Walter sat down again and buried his face in his hands. “We’re up against it, Val. For fair, this time.” Val nodded wordlessly. How well she knew! “Now we’ve got blood on our hands.”
“Walter,” she moaned.
But it was true. Their scheming, their crazy impetuous scheming, their frantic effort to stave off the inevitable — Walter, Walter’s predicament, Walter in the shadow of a tall gaunt thing made of wood... It had cost the life of an innocent person.
Val said with a faint nausea: “Do you think she’s—” But she could not get the word out.
Walter rubbed his palms together in a meaningless sort of way. “Whoever’s behind this, hon, won’t stop at anything. Somehow he found out about your father’s alibi, and he’s put the Austin kid out of the way to destroy it.” His voice rose. “I can’t. I simply can’t understand such damned brutality, such savagery! How could any one hate another man so much?”
“It’s our fault, Walter,” whispered Val.
His face softened and he went over to her and pulled her to him. “Look, Val.” He cupped her chin and made her look up at him. “Let’s finish this mess here and now. We’re miserable failures at this thing — we’re wriggling like worms trying to get away from something that’s bound to get us in the end.”
“Not us,” cried Val. “You!”
“You’ve done too much for me already, you and Rhys. And meanwhile we’ve done something to an innocent person we’ll never be able to undo.”
Val, thinking of the blonde girl, began to cry. “How could we have let her take such chances—”
“Stop crying, Val,” he said gently. “The first thing we’ve got to do is report her disappearance to the police.” Val nodded, sobbing. “Maybe it isn’t too late,” he said encouragingly. “Maybe she’s still alive. If she is, we can’t waste a second.”
“But we’ll have to tell them all about... all about you—”
“High time, too!” And he grinned a little.
“No, Walter.” She pressed her face against his coat.
“If I don’t — what about your father?” he said in the same gentle voice. “Remember, with Mibs’s disappearance he has no alibi. No alibi, Val.”
“Oh, Walter, what an awful, awful mess!”
“Now let’s go downtown and tell Glücke the truth.”
She raised her head, agonized. “But if you do, Walter, they’ll arrest you! They’ll say you murdered your father!”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Did I ever tell you you’re beautiful?”
“I can’t let you do it!”
“And that I’ve dreamed about you every night for a year?”
Walter or Rhys. Rhys or Walter. It went round and round in her head like a phonograph record. It might slide off to some other place, but it always came back to the same place... She dropped her arms helplessly.
Part Five
XX
Everything But the Truth
Walter went to the telephone and called police headquarters. He waited patiently, his back to Valerie. His tall figure shimmered; and Val sat down, rubbing her eyes. She wished she could go to bed and sleep and sleep for months, years.
He spoke to Inspector Glücke in a rather listless tone, telling him about the disappearance of Mibs Austin and the false telephone call, the appointment for the corner of Cahuenga and Sunset... Everything had drained out, Valerie felt. What was the use of fighting?
“Let’s go, Val.”
“All right, Walter.”
Neither spoke on the journey downtown. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. The saucy child-face of Mibs Austin with its dip and crown of blondness danced before Val, obscuring the streets. She closed her eyes, but Mibs remained there like a face on a bobbing balloon.
Glücke received them in state, with two police stenographers occupying chairs beside his desk and District Attorney Van Every enthroned to one side, all silence and alertness.
“Did you find out anything?” asked Walter abruptly.
“We’re working on it now,” said the Inspector. “What makes you think the girl was snatched?”
“Because she had certain information which the murderer of my father didn’t want known.”
Glücke laughed. “Sit down, Miss Jardin. Is this another of your fairy stories, Spaeth? If you’ve got anything to tell me, say it now. And make it stick this time.”
“I see,” said Walter, “you’re all ready for me.” Val looked down at her hands, and they stopped twisting. “All right. I’m glad to get this off my chest. What I said—”
A scuffling sound from an adjoining room stopped him. One of the doors burst open and Rhys Jardin appeared, struggling in the arms of a detective.
“Walter!” he cried. “It’s a trick! The girl wasn’t abducted at all! Glücke had her—”
“Stubborn to the end,” remarked the District Attorney wryly. “Too bad, Glücke.”
“Pop!” Val flew to him. The detective released Jardin, puffing.
“Do you mean to say,” growled Walter, “that you cooked this up, damn you?”
The Inspector made a furious sign and the detective went back into the room and came out with Mibs Austin. The girl’s eyes were red and swollen, and she kept them averted, refusing to look at the Jardins, at Walter. And suddenly she began to weep.
Rhys Jardin said curtly: “It was just a trick to make you talk, Walter. That newspaperman, King, found out about my alibi—”
“King?” cried Val. “The beast! I knew he’d spoil everything!”
“He told Glücke and Glücke arranged for the ‘abduction’ of Miss Austin. He wanted to scare Walter into talking.”
“Can the chatter,” said the Inspector harshly. “All right, it didn’t work. But I’ve got this girl, and she’s talked plenty. Want to hear what she said, Spaeth?”
“Oh, Miss Jardin,” sobbed Mibs, “I couldn’t help it. They got a police matron or... or somebody to call me, and I thought you were in trouble and went down to... to—”
“It’s all right, Mibs,” said Val steadily. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
“And they brought me up here and... and made me tell. I was so frightened I didn’t know what to do. They made me tell—”
“Just a minute,” said Walter. “If you know about Rhys Jardin’s alibi, Inspector, then you know he’s innocent.”
Rhys said simply: “I’m a free man, Walter.”
“That,” said Walter, “is a different story.”
“Miss Austin says,” snapped Glücke, “that she spoke to you on the ’phone at five-thirty-five Monday afternoon, and that you were talking from your father’s house. That’s three minutes after the murder!”
“My advice to you, young fellow,” said Van Every soberly from his corner, “is to come clean.”
Walter stood facing them, hands jammed in his pockets. He wore a faint grin. The stenographers poised their pencils.
But just then the door opened and Mr. Hilary King appeared, breathing hard, as if he had been running. He was carrying a long object wrapped in brown paper which had a rather curious shape.
He stopped short on the threshold, taking in the situation at a glance. “Looks like Scene Two, Act Three,” he grunted. “Well, who’s said what?”
“It won’t be long now,” announced the Inspector triumphantly. “Spaeth’s ready to talk.”
“Oh,” said Ellery. “Is he?”
“Am I?” murmured Walter. “And the answer is: no.”
“What?” yelled Glücke. “Again?”
“I kept my mouth shut before because I didn’t know about Rhys’s alibi and thought I had to protect him—”