Billings laughed. “I particularly dislike stealing dead bodies, Dan,” he said. “What else have you against me?”
“That’s plenty. You killed this woman’s first husband and you love her so much that you killed her second husband.”
“In the first place I didn’t kill her first husband. I was acquitted.”
“Sure. She cried you loose.”
“And far from killing her second husband, I didn’t know she was married to Conlin. I never saw the man and don’t know what he looks like. And I don’t love Mrs. Conlin. I hate the woman. Dan, she used me as a cat’s-paw in Chicago. She was having an affair with Conlin all the time she was going around with me. I believe that Conlin killed Jim Crane. I left Chicago right after the trial and she married Conlin.”
“That’s a better motive for killing him than the one I thought of,” said O’Hara enthusiastically. “You killed him because he let you stand the gaff for a crime he committed in Chicago. That motive is good enough to send you to the chair, my boy.”
“Well,” said Billings slowly. “You can’t identify the body as Conlin’s because the body has disappeared. And you can’t prove that Conlin didn’t spend the night in New Bedford and New York. Conlin is alive and in hiding somewhere. So I don’t think you’re going to arrest me for killing him. Furthermore, you’re a shrewd old Mick and it’s not like you to tip off a suspect that you have the goods on him, even when you haven’t. Exactly what is your purpose in handing me this line, Dan?”
“I want to show you where you stand,” replied O’Hara. “You’re in a bad spot, feller. You’ve that case in Chicago against you. Men have been convicted on less evidence than I’ve mentioned, and it isn’t absolutely necessary to produce the dead body. It was seen by the proper officials—”
“But not identified as Conlin.”
“When we get the confession of the woman who was supposed to have been with him in New Bedford, we can dispense with that identification. The presumption will be that it was Conlin.”
“You couldn’t get an indictment against me as things stand,” said Billings.
“Maybe not, but I can throw you in jail as a material witness until I get the evidence and I’m going to do that unless you come clean.”
“In what respect?”
“Either this was Conlin who was killed or it was somebody else. If it was somebody else, you know who it was. There were two men in your plane when you took off from Plymouth and only one when you landed in New Bedford. The other man was John Smith. And it was John Smith who was killed, if it wasn’t Conlin.”
“You’ve got me as murdering somebody whichever way the cat jumps.”
“Well now, Jack,” said Dan frankly. “You don’t impress me as a killer, but I don’t set much store on impressions. When I have the goods on a guy, I don’t care if he looks as meek as Moses. You got information that the government needs. And you stand an elegant chance of being fried in the chair if you don’t explain what you were doing in Nantucket around the time that murder was committed and make it a convincing explanation.”
“I do not admit coming here on Thursday by plane or leaving the same night. I doubt that you can prove I did so. I can prove by reliable witnesses exactly where I spent Thursday night.”
“Tim Moriaty’s witnesses,” sneered O’Hara.
“Their testimony will be acceptable to a court.”
“Don’t you want to help me clear this case up?” asked O’Hara.
Billings laughed. “At one minute you accuse me of murder. At the next you want me to help you. You’re not in the least convinced of my guilt, Dan.”
“Well,” said the detective with a grin, “I’m not sure you did it, but I’ll bet my life that it was R. J. Conlin who was killed in that house.”
Billings was silent for a moment. “O’Hara,” he said, finally. “You want to get this killer. This noon I had a talk with Tim Moriaty on his yacht. He told me that one of his men passed on a request from you for help from him in running down the murderer. He has his own reasons for wanting the murderer caught and he ordered me to do everything I can to get the goods on the killer.”
“Did he now? I told George Lake that if he didn’t hop to it, I’d pin it on the bootleggers.”
“Well, he has passed the word along in New York to turn up any information possible. Moriaty had nothing whatever to do with this crime. I’m still in his employ so that ought to let me out.”
“You had it in for Conlin,” began O’Hara.
“That’s an obsession with you,” said Jack impatiently. “Look here, O’Hara. I’m going to tell you something in strictest confidence. If you ever use it I’ll call you a liar. We have nobody listening-in to corroborate your statement. And it’s a Federal matter which has nothing to do with you.”
“I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“I’m confiding in you to convince you that the dead man was not Conlin.”
“Shoot. Have you got any more of them cigars?”
Jack produced his box of cigars and both men lit up.
“For a couple of years,” said Billings, “the Internal Revenue people have been trying to get Tim on concealed income as they did Capone. Six months ago they arrested Harry Haywood, a close friend of Tim’s and proved that Haywood had millions of assets which he had not declared in his income tax statement. They sent him to Atlanta for five years and he began serving his sentence less than two months ago.”
“It’s news to me, and I don’t see what it had to do with this case.”
“You will. Haywood, of course, was concealing Tim’s money and took the rap for him. Tim promised to have him out in six weeks and he kept his word.”
Dan nodded. “I remember now. This fellow escaped from Atlanta a week ago or so.”
“Six weeks ago the Rapidan-Sears house was hired, servants engaged and a man named John Smith was supposed to have arrived and to be living there. Actually nobody was living there. On last Thursday I met Haywood in Plymouth and took off with him in a plane — I have a pilot’s license — landed him on the moor and walked with him to the Rapidan-Sears house. I introduced him to the servants, went back to my plane and landed in New Bedford. So Mr. Smith was at home Thursday night.”
“Now you’re talking!” said Dan excitedly.
“While government officers would be searching everywhere for the escaped convict, they would not suspect John Smith who had been living in ’Sconset for six weeks before Haywood escaped from Atlanta.”
“Damn clever. Then the servants killed Haywood. But who killed the servants?”
“Haywood had twenty thousand in cash in his possession.” continued Billings. “Robbery might have been the motive for killing him.”
Dan scratched his head. “Let me get this straight,” he pleaded. “Haywood was killed within an hour or two after he moved into the house.”
“So it seems.”
“And it was Haywood, not Conlin?”
“That is my opinion.”
“Then why was his face bashed in?”
“I don’t know.”
“So he couldn’t be identified as Haywood, of course.”
“That seems likely.”
“Then Conlin did leave Nantucket; he did go to New York and he vanished because his firm was busted, and I’ve been wasting my time.”
“It looks like it,” said Billings, grinning at O’Hara’s discomfiture.
“Some gangsters in New York that didn’t like Haywood polished him off.”
“He was kept under cover. I don’t think anybody knew where he was going to hide except myself and Moriaty — by George—”
“What?”
“R. J. Conlin knew it!” exclaimed Billings. “He had secret relations with Big Tim. It was Conlin who arranged the leasing of this house. He told Tim that ’Sconset was an ideal hideaway, which means that Tim must have told him he wanted to hide Haywood when he succeeded in getting Harry out of Atlanta. And according to the papers, Conlin’s firm was broke, which means that he had very little money himself.”