Bauer called early the next morning to tell Conway he would be wanted at the line-up and that his car had been released and could be picked up afterward. When he had shaved and dressed, he came downstairs to find Betty at the breakfast table. She was wearing the suit in which she had arrived.
“I’m disappointed,” he said. “I’d hoped for the other breakfast costume.”
She poured the coffee and smiled at him.
“Some other time — maybe. You might let me come over here occasionally and take a sunbath. But as soon as I do these dishes, I’m off. I’ve got to find a place today.”
“They’re releasing my car this morning — I ought to be back here with it by noon. Wait until then — I can drive you around this afternoon, cover a lot more ground, and save a good deal of wear and tear on the feet.”
“How will that look?”
“I’ll stay in the car. I don’t think anyone will notice me.”
When Detective Larkin arrived to pick him up, Conway was waiting on the porch. He was not sure whether Bauer had reported Betty’s arrival, and there seemed no reason for Larkin to learn of it. As he got in the car, he wondered whether the police customarily provided transportation for the bereaved kin of murder victims. He could only conclude that the Department was aware that it was a target for criticism and, by its treatment of him, hoped to forestall at least one detractor. They’re wasting their money, he thought; I’d be the last person in the world to criticize anything about this police department.
He skimmed through the papers as they drove. One carried the story on page three, another on page five, and neither said anything that had not been said in every story since the discovery of the body. Clearly, the newspapers were losing interest in the case, a fact which would very soon permit the police to drop it. As he put the papers on the seat beside him, he reflected that this might be the last time he would be called to Headquarters.
Bauer met him and took him into the large room where the line-up took place. The detective seemed unusually taciturn; he found chairs for them and buried himself in his crossword puzzle. As each new group was paraded onto the brilliantly lighted platform, his head came up only long enough for a fleeting glance at the suspects, and then his attention returned to the puzzle.
Conway, though he had nothing else to occupy his interest, paid little more attention to the proceedings than did the sergeant. The motley groups who were herded on, made to stand for a few moments or several minutes, and then herded off, seemed more miserable, decrepit, and unshaven than on the earlier day. Conway continued to look in the general direction of the stage, as a matter of form, but it could hardly be said that he was concentrating on it.
After a half-hour of this, when Conway was very bored and acutely depressed, an assortment of unfortunates appeared who, as a group, were indistinguishable from any of the others who had preceded them. Bauer gave them his customary quick glance, and then leaned to Conway.
“You been looking ’em all over carefully?”
Conway nodded.
“Haven’t seen anybody looked familiar?”
“Not a soul.”
“Nobody in this bunch?”
Conway knew Bauer well enough to realize that there was someone in this group the detective expected him to identify. He looked searchingly at each individual, but when he had gone from one end of the line to the other, and back again, he was forced to turn to Bauer and shake his head.
“Okay,” the detective said. “Let’s get out of here.” Conway followed him out of the room and into the hall. “We’re going down to Ramsden’s office.”
Conway fell into step with the detective as he tried to fathom the meaning of what was taking place. It seemed probable that they had turned up a suspect. But why should he be expected to recognize him? Surely there was no one in that last unkempt, unshaven lot he had ever seen before. A sudden recollection of Bauer’s previous disappointments almost made him smile; the detective, he feared, was in for another one this morning. Conway hoped he wouldn’t be too stubborn about this new suspect, whoever he was.
Captain Ramsden was evidently expecting them. “Good morning, Mr. Conway,” he said.
“Good morning, Captain. Nice to see you again.”
“Have a chair.” He turned to Bauer. “Well?”
“He claims he didn’t recognize him.”
“Really?” Ramsden looked at Conway. “There’s nothing to be gained by that, you know.”
“All I know is that I haven’t the faintest notion of what you’re talking about,” Conway said. “Would you mind letting me in on it?”
“I can understand your reticence, Mr. Conway,” Ramsden said, “your desire, now that she’s dead, to protect your wife’s reputation as best you can, regardless of your personal feelings in the matter. But I have to remind you that you may be obstructing justice.”
“I guess I’m not very bright,” Conway said, thoroughly puzzled. “Could you tell me in words of one syllable?”
