“I see. And what is it you do for a living?”
“I write on art.”
“You’re an art critic?”
“I don’t like the words ‘art critic.’ I write on the arts.”
“You must make a fortune at it, Mister Fletcher. First class air tickets, this lavish, opulent apartment the clothes you’re wearing….”
“I have some money of my own.”
“I see. Having money of your own opens up a great many careers which otherwise might be considered marginal. By the way, what is that painting over the desk? You can’t see it from where you are.”
“It’s a Ford Madox Brown.”
“It’s entirely my style of work.”
“Nineteenth-century English.”
“Well, that’s one thing I’m not, is nineteenth-century English. And who with a touch of humanity in him would be? When did you notice it yourself? The painting, I mean?”
“While I was calling the police.”
“You mean to say, while you were calling the police to report a murder, you were looking at a painting?”
“I guess so.”
“Then, indeed, you must be a most relentless writer-on-the-arts. I understand you used the Police Business phone to report the heinous deed rather than Police Emergency.”
“Yes.”
“Why is that?r
“Why not? Nothing could be done at the moment. The girl was clearly dead. I’d rather leave the Emergency line clear for someone who needed the police immediately, to stop a crime in progress, or get someone to a hospital.”
“Mister Fletcher, people with stutters and stammers and high breathlessness call the Police Emergency number to report a cat in a tree. Did you look up the Police Business number in a book?”
“The operator gave it to me.”
“I see. Were you ever a policeman yourself?”
“No.”
“Just wondering. Something about your sophistication regarding bodies in the parlor. The conciseness of answers. After a murder, usually it’s only the policemen who want to get to bed. Where was I?”
“I have no idea,” Fletch said. “In the nineteenth century?”
“No. I’m not in the nineteenth century, Mister Fletcher. I’m in Boston, and I’m wondering what you’re doing here.”
“I’m here to do research. I want to try a biography of the Western artist, Edgar Arthur Tharp, Junior. He as born and brought up here in Boston, you know, Inspector.”
“I do know that.”
“The Tharp family papers are here. The Boston Museum has a great many of his works.”
“Have you ever been in Boston before?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyone here?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Let’s go over your arrival in Boston again, Mister Fletcher. It makes such a marvelous story. This time, tell me the approximate times of everything. Again, I remind you that Grover will take it all down, and we’re not supposed to correct him later, although I always do. Now: when did you land in Boston?”
“I was in the airport waiting for my luggage at three-forty. I set my watch by the airport clock.”
“What airlines? What flight number?”
“Trans World. I don’t know the flight number. I went through customs. I got a taxi and came here. I got here about five-thirty.”
“I understand about going through customs, but the airport is only ten minutes from here.”
“You’re asking me? I believe Traffic Control is also considered Police Business.”
The representative of Boston Police, said, “Ach, well, so, of course it was five o’clock. Where in particular did you get stuck?”
“In some crazy tunnel with a dripping roof and chirruping fans.”
“Ah, yes, the Callahan. I’ve sat in there myself. But at five o’clock the traffic in there usually gets stuck going north, not south.”
“I shaved and showered and changed my clothes. I unpacked. I left here I would guess a little after six-thirty. I took a taxi to the restaurant.”
“Which restaurant?”
“The Café Budapest.”
“Now, that’s interesting. How did you know enough to go to such a fine restaurant, your first night in town?”
“The man sitting next to me on the plane it.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“He never mentioned it. We didn’t talk much. Just while we were having lunch. I think he said he was some kind of an engineer. From someplace called Wesley Hills.”
“Wellesley Hills. In Boston we spell everything the long way, too. Did you have the cherry soup?”
“At the Budapest? Yes.”
“I head it’s a great for those who can afford it.”
“I tried to walk home. It had seemed like a short ride in the taxi. I left the restaurant shortly after eight and got here, I would say, just before nine-thirty. In the meantime, I got thoroughly lost.”
“Where? I mean, where did you get lost?”
Fletch looked around around the room before answering. “If I knew that, would I have been lost?”
“Answer the question, please. Describe to me where you went.”
“God. A Citgo sign. A huge, gorgeous Citgo sign. Remarkable piece of art.”
“There, now, you see, that wasn’t so difficult, was it? You turned left rather than right. That is, you went west rather than east. You went into Kenmore Square. What did you do then?”
“I asked a girl for Beacon Street, and it was right there. I walked along it until I came to 152. It was a long walk.”
“Yes. That was a long walk. Especially after a Hungarian dinner. So you came into the apartment, and into the living room. Why did you go into the living room?”
“To turn off the lights.”
“So you must have gone into the living room the first time you were in the apartment and turned on the lights.”
“Sure. I looked around the apartment. I don’t remember whether I left the lights on in the living room or not.”
“Undoubtedly you did. Anyone as likely a murderer as you are is apt to do anything. Now, why were you in Rome?”
“I live there. Actually, I have a villa in Cagna, on the Italian Riviera.”
“Then why didn’t you fly from Genoa, or Cannes?”
“I was in Rome anyway.”
“Why?”
“Andy has an apartment there.”
“Andy-the-girl. You’ve been living with Andy-the-girl?”
“Yes.”
“How long.”
“A couple of months”,
“And you met with Bartholomew Connors in Rome?”
“Who? Oh, no. I don’t know Connors.”
“You said this is his apartment.”
“It is.”
“Then how are you in it, if you don’t know Mister Connors?”
