They were well served and they ate while Tony Mitchell joked and ragged them. Through it all Harry was conscious only of the heat of her pressing thigh, the caresses of her secretive fingers. They lingered over dessert and coffee and Drambuie, and then, after the table was cleared, they drank more coffee and more Drambuie; and he got a little drunk, and his tongue loosened, and he even laughed several times. And then, at about eleven o’clock, Tony said, “Did you come in your car, Harry?”
“Yes.”
“Then suppose you take the lady home. I’ve got to get a good night’s sleep tonight — I’m due in court in the morning on a tricky case. You don’t mind, do you, Karen? And don’t bother to lie. Waiter?”
They left Tony Mitchell paying the check.
He drove her home and double-parked in the gloom of Park Avenue near the Greshams’ duplex. She threw herself into his arms, kissing, straining, clinging. “I love you, I love you, I love you...”
Harry Brown said nothing. He clutched her and said nothing. What was there to say?
“What are we going to do, darling? What are we going to do?”
He made no answer. He had no answer.
Then she said, “He’s going out of town for the weekend. I’ll see you Friday night and Saturday night and Sunday night. Alone. No one else. Yes? Yes, Harry?”
“Yes.”
“Good night.”
“I’ll take you in.”
“Not tonight, darling. See you Friday. I’ll call you the moment he’s gone.”
He drove downtown, guilt rumbling within him. Was he in love? Was he? He was certainly infatuated. But love... marriage...? She had been honest with him: She had married a rich old man quite simply for his riches — God knew he could understand that! — and she could not face the thought of losing it. Gresham would give her no grounds for divorce; he was mad about her. And if she should provide the grounds, she would get nothing. And yet... I love you, Harry. What are we going to do?
He slid into the parking space before his house on Barrow Street and locked the car.
The dingy lobby was empty. He rode the creaky self-service elevator to the third floor, unlocked his apartment door, locked it behind him, snapped the light switch in the vestibule, threw his hat into the hall closet and went into the living room, fumbling for the switch. He found it and flicked it on and saw the girl.
She was slight and blonde, staring up at him with wide-open eyes from the armchair. She wore a plain black suit, a white blouse, and black patent-leather shoes that glittered in the light. He had never seen her before.
“Hello?” Dr. Harry Brown said with a frown. “Who are you? How did you get into my apartment?”
She did not answer. Just stared up at him.
Then he knew.
He went to her swiftly.
She was dead.
Two
The man in charge reminded him comfortably of his father — an elderly, very tall, grizzled, and slightly stooped man, in clothes that hung as though they were a size too large for him. His gray eyes were clear, compassionate and weary, his voice slow, deep-toned, without urgency. He had introduced himself as Detective Lieutenant Galivan. While the technicians were busy with their apparatus, Galivan talked quietly with him.
“You’re sure you’ve never seen her before, Doctor?”
“Never in my life.”
“Do you have any idea who she might be?”
“Not the slightest.”
“A patient, maybe?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Someone who might have come to your office with a patient?”
“It’s possible, I suppose. All I can tell you is that, to the best of my recollection, I’ve never laid eyes on her before.”
“And you have no idea — no idea at all — what she’s doing in your apartment?”
“It ought to be obvious,” Harry Brown said angrily. “Even to a cop. She’s dead in my apartment.”
“Whoa, Doctor. Take it easy. If you’re telling the truth—”
“Are you doubting me, for God’s sake?”
“—then I can understand your state of mind.” The detective showed his small tobacco-yellowed teeth in a smile. “But please try to understand mine. If you’re telling the truth, as I started to say, this doesn’t make much sense, does it? A woman you never laid eyes on turning up dead in your apartment?”
“No, it doesn’t. But here she is.”
Galivan looked at him. Harry Brown felt as if he were being gone over by a vacuum cleaner. “Your door was locked?”
“Yes! Locked when I left this morning, locked when I got back tonight.”
“And you’ve never given anyone a duplicate key to the lock?”
“I’ve already answered that! Not even the janitor has a key. I installed that lock myself when I took the apartment.”
“Sure is a funny one,” the detective murmured. He took out a pipe and a tobacco pouch and deliberately filled the pipe. Harry Brown waited, seething. Only when he had his pipe going smoothly did Galivan go on. “By the way, the Assistant Medical Examiner says she’s been dead for a number of hours.”
“I know that,” said Harry sarcastically. “I’m a physician, remember?”
“And you say you haven’t been back here all day?”
“That’s right. I left at eleven this morning.”
“She hasn’t been dead nearly that long, so that’s one in your favor, Doc. If you’re telling the truth, that is. You sure you didn’t come back here during the day?”
He fought for control. “I’m sure, yes.”
“I had dinner out with friends.”
“How about this evening?”
“Well, wouldn’t you have had to come back to change your clothes?”
“I did that at my office. Showered, shaved, got into fresh clothing at about seven o’clock.”
“We can check that, Dr. Brown.”
“You do that!”
Galivan smiled again. “Murphy?” A bulky crew-cut young plainclothesman strolled over. “Dr. Brown says he showered, shaved and changed his clothes in his office at seven o’clock this evening. He’s going to give you the key to his office — right, Doctor?”
In silence Harry unhooked the key from his key ring and handed it to Murphy.
“What’s the address?” the plainclothesman asked mildly.
Harry told him.
Murphy nodded and strolled out.
“Young Murphy’s pretty good at that sort of thing, Doc,” Galivan murmured. “I hope you’re telling the truth.” Harry compressed his lips. He was suddenly very tired. “And then,” the detective continued, “you went out to dinner. Where?”
“The Big Dipper. Met my friends there at a little after eight — Anthony Mitchell, he’s a lawyer, and a Mrs. Gresham, a patient of mine whom I know socially through Mr. Mitchell.” He tried to keep his voice at the same level of mere annoyance. They mustn’t suspect about Karen and him; they mustn’t find out. “I dropped Mrs. Gresham off at’ her apartment house on Park Avenue around eleven P.M., then drove on home to find this.”
“You put in the call to us, Doc, how long after you found her?”
“Seconds, my friend, seconds.”
“I see. This Mr. Mitchell and Mrs. Gresham — can I have their addresses?”
“I don’t see why you have to drag my friends into this!”
“Nobody’s dragging anybody into anything, Dr. Brown. It’s just a routine checkout of your story. Their addresses?”
Harry gave him Tony’s address and Karen’s address.
The detective jotted them down, puffing on his pipe. “Oh, by the way, Doctor,” he mumbled as he wrote. “Do much of a business in abortions?”