Periodically, I wanted to think—as though something would happen if I did, as though something would break and, at the center of that something, I would find the answer. But not so. No matter how closely I examined the events hovering about Giles in that less-than-a-day after I had seen him alive, I could find nothing that could serve as a reasonable prelude to murder.
Well, one step I might take would be to fill the remaining lacuna at the autographing session, so I put in a call to Hercules Books. It would take too much time to walk there and back, and too much money to taxi there and back, if Nellie Griswold wasn’t there. If she was there, it might serve the purpose to talk by tele—
«Hercules,» the telephone told me.
I asked for Nellie Griswold and the telephone operator was agreeable but the voice that answered the proper extension disclaimed the identity. She told me in a semi-childish semi-treble that Miss Griswold was at the ABA convention.
«Are you sure?» I said, which was a silly question. How could anyone be sure?
The owner of the voice wasn’t so semi-childish as not to see that point. She said cautiously, «She’s supposed to be.»
«All right. I’ll walk over. Thank you,» and I hung up.
I looked at my watch. It was well after three. If she was there, she would remain there for perhaps two hours.
I went back to the hotel, still thinking, braced by the fact that it was a sunny, mild, and entirely pleasant afternoon.
There were two things—no, three—that puzzled me.
First, was there any connection with drugs? God knows, I have no gift for looking deeply into a man’s soul, but I had lived with Giles and I knew him to an extent. He despised coffee because of the caffeine; he worried about food additives; he was forever on the verge of toppling over into natural foods.
Of course, a man can compartmentalize his life. I knew lots of natural-food freaks who inveighed against the damage chemicals did while peering through the smoke of chains of cigarettes out of eyes whose lids were covered with oily colored gunk.
There was his writing. I had known it well in its early stages and there were numerous sections that I would consider as representing views incompatible with drug addiction. And yet might that be taken in reverse? Every stick pointed in two directions, one opposed to the other.
The second was the question of his complaint against me.
He had gone through torture during the autographing session and Sarah had heard him mutter my name in anger. I would like to get corroboration of that and perhaps greater detail, and Nellie Griswold might supply it.
Finally, there was the question of the woman who had brought him in that morning. Had no one seen her? The more I thought of it, the more it seemed to me she might have been with him all morning, and all night before, too, for that matter, and might represent the entire key to the matter.
And with my foot virtually on the escalator to the exhibition floor, the thought of that unknown woman overcame me and I decided to postpone Nellie—for just a little while.
I took the elevator to the fifth floor.
The interview room seemed as hectic as ever. Leo Durocher had just been interviewed concerning his autobiography and I just caught a glimpse of him leaving. For a minute, I stopped to stare at his back, remembering the time twenty years back and more when I had been an ardent baseball fan and he had been one of my villains.
The flash passed; it may have lasted five seconds, not more; and I was grateful to him, then, for supplying me with five seconds in which I totally forgot the convention and its miseries.
But it was only five seconds. It was gone and I turned to look for Henrietta Corvass. She saw me, I suppose, before I saw her, for when I detected her presence, her back was to me and she was just out the door.
I moved quickly and overtook her in the hall about three doorways down and seized her elbow. She shook me off.
«Wait,» I said.
She turned, her eyes narrowed and bitter. «What the hell do you want?»
Clearly, she regretted having talked to me the evening before; she resented the hold I had over her in knowing too much about her. I spread out my hands and said in a low voice, «Nothing about last night. Nothing.»
«Well, then?»
«The morning.»
«What about the morning?»
«You said you hadn’t picked up Giles yesterday morning. Please, think again, and don’t twist things. If you did pick him up—»
She turned to face me full and placed her clenched fists on her hips in an old-fashioned gesture of exasperation I hadn’t seen in years. «You must be crazy,» she said. «Right out of your mind. Do you think, after what happened, I’d go near him?»
«You wouldn’t want him to be late for the autographing session, would you?»
«I didn’t give a f— for the autographing session.» She said it as loudly as she could, and I didn’t wince because the emotion with which she charged it made it the mot juste.
«But somebody brought him. I know that. Who was it?»
«I didn’t send anyone. I told you, I wasn’t even there. If anyone went of their own accord, that’s their business.»
«Who would it be?»
«I don’t know. I don’t care.»
«Would you find out for me?»
«No, I won’t. Find out for yourself.»
And she walked away, her heels making a muffled sound on the carpet of the corridor.
I stared after her nonplussed, and then went back to the interview room.
10 GORDON HAMMER 3:40 P.M.
It was hard to tell which of the individuals were functionaries of the interview department, but I picked a young man with pinched-in cheeks, pale blond hair, and a thin, nervous look about him.
«Listen,» I said, «you’re working in the interview room, aren’t you?»
«What about it?» he asked suspiciously.
«I’m Darius Just; I’m a writer.»
He relaxed visibly. He even smiled. «Oh, sure, I’ve heard of you. My name’s Gordon Hammer.»
«Thank you, Gordon,» I said. «Could you tell me something?»
«I can try.»
«How many women are working here for the convention besides Henrietta?»
«It’s hard to tell. Some are just volunteers who run errands.»
«Ah, I’m after the errand runners. Which of them went to get Giles Devore yesterday morning to see that he got to the autographing session?»
He looked confused. «I don’t think anyone did that. It’s not our job.»
«Someone did,» I said, firmly positive. «Could you find out for me?»
He said weakly, «I don’t see how—» But then he walked over to one of the girls and talked to her in a low voice. Then to another. I kept my eye on him and waited.
When he returned, he was scratching his head. «I don’t think anyone did.»
«Is everyone eliminated entirely? Think, please.»
He said, «It might be Stephanie.»
«Stephanie who?»
«I don’t know her last name.»
«Where is she?»
«She isn’t in today. She just worked Sunday and Monday. She’s back in school now.»
«Do you know her home address?»
«No, but Henrietta might know it.»
«Okay.»
But as I turned to go, he touched me very gently on the shoulder. «Mr. Just?»
«Yes?»
«Has Stephanie done anything wrong? I mean, she’s only fourteen.»
«No, no,» I said hastily. «I’m just checking on something. Giles Devore was a friend of mine and I’m trying to find out as much as possible of his last day for a—for a—eulogy I’m writing.»
It seemed to carry conviction, for a look of great relief came over his face. «I see. Okay.»