Levering was surprised into betrayal.
“You can’t do that,” he explained. “That’s all settled. It’s completely fixed up.”
“Do you hold Shield’s written release?”
“Not exactly that, but it’s all cleaned up, it’s all taken care of.”
“The hell it is,” Terry said. “I want some money out of you and I’m going to get it.”
Levering suddenly became conscious of his surroundings.
“I can’t talk with you now,” he said, “but I can explain the entire situation to your satisfaction. If you’ll only talk with your client, he’ll explain exactly how it is. You don’t want to press this thing. It wouldn’t look good for him. I have your name. I’ll call you later. Good-bye.”
The telephone slammed in Terry’s ear.
Clane broke the connexion at his end, and turned from the telephone to encounter the genial smile of Inspector Malloy.
“Well now, Mr. Clane,” the Inspector said, “what have you been up to? Co-operating with us again?”
“What do you want?” Clane asked, but the impatience of his tone failed to ruffle the Inspector’s breezy good nature.
“It’s too bad to inconvenience you again,” Malloy said, “but the district attorney wants to see you. The first thing I said when he told me to bring you in was...”
“Ain’t that too bad!” Terry interrupted.
Malloy’s face showed hurt surprise.
“You see,” Terry grinned, “I had a dictograph into the district attorney’s office.”
Malloy frowned and said, “One of these days you and your accomplice, Cynthia Renton, will learn that a murder case isn’t an occasion for making wisecracks. How come you’re not attending the conference of witnesses in Howland’s office?”
“I walked out on Howland,” Terry said.
“Yes, we know you did. Why?”
Terry shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh well,” Malloy observed, “we’ll pick the others up as soon as Howland gets done with them, so you can meet all of your friends. We’ve got a tip that Howland’s getting ready to pull one of his fast ones.”
“So you’re going to interrogate all his witnesses and beat him to the punch?” Terry asked.
Inspector Malloy’s voice showed hurt reproach. “Why, Mr. Clane,” he said, “we wouldn’t do anything like that. We wouldn’t interfere with the witnesses for the defence. We don’t want to talk with them because they’re witnesses; we just want to go over the facts of the case with them in view of certain new developments which have been uncovered.”
“More facts?” Terry asked.
Malloy’s grin was triumphant. “Well,” he said, “we got to wondering just how that portrait of Mandra could have left Juanita’s apartment, so we started to check up on the apartment house where she lives, and bless my soul, if we didn’t discover that a young man had rented the adjoining apartment. That young man’s description agreed with yours, Clane.
“You could have knocked me over with a feather when the manager of the apartment house described this young man. But duty is duty, and I went up and searched that apartment. We couldn’t find any clothes or any evidence that the place had been occupied, except some bits of wood on a shelf in the closet. They were innocent-looking bits of wood, but when we fitted them together we found that they’d originally been the board backing of a painting, with drawing-pins stuck in the side. So then we got to prowling around, looking under the carpet and places like that, and we found the portrait of Mandra which had been stolen from Juanita’s apartment. Juanita identified it. The taxi driver identified it. The manager of the apartment house identified it.”
Inspector Malloy stared accusingly at Terry Clane.
Clane sighed. “And so we go to see the district attorney once more, is that it?”
“Those were my instructions.”
“Do we take a taxicab?”
“If you pay for it.”
“And if I don’t?”
“That,” Malloy announced, “would be too bad. It would be...”
Terry held up his hand. “Taxi!” he called.
15
Parker Dixon smiled with his lips. His eyes were as coldly watchful as those of a pugilist studying an opponent in the ring.
“I’m afraid, Mr. Clane,” he said, “that you haven’t been entirely frank with me.” And he glanced across the room to where a shorthand reporter was seated at a small table, taking down everything that was said.
Terry said, “I’ve tried to co-operate.”
“Co-operate?” Dixon asked.
“Yes.”
“With whom?” the district attorney demanded, a trace of irritation showing in his voice.
“I’ve tried to co-operate with you and Inspector Malloy,” Terry assured him.
“A little more co-operation such as you have given us would have plunged the case into hopeless confusion. There was, for instance, the rather mysterious manner in which this Chinese girl disappeared from your apartment. How do you explain that?”
“As I told you earlier,” Terry said, “co-operation implies a mutual objective definitely known to both parties. Therefore, I might as well ask why you didn’t tell me you had planted a dictograph in my apartment.”
Inspector Malloy said, “You can bounce words off of him like rubber balls off a brick wall, Dixon, it doesn’t bother him! Nothing hazes him. He looks sweet and innocent but he moves around like a greased pig in...”
“Never mind, Jim,” the district attorney interrupted, without taking his eyes from Clane. “Incidentally, Mr. Clane, I didn’t call you in to engage in a verbal exchange. I called you in to give you one last chance to give a satisfactory account of your connexion with the Mandra murder and to explain your subsequent activities, particularly your theft of Mandra’s portrait from the apartment of his widow.
“Please understand, Mr. Clane, I am not seeking information now. I have the information. I am giving you one last chance to justify your actions.”
Terry remained silent.
“Do I gather,” Dixon said, “that you have nothing to add to what you have said?”
“If you’ll specify just what points you want me to declare myself on, I’ll be glad to answer questions,” Terry told him.
“Why did you leave Howland’s office this afternoon before the others arrived?”
“I had a difference of opinion with Mr. Howland.”
“What about?”
“About a matter which has nothing whatever to do with the facts of the case.”
“Did it have something to do with Miss Renton’s defence? With her testimony, perhaps?”
Clane raised his eyebrows. “Is it possible,” he inquired coldly, “that you have summoned me here to interrogate me concerning Mr. Howland’s plans for Miss Renton’s defence?”
Dixon acknowledged he had lost a point by lowering eyes, but a moment later he had raised them to stare searchingly at Clane.
“I’m going to have Alma Renton and Mr. George Levering brought in here,” he said. “My men picked them up as they left Howland’s office. I’m going to interrogate them concerning the substitution of paintings. I want you to be present at that conversation. If anything is said which doesn’t coincide with your recollection, I’d be glad to have you advise me. I don’t want to make any threats, Mr. Clane, but I think I am justified in saying that the only thing which can possibly keep you from being charged with a very serious crime is the question of your intent.”
“Therefore,” Terry said, smiling cheerfully, “if I assist you in making a case against Alma as an accessory you’ll know my intentions are all right, and I probably won’t be arrested, whereas, if I don’t do so, you’ll know my intentions are wrong and prosecute me as an accessory. Is that right?”