“You didn’t know she was seeing Taylor at all?” Ramsden asked.
“I–I still can’t believe it,” Conway said, and realized that the fear and confusion in his mind gave his voice a genuinely shaken quality. “What did Taylor say?”
“Had you and your wife discussed a divorce?”
Here was the trap, he thought. What had Taylor told them? But it didn’t matter — he had to stick by what he had told Bauer. “No — of course not,” he said.
“Taylor says she was going to divorce you and marry him.”
“What!”
“He says she was going to divorce you as soon as she got a little money — meaning, I suppose, as soon as you got a little money — which she expected to be soon.”
So Taylor knew about the money. And if he knew that, he probably knew all the rest — the quarrels, the threats, the letters... But the letters had never been sent; if Taylor thought he knew about them, he would be proved wrong. As for the rest, it was Taylor’s word against his, and the word of a husband would carry greater weight than that of a paramour.
“He’s lying,” Conway said. “I don’t believe any of it.”
“About that — maybe he is,” Ramsden admitted. “But not about the essentials. You don’t think he wanted to admit any of this, do you? He wasn’t anxious to get involved.”
“But why did he? I mean, how did you get him to admit — whatever he did?”
“She’s been going to see him for almost three months. The apartment superintendent identified her from her picture. When we told Mr. Taylor we knew that, the young man saw he was really in a jam, and started to talk.”
“A jam?” Conway’s head began to clear; somewhat incredulously he realized that the detectives’ suspicions were directed, not at himself, but at Taylor. “You mean you think he was the — that he had something to do with it?”
“That’d be a pretty good guess, wouldn’t it?”
Conway’s mouth was dry, and perspiration stood out on his head. “Have you any proof — any evidence, beyond what you’ve told me?”
“That’s quite a bit, don’t you think?” Ramsden said dryly. “Of course we don’t know yet why he’d do it. Maybe he found out she was stringing him along, and had no intention of divorcing you and marrying him.”
“Maybe she found some other guy and was going to give Taylor the air,” Bauer suggested.
The notion seemed absurd to Conway, but not, apparently, to Ramsden. “Are you sure you’ve told us everything you know? About her friends, I mean, or the names of anyone she may have mentioned, or who may have called her?”
“I’m positive,” Conway said. “I gave Sergeant Bauer her address book, and I haven’t been able to think of anyone she knew who wasn’t listed there. I’d even forgotten about Taylor.”
“Well,” Ramsden said, “maybe we won’t have to look any further.”
Conway realized that he was treading on dangerous ground, but he had to know more. Did they really believe Taylor had done it, or was this all merely a screen for their suspicion of himself? How much were they keeping from him?
“But you must have more to go on than you’ve told me. You can’t convict a man just because he thought she was going to divorce me and marry him — if he did think that.”
“Hardly,” Ramsden said. “But it’s something to start from. As I said, we don’t know the motive yet — but there’s a pretty good chance we can find one.”
“You could say I had a motive.” He had to take the chance — had to find out where he stood. “I didn’t have, until two minutes ago, and I wouldn’t have killed her, or anyone else, for that reason. But you don’t know that. So you might say I had a motive.”
“Yeah, you might of had,” Bauer said quietly.
Conway glanced quickly at the sergeant, frightened by something in his voice. But he plunged on because, having gone this far, he dared not stop.
“Where does he say he was? Hasn’t he some alibi?”
“Yes,” Ramsden said. “Claims he was in San Bernardino that night — on business. We’re checking it now. Of course, he’s had four days to fake a story — or he may even have planned it in advance.”
“That’s the difference between you and him.” Bauer sat on the edge of the desk and smiled, and Conway’s pulse began to resume its normal beat. “Even if you had the motive, you had an alibi you couldn’t have faked. I know — I checked it. For one thing, the car was parked by the murderer at ten-o-four, and it’s impossible you could of been there at that time. That’s what makes a good detective — being able to tell the real thing from the phoneys. Right, Captain?” Rams-den nodded, a little indulgently, it seemed to Conway. “And I’m never wrong on those things. You positively couldn’t of done it, and nobody in his right mind would try to pin it on you. Him? Well, we’ll see.”
“Now that you’ve told Mr. Conway the secret of your success,” Ramsden said, “I think you might go out to his house and take another look around. See if you can find any letters, or phone numbers — anything at all that hasn’t been covered. If Mr. Conway didn’t know about Taylor, there may be other things that escaped his notice.”
“Okay.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Conway.” Ramsden held out his hand. “Sorry I had to be the one to tell you about this.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Conway said, and followed Bauer through the door.
Larkin was waiting in the outer office. “I’m going over to the garage with Mr. Conway,” Bauer said. “He’s going to get his car back. Meet me there and we’ll go out to his house. Might as well walk over,” he said to Conway. “It’s just around the corner.”
They walked down the corridor in silence. Free of the terror which had gripped him in Ramsden’s office, Conway could think calmly. Now that he knew he was in the clear, he could consider Taylor and his plight. He had no particular fondness for Taylor, but he did not want to see him — or anyone else — go to the gas chamber for the murder of Helen; she was dead, she had deserved death, and no one merited punishment for it. Nor did he resent what Taylor had done; he could understand, vaguely, that someone might be taken in by Helen, for after all he himself had been, although it seemed a long time ago. His predominant emotion was one of anger at himself, at his stupidity in not knowing of the affair with Taylor. He could have divorced her with no trouble at all and thus have been spared the worry and strain of this past week — and of the past two months, for that matter. The fact that Helen might also have preferred to be alive rather than dead did not occur to him.
Bauer’s voice broke in on his reflections. “I don’t understand,” he said, “how a fellow’s wife could be pulling a thing like that, and him not get on to it.”
For once, Conway thought, he’s got a point. “It’s hard to believe,” he said. “But you see I worked a lot at night. It got pretty dull for her sitting home every evening, so she used to go to the movies. Every once in a while I’d offer to take her, but she’d say she didn’t want to interfere with my work, and I believed her. I think it was true, at first. Lately, of course — well, I guess she didn’t see as many movies as I thought.”
“Still and all, I should think you coulda told from the way she acted—”
“I guess I’m like most men — conceited enough to think ‘How could a woman want another man when she has me?’ ”
“Not me — I’m no egotist,” said Bauer. “I take nothin’ for granted — especially about women. I watch Greta like a hawk.”
“Probably the best way,” Conway said.
“Sure. She knows it, so it makes it easy for her. That way there’s no temptation for her to step out of line.”