Pretty soon Tony got up. He said: “I had to go to Long Beach last night. I left Mae about one-thirty. All the gang had gone home. I did not get back until a little while ago. I stopped at Sardis for breakfast because I did not want to wake Mae up — and I saw the paper.” He cleared his throat. “I am going to Cora. Cora will know something — she will tell me what it is...”
I said: “No. You are not going to do anything like that. You can’t stay here because if the Law finds out I came to your place last night they’ll come here to ask me a lot of questions, but I’m going to take you to a friend of mine upstairs and I want you to stay with her until I come back. I’m going to see what I can do about getting you in the clear and if I can’t do that we will see what we can do about getting you out of town.”
He smiled in a way that was not pleasant to see. He said: “I do not care about the clear, and I do not care about getting away. I care about finding the man who killed Mae and cutting his heart out of his body.”
I nodded and tried to look as if I felt like doing the same thing. I steered him out of the room and we went up the back stairs to the eighth floor and I knocked at Opal Crane’s door. Opal was still in bed; she yelled, “Who is it?” and I told her and in a minute she came to the door and opened it. She was rubbing her eyes and yawning and when I introduced Tony to her and told her I wanted her to let him stay there a little while she didn’t look very enthusiastic.
She jerked her head at Tony, who had sat down and was staring out the window, and said: “Hot?”
I nodded.
She looked a little less enthusiastic and I asked her if she thought I’d ask her to do it if I wasn’t sure it was all right. She shook her head and yawned some more and went into the bathroom.
I said to Tony: “I’ll be back or call you as soon as I can.”
He bobbed his head up and down vacantly and then he said: “Give me my gun.”
I said: “No. You won’t need it, and I might.”
I left him sitting by the window staring out into the gray morning and went out softly and closed the door.
Back in my room I called up Danny Scheyer who is a police reporter on the Post. I asked him to find out all he could about the inside on the Jackman murder, whether the police were satisfied that it was Tony or were working on any other angles. I asked him particularly to find out if a check that might have some bearing on the case had been found on Mae or in the apartment. Scheyer had a swell in at headquarters and I knew he’d get all the dope there was to get. I told him I’d call him again in a little while.
It was almost twelve-thirty and I figured Steinlen would be at lunch but I called up anyway. He was at lunch and I talked to his secretary. I told her I wanted to make an appointment with Steinlen for around one-thirty and she asked what I wanted to see him about. I told her to tell him that Mister Black, from Arrowhead, would be over at one-thirty and that his business was very personal. Then I went over to the Derby and had some more coffee.
I called Scheyer again from the Derby and he said they hadn’t found anything on Mae or in the apartment that meant anything and that it looked like a cinch for Tony Aricci.
I said: “Maybe not.” I told Scheyer he’d get first call on anything I turned up and thanked him.
Steinlen was younger than I’d figured him to be — somewhere between thirty-five and forty. He was a thin, nervous man with a long, bony face, deep-set brown eyes. His hands were always moving.
He said: “What can I do for you, Mister Black?”
I leaned forward and put my cigarette out in a tray on his desk and then leaned back and made myself comfortable. I said: “You can’t do anything for me but I can do an awful lot for you.”
He smiled a little and moved his head up and down. “People are doing things for me all the time,” he said. “That’s the reason I’m getting so gray.” He scratched his long nose and then put his hand down on the desk and drummed with his fingers. “What are you selling?”
“I sell peace of mind,” I said. “They used to call me the Trouble-Chaser back East. I kept people out of jams — and when they got into jams I got them out. I worked at it then — now it’s more or less of a hobby.”
He was still smiling. He said: “Go on.”
The way he kept moving his hands made me jumpy. I still had my topcoat on and I was practically lying down in the chair; I had my hand on Tony’s gun in my coat pocket.
I said: “You murdered Mae Jackman.”
His face didn’t change. He stopped drumming on the desk with his fingers and he was entirely still for maybe ten or fifteen seconds. He was looking straight at me and he was still smiling. Then he shook his head very slowly and said: “No.”
I said something a little while ago about a gift for figuring whether people mean what they say. Something like fifteen years of intensive study and research into the intricacies of draw and stud poker are pretty fair training for that sort of thing. I mean I’m not exactly a sucker for a liar, and so help me I believed Steinlen.
I said: “Who did?”
Steinlen shook his head again slowly. “Aricci, I suppose.”
By that time my sails were flapping. I’d been so sure Steinlen was it, and now I was so sure he wasn’t — I felt like I’d been double-crossed. Anyway, I wasn’t going to let it go at that. My hunch was that Steinlen was telling the truth but I don’t play my hunches that far. I wanted to know.
I said: “Aricci didn’t do it.” I said it as if I was sure of it.
Steinlen laughed a little. “You are very sure.”
I told him I was very sure and told him why. I told him that if Aricci had killed Mae the check would have figured in it and if Aricci had the check he, Steinlen, wouldn’t be alive to be talking about it.
When I mentioned the check Steinlen’s expression changed for the first time. His face became almost eager. He said: “Are you sure the police did not find the check?”
I nodded.
He asked: “Who, besides yourself, knew about it?”
“Only you,” I said — “and, evidently, whoever has it now.” I lit a cigarette and watched Steinlen’s face. I said: “As long as that check is in existence it’s an axe over your head. If the police get it, it will tie you up with the murder. If Aricci gets it or finds out about it, he’ll kill you as sure as the two of us are sitting here.”
Steinlen was staring blankly out the window. He nodded slightly.
“I think you’d better tell me all you know about the whole business,” I went on. “Maybe I can get an angle.”
He swung around in the swivel-chair to face me; he was smiling again. He said: “Did you come here to arrest me?”
I shook my head. “Not necessarily. I wouldn’t put the pinch on anyone unless there wasn’t anything else left to do. I came here convinced that you did the trick and I intended getting it in writing and then giving you about twenty-four hours’ head start. I wasn’t especially fond of Mae, and I think her check idea was pretty raw, but I like Tony pretty well and I know he’s innocent and I’m not going to have him holding the bag.”
He said: “And you are sure of my innocence, too?”
I smiled a little and said: “Pretty sure.”
He started drumming on the desk again. He said: “Mae telephoned me about two this morning. She was very drunk. She said that Tony had gone out, that she was alone.”
I said: “Uh-huh. Tony went to Long Beach. He left the apartment about one-thirty.”
Steinlen scratched his nose. “Can’t he establish an alibi in Long Beach?”