Brennan glanced at Joice Colt, drank the whiskey in his glass.
Antony again coughed violently; he leaned forward and held his chest tightly with his hands. When the fit had worn itself out he went on more slowly: “I had arranged it very carefully. I got off the train at Greenville and a friend of mine who looks very much like me took my reservation and my place on the train. I had a plane waiting there and I was flown to a private landing field near Paterson and I got here to New York about five thirty. I went to the Valmouth — I wanted to do it myself, you see — and there was no answer at Barbara’s door and I was about to go when she came to the door across the hall. She had heard me knocking at her door and she came to the door or your room” — he bobbed his head at Joice Colt — “and opened it...”
He leaned back, stroked the arm of the chair lightly with his fingers. “I had a present for Barbara,” he said — “I had a bottle of very fine bourbon to celebrate my homecoming. Barbara liked it very much.” His smile was a not a pleasant thing. “After a while I left Barbara and went to find Mister Harley — and after a while I found him...”
Brennan leaned forward slowly. No one said anything for perhaps a minute and then Brennan asked quietly: “So what?”
Antony shrugged. “This morning I went in a cab to Trenton and got back on the train and my friend stayed in Trenton. Last night I did not have time to read the papers. But I read them this morning and they said Miss Colt was wanted for Barbara’s murder. I do not want that...” He smiled at Joice Colt. “I thought they would think it was suicide. I do not want anyone else to be in trouble — and I have done what I wanted to do — I do not very much care what happens to me now...”
He laughed. “You see — I am soft like a woman. And then, too, I am not very well — I was not very well when I went to prison and” — he tapped his chest lightly with his fingers — “it is very damp down there — I do not think there is very much left of my lungs.” He was grinning broadly at Brennan. “It makes you very soft and sentimental when there is not much left of your lungs...”
Brennan asked: “Why did you think of coming to me?”
Antony shrugged again. “It was in the paper that you were with Miss Colt before she disappeared last night. You are a newspaperman — you would know best how to do this so that my friend who flew me here and my friend who took my place on the train do not become involved. And it is a good story for you — no?”
Brennan said: “No.” He stood up and went to the desk, stooped over and took the sheaf of typewritten sheets out of the wastebasket and tossed them on the desk. “No — that is not a good story,” he said. He tapped the sheets on the desk with the backs of his fingers. “This is the story.” He turned his head to nod at Renée. “Read it.”
Renée began reading in a small choked voice and Brennan went back and sat down. By the time Renée had read to the third page confidence had come back to her and she read well, spoke clearly, swiftly.
Antony was leaning far back in the chair and his eyes were half closed, his mouth was curved to a thin smile.
When Renée had finished they were all silent a little while and Antony said slowly: “It is a very interesting story.” He inclined his head towards Joice Colt. “You are sure it will make Miss Colt in the clear, yes?”
Brennan nodded. “She’s the only one who could have made Harley’s alibi stand up — and now that Harley has, uh, disappeared, the story’s a cinch.” He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and stared very seriously at Antony. “You are quite sure there can be no leak on your side; I mean about your flying here, or being recognized by anyone yesterday, or anything like that?”
Antony shook his head slowly, said: “Quite sure.”
Brennan glanced at the clock on the dresser; it was eleven thirty-five. He turned to Renée, said: “You’d better hustle over to the office — you can write the finish there, after you get the first part in the work.”
She bobbed her head up and down, stood up swiftly and stuffed the sheaf of paper into her handbag. Her coat was on a chair near the door; she went to it and Antony got up and helped her put it on. She thanked him, said, “So long,” over her shoulder to Brennan and Joice Colt, went out and closed the door.
Antony crossed to Brennan and held out his hand. He had put the automatic back into the pocket of his raincoat and it made a great bulge there against the narrowness of his waist.
He said: “I must go, too.”
Brennan stood up and shook Antony’s hand. They stood silently a little while, smiling at each other a little.
Brennan said: “You’d better see a good doctor.”
Antony stuck out his lips, shrugged slightly, shook his head. “I think there are not any good doctors — for me,” he said. He turned and took Joice Colt’s outstretched hand and pressed it. Then he went to the door, and his shoulders were drooping and he was a very slight, very pitiable little figure going away like that in his tightly belted raincoat. He did not turn at the door; he went out and closed the door softly behind him.
Brennan sat down on the arm of the chair and picked up the telephone, dialed a number. He said: “Hello, Johnnie. Hold everything — Renée’s on the way over... Uh-huh, we were delayed a little. An’ never mind looking for Colt any more — she’s over here — I’m going to take a room for her here where she can lay low for a couple days while we cinch that Harley slant... Uh-huh — an’ I have a hunch they won’t find Harley. I think he’s scrammed — long gone — that’ll make it a lot easier...”
He was silent a little while, listening, and then he laughed heartily, said: “Well you know those old Brennan hunches, Johnnie — they never miss... Okay — I’ll be seeing you.” He hung up, grinned complacently at Joice Colt. “That sheet is gradually getting on to what a valuable man I am,” he said.
She was staring at him with wide hard eyes: one eyebrow was arched to a thin skeptical line, her red mouth curved humorously upward at the corners. She said with broad, biting sarcasm: “The old Brennan hunches — they never miss...”
Brennan laughed. “Well, practically never.” He shook his finger at her emphatically. “I have a hunch right now that you’d like a drink.”
She looked thoughtful a moment, nodded very seriously.
Brennan got up and poured two drinks. He went to the dresser and studied his bruised, discolored face in the mirror a little while and then he went back to the bed table and picked up his glass, gulped down the whiskey.
He blinked, put the glass back on the table and smiled wanly down at Joice Colt.
“That’s over,” he said. “I’m a sick man. I need a rest.”
Trouble-Chaser
Mae lived at the Mara Apartments on Rossmore. It was about nine o’clock when I got there and the party hadn’t got going. I mean by that that nobody was falling down and nobody had been smacked over the skull with a bottle. There were six or seven people there besides Mae and Tony — I didn’t know any of them, which was just as well. Tony opened the door, and made a pass at introducing me, and Mae came in from the kitchen and we went into a big clinch. She was demonstrative that way when she had two or three fifths of gin under her belt, whoever it might be.
Tony fixed me a drink. I took it because I knew better than to argue about a thing like that; I carried it around with me most of the time I was there and when anybody would ask me if I wanted a drink I’d show them the full glass.
Tony was Italian — from Genoa I think. He was very dark and slim, with shiny blue-black hair, bright black eyes, a swell smile. I’d known him for five or six years — I knew him back in New York when he was trying to build up a bottle business around the Grant Hotel. We’d never been particularly friendly but we always liked each other well enough. When he came to California he looked me up and I got him a job running case-stuff for Eddie Garda. I introduced Tony to Mae Jackman when she was a class C extra girl and not doing so well at it. They’d been living together for about a year. Tony was in business for himself and doing well enough to live at the Mara. Mae still worked in pictures occasionally and that helped.