“Oh, terribly. Roger is like a new man.”
“He was in a tough spot.”
“Very!” She was not at all like the woman who had come to my room the other night with every intention not only of forbidden pleasure but of incriminating her husband. She was again the loyal wife, incapable of treachery. What was she all about?
“I … I want you to know that I wasn’t myself the night we had our talk. I was close to a breakdown and I’m afraid I didn’t know what I was doing, or saying. You will forgive me, won’t you?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” I said gallantly, knowing perfectly well she was afraid I might let her husband know in some fashion about her betrayal, her double treachery.
“I hope you really feel that,” she said softly. Then, since there was nothing else to say, I excused myself; I asked the guard at the door where Winters might be found. He gave me the address of the police headquarters and so, without further ado, I took a taxi downtown.
I was escorted to Winter’s office, an old-fashioned affair with one tall window full of dirty glass. He sat at a functional desk surrounded by filing cabinets. He was studying some papers when I entered.
“What news?” I asked.
He waved me to a chair. “No news,” he said tossing the papers aside. “A report on your note from Mr. Anonymous. The handwriting isn’t identifiable, even though we have compared it to everyone’s in the house … the paper is perfectly ordinary and like none in the house, a popular bond sold everywhere, the red pencil is an ordinary red pencil like perhaps a dozen found scattered around the house, the fingerprints on the letter are all yours.…”
“I didn’t rub off someone else’s, did I?”
“There were none to rub off. I think sometimes that it should be made illegal for movies and television to discuss fingerprinting … since fingerprinting came into fashion, practically every criminal now wears gloves, and all because they go to movies.” He swore sadly to himself.
“Well, you got a good press,” I said cheerfully.
“It won’t be so good when it develops that someone murdered Hollister, if someone did.”
“You don’t have any doubts, do you?”
“When it comes to this case my mind is filled with doubts about everything.”
“Well, here’s a bit of news.” I handed him the documents.
We spent an hour going over them; neither of us was much good at reading corporation papers but we got the general drift: a company had been formed to exploit certain oil lands in the Senator’s state. Stock had been floated; the company had been dissolved at considerable profit to the original investors; it had been reformed under another name but with the same directors, more stock had been issued; it had been merged with a dummy company belonging to the Governor of the state. The investors took a beating and only Rufus Hollister, the Governor and the late Senator profited by these elaborate goings-on. Needless to say the whole subject was infinitely more complicated and the New York Times’ subsequent account of the deals gives a far more coherent account than I can. It was also clear that the Senator had fixed it so that he was in the clear should all this come to light and that Rufus Hollister was responsible, on paper at least, for everything; the Governor seemed in the clear, too.
Winters called in his fingerprint people, also a lawyer; the papers were handed over to them for joint investigation.
“It waxes strange,” I said.
“Why,” said Winters, “would Mr. X want to send you these papers? And the earlier lead, if it was the same person who sent you both?”
“I suppose because he thinks I will use them properly.”
“Then why not send them to the police?”
“Maybe he doesn’t like policemen.”
“Yet why, of all the people in the house, send it to you?” He looked at me suspiciously.
“The only reason I can think of, outside of my enormous charm and intelligence, is that I am writing all this up for the Globe … maybe the murderer is interested in a good press. I think maybe that’s the reason; then, perhaps, it doesn’t make too much difference to him who gets the information since he knows it will come to the police in the end anyway … it might have been just a whim … you have to admit the style of the first note was pretty damned whimsical.”
Winters grunted and looked at the ceiling.
“A number of people have seen fit to confide in me because of my position with the Fourth Estate. I may as well tell you that Camilla Pomeroy came to me the other night with the information that her husband was the Senator’s murderer; then, the next morning, Mrs. Rhodes gave me some exclusive information about the common-law marriage of Mr. Rhodes some years ago … you probably read all about it in my Globe piece.”
“And wondered where you’d got it, too. What did Mrs. Pomeroy tell you exactly?”
I repeated her warnings, omitting our tender dalliance as irrelevant.
“I don’t undersand,” sighed Winters.
“The only thought which occurs to me is that they are both beneficiaries. I’ve thought all along that we should be real old-fashioned and examine the relations of the three beneficiaries of the late Senator.” I had not of course thought of this until now; it seemed suddenly significant, though.
“We do that continually,” said Winters.
“It’s possible one of them killed him for the inheritance.”
“Quite possible.”
“On the other hand he might have been killed for political reasons.”
“Also possible.”
“Then again he might have been killed for reasons of revenge.”
“Very likely.”
“In other words, Lieutenant Winters, you haven’t the foggiest notion why he was killed or who killed him.”
“That’s very blunt, but that’s about it.” Winters seemed not at all disturbed.
I had a sudden suspicion. “You wouldn’t by any chance be thinking of allowing this case to go unsolved, would you? Stopping it right here, with a confession and a corpse who, presumably, made the confession before committing suicide.”
“What ever made you think that?” said Winters blandly, and I knew then that that was exactly what he had in mind. I couldn’t blame him; by admitting that Hollister had been killed and the confession faked, he put himself squarely behind the eight-ball, a position which the servants of the public like even less than we civilians do. Though he might have proven to all and sundry that he was a pretty sharp character to guess that Hollister was killed, he would also be running the risk of never finding the murderer which would mean that public confidence in the police would be shaken, in which event he himself would be shaken back to a beat in Georgetown. I could hardly blame him for this indifference to the true cause of justice. After all who really cared if the Senator and Hollister had been murdered? No one mourned the passage of either to the grave. For a moment love of law and sense of right wavered, but then I recalled myself to stern duty (the fact that I would have the success of the year if I could unearth the murderer after the case had been nominally shut by the police affected my right action somewhat).
“How long will you hold the crew together?” I asked, writing Winters off as an ally.
“Another day or so, until all the evidence is double-checked … the autopsy and so on completed.”
“We will then be free to go?”
“Unless something unforeseen happens.”
“Like another murder?”
“There won’t be another murder,” he said confidently and I wondered if he might have some evidence which I didn’t have. After all it was just possible that Hollister had committed suicide … driven to it by Mr. X, the possessor of the documents, a whimsical cuss who was obviously enjoying himself immensely.