He ended with a plaintive mournfulness which was completely ridiculous.
“So you prefer a chorus,” I said coldly.
“I like ’em all.” He spread his hands. “I like practically any girl, except the kind with minds like half-cold kettles of tar. They’re too hard to stir up.”
“What, no brief for beauty?”
“Why, afraid you’d be left out?”
“You forget I’m not competing.”
“Sorry. No, no brief for beauty. Did you ever notice what insignificant little twerps get the beauties? Natural-born bachelors from group three. I’ve got it all figured out. Here we have a guy with not much natural ability, and what does he hunt for? He hunts for a woman that’ll have other men saying, ‘What a guy, to get a girl like that!’ Or he hunts for a girl that packs enough sex appeal to strike sparks even out of him. But a man that’s good, and knows he’s good, doesn’t give a damn what the other fellows think about his girl. And he doesn’t go hunting for soul-stirring beauty, either. He just likes ’em all. They’re women.”
“No charge for these lectures?”
“No.” He turned, and I could see that he was serious, under cover. “I’m explaining, in my own roundabout and unrighteous way. Still mad?”
“Mad? I had nothing to be angry about, personally.” I tried to keep up the remoteness, but my anger seemed to have evaporated more quickly than I had intended it should, and it was hard to whip it up again. “Not to change the subject or anything, but I don’t suppose you’ve learned anything more about the murder?”
He leaned across the couch to kiss me enthusiastically but nicely.
“So we do kiss and make up? You’re a nice kid.”
“You’re an insufferable advantage taker.”
He retired decorously to his end of the couch.
“From now on I commit all my crimes in impenetrable secret. God help me from ever having you on my trail. Relentless, you are. But no, I have heard nothing more of the murder. No, I have just tucked a stray advertising manager of the P-X stores safely under a table. Never, never, so help me God, ever go into the Buyers’ Guide business.”
“I’ll help God out of that. But I have been in the detective business. Listen.”
I told him, then, everything I’d discovered during the day, with particular emphasis on the case against the Hallorans.
“Nothing new against me?”
“I’m sorry, no. But there are a few things I wondered if you’d find out; they’d be a little hard for me to dig into.”
“Ah, now we get the reason for this rush of confidence.”
“Exactly. I wish you’d find out about Mr. Halloran’s alibi. So we’d know how good it really is.”
“Why not wait until after the inquest? Isn’t that supposed to reveal all?”
“Even if he has to tell where he was that’s not proof. I leave things I forget out of evidence myself, and if I had anything to hide I’d certainly do a little plain and fancy lying.”
“Well, an inquest’s pretty limited. What about the funeral?”
“Mrs. Halloran says a cremation. She isn’t even going herself.”
“There’s love and gratitude. What does Halloran say he was doing that Friday night?”
“That’s virgin territory.”
“Well, I’m against territory being virgin, on principle. I’ve got a proofreader who won’t be doing anything Monday. Maybe he’ll be a good detective; he’s a lousy proofreader. I’ll sic him on Halloran. Anything else?”
“Then there are the Tewmans. They’ve been gone an awful lot. And Mrs. Tewman—her I.Q. is just enough to get her by in a big crowd—admits she suspected, or knew, that something was wrong in that kitchen. That’s why she left. Mrs. Garr was always snarling at Mrs. Tewman, and even worms turn. How about their alibis?”
“Phooey. The police have done that.”
“The police looked into Halloran’s alibi, too.”
“But he has a motive. I’d rather put in the time on him.”
“There’s Mrs. Halloran, too. What if she didn’t go to Chicago?”
“That’s so easy to find out, even the police couldn’t muff it. Wait for the inquest on that one.”
“If they don’t take it up I’d like to check it.”
“Let it ride. But say, how about Buffingham? He’d be my pick if I was going to pick a murderer out of this bunch.”
“The only thing I have on him is that he paid nine dollars a week for his room—I saw it on the receipt stubs.”
“Whew! Nine dollars a week for that hole? That’s robbery! Mrs. Garr could have been jugged for that—why murder her?”
“Miss Sands, too. Miss Sands pays five dollars a week. And the Wallers don’t pay anything! They said they hold a note of Mrs. Garr’s for two thousand dollars, and she let them have the interest in rent.”
“Good God! What a ferret you turned out to be! Who’d have thought this old house was so seamy with mysteries? You certainly have everyone in the house lined up for this job. Somebody stupid, you say? The Hallorans and the Tewmans race neck and neck for that distinction. Good old Buffingham, papa of criminals, runs third. Mr. Grant, dark horse. Miss Sands, not any too bright. Wallers, ditto. Who’s left? Only us. I am much, much too gallant to place you, my sweet.”
“I hope you’re gallant enough to say good night,” I said. “I’m tired.”
He stood up to say good night with solemnity, shaking hands.
“God bless and keep you from ever falling into the hands of bachelors from groups two or three,” he said.
“You, I suppose, have a great deal for which to thank heaven?” I said, because it was practically irresistible.
“Demonstrations on request,” he said. “Merely drop a postcard.”
14
MRS. HALLORAN KNOCKED ME up bright and early the next morning, which was Sunday. She stood in my doorway with bills in one hand, a pen and Mrs. Garr’s receipt book in the other.
“I guess nobody can’t take this money away from me,” she crowed
