seemed tawdry, out of place in the tense atmosphere. I cursed Patrolman O’Brien. I decided I must have been crazy to have taken a recommendation from a cop.
“Just a second, sweetheart,” I said to Clair, took her chiffon scarf, put it around her head, fixed it so it all but hid her face.
She regarded me with scared eyes. “I don’t—”
“Yes, you do,” I said. “The press are lurking outside.”
I took her arm and we went down the stairs. It was only days after that I remembered I’d forgotten to ask for a check. The captain of waiters either forgot too or else he felt he couldn’t ask payment for such an unsatisfactory evening.
As we stepped into the street, four men came hurrying towards us. I grabbed Clair’s arm, rushed her to the alley.
The men hesitated, stopped, stared after us.
“Get in,” I said, jerking open the Buick door.
A flash-light exploded in our faces. I shoved Clair into the car, turned.
A little guy was standing near me, a press camera in his hand.
“You’re the guy who grabbed the gun?” he asked. “Jack Cain, ain’t it?”
“Not me,” I said, edging towards him. “Cain’s still in there.” I grabbed his camera before he could guess what I was at, whipped out the plate, dropped it on the sidewalk, trod on it.
I handed him back the camera.
“You punk!” he exclaimed. “You can’t do this to me.” He set himself for a swing, but I gave him a quick push, sent him staggering, got into the Buick.
I shot out of the alley.
Clair wanted to know why I had said I was Jack Cain; why
I had smashed the photographer’s plate. She sounded very scared.
There was no point in keeping it from her any longer. I told her about Lois Spence telephoning me on the night before we left Paradise Palms. I gave her an idea what Lois had said.
“I’m not kidding myself,” I said, watching the road unreel beneath the head-lights. “Those two are dangerous, vicious. That’s why I ducked out of sight. Maybe I was a fool. I should have put you somewhere safe and gone after them. Now we’re stuck. This case is going to get a hell of a lot of publicity. We’ll be in the papers. As soon as Lois knows where we are, she and Bat will start something or my guess is all wrong. That’s why I gave a wrong name and smashed that plate. It’ll give us a little time to make up our minds what to do.”
“I know what I’m going to do,” she said in a steady voice, “I’m not giving up our home for them. I’m not scared as long as you’re with me.”
It was what I hoped she would say, but for all that, I had an uneasy feeling that our spell of peace was coming to an end.
4
We read in the morning’s newspaper that Clem Kuntz, the shrewdest criminal lawyer on the Pacific Coast, was handling Lydia Hamilton’s defence. I expected he’d call on us. He did.
He arrived as I was going off duty. I thought he was a customer when I saw the big Lincoln roll up the driveway, but I soon found out different.
“I want to talk to you,” he said, getting out of the car. “I’m Kuntz. Maybe you’ve heard of me.”
I had heard of him all right, even before he had taken charge of the Gray Howard Slaying, as the newspapers called it. Gray Howard was the name of the man in the white dinner-jacket. He turned out to be a big-shot movie director.
I eyed Kuntz over. He was a squat square man with a mulberry coloured face. He had the hardest eyes I’d ever seen in a man’s face, and he gave me the full benefit of them. I stared right back at him, said: “Go ahead. I can give you a couple of minutes, then I want my supper.”
He shook his head. “A couple of minutes won’t do,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere where we can talk. You’d better play with me, Cain. I could put you in a hell of a spot if I felt that way.”
I hesitated, decided that maybe he could put me in a spot, jerked my head to the house.
“Then you’d better come in.”
We went into the house, and I showed him into the front room. He looked round, grunted, took up a position by the window. I sat in the easy chair, yawned, pulled my nose, said, “Shoot.”
“You married?” he asked abruptly.
I nodded. “What of it?”
“I’d like to meet your wife.”
I shook my head. “Not before you tell me what’s on your mind,” I said. “I’m particular whom she meets.”
His eyes snapped. “Scared to let me see her?” he barked.
I laughed at him. “You’re wasting time,” I said; “come off your high horse.”
The door opened and Clair came in. She was wearing a cute frilly apron over a simple little frock in sky blue. She looked a kid, and a pretty one at that.
“Oh, I’m sorry…” she said, backing out.
“Come in,” I said. “This is Mr. Clem Kuntz. Th
He was looking narrowly at Clair. There was an expression of startled dismay in his eyes.
I suddenly got what he was driving at. I grinned.
“Not what you expected?” I said. “I bet your client told you she was hard, brassy, and on the make.”
He drew in a deep breath, bowed to Clair.
“I merely wanted to know, Mrs. Cain, if you spoke to Gray Howard on the night of his death,” he said, clinging to the shreds of his dignity.
She looked at me, shook her head.
“Look, Mr. Kuntz,” I said, “I know what you hope to establish. It’s to your client’s advantage if you can prove that Clair was trying to make Howard. She wasn’t, and I don’t think, however hard you try, you’d ever convince a jury she was. Howard was propositioning her. I wanted to fix him, but Clair didn’t want a scene. We had been working hard for three months, and it was our first night out together. It was our hard luck that we should run into Howard. Clair didn’t encourage him. Your client was sore because Howard couldn’t keep his eyes to himself. But that didn’t cause the murder. It touched it off, but it had been coming to a head for some time. A guy doesn’t punch a woman in the lace unless he’s sick to death of her. It was the punch that killed Howard… not Clair.”
Kuntz cleared his throat, grunted.
“I wonder if you always look like that,” he said to Clair, speaking his thoughts out aloud.
“She’ll look like that at the trial, if you decide to call her,” I said. “And she’ll hurt your client’s case if you try to make out she’s a vamp.”
He passed his fat hand over his bald head, frowned. He knew when he was licked.
“I don’t think I’ll call her,” he said. “All right, Cain, I guess I’m wasting time. I thought your wife would be a different type.” He looked wistfully at Clair, shook his head, went.
We breathed again. Maybe it was going to work out all right. Maybe we weren’t going to get any publicity.
The District Attorney’s man was the next to call. He had a report from the State Highway cop who had arrested Lydia on the drunk while driving charge. As soon as he learned that Lydia had tried to wreck the Cadillac with me in it, he hotfooted over to see me. He said it was just the kind of evidence he wanted. It proved that Lydia was a dangerous drunk, and it’d carry a lot of weight with the jury. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was too burned up with the idea.
The next morning the press had the story.
They began arriving before we had breakfast, and they crawled all over us. The little guy who had tried to
