“I… don’t know exactly. I was frightened and… and I guess I felt guilty because we’d quarreled and he’d slammed out that way. I didn’t see how it would help,” she went on piteously. “I didn’t know who the call was from or where he went.”
Shayne said slowly, “You know what the police are going to think, don’t you?”
“Do they have to know, Mike? Do you have to tell them?”
“Of course they have to know. My God, Linda! I could lose my license for withholding vital information like that. This is murder. Get that fact firmly implanted in your pretty red head.”
“All right.” She tilted her chin defiantly. “What will the police think?”
“That you knew all the time he’d been poisoned,” he told her inexorably. “That you were afraid to admit he’d been home and had a big drink of whiskey with you because you had dosed it for him. All we need now is to find some sodium amytal around the place,” he added disgustedly.
“But I didn’t know,” she cried out helplessly. “That’s why it was such a shock to me in the morgue when they said he’d been poisoned. You know I fainted practically in your arms.”
He said drily, “I know. And I also know that Peter Painter suspected you were faking it at the time.”
“But I wasn’t faking, Mike. You know I wasn’t.”
“Right now,” he growled, “I’m not positive I know anything about you for sure. And no matter what I think… what Painter thinks is more important at this time. You say you quarreled with your husband last night,” he went on abruptly. “What about?”
“He… oh, it was stupid, but… Jerome was very jealous, Mike. Any little thing sent him off into a tirade.” She took a long drink from her glass, fluttering her eyelids down to conceal her gaze from his.
“What sort of little thing?”
“Oh, you never could tell. Last evening, for instance. When he came home there was the butt of a cigar in an ashtray still smouldering. He accused me of having entertained a man in his absence. I told him it was Emily and Ernie Cahill from down the street who’d just dropped in for a few minutes. He knows Ernie smokes cigars, but would he believe me? Oh, no. Not Jerome. It’s a sort of neurosis with him. It was, I mean,” she amended hastily. “Because he had a sort of inferiority complex about women. You know. You saw him. He wasn’t particularly dashing or masculine. And he was eleven years older than I. It’s plagued our marriage from the beginning. If I so much as looked at another man at a party…” She shuddered delicately. “He was… well, I used to tell him he was masochistic about it.”
“So he didn’t believe it was the Cahills?” Shayne prompted her when she paused.
“No. For no reason on God’s earth, he suspected it was some other man. He insisted he was going to call them and find out the truth. That’s when I blew up.”
“You didn’t want him to call the Cahills?”
“I didn’t mind. That is, well, I did mind, too. I was so ashamed that he didn’t believe me. I would have been so humiliated to have Emily find out that my own husband was checking up on me. I told him that if he dared to call the Cahills and ask them that I’d bundle up the children and march out of this apartment and he’d never see any of us again in his life.”
“How did he react to that?”
“Well, it made him angry, but… that’s when he went out to the kitchen and made himself that strong drink I told you about.”
“So, he didn’t call the Cahills?” Shayne asked lightly.
“No. We were still arguing about it when he had that phone call I told you about.”
Shayne said quietly, “Linda. Remember now. I want the truth from you. How much reason have you given your husband to be jealous of you during your married life?”
She met his gaze squarely. “Never. Nothing. I loved Jerome. He was just obsessively possessive.”
“You’re a very beautiful young woman,” mused Shayne. “You must have attracted a lot of men.”
“I’ve had my share of passes made at me,” she agreed easily. “But I married Jerome. I had two children by him. Why couldn’t he accept that instead of suspecting me?”
Shayne said, “Men are like that.” He paused and took a long drink of his gin and tonic. He set the glass down and asked Linda, “Where do Ernie and Emily Cahill live?”
“Down the street a block and a half. They’re old friends and often drop in unexpectedly.”
Shayne got up and went to the telephone stand. “What is their telephone number?”
“The Cahills?” Her face showed real consternation. “You’re not going to call them, Mike?”
“I’m going to call them,” he told her grimly. “Do you know the number offhand, or shall I look it up in the book?”
“But why, Mike?” she wailed. “Don’t you believe me either?”
“At this point I’m not taking anything for granted. You can’t really object to my calling them, Linda. This is different from your husband doing it out of jealousy. I’m investigating your husband’s murder. If I don’t call them, you can be sure the police will.”
“Don’t do it, Mike!” She rose slowly from the sofa and her eyes were wide and glazed. “You make me feel unclean,” she whispered throatily. “I thought you… Please trust me, Mike.” She closed her eyes and swayed toward him like a sleepwalker with hands extended, groping for him.
“Don’t do this to me.” Her voice was low and throbbing with emotion. She stumbled against him and nuzzled her forehead beneath his chin like a frightened, exhausted child.
Shayne said wearily, “It’s a good act, Linda. I’m impressed as hell. But right now I want to know whether it was Ernie Cahill who left a cigar in the ashtray last night, or someone else.”
She shrank away from him as though he had struck her, her face white, eyes glinting with anger.
“All right,” she grated. “You men are all alike. Every damn one of you. All right.” Her voice rose shrilly. “If you want the truth, it wasn’t Ernie. It was another man, though I didn’t know he was coming and I tried like hell to get him out of here before Jerome returned. Make what you want of that, damn you to hell.” She turned her back on him, sobbing.
Shayne took his hand off the telephone. “You tried to get rid of him,” he said softly, “but you didn’t succeed? Is that it, Linda? Now, suppose you tell me exactly what did happen here last evening?”
8
Linda Fitzgilpin stared down into her glass, then lifted it and drained the contents. She got to her feet and started for the kitchen, muttering, “’Nother drink won’t hurt.” She was swaying more obviously now than when Shayne had arrived.
He got to his feet and intercepted her, took the empty glass from her hand and turned her back firmly to the sofa. “Get just as drunk as you like after I leave. Right now, I want straight answers, Linda.”
He stood flat-footed in front of her while she sank back on to the sofa, and said, “Take it from the beginning. It is true that your husband came home somewhat unexpectedly about ten o’clock, found a cigar butt smouldering and suspected you had been entertaining another man?”
“That’s true.” She looked small and frightened, curled up on the sofa and avoiding his stern gaze.
“And the Cahill bit, and your quarrel? And the telephone call? Are you sure you can’t remember anything else he said over the phone?”
“I’m sure. I went into the bedroom immediately I realized the call wasn’t for me, and closed the door tightly. George was in there and I was scared to death what he might do. You see, just by the grace of God, he was in the bathroom when Jerome walked in, and he heard him and realized what had happened, and kept out of sight. But I didn’t know what moment he might take it into his stubborn head to walk out and ‘have it out with Jerome’ which is what he’d been threatening to do for the past hour. I was frantic, of course, and I begged him to hide in the closet while I tried to get Jerome out on some pretext, so George could slip out without being seen. He refused,” she went on dully. “He insisted he was coming on back out with me and have a showdown with Jerome. I finally opened the bedroom door and there was Jerome putting on his coat and going out the door. He said just what I told you… that he had to go out and would be back in an hour or so, and then slammed out of the apartment without ever guessing there was a man standing right behind me.”