The chief looked over at Kleinsmidt. “Bring the Clutmers in, Bill.”
Kleinsmidt went out through a door that opened on a corridor. I said to the chief, “Now that I’ve answered your questions, perhaps you’ll tell me what this is all about.”
A moment later, the door opened, and the woman who had been in the apartment adjoining Helen Framley’s walked into the room; a step behind her came her husband. They looked as though it had been a hard night. Their eyes were red-rimmed. The muscles on their faces sagged.
The chief said, “You know Mr. and Mrs. Clutmer?”
“I’ve seen them.”
“When did you see them last?”
“Yesterday.”
“What time yesterday?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did you see them after eight-thirty last night?”
“No.”
The chief said to Clutmer, “This man claims to have been hanging around the depot waiting for the nine-o-five train to come in. How about it?”
It was Mrs. Clutmer who answered the question. “That’s absolutely impossible. I told you he couldn’t have been there. The only way he could have caught that train was by the skin of his eyeteeth, because we didn’t leave the platform until just as the train was ready to pull out.”
“You’re sure he couldn’t have been there?”
“Absolutely positive. We had been talking about him, and I’d have noticed him if he’d been there.”
“What time did you get to the depot?”
“Five or ten minutes to nine I think it was. We had to wait about ten minutes for the train to come in, and it was on time.”
Laster looked at me. “There you are.”
I said, “Mind if I smoke?”
He frowned. Kleinsmidt smiled.
Laster said to Mrs. Clutmer, “This man says he was on the outside of the depot standing out where it was cool, waiting for the train to come in. Now where were you?”
“We were right inside the depot for a while, and then we went out and stood on the platform outside. But we watched the people get off the train, and we watched the people who got on. Not that I’m nosey at all, but I just like to know what’s going on. I just use my powers of observation, that’s all.”
Laster turned to me.
“Well?” he asked.
I lit a match, held it to the end of my cigarette, and took a deep drag.
Mrs. Clutmer started volunteering information. “Helen Framley is pretty strong for this young man, if you, ask me. I know for a fact that she and that boy friend of hers had a quarrel over this man last night.”
“How do you know it was over him?” Laster asked.
“You could hear what they said in my apartment just as plain as day. They were talking very, very loud. Their voices were raised — almost shouting at each other. He accused her of falling for him, and she said that if she wanted to she would, that Beegan didn’t have any mortgage on her. Then Beegan said he’d show her whether he had a mortgage on her or not, and said she’d spilled a lot of information she had no business giving. Then he used some kind of a funny expression — that is, he called her something.”
It was Clutmer who furnished the gap in the information. “Called her a stool pigeon,” he said dryly, and then lapsed into silence.
“You hear that, Lam?” the chief asked.
“I hear it.”
“All right, now what have you to say?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re not going to deny it?”
“Deny what?”
“That they fought over you.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“And you still claim you were down at the depot?”
“I’ve told you where I was.”
“But these people say you couldn’t have possibly got aboard that train immediately after it pulled into the station.”
“I heard them.”
“Well, what about it?”
“They’re entitled to their opinion — that’s all it is. I was on the train.”
Mrs. Clutmer said, “I’m absolutely positive!”
Kleinsmidt said, “Just a minute, Mrs. Clutmer. You went down there to meet some people who were coming through, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Friends from the East, I believe?”
“Yes.”
“You were looking forward to seeing them?”
“Naturally. What do you suppose we went down there for?”
“And you were excited?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You knew what time the train got in?”
“Yes.”
“What time did you leave your apartment?”
“About twenty Minutes to nine.”
“And walked to the depot?”
“Yes.”
“That puts you there fifteen minutes before train time?”
“That’s right. That’s what I’m telling you. We were there. If anyone had been there, we’d have seen them.”
“Why did you go to the depot so early?”
“Well, we wanted to be certain that we met the train.”
“You knew it would be there for fifteen minutes? You were pretty excited over seeing these old friends of yours?”
“Well, we were looking forward to it.”
“And as soon as the train pulled in, you started looking for them?”
“Well, we looked over the people all right.”
“Where were your friends?”
“Standing right in the vestibule.”
“And you had quite a little talk-fest there on the station platform?”
“We visited and chatted.”
“Your friends couldn’t stop over?”
“No. They were going to Los Angeles on business. They were with some other people.”
“And you visited until the conductor called out ‘All aboard’?”
“Yes.”
“Then they got back aboard the train?”
“Yes.”
“Now, did you wait for the train to pull out, or did you leave then?”
“We left then, but the train pulled out right afterwards. We heard it pulling out just as we walked through the depot. And I may say this. We waited until after the porter had closed the vestibule.”
“On the car in which your friends were riding?”
“Well — yes.”
Kleinsmidt looked at the chief, didn’t say anything.
The chief frowned at me, then looked at Mrs. Clutmer. His eyes shifted past her to her husband. “What’s your name — your first name?”
“Robert.”
“You were with your wife?”
“Yes.”
“Do you agree with everything she says?”
“Well — well-l-l-l-l — in a way, yes.”
“Where don’t you agree with her?”
“Oh, I agree with her all right.”
“Do you think there’s any possibility this young man could have been at the depot and you not seen him?”
“Well, now there’s just a chance — just a bare chance.”
“Would it,” I asked, “be too much to ask what this is all about?”
Mrs. Clutmer said, “Why, don’t you know? They—”
“That’ll do, Mrs. Clutmer. I’ll handle this,” the thief interrupted.
She glared at him and said, “Well, you don’t need to snap a person’s head off. I was only going to tell him—”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Well, he can read it in the papers. I guess there’s no great secret about it. I—”
The chief made a motion to Kleinsmidt. He pushed his big frame up out of the chair, said to the Clutmers, “All right, folks, that’s all.”
“Let ’em go home,” the thief said.
“You can go home now,” Kleinsmidt told them.
“Well, I should say it was about time! The idea of getting a body up at midnight and keeping her—”
“Get ’em outside,” the chief roared.
Kleinsmidt pushed them through the door and pulled the door shut behind them.
The chief turned to me. “Doesn’t look too good for you, Lam.”