“There’s no point in playing dumb,” Bauer said. “You saw him. We finally picked him up last night. You never saw a scareder guy than Harry Taylor. But we got the whole story.”
“Harry Taylor?”
“In person.”
“Was he in that last line-up?” Conway struggled to recall the individuals in the final group. “He must have been the one next to the end, on the right — the tall one. I swear, though, I didn’t recognize him. I’ve only seen him twice in my life, and — well, all that gang looked like bums.”
“He’s no man of distinction this morning,” Bauer admitted.
“But why are you holding him?”
“You know why we’re holding him,” the detective said.
“I’m not sure that he does, Bauer,” the captain said. “I want the truth, Mr. Conway — we won’t hold it against you that you haven’t told us before — didn’t you know that your wife had been seeing a good deal of Taylor recently?”
“I don’t believe it!” This is another of Bauer’s fantastic theories, Conway thought.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it’s true,” Ramsden said. “Taylor is a salesman for a machine-tool concern. He has quite a large territory to cover in Southern California, and he’s out of town four or five days a week. That’s one reason it’s taken us so long to find him. But on the days — and nights — he was in town, your wife spent a great deal of time with him. They were very good friends, Mr. Conway, if you know what I mean. He’s admitted it.”
Conway felt as if he had been hit in the pit of the stomach. He knew that he must think clearly, logically, that he must determine how this incredible revelation might affect him. But his brain at the moment was beyond discipline; it whirled in a chaos of confusion. How much had Taylor told them? How much did Taylor know? What did Taylor know that he himself did not? One fact emerged clearly: his whole plan had been based on the fact that he and Helen were an island alone in this community; that they had no intimates, no confidantes, who could give the lie to his version of their relationship. Now, suddenly, there had appeared someone who had been much closer to Helen than himself.
The shock of the disclosure was so great that it did not occur to Conway that he should act like a trusting husband who has just learned of his wife’s perfidy. But the emotions his face revealed must have seemed valid enough to the two detectives; they sat in silence as he struggled to assay the full meaning of the horrifying discovery. It was Bauer who finally spoke.
“I guess maybe he really didn’t know,” he said to Ramsden. “I don’t see how a guy could help knowing if a thing like that was going on, but it looks like maybe he didn’t.”
“You didn’t know she was seeing Taylor at all?” Ramsden asked.
“I–I still can’t believe it,” Conway said, and realized that the fear and confusion in his mind gave his voice a genuinely shaken quality. “What did Taylor say?”
“Had you and your wife discussed a divorce?”
Here was the trap, he thought. What had Taylor told them? But it didn’t matter — he had to stick by what he had told Bauer. “No — of course not,” he said.
“Taylor says she was going to divorce you and marry him.”
“What!”
“He says she was going to divorce you as soon as she got a little money — meaning, I suppose, as soon as you got a little money — which she expected to be soon.”
So Taylor knew about the money. And if he knew that, he probably knew all the rest — the quarrels, the threats, the letters... But the letters had never been sent; if Taylor thought he knew about them, he would be proved wrong. As for the rest, it was Taylor’s word against his, and the word of a husband would carry greater weight than that of a paramour.
“He’s lying,” Conway said. “I don’t believe any of it.”
“About that — maybe he is,” Ramsden admitted. “But not about the essentials. You don’t think he wanted to admit any of this, do you? He wasn’t anxious to get involved.”
“But why did he? I mean, how did you get him to admit — whatever he did?”
“She’s been going to see him for almost three months. The apartment superintendent identified her from her picture. When we told Mr. Taylor we knew that, the young man saw he was really in a jam, and started to talk.”
“A jam?” Conway’s head began to clear; somewhat incredulously he realized that the detectives’ suspicions were directed, not at himself, but at Taylor. “You mean you think he was the — that he had something to do with it?”
“That’d be a pretty good guess, wouldn’t it?”
Conway’s mouth was dry, and perspiration stood out on his head. “Have you any proof — any evidence, beyond what you’ve told me?”
“That’s quite a bit, don’t you think?” Ramsden said dryly. “Of course we don’t know yet why he’d do it. Maybe he found out she was stringing him along, and had no intention of divorcing you and marrying him.”
“Maybe she found some other guy and was going to give Taylor the air,” Bauer suggested.
