I drove up to the Hall of Justice, found a good place to park and parked the bus.
I waited for half an hour that seemed like eternity. Then Billy Prue came bustling out of the lighted entrance, looked up and down the street, turned to the right and started walking with quick, businesslike steps as though she knew exactly where she was going.
I waited until she had nearly a block head start, then slipped the car into gear.
After a couple of blocks she began to look around for a taxicab.
I slid the car up close to the curb, rolled down the window and said, “Want a lift?”
She looked at me at first dubiously, then with recognition, then with anger.
“You may as well,” I said. “It doesn’t cost any more.”
She came across and jerked the door open. “So you snitched on me. I should have known it.”
I said wearily, “Don’t be a damn fool. I’m trying to give you a break.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“It’s a long story.”
“You’d better tell it.”
I said, “Somebody planted the murder weapon in my car while it was parked out in front of Cullingdon’s place.”
Her startled gasp of surprise might have been overdone or it might not.
I said, “Naturally, they hauled me over the coals. Bertha Cool, that’s my partner, thought you’d snared me into it.”
“And so blabbed to the police?”
“Don’t be silly. She isn’t that dumb.”
“Well, how did it happen...?”
I said, “Bertha Cool was sore. She made some crack about me having bought three packages of cigarettes and Frank Sellers, of Homicide, apparently didn’t even notice the crack. That’s when I knew where you were.”
“I don’t get it,” she said.
I said, “Sellers isn’t so dumb. If he hadn’t known all about you, he’d have jumped on that opening about the three cigarette packs and pried enough information out of Bertha so he’d have known what he was after. He ignored it — just didn’t seem to hear it so I knew he’d found out all about you. And if he’d found out all about you before he came to call on me, it was a damn good bet that you were being held at the D.A.’s office. The only thing I didn’t know is whether they were going to hold you or turn you loose. I couldn’t have stuck it out for more than another half hour, but I...”
A shivering fit gripped me. I put on the brake and slowed the car, but by gripping the wheel, didn’t show how I was shaking.
Billy Prue kept looking at me. After a minute the fit passed and I speeded up the car again.
“So,” Billy Prue said, “I came out and you were waiting — for what?”
“To see you.”
“What about?”
“To compare notes.”
“On what?”
“How did that murder weapon get in my car while it was parked out at Cullingdon’s?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try again.”
“I’m telling you the truth, Donald. I don’t know.”
I said, “I don’t like to be played for a fall guy.”
“I shouldn’t think you would.”
“And when I don’t like something, I do something about it.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t know anything at all about it.”
I drove along slowly and said, “Let’s look at the thing this way. You go out to Cullingdon’s. You’re frightened. You want a witness. You take me back and pull a razzle-dazzle about finding Stanberry’s body. Then you go to Rimley’s and I duck out as you could have known I would. I walked a half a dozen blocks before I found a cab. The cab took me up to 906 South Graylord Avenue and I picked up my car and drove back to the agency, had a talk with my partner and then drove out to see Archie Stanberry.”
“Well?” she asked as I stopped.
“There was plenty of time for Rimley to have the murder weapon dropped in my car before I got there,” I said.
“And you think he dashed out and planted the weapon and...?”
“Don’t be silly. He simply picked up the telephone and said to someone, ‘Donald Lam’s car is parked out at 906 South Graylord Avenue. It would be a swell place for the police to discover the murder weapon because Billy Prue had him with her when the body was discovered. The police will think he’s mixed up in it and...’ ”
“Baloney!” she interrupted.
I said, “I know — it’s easy to pull that stuff.”
“If you’d use your head for a minute, you’d realize that that would be the last thing on earth that Pittman Rimley would do. The minute you are brought into it, that attracts attention once more to me. That’s why they had me down at the D.A.’s office and gave me such a grilling. I couldn’t understand it, unless it was because you had double-crossed me.”
I pulled the car into the curb and stopped. It was a quiet, business street with virtually no traffic and a few lights. The little one story store buildings were all closed up.
“Is this where I get out and walk?” she asked nervously.
I said, “I’ve got something to say.”
“Go on and say it.”
I said, “I went out to the Rimley Rendezvous. You told me to get out. I didn’t get out. The head waiter sent me in to see Rimley. Rimley told me to get out and stay out.”
“Well,” she said, “tell me something I didn’t know already.”
I said, “Rimley’s wrist watch was an hour fast. The clock on his mantel was an hour fast.”
She sat absolutely motionless. I don’t think she was even breathing.
“Is that something new?” I asked.
She kept perfectly still.
I said, “We found the body of Rufus Stanberry in your bathtub. His wrist watch was an hour slow.”
“What does Mr. Master Mind deduce from that?” she asked, trying to be facetious and making a botch of it.
“From that,” I said, “I deduce that Rimley was building himself an alibi. He arranged to have his clock and his watch an hour fast. Probably Stanberry had been in there. Perhaps shortly before that Stanberry went into the rest room and took off his wrist watch when he washed his hands. The rest room attendant was under orders to set the watch an hour fast.”
She said without any particular expression, “An hour fast?”
“That’s what I said.”
“But you just said that when we found his wrist watch, it was an hour slow.”
“Do I have to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s?”
You’d better. Since you started making i’s and t’s — you’d better finish them up artistically.”
I said, “Rimley was working out a slick alibi. Stanberry went in to see Rimley after his watch had been tampered with. Rimley took occasion to call Stanberry’s attention to the time. Stanberry didn’t realize it was that late, but he checked his watch with Rimley’s clock. And then to reassure him, Rimley showed him his wrist watch. From there on it’s just a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth.”
“What do you mean?”
I said, “When you discovered Stanberry’s body, you knew that his watch should be an hour fast. You didn’t know what time it was because you don’t wear a wrist watch. You simply took it for granted that Stanberry’s wrist watch was an hour fast, so you set it back an hour. But someone else, who also knew that the wrist watch was an hour fast, had already set it back an hour.”
She was silent for so long that I looked at her to see if she might have fainted.