“Why, hello, Officer,” he said agreeably. “Didn’t hear you come in. Have a cigarette?”
He offered the packet, but the policeman just grunted and pushed it aside.
“What’s going on here?” That seemed to be a set opening line for policemen.
Mr. Kistler waved an explanatory hand at me.
“Oh, you know, Officer. Just a little lovers’ quarrel.”
If I could have bitten the hand, I would.
“Yeah?”
“You know how women are, Officer. I got home a little late.”
I was too mad to speak for myself, and besides, what could I say? The policeman looked at me. “I thought you was comin’ up to visit the Wallers. I didn’t hear you come in here.”
“I—I happened to notice Mr. Kistler’s door open, when I left the Wallers.”
“Awful quiet, you walk around.”
He quit looking at me; his glance began sliding around the room. My eyes slid after his, and then I froze stiff.
The cover on the chest of drawers had fallen in a fold when Hodge Kistler dropped it. A corner of the ticket showed.
We didn’t have time to do anything about it. The policeman pounced first.
“Well, I’ll be everlastingly hornswoggled,” he swore, whipped about, dropped his right hand to his holster. “Don’t move, you!”.
We didn’t.
“Which one of you—?”
“I’m responsible for that ticket getting there, Officer, if that’s what you mean.” Mr. Kistler spoke calmly.
“Golly! Of all the goldarn good luck!” Enthusiasm irradiated the police officer’s lean face. “I’m not handling this myself. I’m sending you in. Come along. You, too, lady. Go on ahead there.”
He shooed us on ahead of him, made us sit on the black leather davenport in the hall while he called headquarters.
The siren answered quickly. Two strange policemen came to hustle us off; I argued that I had to have a hat, gloves, and handbag; they gave in to that, but it was the only thing I had my way in for some time.
We were bundled unceremoniously into a police car, one officer explaining, obviously for technical reasons only, that we weren’t being arrested; we were merely going to Lieutenant Strom’s office of our own volition to bring in new evidence we had brought to light. One of those little crowds of human buzzards had collected in front of the house. Knots of people stood along the sidewalk, gaping, and I had a confused impression of more people across the street, and even clustered along the wall of Elliott House, across the corner. It was the first time I had been outside the house since the discovery of Mrs. Garr’s death.
I felt silly. When I looked at Mr. Kistler, I saw his face had the same sort of half grin on it that I felt on mine, so I judged he felt the same way I did. I’ve never been driven so fast; we streaked through the night, with the siren a whistling scream in our ears, and swung to a stop before a building that looked, from the outside, like a fire station.
Rapidly the hand under my elbow propelled me through a crowded big room, down a corridor into a bare waiting room with scarred golden oak armchairs. I sat in one, Hodge Kistler in another; our guides lounged near the door. I’d gotten over feeling silly; my heart was thudding, and I was wondering what was going to happen next.
We waited quite a while. Now and then I’d hear a door closing somewhere else in the building, heavy feet would tramp by, or someone would come into the room, and my heart would thud louder.
Finally the door ahead of us, the door with the ground-glass top, leading to the inner office outside of which we waited, opened. Two people came out, a man and a woman, ushered by a police officer.
The woman was Mrs. Halloran. The man was . . .
There was a similarity in the expressions on the faces of the man and woman. They both looked bedraggled, worn, inexpressibly tired. Underneath was a curious elation.
It wasn’t Mrs. Halloran’s face my eyes settled on; it was the man’s. As if he felt my gaze, his eyes traveled over Mr. Kistler, over the other men, fastened on me. The elation fled his face as if it had been wiped off; it was replaced by a furtive fright; he dodged behind Mrs. Halloran and began edging toward the exit.
“Why, stop!” I cried. “That’s the man who ran out of the cellar!”
Stupidly, the man began running. The officer who had ushered him through the door made an easy reach to catch him by the arm; he struggled and pulled like a fish on a line, but the officer had him firmly.
“What’s this?” the captor barked at me.
“Why, I saw a man run out of the cellar one day at Mrs. Garr’s house. He acted like a prowler. And this is the man. It’s the same haircut. I had a good look at it from the back. He even has the same cap on!”
“She’s a liar! She’s a-lyin’! It’s a low-down lie!” the prowler howled, still struggling to get away, his eyes darting from me to Mrs. Halloran.
Mrs. Halloran favored me with a venomous look, too.
“That’s what she’s a-doin’! She’s a-lyin’!”
“I’m certainly not!”
“Oh, for Chrissakes! Here, you, come along back in here!” The police officer jerked the prowler back toward the room from which he had just come, motioned with his head at me.
“You come along, too.”
No one had to invite Mrs. Halloran. The three of us stood very quickly in the inner room. It, too, was bare, except for a desk and more of the armchairs; behind the desk sat Lieutenant Strom.
“What’s the idea of bringing them back in?” The lieutenant scowled at the man holding the prowler.
“This lady has a little story, sir. Says Mr. Halloran here is the guy she saw hotfooting it out of Mrs. Garr’s cellar one day.”
So the man was Mr. Halloran; I should have guessed. Half cringing, half defiant, he was a fit mate for his wife.
Lieutenant Strom swung toward me.
“You say Mr. Halloran is the prowler