The notion seemed absurd to Conway, but not, apparently, to Ramsden. “Are you sure you’ve told us everything you know? About her friends, I mean, or the names of anyone she may have mentioned, or who may have called her?”
“I’m positive,” Conway said. “I gave Sergeant Bauer her address book, and I haven’t been able to think of anyone she knew who wasn’t listed there. I’d even forgotten about Taylor.”
“Well,” Ramsden said, “maybe we won’t have to look any further.”
Conway realized that he was treading on dangerous ground, but he had to know more. Did they really believe Taylor had done it, or was this all merely a screen for their suspicion of himself? How much were they keeping from him?
“But you must have more to go on than you’ve told me. You can’t convict a man just because he thought she was going to divorce me and marry him — if he did think that.”
“Hardly,” Ramsden said. “But it’s something to start from. As I said, we don’t know the motive yet — but there’s a pretty good chance we can find one.”
“You could say I had a motive.” He had to take the chance — had to find out where he stood. “I didn’t have, until two minutes ago, and I wouldn’t have killed her, or anyone else, for that reason. But you don’t know that. So you might say I had a motive.”
“Yeah, you might of had,” Bauer said quietly.
Conway glanced quickly at the sergeant, frightened by something in his voice. But he plunged on because, having gone this far, he dared not stop.
“Where does he say he was? Hasn’t he some alibi?”
“Yes,” Ramsden said. “Claims he was in San Bernardino that night — on business. We’re checking it now. Of course, he’s had four days to fake a story — or he may even have planned it in advance.”
“That’s the difference between you and him.” Bauer sat on the edge of the desk and smiled, and Conway’s pulse began to resume its normal beat. “Even if you had the motive, you had an alibi you couldn’t have faked. I know — I checked it. For one thing, the car was parked by the murderer at ten-o-four, and it’s impossible you could of been there at that time. That’s what makes a good detective — being able to tell the real thing from the phoneys. Right, Captain?” Rams-den nodded, a little indulgently, it seemed to Conway. “And I’m never wrong on those things. You positively couldn’t of done it, and nobody in his right mind would try to pin it on you. Him? Well, we’ll see.”
“Now that you’ve told Mr. Conway the secret of your success,” Ramsden said, “I think you might go out to his house and take another look around. See if you can find any letters, or phone numbers — anything at all that hasn’t been covered. If Mr. Conway didn’t know about Taylor, there may be other things that escaped his notice.”
“Okay.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Conway.” Ramsden held out his hand. “Sorry I had to be the one to tell you about this.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Conway said, and followed Bauer through the door.
Larkin was waiting in the outer office. “I’m going over to the garage with Mr. Conway,” Bauer said. “He’s going to get his car back. Meet me there and we’ll go out to his house. Might as well walk over,” he said to Conway. “It’s just around the corner.”
They walked down the corridor in silence. Free of the terror which had gripped him in Ramsden’s office, Conway could think calmly. Now that he knew he was in the clear, he could consider Taylor and his plight. He had no particular fondness for Taylor, but he did not want to see him — or anyone else — go to the gas chamber for the murder of Helen; she was dead, she had deserved death, and no one merited punishment for it. Nor did he resent what Taylor had done; he could understand, vaguely, that someone might be taken in by Helen, for after all he himself had been, although it seemed a long time ago. His predominant emotion was one of anger at himself, at his stupidity in not knowing of the affair with Taylor. He could have divorced her with no trouble at all and thus have been spared the worry and strain of this past week — and of the past two months, for that matter. The fact that Helen might also have preferred to be alive rather than dead did not occur to him.
Bauer’s voice broke in on his reflections. “I don’t understand,” he said, “how a fellow’s wife could be pulling a thing like that, and him not get on to it.”
For once, Conway thought, he’s got a point. “It’s hard to believe,” he said. “But you see I worked a lot at night. It got pretty dull for her sitting home every evening, so she used to go to the movies. Every once in a while I’d offer to take her, but she’d say she didn’t want to interfere with my work, and I believed her. I think it was true, at first. Lately, of course — well, I guess she didn’t see as many movies as I thought.”
