There were no lights in the huge dining-room, but beyond it in a library there were subdued lights and deep, comfortable chairs.
A door was open into a den behind the library. Two men were in there. I could hear low voices.
I stood for a moment and listened.
Evidently John Carver Billings the Second and his dad were holding a low-voiced conference.
I couldn’t hear what they were saying and didn’t try. A sudden impulse made me strive for the highly dramatic.
I sank down into one of the deep, high-backed readingchairs that was turned partially away from the center of the room, and waited.
After a few minutes young Billings and his dad came back into the room.
I heard young Billings say something to his dad which I couldn’t get. The father’s reply was a monosyllable, then I caught the last words of Billings’s closing sentence, “... that damn, double-crossing detective.”
I said without moving, “I told you you were like a patient going to a doctor’s office and ordering penicillin.”
I couldn’t see them but from the sudden silence I knew they were standing rigidly motionless; then I heard the father say, “Who was that? What kind of a trick is this?”
“You’re in a jam,” I told him. “Let’s see if we can’t do something about it.”
They located my voice then.
The son ran around the table so that he could confront me.
“You damn crook!” he blazed.
I lit a cigarette.
Young Billings took a threatening step toward me.
“Damn you, Lam. This much pleasure I’m going to have out of this situation. I’m going to—”
“Wait, John,” his father said with a voice of quiet authority.
I said, “If you folks had put the cards on the table in the first place and asked us to clear you in the Bishop case, we’d have saved a lot of time.”
Young Billings, who had been making with chest and fists, wilted like a punctured tire.
“What the devil do you mean about the Bishop case?” the father asked.
I said, “Bishop disappeared. Your son has been trying to get an alibi. The way I look at it, the answer has to be George Bishop. Now what do you want to tell me about it?”
“Nothing,” young Billings said, recovering something of his poise. “How did you get in here?”
“I walked in.”
“How?”
“Through the back door.”
“That’s a lie. The back door was locked.”
“Not when I walked in,” I told him.
“Take a look, John,” the father said in a low, authoritative voice. “If it’s unlocked, for heaven’s sake lock it. We don’t want any more people dropping in on us.”
The son hesitated a moment, said, “I know it’s locked, Dad.”
“Make sure,” the older man said crisply.
The son went out through the dining-room and the butler’s pantry to the kitchen.
I said, “He’s in a lot of trouble. Perhaps I could help him — if there’s still time.”
He started to say something to me, then thought better of it and waited.
After a moment, the son came back.
“Well?”
“The key’s in the door, all right, Dad. I guess I must have neglected to turn it, but I certainly thought I locked that door after the servants left.”
“I think we’d better have a talk, John,” the father said.
“If Lam hadn’t talked to the police we’d have been all right,” John said. “We—”
“John!” the older man snapped crisply.
John ceased talking, as though his father’s voice had been a whiplash.
There were several seconds of silence. I puffed away on the cigarette. Despite anything I could do my hand was trembling. I hoped no one noticed it. It was sink or swim now. If they called the police, I was all finished. This time it would be blackmail. They’d throw the book at me.
“I think you and I had better have a little talk, John,” the father repeated, and led the way back to the den, leaving me sitting there.
I fought back a temptation to walk out. Now that the chips were in the center of the table I began to wonder if I held the right cards. If they decided to call the police, I was licked. If they didn’t, I was going to have to start work on a case that had been so terribly, so hopelessly messed up that it was a thousand-to-one shot.
The comfortable overstuffed chair felt like the hot seat in the death house. Beads of perspiration kept forming on my forehead and hands. I was angry at myself because I couldn’t control my nerves — but the perspiration kept coming just the same.
John Carver Billings the First came back and sat down in the chair opposite me. He said, “Lam, I think we are about ready to confide in you, provided one point can first be clarified.”
“What is that?”
“We would want some assurance that the activity of the police in questioning the alibi of my son was not inspired by any action from your agency.”
“Grow up,” I said bitterly. “Your son went to considerable expense to try to establish an alibi. It was an alibi that was as flimsy as tissue paper. It wouldn’t stand up. I knew it wouldn’t stand up. He should have known it wouldn’t stand up. I tried to find out why he wanted to establish that alibi and then give him some measure of decent protection rather than to rely on a fabrication which was all but self-evident.
“As a result, I’ve had five hundred dollars of our compensation taken from us. The police are searching for me as a blackmailer. My license as a detective may be revoked. My partner has become so frightened she’s dissolved the partnership and instructed the bank to honor no more checks on the partnership account signed by me.
“That’s what comes of my trying to give your boy something worthwhile instead of merely taking his money and calling it a day.
“Now, does that answer your question?”
John Carver Billings nodded his head in slow acquiescence. “Thank you, Mr. Lam, that answers my question.”
I said, “You folks have wasted three or four days of time and probably several thousand dollars in cash. You’ve tried to extricate yourselves by methods that have backfired and left you in hot water. Now suppose we talk turkey?”
“What do you know about Bishop?” Billings asked.
“Not very much. I know most of what I know from reading the papers.”
“There was nothing in the papers about us.”
“Not in the papers,” I said, “but you went to a lot of trouble to establish an alibi for last Tuesday night. The police know it. I know it. The question is, why? At first I thought the answer was a hit-and-run. Now I think it has to be more serious than that.
“There weren’t any murders committed Tuesday night that the police knew about, so I started looking around to see if there might not have been one committed the police didn’t know about.”
“And you found?”
“I found George Bishop.”
“You mean you’ve found him, you’ve found—”
“No,” I interrupted. “Don’t get me wrong. I unearthed the Bishop case. I went to see Mrs. Bishop about it.”
“What did she say?”
“I questioned her as to whether there was a young lover in the picture, and whether she had deliberately planned her husband’s murder. I felt that might have been where your son entered the picture. He couldn’t afford scandal and he wanted the woman.”
“What did she say?” the elder Billings asked.
“Just about what you’d expect.”
“Perhaps what I’d expect and what you’d expect are two different things.”