Chapter II: Part 2

“Before you say anything, John,” he said, “I hope you weren’t annoyed at Marion for phoning me and explaining the situation before she talked to you.”

“I may have been at the time,” Hayden said, “but I’m not annoyed now. It’s too late for that.”

“Good. You’re her husband. You’re the one she loves. But I’ve known her longer than you have. We’ve been friends since we were children and she needed to talk to someone who was not emotionally involved. She felt she had to have some sound objective advice and frankly I’m glad she told me. It looks as if you’re both in trouble and I hope I can be of some help.”

He had moved over to the fireplace as he spoke and now he turned, his back against the glowing embers, his hands clasped behind him. Standing there in his slacks and a shetland jacket, he made a trim, athletic-looking figure, an inch or so under six feet but with good shoulders and slim hips. His hair was sandy and cut short to help disguise the fact that it was thinning somewhat, his eyes were gray, and the thin-rimmed glasses helped to give his lean face an ascetic, austere expression. His upper lip was long and not given to useless smiling, and although he was at all times polite and well mannered, there was seldom any outward display of warmth or compassion. Hayden had wondered in the past whether this was due to the fact that Denham had been orphaned early and brought up strictly by his grandparents, or whether this was something that applied only to him and was a personal reaction brought about by the knowledge that while Denham had been a long-time friend of Marion’s, it was he, Hayden, she had married.

It was also possible, he knew, that his opinion of Denham was somewhat unfair. There had been times in the past when the thought of that long-time relationship had brought moments of jealousy. When Marion sensed this, she not only reassured him but laughed at him. Roger, she said, had been more like a brother than a lover. The fact that he was rather handsome, brilliant, well-brought-up, and comfortably fixed had nothing to do with it. Some men, she said, regardless of their attributes, simply did not attract some girls physically. For her, Roger was one of those.

She liked him and admired him, but his attempts to establish a more ardent relationship were misplaced and he had eventually come to accept the status quo. He had not approved of her marriage to Ted Corbin, saying that they had nothing in common, and in this he was right. That he may have felt the same way about her second marriage bothered Hayden not at all, but it could explain a lack of personal warmth, either real or imaginary, where he was concerned. In any case it did not matter. It was not important and it did not affect his respect for Denham’s knowledge and ability. It was this knowledge and good judgment that he needed now and he said so.

“All right,” he said, “you know the facts. What do you think we should do?”

“I think we ought to talk a little. I think you’ll want to go see this fellow Adler personally, but let’s take a look at all sides of his proposition first. He wouldn’t leave either the picture of Ted Corbin or his fingerprints with Marion, but she saw them. I think we ought to start with the assumption that Corbin actually is alive.”

“I don’t see how he could be.”

“Neither do I. But neither do I see anyone like Adler making a pitch like this and hoping to collect if he didn’t have something tangible to sell.”

“So?”

“So the easiest thing would be to pay Adler, and if that’s what you have in mind I could probably cut his price in half.”

“How?”

“By making a threat that will stand up. No matter what you decide to do, my advice to you is to let me carry the ball. See him by all means. Find out what you can. Play along for a while. Stall. When you’ve learned all you can, tell him to see me.”

“Then what?”

“I’ll take it from there and I can talk tough if I have to. I can get a warrant for his arrest on attempted extortion. When he sees I mean business he may decide to take, say, ten thousand dollars and get clear while he can.”

Hayden thought it over and did not like the conclusion that came to him. He said he had never run into blackmail before, but from what he had read, and what he had heard, he had an idea that it would be difficult to stop paying once he had started.

“What assurance would I have that Adler wouldn’t hit me again next year or the year after?”

“You wouldn’t have any, except his word or the threat of arrest.”

“There’d be no guarantee.”

“None. And there’s also another angle that you may not have considered. If Corbin is alive he disappeared deliberately through some odd coincidence that had to do with that fatal flight from Capitol City. We don’t have to speculate about that now; the point is that it would not be difficult for Corbin to keep track of Marion if he wanted to. For all we know, he could be behind this blackmail, with Adler nothing more than a messenger boy or collector.”

This thought was a new one to Hayden and he found it doubly discouraging. He found it hard to accept too, but he could not argue with the possibility Denham suggested.

“If that’s how it happens to be, I doubt if Corbin would be satisfied with one payment.”

“So do I. That’s something for you and Marion to decide for yourselves, but I guess you know there’s only one other alternative.”

“You mean bring the whole thing out into the open.”

“Exactly. Prefer charges against Adler, have him arrested; let the authorities put the pressure on him. They could make him produce Corbin if he’s alive, and you’d have to work it out from there. There’s no fraud involved on that insurance payment, either by you or by Marion, and if you put your cards on the table--”

“I guess they’d want their money back, wouldn’t they?”

“Probably. But, even so, there’s an area for discussion. Could you raise seventy-five thousand dollars?”

“No.”

