‘It puzzles me as much as it puzzles you,’ I said.
‘You are sure you have never seen this man? Do you want another look at his photograph?’
‘It’s not necessary. I have never seen him before.’ He scratched his ear and frowned.
‘Like I said: a mystery. We don’t like mysteries, Mr. Halliday.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Have you ever heard of a woman who calls herself Rima Marshall?’
Well, here it is, I thought. I was expecting the question but in spite of that I felt a sudden cold shrinking inside me.
I looked straight at him as I said, ‘No. I don’t know her either. Who is she?’
‘Mandon’s girl friend,’ Keary said. ‘They lived together in this bungalow.’
He chewed some more, his small eyes fixed in a blank stare at the ceiling.
After a long pause, I said sharply, ‘I told you I’m busy, sergeant. Is there anything else?’
He turned his head and his eyes locked with mine.
‘This woman has been murdered.’
My heart skipped a beat and then began to race. I know I changed colour.
‘Murdered?’ I managed to say. ‘Who has been murdered?’
The hard, probing eyes made a slight advance into my defences.
‘Rima Marshall. We showed Mandon’s photograph around and yesterday evening we found a woman who had been doing the cleaning. Imagine a punk like Mandon having a woman to do his cleaning! She recognised him. She told us about this Rima Marshall, and she gave us the address of the bungalow Mandon had been using for his hideout. We went there. Mandon had blown, but we found the woman.’
He shifted the gum around in his mouth. ‘Not one of the nicest looking corpses I have seen. She had been hacked to death with a knife. The Medical Officer told us she had thirty-three stab wounds: ten of them could have been fatal. On the table was this copy of Life with your photograph ringed around in pencil.’
I sat motionless, my hands in tight fists out of sight under the desk. So Wilbur had found her! And I was responsible! I felt cold sweat break out on my face.
‘We have a pretty sensational case on our hands,’ Keary went on. ‘We’re now wondering if she left this paper with your name and address on it in the car. She might have known you at one time or the other. Her name means nothing to you?’
‘No.’
He took an envelope from his pocket. From the envelope he took out a photograph and laid it on the desk.
‘Maybe you might recognise her.’
I looked at the photograph and then turned quickly away.
It was a horrible photograph.
Rima lay in a pool of blood on the floor. She was naked. Her body had been horribly cut, stabbed and mutilated.
‘You don’t recognise her?’ Keary asked in his tough cop voice.
‘No! I don’t know her! I don’t know Mandon! Is that clear?’ I said. ‘I can’t help you! Now will you please get out of here and let me get on with my work?’
But he wasn’t a man to be bullied. He settled himself more firmly in his chair as he said, ‘This is a murder case, Mr. Halliday. It’s your bad luck that in some way you are connected with it. Have you ever been to Santa Barba?’
I very nearly said I hadn’t, but realised in time that I might easily have been recognised in the town, and to deny being there could get me into serious trouble.
‘Yes, I have,’ I said. ‘What of it?’
He was all cop now, leaning forward, his chin thrust out.
‘When was that?’
‘A couple of weeks ago.’
‘Can you get it nearer than that?’
‘I was there on May 21st and again on June 15th.’
He looked slightly disappointed.
‘Yeah. We’ve already checked. You stayed at the Shore Hotel.’
I waited, thankful I hadn’t been caught in a lie.
‘Can you explain, Mr. Halliday,’ he went on, ‘why a man in your position should stay at a joint like the Shore Hotel? Any particular reason?’
‘I just don’t happen to be fussy where I stay,’ I said. ‘It was the first hotel I came to so I stayed there.’
‘Why did you go to Santa Barba?’
‘Why all these questions? What business is it of yours where I stay and why?’
‘This is a murder case,’ he said. ‘I ask the questions: you answer them.’
Shrugging, I said, ‘I had a lot of figures to prepare. I couldn’t get any peace here what with the telephone and the contractors disturbing me so I went to Santa Barba. I thought the change of air would do me good.’
Keary rubbed the end of his fleshy nose with the back of his hand.
‘What made you book in under the name of Masters?’
I was ready for that one. My mind was now working a shade faster than his.
‘When you have a photograph in Life, sergeant, you acquire a certain amount of notoriety. I was anxious not to be disturbed by the Press so I booked in under my mother’s maiden name.’
He stared at me, his hard green eyes as blank as stones.
‘The same reason why you stayed in your room all day?’
‘I was working.’
‘When did you get back here?’
‘I went first to San Francisco. I had business up there.’
He took out a notebook.
‘Where did you stay?’
I told him.
‘I left on Thursday night and arrived back here at midnight,’ I said. ‘If you want confirmation of that you can check with the ticket collector at the station who knows me well, and with the taxi driver, Sol White, who drove me home.’
Keary wrote in his notebook, then with a grunt he heaved himself to his feet.
‘Well, okay, Mr. Halliday. This will take care of it. I don’t reckon to bother you again. I was just tying up the loose ends. After all, we know who killed her.’
I stared at him.
‘You know? Who killed her?’
‘Jinx Mandon. Who else do you imagine killed her?’
‘It could have been anyone, couldn’t it?’ I said, aware that my voice had suddenly turned husky.
‘What makes you think he did it?’
‘He’s a criminal with a record for violence. The cleaning woman told us these two were always quarrelling. Suddenly he blows and we find her dead. Who else would kill her? All we have to do is to catch him, rough him up a little and he’ll spill it. Then we pop him into the gas chamber. There’s nothing to it.’
‘To me that doesn’t prove he did it,’ I said.
‘Doesn’t it?’ He lifted his heavy shoulders in an indifferent shrug. ‘I like him for the job, and the jury will like him too.’
Nodding to me, he opened the door and went out.
II
So Rima was dead!
But I felt no relief, only remorse. I had been responsible for her death.
With her had died my past. I had now only to sit tight and do nothing to be free of the threat of arrest.
But suppose they caught Vasari! Suppose they sent him to the gas chamber for a murder I knew he hadn’t committed?
I knew he hadn’t murdered Rima. Wilbur had done it and I could prove he had done it, but to prove it I would have to tell the police the whole story, and then I would be put on trial for the Studio guard’s murder.
Was this nightmare never going to end?
I thought: You have saved yourself; to hell with Vasari! He is a criminal with a record for violence.
Why should you sacrifice yourself for him?
During the next six days the pressure of work and the rushed visits to the sanatorium to see Sarita so occupied my mind during the day that I was free of the tormenting thought that I had been responsible for Rima’s death. But at night, when I was alone in the dark, the picture of her lying in the pool of blood, her body covered with vicious stab wounds, haunted me.