“I didn’t say that,” Dixon retorted.
“You didn’t say that, but isn’t that the idea you wished to convey?”
The district attorney shrugged his shoulders and said, “I think, Mr. Clane, that we have pursued this phase of the conversation quite far enough. After all, I think you understand your own position and I am now quite certain that you appreciate mine.”
He slid his finger along the desk to the push button, and a moment later, apparently in response to the signal, a young woman opened the door and Alma Renton and George Levering were ushered into the room.
“Be seated,” the district attorney invited. “You both know Mr. Clane, of course. I want to ask a few questions.”
“The understanding being,” Clane warned, in a slow, amused drawl, “that if you don’t answer those questions truly and correctly, I’m to interpolate a word here and there. That’s the price I’m being asked to pay for my own freedom.”
Alma glanced swiftly at him and said, “Terry!” her voice sharp with incredulity.
Levering nodded his head, and there was something of smirking satisfaction in the gesture, as though he were saying, “You may surprise Alma by turning stool pigeon but you haven’t surprised me.”
Dixon leveled his eyes at Alma Renton.
“When did you first know your sister had murdered Mandra?” he asked.
Terry’s comment came with the effortless ease of a polished toastmaster recalling a well-worn story.
“Permit me to make a correction, Mr. Dixon. She didn’t know her sister had murdered Mandra for the simple reason that her sister didn’t commit the murder.”
The district attorney’s eyes shifted to Terry.
“That remark, Mr. Clane, indicates a knowledge, on your part of who did murder Mandra.”
Terry nodded.
Dixon’s finger slid once more to the button on his desk. This time he rang twice. “Perhaps,” he said, “you’d like to tell us the identity of the Chinese girl who called on you at your apartment earlier this afternoon.”
“No,” Terry said slowly, “I’m afraid I can’t give you any help on that, Mr. Dixon.”
He noticed a sly, sardonic expression in the district attorney’s eyes, and was therefore not entirely unprepared for that which followed. A door was flung open with dramatic swiftness. A uniformed officer escorted Sou Ha into the room.
The Chinese girl stood very erect, very quiet, and very dignified, her manner indicating that her mind had achieved a calmly unruffled tranquillity.
“Is this the girl?” Dixon asked.
Slowly Terry Clane got to his feet.
“That,” he said, “is the girl.”
“And I believe, Mr. Clane, she confessed in some detail to the murder of Mandra, but explained to you that she was leaving the knowledge of her guilt with you in the nature of a trust, not to be used unless you found it was quite necessary to save Cynthia Renton.”
It was Sou Ha who spoke. “That is true,” she said calmly, “the man was evil and I killed him.”
Alma Renton’s gasping intake of breath knifed the moment of tense silence which followed Sou Ha’s statement.
“And do you wish me to make a correction on that?” Terry asked.
“You have done quite enough, Mr. Clane,” Dixon said.
“Perhaps,” Clane suggested, “I could do still more with a question or two.” And without waiting for permission, he said to Sou Ha, “Where was Cynthia Renton when you killed Mandra?”
“On the couch in another room, asleep,” Sou Ha said, in the toneless voice of a fatalist facing a supreme crisis.
“What was Mandra doing?”
She looked at him for a moment with inscrutable eyes. Her face was expressionless and yet a barrier seemed to have been thrown up between them.
“The time has come,” he told her, “for you to answer these questions. In no other way can I save the painter woman.”
“Mandra,” she said, “was seated at the table. He had the sleeve gun in his hand. I recognized it. It was the sleeve gun which you had kept in your glass-covered case.”
“What else was on the table?” he asked.
“A woman’s handbag. I think it was the handbag of the painter woman.”
Parker Dixon exchanged a swiftly significant glance with Inspector Malloy. The district attorney’s eyes held a glint of triumph. Malloy was frowning thoughtfully.
“What color was the handbag?”
“Black.”
Clane glanced at Alma Renton. “Would Cynthia have carried a black bag?” he asked.
“No,” she said, “she hates black. Her handbag was brown — a dark brown.”
Clane turned back to Sou Ha. “Where did Mandra get this sleeve gun?” he asked.
“In some way it came from your house.”
“How did he get it?”
“As to that I do not know.”
Dixon turned to the shorthand reporter and said, “Are you getting this, Miss Stokely?”
“Every word,” the young woman said.
“Go right ahead, Mr. Clane,” Dixon invited smilingly, “you’re doing splendidly. Your co-operation was a bit tardy but, now you’ve started, you’re making up for lost time.”
“I take it,” Clane asked, with a swift glance at Sou Ha, “this will clear Cynthia Renton?”
“There are one or two other matters to be straightened out,” the district attorney pointed out. “We can’t afford to overlook some of your activities, Clane. Take that portrait, for instance.”
“Yes,” Clane said, “I appreciate the spot I’m in, but since confessions are in order, I think we’ll all come clean. One of the first things to clear up is the matter of these counterfeit portraits. I think you, Levering, had better explain that.”
Levering looked repentant. “I’m sorry I did what I did,” he admitted. “I’m going to make a clean breast of it. Now that this Chinese girl has confessed, I can do it. I was with Alma. Cynthia came to us and told us her story. She’d been drugged. When she awakened, Mandra was dead. I wanted to keep her out of it, so I suggested I could scout around a bit and find out what had happened. I did so and discovered that a witness had seen some woman leaving Mandra’s apartment carrying the portrait Cynthia had painted. I asked Alma if she could duplicate such a portrait from Cynthia’s sketches. She said she could, so I suggested we should make the counterfeit portrait, put it in Cynthia’s apartment, and give Cynthia that two o’clock alibi.”
Dixon’s eyes stared at Levering in unflattering appraisal.
“How long had you been with Alma Renton before Cynthia’s arrival?”
“I can’t give you the exact number of minutes.”
“Wasn’t it rather an unusual hour for you to call on her?”
“Not exactly. I’d been confronted with an emergency... That is, I had to see her in regard to a business matter.”
“Meaning you wanted her to give you some more gambling money?” Clane asked.
“You can keep out of this!” Levering blazed. “I don’t know who made you guardian for the Renton girls, anyway. Trying to protect this Chink, you’ve involved them in a dirty scandal.”
“That will do,” Dixon said sternly. “Your own conduct is far from blameless, Mr. Levering.”
“And now,” Terry said, “I think it’s my turn, so I’ll make a confession. The murder, gentlemen, was committed with my sleeve gun.”
“So you’re satisfied it’s your sleeve gun now, are you?” Dixon asked.