“And you were there two or three hours before you found him, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Ever thought, Molly, that Pete Holden might have learned more than you think? That maybe he did kill Tiemann for good and sufficient reasons?”
“Pete’s not a murderer.”
“Oh, anybody can kill... Oh, by the way, where is that place of Salter’s?”
Molly gave a West Side waterfront address; then pressed both hands to her mouth and gasped through her fingers: “Before God, give me your word you won’t go there. I didn’t mean to say it. You tricked me!”
“Why, shucks!” Paradine laughed. “Best thing would be to tip off the cops that they’d find something up there. I’m a lazy man, myself. But meantime I can nose around and get a line on things — on who did kill Tiemann and so on.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Do?” said Paradine. “Play the piano while you take your drink. Then I’m going out. You’ll drink it if you trust me, Molly.”
Paradine played the Chopin “Berceuse;” with the corner of his eye he saw her fingers curl around the glass; presently she drained it... Paradine knew his Chopin, as he knew his other friends. Once he heard Molly make a drowsy noise in her throat. When the Cradle Song was ended, he saw that she was asleep, prone on the divan with one hand curled under her chin.
Paradine watched her a while. “I wonder if she did kill that punk...”
He bent over and touched his lips lightly to the fragrant warmth of her red hair; then he straightened angrily as someone shoved a finger into the doorbell of the apartment and kept it there.
He swept Molly off the divan and carried her to the bedroom. She made feeble protesting sounds out of sleep as Paradine took off her shoes, put her in the bed and pulled the covers up as far as her nose; but then she settled with a long sigh into deeper slumber. He hurried back to the living-room, shutting the bedroom door. The bell still shrilled. He thrust Molly’s coat and hat into the closet; then he opened the front door and snarled:
“What the flaming hell is your idea? Take your claws off that damned bell. Oh, it’s you, Shapiro. Hello, Leeds. Well, come in. My sister’s just got back from the hospital and she’s trying to sleep. If you make any noise I’ll kill you both and dump you down the incinerator with the other garbage.”
The heavy-jawed police captain flushed, hesitating on the doorsill. Lieutenant Leeds, suave and tall with steady black eyes, came in ahead of the Captain, glancing around the living-room, taking in everything and saying nothing. Captain Shapiro mumbled:
“Damn sorry, Paradine. Didn’t know. Didn’t even know you had a sister, old man. Look, this is sort of official, Paradine.” Shapiro closed the door and his expression slowly changed.
Paradine’s mask still held the show of anger. Shapiro was intensely uncomfortable, running a finger around the inside of his collar, putting his blunt head on one side, gray eyes round and troubled. “We had a look at your car, front of the house,” said Captain Shapiro.
Paradine spoke with acid sweetness: “Did I forget parking lights, officer?”
“Don’t be like that.” Shapiro rubbed his neck. “You’ve got a bullet hole in the rear fender. Another one in the place where your rear vision mirror used to be.”
There was anger in Paradine’s eyes. “Must have got there since I left it. It was all right then, an hour or so ago.”
“You just brought your sister from the hospital, in your car?”
“Yes.”
Captain Shapiro sat down heavily on the divan. He sniffed, and his jaw hardened.
“I kind of wish,” said Captain Shapiro, “you wouldn’t take that tone... Remember I was telling you the other night, about how that Hanifin woman got away from us?”
“How she was taken away? Yes, I remember. What about it?”
“There was a shooting tonight, down at Ed Hanifin’s Bar and Grill. Man named Al Ferenczi got shot pretty dead. One of the Tiemann men, he was. You were there. We got a tip-off, where the Hanifin woman was hiding out with her dad. We knew they were together somewhere. Tip went out over shortwave of course, couple boys from a radio car got there and found Ed Hanifin shot to death. Leeds and I went over.
“Couple blocks from the place, I had a glimpse of you in your car, with some girl. Must’ve been your sister. Looked like Molly Hanifin, but I figured then, seeing it was you it couldn’t be her. We saw a car right behind with a bunch of tough babies in it, but again, I figured, seeing it was you, they couldn’t be anything to you, see? The Hanifin woman had skipped out along the roofs just before the men from the radio car broke in. There was some man with her. Trail in the snow a mile wide. They broke through the skylight of a guy’s bedroom. We talked with this guy. He thinks he’d know the man again.
“There was a mean smash-up over on Ninth, this evening. Car tried to climb the El. It was full of rats. Tiemann rats. Four of ’em. Three are dead, and the one in the hospital... well, doctor says he ain’t likely to talk now or later. They had a Tommy gun in the car.
“The cop on the beat saw a big guy get out of the roadster and start toward the smash and then pop back and take a run-out... Funny smell around here. Kind of nice perfume. Unusual. ‘Fillette Mechante’, that’s the fancy French name of it. I know, because Molly Hanifin told me. Only other time I ever smelt it was when I arrested her. I’m playing fair with you, Paradine, because I always liked you, even if you are nutty as all hell. We want Molly Hanifin. We want her bad. We want her for murder. Right away. She killed Dutch Tiemann. She may have killed her father.”
The Captain stood up, walked a few paces up and down the room. He lifted the can of sardines from the mantel and eyed it wearily.
“Damn you,” said Paradine, “that’s my supper. You can’t have it. I don’t know anything about Molly Hanifin.”
“Then why does this room smell of her perfume?”
“My sister uses it. It’s not so uncommon as you think.”
Captain Shapiro drew in deep breath.
Leeds had not moved. Shapiro stood in front of Paradine, staring up, head on one side.
“I hate it,” he said, “but we’ve got to search this place.”
Paradine stepped quickly in front of the bedroom door and his face twisted and went livid.
“You can’t do that. I tell you, my sister’s ill. She’s got to sleep. It’s T.B. She had to have a lung collapsed. I’m taking her south next week, otherwise I’d’ve had her stay at the hospital. If she’s got to be waked up by a pair of damned flatfeet banging around the room — you can’t do that. You haven t a warrant.”
“I have a warrant,” said the Captain. “Hoped I wouldn’t have to use it. I hate this worse than you do. I’ll do my best not to wake her, Paradine.
Paradine said at last: All right, Shapiro. You can start with the bathroom and dining-room and kitchenette, out that way. I’ll see if my sister’s still asleep.”
Shapiro nodded to Leeds, who went with him to the rear of the apartment. Paradine entered the bedroom, locking the door.
Molly was motionless in deep slumber. Light from a window across the court showed the pale outline of her face, childishly delicate in relaxation.
Paradine remembered a box of sketching materials which he had bought years before and then never used. He unearthed it in his closet and found in it a few sticks of drawing charcoal.
A few strokes of the charcoal lengthened the line of her eyebrow visible above the bed covers; a mark at the side of her nose made it seem sharper in that vague light, aging her face. Paradine viewed his work with a wan grin; grabbed a box of after-shaving talcum powder and sprinkled it thickly over the profusion of her hair. It would pass for gray hair, if Shapiro didn’t turn on the light. Paradine unscrewed the bulb of the bedside lamp and tucked it away in a drawer. Molly’s breathing continued regular and quiet.