I stood and looked at Lancelot Goodwin a moment longer. The blood had stopped flowing. The last drop on his chin wasn’t going to fall. It was going to hang there and get dark and shiny and as permanent as a wart.
I went back through the kitchen and porch, wiping a couple more doorknobs as I went, strolled around the side of the house and took a quick gander up and down the street. Nobody being in sight, I tied the job up with ribbon by ringing the front doorbell again and smearing the button and knob well while I did it. I went to my car, got in and drove away. This had all taken less than half an hour. I felt as if I had fought all the way through the Civil War.
Two-thirds of the way back to town I stopped at the foot of Alesandro Street and tucked myself into a drugstore phone booth. I dialed Howard Mellon’s office number.
A chirpy voice said: «Doreme Cosmetic Company. Good afternoowun.»
«Mr. Melton.»
«I’ll connect you with his secretary,» sang the voice of the little blonde who had been off in the corner, out of harm’s way.
«Miss Van De Graaf speaking.» It was a nice drawl that could get charming or snooty with the change of a quartertone. «Who is calling Mr. Melton, please?»
«John Dalmas.»
«Ah — does Mr. Melton know you, Mr. — ah — Dalmas?»
«Don’t start that again,» I said. «Ask him, girlie. I can get all the ritzing I need at the stamp window.»
Her intaken breath almost hurt my eardrum.
There was a wait, a click, and Melton’s burly businesslike voice said: «Yes? Melton talking. Yes?»
«I have to see you quick.»
«What’s that?» he barked.
«I said what you heard. There have been what the boys call developments. You know who you’re talking to, don’t you?»
«Oh — yes. Yes. Well, let me see. Let me look at my desk calendar.»
«To hell with your desk calendar,» I said. «This is serious. I have enough sense not to break in on your day, if it wasn’t.»
«Athletic Club — ten minutes,» he said crisply. «Have me paged in the reading room.»
«I’ll be a little longer than that.» I hung up before he could argue.
I was twenty minutes as a matter of fact.
The hop in the lobby of the Athletic Club scooted neatly into one of the old open-cage elevators they have there and was back in no time at all with a nod. He took me up to the fourth floor and showed me the reading room.
«Around to the left, sir.»
The reading room was not built principally for reading. There were papers and magazines on a long mahogany table and leather bindings behind glass on the walls and a portrait of the club’s founder in oil, with a hooded light over it. But mostly the place was little nooks and corners with enormous sloping high-backed leather chairs, and old boys snoozing in them peacefully, their faces violet with old age and high blood pressure.
I sneaked quietly around to the left. Melton sat there, in a private nook between shelves, with his back to the room, and the chair, high as it was, not high enough to hide his big dark head. He had another chair drawn up beside him. I slipped into it and gave him the eye.
«Keep your voice down,» he said. «This place is for afterluncheon naps. Now, what is it? When I employed you, it was to save me bother, not to add bother to what I already have.»
«Yeah,» I said, and put my face close to his. He smelled of highballs, but nicely. «She shot him.»
His stiff eyebrows went up a little. His eyes got the stony look. His teeth clamped. He breathed softly and twisted one large hand on his knee and looked down at it.
«Go on,» he said, in a voice the size of a marble.
I craned back over the top of the chair. The nearest old geezer was snoozling lightly and blowing the fuzz in his nostrils back and forth with each breath.
«I went out there to Goodwin’s place. No answer. Tried the back door. Open. Walked in. Radio turned on, but muted. Two glasses with drinks. Smashed photo on floor below mantel. Goodwin in chair shot dead at close range. Contact wound. Gun on floor by his right hand. Twenty-five automatic — a woman’s gun. He sat there as if he had never known it. I wiped glasses, gun, doorknobs, put his prints where they should be, left.»
Melton opened and shut his mouth. His teeth made a grating noise. He made fists of both hands. Then he looked steadily at me with hard black eyes.
«Photo,» he said thickly.
I reached it out of my pocket and showed it to him, but I held on to it.
«Julia,» he said. His breath made a queer, sharp keening sound and his hand went limp. I slipped the photo back into my pocket. «What then?» he whispered.
«All. I may have been seen, but not going in or coming out. Trees in back. The place is well shaded. She have a gun like that?»
His head drooped and he held it in his hands. He held still for a while, then pushed it up and spread his fingers on his face and spoke through them at the wall we were facing.
«Yes. But I never knew her to carry it. I suppose he ditched her, the dirty rat.» He said it quietly without heat.
«You’re quite a guy,» he said. «It’s a suicide now, eh?»
«Can’t tell. Without a suspect they’re apt to handle it that way. They’ll test his hand with paraffin to see if he fired the gun. That’s routine now. But it sometimes doesn’t work, and without a suspect they may let it ride anyway. I don’t get the photo angle.»
«I don’t either,» he whispered, still talking between his fingers. «She must have got panicked up very suddenly.»
«Uh-huh. You realize I’ve put my head in a bag, don’t you? It’s my licence if I’m caught. Of course there’s a bare chance it was suicide. But he doesn’t seem the type. You’ve got to play ball, Melton.»
He laughed grimly. Then he turned his head enough to look at me, but still kept his hands on his face. The gleam of his eyes shot through his fingers.
«Why did you fix it up?» he asked quietly.
«Damned if I know. I guess I took a dislike to him — from that photo. He didn’t look worth what they’d do to her — and to you.»
«Five hundred, as a bonus,» he said.
I leaned back and gave him a stony stare. «I’m not trying to pressure you. I’m a fairly tough guy — but not in spots like this. Did you give me everything you had?»
He said nothing for a long minute. He stood up and looked along the room, put his hands in his pockets, jingled something, and sat down again.
«That’s the wrong approach — both ways,» he said. «I wasn’t thinking of blackmail — or offering to pay it. It isn’t enough money. These are hard times. You take an extra risk, I offer you an extra compensation. Suppose Julia had nothing to do with it. That might explain the photo being left. There were plenty of other women in Goodwin’s life. But if the story comes out and I’m connected with it at all, the home offices will bounce me. I’m in a sensitive business, and it hasn’t been doing too well. They might be glad of the excuse.»
«That’s different,» I said. «I asked you, did you give me everything you had.»
He looked at the floor. «No. I suppressed something. It didn’t seem important then. And it hurts the position badly now. A few days ago, just after I met Goodwin downtown, the bank called me and said a Mr. Lancelot Goodwin was there to cash a check for one thousand dollars made out to cash by Julia Melton. I told them Mrs. Melton was out of town, but that I knew Mr. Goodwin very well and I saw no objection to cashing the check, if it was in order and he was properly identified. I couldn’t say anything else — in the circumstances. I suppose they cashed it. I don’t know.»