“Rex,” said Wooley gravely, “you’re a private detective. I’m a public servant. Yet we both work toward the same ends, don’t we?”
“You sound like an editorial in the Sun,” said Sackler, “and it worries me. I don’t like it. What the devil do you want?”
“Look,” said Wooley, “you seen the papers about the Grattan killing, haven’t you?”
“Yes. But you picked up a guy on that. Bellows, wasn’t it?”
“We let him go this morning. Insufficient evidence.”
“Well,” said Sackler, “what do you want from me? You’re talking like a guy who wants something.”
“Even,” I put in, “like a guy who wants it for nothing.”
“Here’s the setup,” said Wooley. “This guy Bellows was engaged to Grattan’s daughter. The old guy didn’t like the idea. He and Bellows had quarreled. Long and often. Morever, the old guy’s dough goes to the girl after his death. She’s nuts about Bellows. With one bullet he can get rid of the old man’s objections to the marriage, and also fix it so that his wife has a pretty dowry. See?”
“What do you mean, insufficient evidence?”
Wooley scratched a head which held very little hair. “Alibi,” he said, “and it’s a screwy one. Bellows has this alibi: It seems someone called him from a downtown poolroom just before the killing. Four guys saw him in that poolroom. Every one of those guys is a bum. The lousiest assistant D. A. we’ve got could discredit their testimony in twelve seconds flat.”
“So,” said Sackler, “what are you worying about? Pick Bellows up again. Discredit the testimony of his witnesses and stop bothering me.”
“Wait,” said Wooley. “Through sheer accident Bellows has one good witness. As he was entering the poolroom General Barker passed him in the street. Now do you get it?”
Well, now it was rather obvious. The alibi testimony of some poolroom punk was one thing. The evidence of General Barker was another. Barker was not only an army officer with a national reputation, he was an upright guy with a tremendous reputation for integrity, probity and all the other virtues emblazoned in the copy-books. An alibi from Barker was as good as a reprieve from the Governor.
Sackler said as much. He added: “What makes you think Bellows is guilty, then? You don’t think Barker’s lying?”
“He may be mistaken. He came forward after seeing Bellows’ picture in the paper. He’d never seen him before. He just recalled bumping into him accidentally the night of the killing. If Barker’s right the time element would have precluded Bellows’ having anything to do with it.”
Sackler shrugged. “All right,” he said, “why not assume Barker is right? Drop the case.”
“The D. A. wants a conviction. The case is spectacular. The papers are playing it big. An election rolls around this fall. The D. A. and the commissioner would like a conviction. And it’s quite possible Barker is mistaken.” Wooley scratched his pate again, and added, a note of wistfulness in his tone: “If Barker hadn’t run into Bellows, we’d have a cold case.”
“Look,” said Sackler suddenly. “By any chance is the police department retaining me?”
“Retaining you? The department can’t retain a private detective, Rex. It’d look awful.”
“All right,” said Sackler, “then go away. I’ve listened to you for twenty minutes free. I have no interest in the case. No one is paying me and if you’re merely unburdening your soul take it to a priest, your wife, or a sympathetic bartender. But go away from here.”
Wooley looked wounded. “Rex,” he said and his voice quivered with hypocrisy, “after all we’re both fighting crime. We must work together.”
“That,” said Sackler, “is a beautiful gossamer thought. What is it you want from me?”
“Well, Rex, this Bellows is going to retain you.”
Sackler’s eyes lit up. He was performing some heart-warming mental arithmetic. One client equals one fee. One fee equals more dough in the bank. More dough in the bank equals three gallons of dreamy gloating happiness. He leaned over his desk and addressed Wooley with more affability than he had yet shown.
“What’s it worth, do you figure? Has the guy any dough? What ought I ask him? What—”
“Wait a minute,” said Wooley. “Let me tell you my angle. We still believe Bellows is guilty. The case is open and shut, save for Barker’s testimony. We figure that if Bellows retains you, you’ll be in a good spot to keep an eye on him. We want you to work with us, to keep in touch with us. You should be able to dig up something on the case. He’ll be freer with you than with us. If you can do it, pin that murder on him. We’ll be grateful, Rex. The D. A.’ll be grateful. It won’t do you any harm.”
Sackler took a deep breath. He looked very much like a man enjoying a moment for which he has waited many years. As a matter of fact, he was.
“For years,” he said, “I have been harassed by an incompetent police department. For years their envy of my ability and my financial success has caused them to frustrate me at every opportunity. Now, in the person of Inspector Wooley, that department comes crawling to me on its stomach to help them solve a case they can’t handle themselves. I laugh, uproariously.”
He got out of his chair, took two paces toward me and snatched one of my tailor-made cigarettes before I could stop him. He lit it, smiling. Then turned again to Wooley.
“Moreover,” he said, “you’re damned insulting. I am a professional man of integrity. My client’s interest is my own. Your implication that I would betray my client merely because the D. A. is worried about an election is outrageous. After such a suggestion I cannot countenance your presence in my office.”
He drew himself up like a Victorian parent ordering the poverty-stricken lover from his daughter’s drawing-room. Wooley, all his phoney beneficence gone, glared at him and stood up.
“All right,” he said. “Ride me. But you’ll regret it, Rex. You’re only figuring how much dough you can take Bellows for. If I offered you more you’d sell him down the river like Uncle Tom.”
“That,” said Sackler, “is a foul lie. I serve my clients all the way whether they pay or not. Don’t I, Joey?”
I searched my conscience very carefully before I answered. Then I looked him squarely in the eye and said, “No.”
Wooley, still glaring at Sackler, marched from the room. Sackler didn’t even bother to become annoyed at me. He sat down at his desk, leaned back, grinned happily and waited for the advent of William Bellows with his fee.
He didn’t have long to wait. Wooley had been gone less than half an hour when the outer office door opened. I sprang up, went to the anteroom and admitted two men. Bellows, I recognized, from the picture which had appeared in all the tabloids at the time of the murder. He was rather tall and in his early thirties. He was good-looking in an ordinary sort of way. His face was thin and closely shaven. His eyes were alert and, at the moment, shadowed with worry.
His companion was short, middle-aged and well-dressed. He wore a pair of tortoise shell glasses through which two shrewd blue eyes peered and questioned. I led the pair of them into Sackler’s presence. He bowed suavely like an undertaker silently estimating what price to put upon the funeral.
Bellows introduced himself. He indicated the short man and said: “This is Elmer Justis. He was Mr. Grattan’s lawyer. He is now advising me.”
Sackler unleashed his oiliest smile and I dragged up a couple of chairs for the company. Bellows drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. He spoke jerkily.
“You of course know, Mr. Sackler, that I’ve been questioned in the Grattan murder. Luckily for me General Barker came forward and told the D. A. he’d seen me on the night of the killing. However, the thing still hangs over my head. I want to feel that I’m completely in the clear. I want you to find Grattan’s murderer. Alice Grattan, my fiancée, agrees with me on this move.”