The chief moved into the apartment and I followed him.
She saw me then and said, “Well, just a moment. I didn’t know you had a guest.”
“He isn’t my guest,” Chief Dale said. “He’s my prisoner. He’s under arrest for the murder of Carter Holgate.”
“Good heavens,” she said. “He’s under arrest! Why, I knew they were investigating him and—”
“He’s under arrest,” Dale said.
“Donald,” she said, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to rub it in. I— Well, you can understand.”
I said, “It’s quite all right,” and sat down, putting my elbows on my legs so that the bright reading lamp shone down on the manacles on my wrists.
“I’m investigating this accident of yours,” Chief Dale said. “The one where Carter Holgate is supposed to have bumped into the rear of your car and—”
She drew herself up and said, “I am not going to be questioned any more about that accident, Chief Dale. I have talked about it until I’m sick and tired of it. I have a claim against the insurance company, I have now retained an attorney, I have decided to file suit. My attorney has advised me to say nothing about it.”
Dale said patiently, “I understand. That’s looking at it from the standpoint of a civil action. But now I’m looking at it from the standpoint of a criminal action.”
“What do you mean?”
Dale said, “I now have pretty good evidence that Carter Holgate smashed into my car on the evening of the thirteenth of August. He was driving while he was drunk.”
“For heaven’s sake,” she said.
“Now, that accident occurred a little after five-thirty in the evening,” Chief Dale said.
“Well, what do you know!”
“That’s exactly it,” Dale said. “I know so much that I want to know a little more. In fact I want to know quite a little more.”
She was doing some fast thinking.
“That must have been his day for accidents,” she said.
“Now,” Dale said, “I want to know about his accident with you. I want to know about when he hit your car.”
“Well, to be perfectly frank with you, Chief, I’m not certain of the hour. I am of the date but—”
“Was it after dark?”
“No, no. It was in the afternoon. It was— I just can’t go back in my mind right at this time and pinpoint the exact hour.”
I said, “Her friend, Doris Ashley, saw her car about three-thirty or three-forty-five and it had been smashed at that time, so the accident must have taken place before then, Chief.”
Vivian flashed me a look of pure venom.
“That right?” he asked Vivian.
“I wouldn’t know. Anything Doris says — she’s a very truthful girl and quite observing.”
“Now, I’m going to be fair with you, Miss Deshler,” Dale said. “If Holgate hit my car, pushed it into the ditch, then drove on, that would be a crime. That’s a hit-and-run. You understand that?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“And,” Dale went on, “if anybody conspired with him to cover up that crime or help him escape the penalty, that person would be an accessory after the fact and would be guilty of lots of things — not only guilty of the crime as an accessory, but guilty of criminal conspiracy. Do you understand that?”
She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.
“Yes,” she said after a moment.
“Now under those circumstances,” Dale said, “would you have any statement to make to me, Miss Deshler?”
“I... I know that— Now, wait a minute, let me think... I’m sorry, but would you excuse me for a moment, please? I haven’t been feeling well lately. I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
She got up and vanished through a door in the apartment.
Dale winked at me and then got up and tiptoed to the closed door. He took a little microphone attachment from his pocket, put it up against the door, put earphones in his ears, snapped on a switch and listened.
A grin came over his face as he listened.
He looked at me and winked once more, then kept listening for what must have been two or three minutes.
Suddenly he jerked the earphones out of his ears, detached the device from the door, slipped it into his pocket, tiptoed back to his chair and seated himself.
The door from the bedroom opened. Vivian Deshler said, “I’m sorry to have been so abrupt but I’m having some kind of an intestinal upset and— Well, I hope you don’t think I’m unladylike.”
“Not at all,” Dale said.
“Now, just what was it you wanted to know, Chief?”
“About that accident.”
“Oh, yes. Well, I’ve made a statement to the insurance company. I’ve made statements to the police, I’ve made statements to investigators, I’ve... I’ve just made so many statements I’m sick to death of that accident.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Chief Dale. I was injured in that accident. I had what they call a whiplash injury and I understand that can be very serious, but I’m just so sick and tired of the whole business that I’ve decided to absorb the loss myself. I’m going to withdraw my claim against the insurance company and forget the whole business. I’m going to go away and try to rest. My doctor thinks that complete rest with nothing to worry about may do a great deal to restore me to health.”
She looked at me. I twisted my arm so that the light reflected from the handcuffs. She stared at them with fascination.
“Well, that’s all very nice,” Dale said. “I hope you recover your health. I might tell you, Miss Deshler, that this means a good deal to me, getting this case solved, because you see my car was pushed into the ditch by a hit-and-run driver. I now have reason to believe that driver was Carter Holgate and that he used this purely imaginary accident he had had with your car to cover up—”
“What do you mean, an imaginary accident?” she asked with cold dignity. “There’s no reason he couldn’t have been in two accidents. If he was drunk—”
“I mean exactly what I said,” Dale interrupted, “that the accident was wholly imaginary.”
“Well, I like that!” she said. “Are you accusing me of lying?”
“Frankly,” Dale said, “I’m accusing you of lying, Miss Deshler. I’m accusing you of having faked the accident to your car and of having conspired with Holgate to involve your car in an accident with him. That was designed to get Holgate off the spot and, in case you’re interested, I used a listening device when you were supposedly in the bathroom with your intestinal upset.
“You telephoned someone and asked him for advice as to what to do. Now, who was it?”
“That,” she said, “was my lawyer and you have absolutely no right to eavesdrop on a conversation with a lawyer. I am going to ask you to leave my apartment.”
“I’ll leave if you insist,” Dale said, “but when I leave it’s a declaration of war. I’m giving you a chance now to come clean.”
“What do you mean, come clean?”
“To tell me the truth.”
“What do you mean you’re... giving me a chance?”
“If you tell the story now,” Dale said, “I’ll give you the breaks. If you don’t, I’ll throw the book at you.”
She bit her lip, hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“I think there is.”
She hesitated a moment, then said, “All right, if you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth.”
“That’s better.”
She said, “It all goes back to this man that you have with you, this Donald Lam.”
“And how does he enter into the picture?”
“He enters into it in this way. He’s trying to protect the insurance company that hired him. He bribed Lorraine Robbins, Mr. Holgate’s secretary, to say that she saw Holgate’s automobile after four o’clock, and that it was all right. He’s left a dirty, slimy trail of corruption all through this case. He’s resorted to intimidation of witnesses, he’s resorted to bribery, and he’s committed downright perjury.