“Still and all, I should think you coulda told from the way she acted—”
“I guess I’m like most men — conceited enough to think ‘How could a woman want another man when she has me?’ ”
“Not me — I’m no egotist,” said Bauer. “I take nothin’ for granted — especially about women. I watch Greta like a hawk.”
“Probably the best way,” Conway said.
“Sure. She knows it, so it makes it easy for her. That way there’s no temptation for her to step out of line.”
“She’s a lucky girl.” Conway was beginning to lose interest in Detective Sergeant Bauer’s philosophy of life and love.
The detective looked at him reflectively. “You don’t seem to be very much upset about this Taylor,” he said.
Conway realized that his preoccupation with other matters was causing him to forget his role of the bereaved, and deceived, husband. “I don’t know,” he said. “After the week I’ve had — first her disappearance, then learning she’d been murdered, I guess nothing can hit you very hard.”
“Yeah,” Bauer said, “you’re sort of paralyzed.”
“How about Taylor’s alibi?” Conway asked. “What do you think of it?”
“Can’t tell yet. We’ll know more by morning.”
“The captain seemed to think he might be able to fake an alibi. Isn’t that pretty hard to do?”
“Practically impossible,” Bauer said. “Unless there are a lot of awful dumb detectives around.”
Conway felt encouraged to go on. “I didn’t understand what you said up in the office about my having an alibi. What did the car being parked at ten-four have to do with it?”
“That was just one thing,” the detective replied. “Like to know why we were sure so quick that you didn’t do it?”
“I’d be very interested,” Conway said, conscious of his understatement.
Bauer assumed his professorial air. “Any time a woman’s murdered,” he said, “naturally the first suspect is her husband. That’s only common sense, because, the way it works out, most married women who get killed, it turns out it’s their husband did it. I don’t know why that is,” he mused. “Funny thing, because most men aren’t killed by their wives.”
“Very interesting,” Conway said. “I’d never realized that.”
“Anyway, the first thing I did was check up on you to see if you might have killed her. Not if you did, mind you, but if you could have.”
“It never occurred to me that I might need an alibi,” Conway said. “All the time I was looking for her, after the squad car left me, and then on the trolley going down to the police station — I doubt if anyone would remember seeing me then, or that I could prove where I was, and when.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the detective stated. “When a guy’s on the level, he’s got a lot of things working for him he don’t even know about. And vice versa. When he isn’t, there’s a lot of things working against him.” The remark disturbed Conway vaguely, but he dismissed it as Bauer went on. “For instance, that squad car looked all over the neighborhood after it left you, and there was no sign of your car. If you’d done it, the car couldn’t be very far away. But, of course, they might of missed it, so I don’t count that as a positive fact.”
“I see.”
“But then we got two very positive facts. The car was parked between ten-o-two and ten-o-four, and you were at the police station at ten twenty-three. No taxis picked up any fares around there at that time, and there’s been no report of a private car giving anybody a lift. Besides, nobody who’d just left a dead bod}^ in a car would be fool enough to ask for a lift. And a man running down a quiet street couldn’t help but be noticed. So if it was you parked that car, it means you’d have to of walked to the station in twenty-one minutes. Well, that can’t be done — I checked it personally, so there’s no possibility of me being wrong.”
“I’d never have thought of that,” Conway said.
“There was another thing, and this is what I mean about things working for a fellow that he don’t even know about. You happened to mention something I bet you don’t even know you said, and you know I’m not conceited, but not one man in a thousand would of paid any attention to it.”
“What was that?”
“You just happened to mention that when you were on that streetcar, you missed the stop at Wilcox and had to ride on to Cahuenga. You didn’t even know it meant anything when you told me. Well, it was certainly a long shot that the motorman or conductor would remember what stops they made three nights before, but I took it. And whaddya know, the motor-man was coming down with the flu that night, and that was the last trip he made. He was in a hurry to finish the trip, and trying to make up time, and he remembered that he beat a light at Wilcox. Somebody bawled him out for it when he stopped at Cahuenga. So now you see why I said you had an alibi you couldn’t of faked?”
“I didn’t realize you’d gone to so much trouble on my account, Sergeant,” Conway said in all honesty. “And I’m truly grateful to you. You haven’t missed a trick.”