Miss Kirby did not appear particularly surprised when Crane, at three-fifteen on Saturday, buzzed for her, and announced he was leaving.
"I lasted five minutes longer than last time," he informed her proudly.
This did not make the profound impression he expected. She said, "Yes sir."
He got his hat and the tan camel s-hair topcoat. "You might send up that piece of copy on my desk."
Miss Kirby picked up a large sheet of gloss paper, glanced at it nearsightedly through her spectacles and turned pale. "Oh, Mr Crane!" she exclaimed, holding it out to him.
At the top of the page was an ink drawing of a refrigerator, and in it was the body of a man, folded up in such a double-jointed manner that his knees crossed in back of his neck. Beneath the picture was the caption: Don t Bury Your Husband: Freeze Him in Your Rapo-Arctic!
"I don t think that s the one I meant," Crane said. Miss Kirby found another sheet. "This must be it."
"Does it say: Your Kitchen is Our Laboratory?"
"Yes sir."
On the way out, Crane stopped in Simeon March s office.
Back of a gigantic desk, with tall windows behind him, the old man looked small and slightly frail. That is, until he growled at Crane, "Well, what have you been doing?" His voice sounded as virile as a tugboat captain s.
"We ve been looking up one of Richard s girls."
"What s that going to get you? Everybody knows Richard had girls."
"We thought she might throw some light on the death."
"Waste of time." The old man s maple-sugar eyes glowed. "You know where to look."
His wrinkled, brown face resembled an angry Indian sachem s. Coming from behind, the light changed the wrinkles into dark lines, made him look as though he had fallen face first into a briar bush. The tan-and-brown spots on his skin looked like bruises.
"Get Carmel," he said.
Crane felt there must be an undisclosed reason for his hatred of Carmel. He asked, "Why are you so sure she s the murderer, Mr March?"
"Look at her," the old man barked. "Wears clothes like… like a kept woman."
Crane switched to another angle. "Why do you think Carmel killed Richard?"
The old man regarded him so viciously for a moment that Crane thought he was enraged at the question. Then he said, "I suppose you ll have to know."
He growled out the story without taking the cigar from his mouth. He d heard Carmel and Richard talking with suspicious intimacy at a party one night about four months before Richard s death. John had been going out of town on business a great deal, and he had assigned a company detective to watch Carmel during these periods.
"Richard, too?" Crane interrupted.
The old man shook his head. The detective had reported that Carmel spent a great deal of time with Richard, so the old man had gone to Carmel, he asserted, and told her he knew she was having an affair with Richard. He threatened to tell John unless she broke it off. She denied that she loved Richard, but he was adamant. "Never let me hear of your being alone with him, or I ll run you out of town," he had told her.
She had finally agreed not to see him any more.
Crane couldn t resist a question. "But why did she kill him?"
"He wouldn t give her up," Simeon March said, looking at Crane through shrewd eyes. "So she had to kill him."
"But then, when things were fixed up, why did she kill John?"
"She didn t love him, wanted to get rid of him." For an instant there was real pain in his deep-set eyes. "And she knew I d stop a divorce."
Crane said, "That s a pretty elemental view. Carmel kills one man because she loves him, another because she doesn t."
Simeon March snarled, "I m not paying you for philosophy. Just get Carmel." His cigar jerked with each word.
"You hate her, don t you?" Crane said.
"Wouldn t you hate the woman who killed your son?"
"If I was sure she had."
"I am sure." The old man was shouting now. "You get proof. That s what I want. Proof." He got to his feet, leaned over the huge desk until his face was a few feet from Crane s. "Anything else you want?"
Crane moved back a step. "Why isn t Talmadge March your lawyer?"
Simeon March blinked at him, then said, "Too young."
"Do you think he could be hard up?"
"No. He has plenty of money."
Crane felt relieved that the interview was over. He was glad he didn t work steady for the old buzzard. He went to the door, halted. "Have you told anybody you suspect Carmel?"
"Judge Dornbush, my lawyer, knows something about it."
"Would he talk?"
"Certainly not!" Jaw set, he scowled at Crane. "Why d you want to know?"
"There re some funny stories going around town."
"About Carmel?"