Denham ran fingers through his thinning hair and moved sideways so that he could lean his shoulders against the mantelpiece. He took off his glasses, frowning as he held them up to the light. As he began to polish the lenses with his handkerchief he said:

“Let me review your corporate setup and see if I’ve got it right. You came to work for Brandt because he was getting old and wanted someone to take over the operation. You brought in this bright young genius from M.I.T. to improve the product and do your research. You got this other youngster in to handle the sales end. Before you really got operating under the new setup, Brandt died. His estate wanted to get out from under and they gave you the opportunity to take over the business. Am I right so far?”

“Yes.”

“Marion gave you the seventy-five thousand from the insurance money that I had invested for her. Your engineer and your salesman raised some money on their own and you made a small public offering of stock. So the way things stand now, you own roughly thirty per cent of the shares, your two partners own fifteen per cent each and the public holds the other forty per cent. Now how much could you raise--?”

“To get the whole seventy-five thousand,” Hayden cut in, “I’d have to sell out. By pledging my shares I probably could get thirty-five or forty thousand from the bank. Certainly not more than that, the way things stand.”

“It might be enough to start with.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, in the first place, that insurance money was paid to Marion. She gave it to you. That stock is not jointly owned, is it?”

“No, it’s in my name.”

“So how’s the insurance company going to get seventy-five thousand dollars out of Marion when she doesn’t have it?” He lifted one hand to forestall comment and continued: “What I’m trying to say is that this could be a matter for negotiation or the courts. We could force the insurance people to sue and there would probably be a judgment of some kind. You understand I’m simply guessing at this point because I’m not up on the laws that cover such cases.”

He put on his glasses and replaced the handkerchief. “But offhand I’d say that in such a situation the insurance people would be willing to negotiate. In other words, they might well be agreeable to a settlement of somewhat less than the original amount. They could most certainly get a judgment, but since in a way it would be like finding money in the street, they’d probably make some kind of a reasonable settlement rather than have the thing drag through the courts.”

“I could pay them part of it,” Hayden said, “if they would take notes for the balance and let me pay it off over a period of two or three years.”

“That’s a possibility,” Denham said, “but the thing you have to decide now is how you’re going to play the hand.”

“Suppose the insurance people wouldn’t settle?” Hayden said, persisting. “Suppose there was some way they could force me to pay up in full?”

Denham pushed away from the mantelpiece. He took a breath and shrugged. “I’m afraid that would be tough on you; Marion too. But let’s not cross that bridge yet.... Where are you going?” he asked as Hayden came to his feet.

Hayden took a moment before he replied. For the anger was stirring in him again, and it helped somewhat to combat the feeling of dejection and hopelessness that had been working on him for the past couple of hours. He found himself hating this man he had not yet seen but who had come so suddenly to threaten his marriage, his happiness, and his business.

“I’m going to see Adler,” he said bluntly. “I’m going to find out what the score is and if he gives me too much trouble I’ll probably break his damn neck.”

“Well, don’t.” Denham uttered a small dry laugh to show that he understood Hayden was only kidding. “If you decide you have to get tough with him, let me handle it. I’ve had more experience in these things, and if I have to threaten him I can make it stick. So keep your hands in your pockets. Find out all you can. Then stall. Tell him you need more time. Go home and take a couple of sleeping pills and get a good night’s rest. Get in touch with me tomorrow and we’ll make some plans.”

He had been walking to the door with Hayden as he spoke, and when he opened it he uttered a final word of caution.

“No rough stuff, okay?” When there was no reply he added: “I’m sorry I can’t offer you a drink but you know I seldom have it around unless I’m throwing a party.”

Hayden said it did not matter. He said he was going to stop at the tavern and have a couple of quick brandies to settle his nerves. After that he’d see what Sam Adler had to say.

* * * * *

The front of The Shady Maple Motel was well lighted at this hour and the sign that said _Vacancy_ was still beckoning to travelers who needed a place to sleep. John Hayden was never quite sure why he decided to park beyond the entrance, but something prompted him to let the car roll past, and he finally came to a stop under an ancient and towering elm tree that cast black shadows upon the street.

When he had turned off his lights and cut the motor, he walked back, keeping to the same side of the street and seeing again the cars that had been parked in the quadrangle. In contrast to the lighted windows which were shaded by drawn Venetian blinds, the parking area had a darkened and deserted look, but the office glowed brightly and he thought he saw someone at the desk through a crack in the shade as he started across the street toward the tavern.

Jerry was still presiding and several of the regulars were perched on stools watching something on the television set, which was placed high in one corner of the room. Later he was to remember that he did not see Doris Lamar, but at the moment he paid no attention to anything at all in the room except the empty space at the near end of the bar. Although Hayden seldom came there in the evening, Jerry’s broad muscular face showed no surprise at seeing him and he made no comment when Hayden asked for a double brandy, with water on the side.

