for—that same Memorial Day excursion. Sometime during the evening, this one girl hauled a ticket out of her handbag and gave it to me. Said she wanted me to keep it in memory of a big evening.”
“I can imagine,” I said.
“So when I emptied my pockets after I finally got to bed that night, there the damn thing was. I stuck it under the dresser cover where I always stick things. I forgot it.”
“And all this happened on the evening just before you came home and rescued me.”
“That was it.”
“How early you left your lady friend!”
“The hell with her. I wasn’t interested in her anymore.”
“And the next day you ate my breakfast and played put-and-take . . . and danced . . .”
I didn’t have the slightest intention of sniffling, but that was what I did. Like many women, I cry when I’m mad.
“Aw, baby, don’t go all misty-eyed!”
For the second time that evening, a voice spoke from the door. It was the policeman.
“I thought I heard talkin’ up here,” he said.
10
MR. KISTLER SETTLED BACK on his heels so fast you could
