Duncan stepped forward, pushed between them.
“That’s all, Barney,” he said. “I told you to keep out of this. You can’t handle Sam that way.”
Barney Morden hesitated for a moment, then sullenly stepped back.
“Know anything about it, Sam?” Duncan asked.
“Not one damn thing!” Moraine said slowly and emphatically. “I don’t need to tell you that this is a shock to me, Phil. It’s a hell of a shock. The last time I saw her, she was all dolled up in silk. She’d just come out of a bathtub, but she’d taken time to give attention to her face and hair, so that she was pretty damn presentable. She was attractive, and she knew it.
“I’m no saint; I like to look them over. Occasionally I fall. The woman wasn’t my type, but she was darned good looking. I hadn’t ever seen her before I gave the kidnapers the money for her release. I had no idea on earth she was under that sheet just now.”
“Her body,” Duncan said slowly, “was found beside the railroad track at Sixth Avenue and Maplehurst. She probably wasn’t killed there. That’s where the body was left. It might have been dumped from a moving train, or from an automobile.
“Railroad schedules show that a freight was due to pass Maplehurst at ten ten, a fast passenger train at ten forty-seven. Those were the only two trains over the tracks from nine at night to one in the morning. She was killed between ten o’clock and eleven-thirty o’clock.
“You left your office at about eleven. You may have taken a cab to Sixth Avenue and Maplehurst. A woman called you on the telephone about ten-fifty. She asked you to join her at once. She was hysterical.”
Moraine met the district attorney’s eyes. “Phil,” he said, “I give you my word of honor that telephone call had nothing to do with this woman’s death. I haven’t seen her since that last time I mentioned. I didn’t talk with her over the telephone or personally. I didn’t go out to meet her to-night. I didn’t know where she was, or that she was dead.”
Phil Duncan said wearily, “All right, Sam, that lets you out. You can go home.”
Barney Morden sucked air into his lungs in a quick gasp. “Ain’t you going to?...”
Duncan’s voice was flat and toneless with fatigue. “Shut up, Barney,” he said. “And drive Sam back to his apartment.”
Moraine gave Phil Duncan’s arm a squeeze. “Thanks for the offer, Phil, but I’ll take a cab. You have Barney take you home where you can get some sleep.”
He turned and lunged through the door.
Barney Morden started to talk as the door slammed shut behind Moraine, but Sam couldn’t hear the words.
Chapter Eleven
Moraine stepped on the throttle of his coupe, skidded for the corner, and, as the car straightened on the side street, coaxed it into speed and swung wide to make the next corner.
As the machine screamed its way around the corner, with sliding tires registering a protest, Moraine flashed a quick glance back down the side street.
There was no car in sight. Moraine ran the car for two fast blocks, then slammed on the brakes and took another turn to the left, doubled back around the block, and parked the car. He waited five minutes. There was no sign of activity on the street. No automobiles passed in either direction. There were no pedestrians.
Moraine got out of the car, locked it, walked a block and a half to an apartment house, scrutinized the names on the directory, and held his thumb with steady insistence against a bell button opposite the card bearing the name “Miss Natalie Rice.”
After almost a minute, Natalie Rice’s voice came to his ear through the speaking tube.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Sam Moraine,” he said.
“Do you want to see me?”
“Yes.”
“Give me a minute to dress, and I’ll come down.”
“No,” he told her. “I’ve got to see you up there. It’s important. Open the door.”
There was an interval of some ten or fifteen seconds before he heard the buzz which released the door catch. During this interval, Moraine leaned impatiently against the door, ready to shove it open as soon as the first buzz should announce the release of the catch.
He pushed his way into a poorly lit, stuffy corridor, found the automatic elevator, took it to the third floor, and saw a door cautiously open as he pounded his way down the corridor.
Natalie Rice was attired in pyjamas. Her feet were thrust into Chinese embroidered slippers, an embroidered silk kimono wrapped around her.
Moraine entered the apartment.
A wall bed had been let down and slept in. The apartment was cold, filled with that clammy atmosphere which comes to court apartments that get but little sunlight.
“What is it?” she asked.
Moraine kicked the door shut.
“Sit here,” she said, pushing forward a chair.
“No,” he told her, “I’ll sit on the couch.”
He walked over and sat on the couch, leaning back against a pillow.
“There have been some new developments,” he told her. “I figured you’d better be posted.”
“What new developments?”
“They pulled me out of bed.”
“Who did?”
“The district attorney and Barney Morden.”
“What for?”
“To question me about what I was doing in the vicinity of Sixth and Maplehurst between eleven o’clock and midnight.”
“How did they know you were out there?”
“They found the cab driver who took me out.”
“Then they know about... about...”
“Apparently,” Moraine told her, “they don’t. What they called me for, was to show me the body of Ann Hartwell. She’d been murdered.”
“Murdered!” Natalie Rice echoed.
“Yes, they found her body out at Sixth Avenue and Maplehurst. Right by the railroad tracks. They figured she could have been dumped from a train or from an automobile. They don’t think she was murdered there.”
Her eyes were wide with fright, her face colorless.
“They took me down and showed me the body under very dramatic circumstances,” Moraine said. “The probabilities are they’ll get in touch with you and question you. They may even take you down and show you the body. I wanted you to be prepared so that...”
He broke off, a peculiar expression on his face. He looked at the bed, then at the couch.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
He stared steadily at the bed. One blanket lay loosely rumpled in a ball at the foot of the bed. Moraine got up and jerked this blanket from the bed.
“Why, what’s the matter?” she asked.
Moraine placed his hand on the blanket, went over to the couch, placed his hand on the surface of the couch, and on the pillow.
“This is warm,” he said.
“What’s warm?”
“Don’t stall,” he told her, “the couch is warm. Someone’s been sleeping here.”
“Why,” she said, “why... whatever do you mean?”
Moraine’s eyes were hard.
“Listen,” he said, “it’s none of my business what you do with your time outside of office hours, but if I’ve been spilling conversation around here with someone listening to it, I want to know it.”
“I’m sure,” she told him, “I don’t know what...”
Moraine strode to the closet door and jerked it open. There was motion within the shadows.
Moraine doubled his fists, braced himself.
“Come out,” he said.
Natalie Rice ran to him, grabbed his arm.
Moraine shook her off, keeping his eyes on the closet.
“Come out,” he said, “or I’ll drag you out.”