His mind went to Maryjane Swiftwater then and as he thought of his fiancee, his face took on a rather hard, uncompromising expression and he shook his head ever so slightly. The idea of trying out something new with Maryjane completely failed to entrance him, although in the not too distant past he had frequently contemplated that thought with a great deal of frustrated desire and certainly no degree of distaste.
Things had certainly changed.
It was the sound of the doorbell which suddenly brought Gerald back to reality. As he stood up his eyes went to his wrist watch and he saw that it was exactly six-fifteen. He was expecting no one; he rarely if ever had visitors. For a fleeting moment it occurred to him that Maryjane might have come down from Connecticut, but quickly he dismissed the idea as utterly farfetched. Walking toward the front door, his face assumed a curious, but not alarmed expression.
There were two of them; a long thin man with iron-gray hair and a horselike face who wore old-fashioned pince-nez glasses, and a short, round, surly man with a slightly soiled white shirt under an unpressed, badly fitting suit. The thin man did the talking.
“You Hanna? Gerald Hanna?”
Gerald half blocked the doorway with his body as he answered.
“Yes?”
“Well, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Detective Lieutenant Hopper,” the thin man said, at the same time turning the palm of his right hand and exposing a gold shield. “May we come in?”
The short man needed no invitation, but pushed through the doorway, not waiting for Gerald’s weak, forced smile and for him to move back.
As the fat man brushed past him, Gerald felt suddenly faint. These men were police and there could be only one thing in the world which brought them to his door. Somehow or other they had traced the car to him.
He stepped back and made a conscious effort to control his quaking emotions.
The lieutenant followed the other man into the apartment, shrewd eyes quickly darting around and casing the room. Gerald gestured toward the couch and went himself to the big red-leather chair and slowly sat down. The lieutenant seemed to fold up as he slouched down on the couch, crossing long legs so that his trousers were hitched up to expose several inches of thin, scrawny bare shanks over his shoe tops, where his black socks lay in folded rings unsupported by garters. He removed his battered, gray slouch hat and ran a lean fingered hand through his short hair.
The fat man walked over by the window and just stood there, between Gerald and the door.
“Just what…”
Gerald hesitated as Hopper took a notebook from his pocket and methodically folded back its imitation-leather cover.
“You home alone, Mr. Hanna?”
“Why yes,” Gerald said. “That is, I live here alone. Rent this apartment from people by the name of Sanderson. A Mr. Miles Sanderson and his wife. They are in Bermuda at present.”
Hopper nodded.
“I see. You own a car, do you, Mr. Hanna?”
Instantly he knew that he’d been right. It was the car all right; they’d managed to trace it to him somehow. He might have known. His luck had been just too phenomenally good. But even as the thought went through his mind, Gerald was catching his second breath.
So they’d traced the car. Well, he’d expected that they might. He was prepared for that eventuality. Wasn’t that why he’d made his preparations; wasn’t it a contingency which he had foreseen?
There was no point in getting worried, no point in permitting himself to become confused and upset. Now was the time when he must play it smart; it was the moment he knew must come and the moment he had prepared himself for.
Gerald nodded.
“Chevrolet,” he said. “Fifty-six convertible. Why?”
“Just wanted to know. Where’s the car now?”
“Why downstairs in the garage,” Gerald said. “Or at least it was a few minutes ago. Say, just what’s wrong anyway, Lieutenant? Have I done something…”
“Have you?” Hopper asked, looking up quickly, his face enigmatic and bland.
“Well, I mean, is something…”
“Where were you last night?” the lieutenant interrupted.
“Last night?”
The fat man moved across the room and stood in front of Gerald.
“You don’t hear good, do you?” he said.
Hopper raised his eyes but not his voice.
“I’ll handle it, Harry,” he said. He spoke softly. “Harry-Detective Finn here-feels you should know where you were last night. It’s a simple question. Where were you?”
Gerald coughed and took out his handkerchief and wiped his mouth. “Sorry,” he said. “Well, I spent the evening playing poker. In New York. A friend’s apartment.”
“Start with the beginning. What time did the game start, who was there, where was it? You might even start before that. Just what do you do for a living?”
“I work for the Seaboard Life Insurance Company,” Gerald said. “Wall Street, New York. I’m an actuary. Been with the firm for seven years. I played poker last night at the apartment of a man named Bill Baxter, on East Seventy-eighth street, Manhattan. He’s a salesman with the same firm I work for. Quit around five-thirty and had dinner with Bill and then went with him to his apartment. Several other men from the office sat in on the game. We started playing around eight o’clock.”
“You win?” Finn cut in.
Lieutenant Hopper looked at him and frowned.
“Go on,” he said.
“Well, there was Doc Kline, Herb Potter, Shelley…”
“Never mind the rest of ’em. This Baxter got a phone?”
Gerald gave him the number, as well as Dr. Kline’s number and that of Herb Potter and he noticed that Finn, rather than the lieutenant, wrote them down in a little notebook of his own.
“When did the game break up?”
“Sometime after midnight. I can’t tell you exactly when, but I know it was pretty late. I was going to leave earlier, but the boys…”
“Never mind that,” Hopper said. “You left after midnight. Then what?”
“I came home and went to bed.”
“You came home alone? Did you drive?”
“Yes. I drove and I was alone.”
“Just how did you come home?”
“I drove.”
“You already said that. I want to know how-what route you took.”
“The way I always do after a game. Took the Drive up to the Triborough Bridge, cut over past the airport and picked up the Cross County Highway. Turned off on Northern Boulevard and drove directly out to Roslyn. Turned off the boulevard at…”
“And you don’t remember just what time you got here? That right? Did you stop anywhere along the way? Maybe get a cup of coffee or something?”
“Nowhere. I came directly home, put the car up and went to bed. You see, I had to get up early this morning to go up to Connecticut…”
Gerald stopped suddenly, realizing what he was saying. It was a slip and he tried to recover.
“That is, I was planning last night to go up to Connecticut-I always go up early on Saturday mornings to spend the week end-and I wanted to get up early.”
“But you didn’t go up, huh?” Finn interrupted.
“Now, Harry,” Lieutenant Hopper said. “All right, did you go up?”
“No. When I woke up this morning I had a splitting headache. So I called my fiancee and told her I thought I’d skip it this week.”
“Want to give me her name and address and phone number?”
Gerald gave it to him. For several minutes after Hopper wrote it down in his book, he sat staring at the note paper and saying nothing. At last he again looked at Gerald.
“So, as near as you can remember you got home some time after midnight. You can’t say exactly when. Now, did you notice anything, anything at all out of the way while you were driving home? Say during the time you were driving along Northern Boulevard?”