He took out another cigarette and lit it. I watched him smoke. I wondered what he was thinking now.
I said: “You had to be the killer. If Bannister had killed her he would have turned the place upside-down. But you’re a neat man. You wouldn’t confuse a search with a sacking. You must have cleaned as you searched.”
“It was easier that way.”
“And you left her there,” I said. “You couldn’t find the briefcase so you kept the apartment under as close surveillance as you could. There was a limit — you were alone, and you couldn’t be there all the time. You didn’t see my friend visit the apartment. But you saw me and thought I took the briefcase.”
He shook his head. “I thought you had it all along. I thought you were working with her.”
“Same thing.” I shrugged. “That’s what I got so far. Also that you were the one who took a potshot at me when I was heading up the stairs to my apartment. Just a warning, I guess. So I’d be in a mood to team up with you.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill you.”
“Of course not. When you really tried to kill someone, you didn’t miss. I was a sitting duck there, wasn’t I? But that was just a warning. Last night you didn’t miss.”
“Last night?”
“I know about it,” I said. “I ran into the guy outside. He was in the lobby and he followed us when we left here. Maybe he thought I was a buddy of yours. Maybe he wanted to talk to me. I’ll never know.”
He shrugged.
“He was an old friend of yours,” I went on. “I never got to know his name. Did you know it?”
“No.”
“Just a little man with a harmless face. One of the little men who spent some time in that camp of yours across the ocean. A concentration camp victim looking for you. He found you, too. How long was he on your trail?”
“He wasn’t.”
“No?”
“He lived in New York, Mr. London. And he saw me, here in New York. And recognized me.”
“And got killed for it.”
“He’d have killed me, Mr. London.” His shoulders heaved in another shrug. “He was willing to risk death. He cared only for revenge.”
“And he got his revenge. I might have had trouble making the final connection without him. But the forearm tattoo gave it away. You had to be Wallstein then. Everything fit into place.”
“You were lucky.”
“I know that,” I said. “Well, that’s what I got. Did I come close?”
His lips curled into a smile. His chuckle sounded happy. “Too close,” he said. “Far too close. There are points here and there where you’re wrong. But they are really immaterial, Mr. London. They do not matter.” He heaved a sigh. “I never thought you would guess this much. How did you figure it out?”
I watched him put out his cigarette. He didn’t seem nervous at all. He was more interested in seeing where he missed the boat than in finding a way out. There was no reason not to tell him. It wouldn’t do him any good to know.
“A magician would say you made too much use of misdirection,” I told him. “An actress friend of mine would say you over-acted. From the start I had to figure out where you belonged in the overall scheme of things. Your routine about making a living by being in the right place at the right time was a little far-fetched. You knew too much. You had to belong somewhere in the middle of things. At first I guessed you were one of the thieves.”
“That’s what I wished you to think.”
I nodded. “But you sold that too hard. You made a point of telling me what Wallstein was like, being careful to describe someone wholly unlike yourself. You made him tall and blond, a typical SS type, while you yourself are short and dark. You pictured him as a thoroughly unattractive character, one of whom you disapproved highly. Franz Wallstein, obviously, was not the kind of man you like.”
A slight smile. “And perhaps that was not wholly untrue.”
“Maybe not. But I wondered how you would know so much about Wallstein, even if you were one of the thieves. It seemed unlikely. And it was just as funny for you to waste so much time telling me about him. I had to guess you were selling me a bill of goods.”
“Was that all?”
I shook my head. “There was more. You gave me a lot of surface detail on the profession of larceny. But you never got around to describing the very brilliant crime in which the jewels were stolen. From that I guessed that there hadn’t been any crime. You were Wallstein and you stole your own jewels.”
He was nodding, digesting all of it. “More,” I said. “I tied you to Alicia Arden from the start. Not from what you said about her — you were properly vague. But you always called her Alicia, never used anything but the first name. I was Mr. London to you every time. Bannister was Mr. Bannister. Once I realized you weren’t one of the thieves, the rest came easily.”
He looked away. “I didn’t even realize it,” he said. “I guess she was always Alicia to me and nothing else. Of course.”
He looked up at me again, his jaw set, his eyes steady. “I could offer you a great deal of money,” he said. “But you have the keys as it stands. You can get the jewels without my help. Besides, I suspect a bribe would have no effect on you.”
I told him it wouldn’t.
He sighed. “What next, Mr. London? Where do we proceed from here?”
“That’s up to you,” I said.
“May I smoke, Mr. London?”
I told him to go ahead. I raised the gun to cover him but he didn’t make any false movements. He shook out a cigarette, put it to his lips, set the end on fire with his lighter. The cigarette didn’t flare up and blind me. The lighter wasn’t a cleverly camouflaged gun. He lit his cigarette and he smoked it.
I lowered the gun.
“If you turn me in,” he said, “you’ll be faced with problems.”
“I know.”
“The police will want to know about your part. You broke a law or two yourself. You moved a body. You were an accessory after the fact of murder.”
“I know.”
“Withholding information — another crime. Not to mention Mr. Bannister’s heart attack.”
“That was self-defense.”
“You might have difficulty proving that to the police. They might call it murder. You might go to jail.”
I shrugged. “Not if I handed you to them,” I said. “I think they’d make allowances.”
He pursed his lips. “Perhaps,” he said. “You’re licensed as a private detective, aren’t you? Couldn’t they revoke your license?”
“If they wanted to.”
“So much trouble,” he said. “And they probably wouldn’t even hang me. They might, but I doubt it. It would be hard to prove murder, harder still to prove premeditation. I might get life imprisonment. But not death.”
“You quoted ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ a while back, I reminded him. “Know the rest of it?”
He nodded. “I’m fond of Oscar Wilde.”
“Then you remember his description of prison. And of course you had something to do with a prison yourself, didn’t you?”
“Our prisons were worse, Mr. London. Much worse. The Austrian corporal had unhappy ideas. American prisons are not like that.”
“They’re no bed of roses,” I said. “And if they do electrocute you, it won’t be nice. It’s worse than being murdered. All the anticipation before hand. It’s not nice.”
We sat and looked at each other for minute or two. The verbal fencing wasn’t a hell of a lot of fun. I wanted to be out of there, to get away from him.
“So the situation is unhappy for us both,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be simpler to let me go free?”