Pink said in an agonized treble: “Well, don’t be a dope, Rhys, for God’s sake. You can’t just stand here with that thing. It’s too risky. It’s too—”
Just then some one pounded on the foyer door.
It was all so unreasonable, so theatrical, so ridiculous, that Val could only laugh. She began to laugh softly — more a titter than a laugh, and the laugh swelled until it was no longer soft and until tears rolled down her cheeks.
The buzzer rang. It rang again. Then some one leaned on it and forgot to remove his elbow.
Pink gripped Val’s jaws in his iron fingers and shook her head furiously, as he might have shaken a recalcitrant puppy.
“Shut up!” he growled. “Rhys, if you don’t put those things away — hide ’em... In a minute!” he yelled at the door.
“Come on, open it,” said a clipped voice from the other side. It was Inspector Glücke’s voice.
Inspector Glücke!
“Pop, p-pop,” stammered Val, looking around wildly. “Throw it out the window. Anywhere. They can’t find it here. They’ll— They mustn’t—”
Sanity came back to her father’s face. “Here,” he said slowly. “This won’t do.”
“Open up, Jardin, or I’ll have the door broken down.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, pop,” whispered Valerie.
“No.” Rhys shook his head with maddening slowness. “There’s something inevitable about this. He’s been tipped off. He’s bound to find it. No, Val. Pink, open that door.”
“Rhys, don’t be a cluck!”
“Let them in, Pink.”
Val shrank back. With a scowl of baffled fury Pink stepped over to the door. Rhys picked up the coat and carried it and the rapier into the living-room and laid them down on the sofa.
Men boiled in, headed by Glücke.
“Search warrant,” he said curtly, waving a paper. He pushed past Val and stopped in the living-room archway.
“Is this what you want?” asked Rhys tiredly, and he sat down in the armchair and clasped his hands.
The Inspector pounced on the objects on the sofa. His three companions blocked the corridor door.
“Ah,” said Glücke; he said nothing more.
“I suppose,” murmured Rhys, “it won’t do any good to assure you we just found those things on the floor of our foyer closet?”
The Inspector did not reply. He raised the coat and examined it curiously.
Then he turned and made a sign to his men, and two of them came forward with cotton bags and wrapping paper and began to stow away the coat and rapier, handling them as if they had been made of Ming porcelain.
“He’s telling it to you straight,” said Pink desperately. “Listen, Inspector, don’t be a jackass. Listen to him, to me. We just found it — the three of us. He’s being framed, Rhys is! You can’t—”
“Well,” said Glücke lightly, “there may be something in that, Mr. Pincus.”
“Pink,” muttered Pink.
“Western Union in downtown L.A. ’phoned a wire to Headquarters — anonymous — telling us to search this apartment right away. The telegram was ’phoned in to the Western Union office and we haven’t been able to trace the call. So maybe all this is phony at that.”
But he did not sound as if he meant what he said. He sounded as if he were merely trying to make agreeable conversation.
He nodded at his men, and two of them followed him out of the apartment. The third man set his back against the open door and just stood there, shifting from one foot to another from time to time, as if he were tired.
Val cowered against her supporting wall in the foyer, unable to move, to think. Rhys got up from the chair in the living-room and turned to go into his bathroom.
“Hold it,” said the detective at the door.
Rhys looked at him. Then he sat down again.
“Hullo,” said a voice from the corridor.
Pink went to the door and dug his elbow into the detective’s abdomen, and the detective shoved his arm angrily away. Pink saw the two other detectives leaning against the balustrade of the emergency stairway which led down to the lobby. They were no more than five feet from the door, and they returned his glance without expression.
“Hullo,” said the same voice.
Pink looked through him. It was Fitzgerald, of the Independent.
The detective at the door said: “Nobody in.”
Fitz’s eyes under their bird’s-nest brows roved, took in Val before him, Rhys sitting motionless in the living-room. “I see they’re keeping the death-watch here. Come on, Mac, this is the press.”
“You heard him,” said Pink, stepping up to him.
“I got a tip from some one I know at Headquarters,” said Fitz. “It seems— Come on, mugg, out of the way.”
The detective at the door closed his eyes. Pink said: “Get the hell out of here.”
“Rhys,” called Fitz. “I want to talk to you. This is serious, Rhys. Maybe I can give you a right steer—”
Pink put his broad palm on Fitz’s chest and pushed, stepping through the doorway.
The man at the door did not open his eyes, and the two detectives across the hall did not move.
“Do you want a sock in the teeth,” said Pink, “or will you go nice and quiet, like a good little man?”
Fitz laughed. He lashed out with his fist. Pink sidestepped and brought his left up in a short arc. Fitz grunted. He had been drinking, and droplets of alcoholic saliva sprayed Pink’s face.
“Here, stop that,” said one of the men leaning against the balustrade. “Do your brawlin’ outside.”
Pink grabbed Fitz by the seat of his pants and ran him down the stairs.
Val trudged into the living-room and sat down on the floor by Rhys’s knee. She rested her cheek on it.
“I don’t think we have much time,” said Rhys in a very low voice. “Val, listen to me.”
“Yes, pop.”
“Glücke will be back soon.” He glanced cautiously at the detective in the doorway. “Maybe in five minutes, maybe in an hour. But whenever he comes back it will be with a warrant for my arrest.”
Val shivered. “But he can’t do that. You didn’t do it. You couldn’t have done it. You were right here—”
“Val, he’ll hear you.” Rhys bent low over her face, speaking into her ear. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The police — no one — must find out about that alibi.”
Val felt her forehead. It was hard to think.
“I’m in no danger,” whispered Rhys. “The Austin girl will testify at any time that I was in the La Salle lobby when Spaeth was murdered. Don’t you see?”
“Yes,” said Val. “Yes.”
“And there’s at least one vital reason why I must let Glücke arrest me, puss... No, don’t make any noise, Val. That detective mustn’t hear.”
Val sank back, her face drawn, her eyes screwed up. They felt hot, brittle, sore; they felt like her brain.
“I don’t— I can’t seem to—”
“I think,” whispered Rhys, “I’m in danger.” He held her shoulders down. “I’ve just thought the whole thing through. Some one planted the sword and coat in our closet tonight, tipped the Inspector off that they were here. Whoever did that is framing me for the murder.”
“No,” said Val. “No!”
“It must be, Val; it’s the only reasonable explanation. So that means some one not only hated Spaeth, but hates me, too. He killed Spaeth and is taking his revenge on me by framing me for the crime.”
“No!”
“Yes, puss. And if I produce my alibi now and the police clear me, what happens? The maniac who’s doing all this, seeing that his frame-up has failed, will be more determined than ever to have his revenge. If he finds he can’t get the law to kill me, he’s liable to kill me himself. He committed murder once; why shouldn’t he do it again?”