“You will,” he said, “notice the initial ‘R’ embroidered on the handkerchief.”
“I noticed it.”
“Miss Renton is an artist?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Quite successful?”
“You are referring to success from a monetary or an artistic standpoint?”
“From both.”
“I know nothing concerning her income.”
“Is that her handkerchief?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say.”
“Did you go directly to Miss Renton’s apartment after you left the Rayborne residence?”
“That depends on what you mean by ‘directly’.”
“Did you take the shortest road?”
“No.”
“Where did you go?”
“Is that important?”
“I consider it is.”
“We drove around a bit.”
“Did your drive take you along Grant Avenue in Chinatown?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask why?”
“We were talking about the subconscious grouping of colors in the Oriental mind. I drove through Chinatown to illustrate a point I had made.”
“Rather an odd hour to make such an illustration, wasn’t it?”
“An artist doesn’t exactly keep office hours.”
“Did Miss Renton seem to have anything on her mind?”
“A young woman of Miss Renton’s intelligence always has something on her mind.”
“That isn’t what I meant. Was she worried? Was she nervous?”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Did she mention that she was in any particular trouble?”
“No.”
“Did she intimate that some person was forcing her to do something against her will?”
“No.”
“Miss Renton uses her maiden name in her profession, but she is in fact a widow, is she not?”
“So I understand.”
“She was married some seven years ago to a Robert Helford?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you when her husband died?”
“In China.”
“You knew her before her marriage?”
“No. I met her afterwards.”
“Through Helford?”
“Yes.”
“In other words, Helford was a close friend. After he married, you naturally visited his house on numerous occasions and became acquainted with his wife. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“How long after Helford’s marriage did you start for China?”
“About six weeks.”
“You left rather suddenly?”
“Yes.”
“Can you fix the exact time you left Miss Renton last night?”
“No.”
“Can you approximate it?”
“Only vaguely. After all, in calling upon an adult woman who is responsible to no one for her actions, one doesn’t sound a curfew.”
“I quite understand that,” Dixon said. “Nevertheless, I have encountered cases, Mr. Clane, in which men were able to fix the time of their departure quite accurately.”
“Indeed,” Clane muttered, as though the statement were most surprising.
“It must have been after one o’clock,” Dixon said.
Clane’s tone implied that he was delighted to find some point upon which he could agree with his interrogator. “I’m quite certain it must have been,” he admitted.
“Was it before two o’clock?”
Clane pursed his lips thoughtfully and said, “It’s so hard to be accurate in these matters, Mr. Dixon.”
There was something ominous in the district attorney’s voice as he said, “I’m giving you an hour’s leeway, Mr. Clane. I think I’m entitled to an answer to that question, and I think I should warn you that the answer may be important — to you.”
“I couldn’t say definitely,” Clane said.
“But it was before three o’clock in the morning?” Dixon persisted.
“I would say so, yes. In fact, I would place it generally as some time between one and two.”
The district attorney’s manner relaxed somewhat.
“You know a George Levering?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you know much about him?”
“I know that he married one of the Renton girls, a sister who died.”
“Know anything else about him?”
“Nothing that I consider important.”
Parker Dixon’s smile was frosty. “Do you know anything about him which I might consider important?”
“As to that, I couldn’t say.”
“Is it true that Cynthia Renton, Alma’s sister, has nothing to do with him, but that he imposes upon Alma to the extent of securing substantial ‘loans’? Is his life of social idler, polo player, and general society hanger-on largely, if not entirely, supported by these ‘loans’?”
“Unfortunately,” Terry said with dignity, “Miss Renton has never seen fit to confide in me concerning her more intimate financial affairs. Strange as it may seem, she prefers to keep these exclusively in her own hands.”
“That will do,” the district attorney said coldly. “There’s no call for sarcasm, Mr. Clane.”
Terry’s calm silence threatened to become an eloquent contradiction.
The district attorney’s forefinger slid surreptitiously across the desk, came to rest casually upon a mother-of-pearl button. His eyes remained fastened on Clane’s face. Terry’s consciousness was focused, not upon the district attorney’s face, but upon that which he observed from the corner of his eye: the all but imperceptible raising of the wrist as Dixon pressed the button, two long and two short signals to someone somewhere.
The district attorney opened the drawer of his desk which held the typewritten report and dropped the handkerchief in on top of the papers. He closed the drawer with an air of finality.
“I had hoped you would be more willing to co-operate,” he said.
“I am answering your questions,” Clane pointed out. “Cooperation implies a definite mutual objective.”
The district attorney hesitated a moment, then switched abruptly to another attack.
“You know Jacob Mandra, the bail-bond broker?” he asked.
“I have met him.”
“Did you know him before you went to China?”
Terry sought to maintain an unyielding formality as a barrier through which the district attorney might not break.
“No. I looked him up after my return in order to verify an opinion I had previously formed.”
“Why?”
“He wrote, asking me to pick up a certain object for him, and offering very substantial remuneration.”
“What was this object?”
“I’d prefer to have you ask Mr. Mandra.”
“Unfortunately, that is impossible.”
“ ‘Impossible’ is a very definite word.”
The district attorney ignored the comment. “By any chance, Mr. Clane, was that object a sleeve gun?”
Terry hesitated for almost three seconds, then said, “Yes, it was a sleeve gun.”
“Precisely what is a sleeve gun?”
“It’s a tube of hollow bamboo, containing a powerful spring and a catch which is released by pressure. A metal-tipped dart can be inserted in the bamboo and pushed back against the tension of the spring until it’s engaged by the catch, which holds it in position. The device is some nine inches long. It can readily be inserted up the rather copious sleeve of a Chinese gentleman, or, for that matter, a woman. By resting the forearm on a table or other hard object, the catch is depressed and the dart is released.”
“It’s a deadly weapon?”
“Very deadly.”
“By deadly, I mean it can kill a man?”