“Homeswap. It’s an international organization. I think their headquarters is in London. Connors takes my villa in Cagna for three months; I use his apartment in Boston. Cuts down on the use of money.”
“You’ve never met?”
“We’ve never even corresponded. Everything, even the exchange of keys, was arranged through London.”
“Well, I’m sure I’ll catch up again with this world, one day. Don’t write that down, Grover. So, Mister Fletcher, you say you don’t know Bartholomew Connors at all, and you don’t know Ruth Fryer either?”
“Who is she?”
“You answered that question so perfectly I’m beginning to believe I’m talking.to myself. Mister Fletcher, Ruth Fryer is the young lady they have just taken out of your living room.”
“Oh.”
“‘Oh,’ he says, Grover.”
“Inspector, I believe I have never seen that young lady before in my life.”
“Taking your story as the word from John—that’s Saint John, Grover—when you discovered the body, didn’t you wonder where the young lady’s clothes were? Or are you so used to seeing gorgeous girls naked on the Riviera you think they all come that way?”
“No,” Fletch said. “I did not wonder where her clothes were.”
“You came in here and looked at a painting, instead.”
“Inspector, you’ve ‘got to understand there was a lot to wonder about at that moment. I was in a state of shock. I didn’t know where the girl came from. Why should I wonder where her clothes went to?”
“They were in your, bedroom, Mister Fletcher. With the bodice torn.”
Fletcher ran his eyes along a shelf of books.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the word ‘bodice’ spoken before. Of course, I’ve read it in nineteenth-century English novels.”
“Would you like to bear my version of what happened here tonight?”
“No.”
“Let me run through it anyway. I can still get home in time for two o’clock feeding. You arrived at the airport, having left your true love in Rome, but also after having been confined to her company for two months, living in her apartment, the last few days of which have been sad days, seeing her to her father’s funeral.”
“Sort-of funeral.”
“You escaped the dearly beloved with divine celerity, Mister Fletcher. That’s a nice alignment of words, Grover. Have you got them all?”
“Yes, Inspector.”
“In their proper order?”
“Yes, Inspector”
“You came here and introduced yourself to this huge, impressive apartment. Your sense of freedom was joined by a sense of loneliness, which is a potently dangerous combination in the loins of any healthy young man. You shave and you shower, spruce yourself up, never thinking ill of yourself for a minute. Are you with my version of the story so far?”
“I can’t wait to see how it comes out.”
“You take yourself out into the drizzle. Perhaps you do the obvious and stop in at the first singles bar you come to. You put forth your noticeable charm to the most attractive girl there, possibly a little under the drizzle from gin—by the way, Grover, we’ll want to know what’s in that girl’s stomach—entice her back here, to your bedroom, where she resists you, for some reason of her own. She promised Mother, or had forgotten to take her pills, or whatever it is young ladies say these days when they change their minds. You tear her clothes off her in the bedroom. Thoroughly frightened, she runs down the corridor to the living room. You catch up to her. She continues to resist you. Perhaps she is screaming, and you don’t know how thick the walls are. You’re in a new place. You left your fiancee this morning in Rome. Here’s the classic case of adults in a room, and one of them isn’t consenting. In frustration, in anger, in fear, In passionate rage, you pick up something or other, and knock her over the head. To subdue her—get her to stop screaming. Probably even you were surprised when she crumpled and sank to your feet.”
Flynn rubbed one green eye with the palm of his huge hand.
“Now, Mister Fletcher, why isn’t that the obvious truth?”
“Inspector? Do you think it is the truth?”
“No. I don’t.”
He pressed the palms of both hands against his eyes.
“At least not at the moment,” he said. “If you’d been drinking—yes, I’d believe it in a moment. If you were less attractive, I’d believe it. What else do these girls hang around for, if it’s not the Peter Fletchers of the old? If you were less self-possessed, I’d believe it. It’s my guess it would take less cool to get rid of a resisting girl than go through an initial police questioning for murder. Never can tell, though—we all have our moments. If you hadn’t called the Police Business phone, I’d be quicker to believe in your being in an impassioned, uncontrollable state. No. I don’t believe it, either.”
Graver said, “You mean, we’re not arresting him, Inspector?”
“No, Grover.” Flynn stood up. “My instinct is against it.”
“Sir!”
“I’m sure you’re right, Grover, but you must remember I haven’t the benefit of your splendid training. I’m sure any experienced policeman would put Mister Fletcher behind bars faster than a babe can fall asleep. It’s times like these, Grover, that inexperience counts.”
“Inspector Flynn…”
“Tush, tush. If the man’s guilty, and he most likely is, there’ll be more evidence of it. If I hadn’t seen the suitcases in the hall myself, I’d think the whole thing was a pack of lies. I suspect it is, you know. I’ve never met a writer-on-the-arts before, but I’ve not considered them such a randy, subspecies before, either.”
Fletch said, ,“I expect you’re going to tell me not to leave town.”
“I’m not even going to say that. In fact, Mister Fletcher, I’d find it very interesting if you did leave town.”
“I’ll send you a postcard.”
Flynn looked at his watch.
“Well, now, if Grover drives me home, I’ll be just in time for my cup of camomile with my Elizabeth and my suckling.”
“I will, Inspector.” Grover opened the door to the empty apartment. “I want to talk to you.”
“I’m sure you do, Grover. I’m sure you do.”