I don’t like perjury, but I knew Ringgo was guilty, and there I had him.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to decide.
Ringgo believed Sherry had nodded, and then, when Marcus gave the show away, there was nothing much for Ringgo to do but try his luck with a plea of guilty.
We didn’t have much trouble getting the story out of Marcus. Ringgo had killed his beloved capitaine. The black boy was easily persuaded that the law would give him his best revenge.
After Marcus had talked, Ringgo was willing to talk.
He stayed in the hospital until the day before his trial opened. The knife Marcus had planted in his back had permanently paralyzed one of his legs, though aside from that he recovered from the stabbing.
Marcus had three of Ringgo’s bullets in him. The doctors fished two of them out, but were afraid to touch the third. It didn’t seem to worry him. By the time he was shipped north to begin an indeterminate sentence in San Quentin for his part in the Kavalov murder he was apparently as sound as ever.
Ringgo was never completely convinced that I had ever suspected him before the last minute when I had come charging into the bungalow.
“Of course I had, right along,” I defended my skill as a sleuth. That was while he was still in the hospital. “I didn’t believe Sherry was cracked. He was one hard, sane-looking scoundrel. And I didn’t believe he was the sort of man who’d be worried much over any disgrace that came his way. I was willing enough to believe that he was out for Kavalov’s scalp, but only if there was some profit in it. That’s why I went to sleep and let the old man’s throat get cut. I figured Sherry was scaring him up—nothing more—to get him in shape for a big-money shakedown. Well, when I found out I had been wrong there I began to look around.
“So far as I knew, your wife was Kavalov’s heir. From what I had seen, I imagined your wife was enough in love with you to be completely in your hands. All right, you, as the husband of his heir, seemed the one to profit most directly by Kavalov’s death. You were the one who’d have control of his fortune when he died. Sherry could only profit by the murder if he was working with you.”
“But didn’t his breaking my arm puzzle you?”
“Sure. I could understand a phony injury, but that seemed carrying it a little too far. But you made a mistake there that helped me. You were too careful to imitate a left-hand cut on Kavalov’s throat; did it by standing by his head, facing his body when you cut him, instead of by his body, facing his head, and the curve of the slash gave you away. Throwing the knife out the window wasn’t so good, either. How’d he happen to break your arm? An accident?”
“You can call it that. We had that supposed fight arranged to fit in with the rest of the play, and I thought it would be fun to really sock him. So I did. And he was tougher than I thought, tough enough to even up by snapping my arm. I suppose that’s why he killed Mickey too. That wasn’t on the schedule. On the level, did you suspect us of being in cahoots?”
I nodded.
“Sherry had worked the game up for you, had done everything possible to draw suspicion on himself, and then, the day before the murder, had run off to build himself an alibi. There couldn’t be any other answer to it: he had to be working with you. There it was, but I couldn’t prove it. I couldn’t prove it till you were trapped by the thing that made the whole game possible—your wife’s love for you sent her to hire me to protect you. Isn’t that one of the things they call ironies of life?”
Ringgo smiled ruefully and said:
“They should call it that. You know what Sherry was trying on me, don’t you?”
“I can guess. That’s why he insisted on standing trial.”
“Exactly. The scheme was for him to dig out and keep going, with his alibi ready in case he was picked up, but staying uncaught as long as possible. The more time they wasted hunting him, the less likely they were to look elsewhere, and the colder the trail would be when they found he wasn’t their man. He tricked me there. He had himself picked up, and his lawyer hired that Weeks fellow to egg the district attorney into not dropping the case. Sherry wanted to be tried and acquitted, so he’d be in the clear. Then he had me by the neck. He was legally cleared forever. I wasn’t. He had me. He was supposed to get a hundred thousand dollars for his part. Kavalov had left Miriam something more than three million dollars. Sherry demanded one-half of it. Otherwise, he said, he’d go to the district attorney and make a complete confession. They couldn’t do anything to him. He’d been acquitted. They’d hang me. That was sweet.”
“You’d have been wise at that to have given it to him,” I said.
“Maybe. Anyway I suppose I would have given it to him if Miriam hadn’t upset things. There’d have been nothing else to do. But after she came back from hiring you she went to see Sherry, thinking she could talk him into going away. And he lets something drop that made her suspect I had a hand in her father’s death, though she doesn’t even now actually believe that I cut his throat.
“She said you were coming down the next day. There was nothing for me to do but go down to Sherry’s