"Yes."
"Why, damn them!" Simeon March hit the desk, made the humidor rattle. "They wouldn t dare talk about a March!" He glowered at Crane. "Even if she is a murdering wench."
He let himself in the house with his key. Ann Fortune was in the blue-and-white living room. The crackling fire put rose tints in her tanned skin, darkened the green in her eyes. She was wearing a gray suit with a jacket trimmed in Persian lamb. Her hair was the color of cane syrup.
She placed a marker in her book. "Hello."
"Hello."
"You re home early."
He backed up to the fire. "I got lonesome."
"Really?"
"Really." The fire warmed his ankles, the backs of his knees. "It s swell to come home to you."
"Why, Bill!" Her voice was warm. "Thank you."
"I was worried about you being alone, too."
"Oh, I was all right." She smiled at him. "But I m glad you worried."
"And then I wondered…"
"Yes, Bill."
"I wondered if you d let me… have a martini."
"Why, you…" She threw the book at him. It missed him, went into the fire. "That s really why you came home."
"No. I was lonesome. But I wanted a cocktail, too."
"Remember your promise not to drink?"
"Can t I have one? Please?" He looked at her beseechingly. "I m tired. I ve had a hard day."
"I m sick of hearing that," Ann said. "All you do night after night is come home tired, wanting to take off your shoes and drink martinis."
"I don t care about taking off my shoes," he said. "I just want some martinis."
"Am I supposed to slave all day over an ice-cold shaker?"
"I slave over an ice-cold ice box, don t I?"
She admitted that was true. "I ll let you have just one." She got bottles and a tray of hors d oeuvres, put them on the end table by the couch. She mixed vermouth and gin in a ratio of one to three and one half added a drop of orange bitters and ice. She stirred with a long spoon, poured into a cocktail glass with an olive in the bottom. "Just one, now," she warned him.
Refreshed by the drink and some anchovies, he told her of his interview with Simeon March. "He s bound and determined to hang Carmel," he said.
Ann said, "I wonder what Mr March would say if he heard her side of the case."
"He wouldn t believe her."
Ann said, "If she kills anybody it ll be Alice March. I wouldn t be surprised if she took a sock at her someday."
"Oh no," Crane said. "She s too much of a lady."
"Anyway, I think Donovan s in this." Ann s voice was determined. "And I m going to find out."
"It d be better if you went back to New York instead of getting mixed up with a lot of gangsters."
"No."
Crane saw it was useless to argue with her. He admired her courage, and, anyway, he thought Donovan was bluffing. He was probably sore about Delia and wanted to scare him away so he couldn t make another pass at her. If you were really going to kidnap somebody you didn t warn them first. He turned the conversation to Peter March, pretended not to notice a sudden chill in Ann s attitude.
"He s a fine candidate for the noose," he said, not without satisfaction.
"I d rather not discuss him," Ann said.
"It was clever of Williams to discover he looked like John," Crane continued.
She didn t say anything.
Crane said, "Of course, Talmadge is a good suspect, too." She didn t seem to be interested, but he went on, "He s always trying to pin the odor of gardenias on Carmel and he tipped off Donovan I was back at the Crimson Cat. The only trouble is I think only one person did the murders."
"You think Talmadge suspects you re a detective?"
"Nobody does," Crane said. "Least of all Simeon March."
"Then why did Talmadge warn Donovan?"
"Because of Delia. He didn t know she had gone. He wanted to tip off Donovan; he thought, from the gossip he d heard, that I was chasing her."
"He was probably right," Ann said. "And I think you re missing the most important thing, not going after Slats Donovan."
"You d better concentrate on Peter March, and stop worrying about me and Donovan."
"I m going after him." Her face was determined. "I m not afraid of him, even if you are."
"Don t tell me you ve given Peter March up?"
She didn t answer.
"Or are you afraid he is guilty?" he taunted her. "Carmel s a fine motive. Peter killed Richard because Carmel loved him, and John because she was married to him."
After a time she said, "You re nasty. I try to help, and you make it seem as though I was out after Peter… or his money."
"He does have a lot of money, doesn t he?"
She said, "I think you re horrible." She walked out of the living room with quick, short steps.