“How much, Jerry?” he asked when the drink was served.

“That will be a dollar and a half, Mr. Hayden.”

Hayden counted out the money and Jerry went away. He studied the small snifter glass, which was now nearly full. He stood that way for a while, unmindful of those about him or the dialogue from the television set, recalling again Roger Denham’s advice and concentrating on keeping a tight grip on his emotions. He was not, as Denham had told Marion, an aggressive man by nature; yet he knew he was going to have trouble keeping his hands in his pockets, as Denham had advised. Without ever having met Adler, he already hated the man and he knew that to talk sensibly and with calculation in his present condition would be difficult.

That was why he needed the brandy. That was why he did not savor its bouquet and enjoy it as a connoisseur would. He sipped and sipped again. He took a swallow of water. He got a cigarette going. He held out one hand, palm down, as he had done in his kitchen earlier and was pleased to see that the extended fingers were steady. Then, the impatience beginning to ride him, he swallowed the last of the brandy, followed it with a gulp of water, and walked out into the night.

The wide main street was empty as he crossed it. After the friendly warmth of the tavern the night seemed raw, the wind coming in gusts that swayed the glowing motel sign and brought forth protesting metallic sounds. Sedans and station wagons gleamed darkly in the reflected light from the occupied units and, recalling that Doris Lamar had said Sam Adler had room twelve, he angled past the office and started down the center of the quadrangle. It was then that he saw the woman.

At no time did he get a good look at her. He saw her but vaguely as she moved on the cement walk that connected the units in the left-hand building, but she vanished almost instantly and he thought she had come out to get something from one of the cars. He slowed his steps slightly because he did not want to frighten her. He stopped a moment to peer ahead of him and when he did not see her again he wondered where she had gone.

The motel had been built in two facing and parallel sections, and the parking area was partly open at the far end. Between the end units was space for two cars and beyond this was a scraggly hedge which separated the property from the vacant lot facing the next street. There was only one car here now, and although he had heard nothing to indicate that a car door had been opened or closed, he realized the wind might have muffled the sound. He also knew that what the woman did--if in fact it was a woman--was none of his business. His business was with Sam Adler and he cut between two parked cars, angling to the connecting sidewalk so he could examine the unit numbers. By then he knew that Sam Adler had the last room on the right, the one with the car parked beside it, a small, new-looking sedan with New York license plates.

The blinds had been slanted in the room beyond to give it privacy, but lights were on and he found satisfaction in the knowledge that Adler was home. Somewhere inside, a radio was playing softly and he knocked confidently, then knocked again.

He turned as he waited, wondering if the woman he thought he had seen was watching him. When there was no acknowledgment beyond the door, his impatience prompted him to knock once more before he tried the knob.

When it turned easily he pushed into the lighted room saying: “Adler?” as he stopped and swung the door behind him. For another moment he thought the room was empty but a door, apparently giving on the lighted bathroom, was partly closed and he called again: “Hey, Adler!”

There was still no answer and, not understanding why this should be, he took another step, his troubled eyes busy, a sudden tension winding his nerves as instinct telegraphed its first sharp warning. It was this extra movement that brought a new angle of vision and finally told him that he was not alone.

A low chest obscured part of the still figure that was sprawled beyond it, but he could see the hips, the legs, the oddly twisted shoes which lay close together and parallel with the floor.

Unable yet to understand what had happened but certain now that something was horribly wrong, he called again, not knowing that he did so. Some inner compulsion that was both automatic and irresistible made him move again and then he saw it all, the dark-stained white shirt, the slanted neck with the face turned toward the wall, the widespread arms with the limp-fingered hands that curled inward.

He stood very still then, a cold and frightening emptiness inside him as he stared down at this man he had never seen before, and even then, as his mind struggled for some answer, he seemed to know that Sam Adler must be dead.

_5_

John Hayden was not aware of time as he stood tense and immobile, breath held and his heart beginning to pound. The recorded playing of some dance band came softly from the radio in a syncopated beat, and with his feet still anchored by the shock of his discovery, he swiveled his head and glanced slowly about the room.

It was, he saw at once, the sort of unit known as an efficiency. Without actually tabulating its contents, he was aware that the furniture was constructed of some blond wood and in a style that was more modern than traditional. The two beds, which were placed at right angles along two walls, had slipcovers and pillows to make them look like couches until they were ready for use. Opposite the partly opened bathroom door was a cubicle with a built-in dresser and some coat hangers on a metal rod, and the end of the room directly ahead of him contained a shallow kitchenette. Here there were cabinets and cupboards, a sink, a counter, an enameled unit that contained a small icebox and an even smaller electric range on top. From where he stood he could see two glasses and a bottle of gin, nearly empty now, bottles of soda, the pulpy halves of lemons from which the juice had been squeezed.

His unconscious inspection completed, he brought his glance back to the man on the floor and now he moved reluctantly toward him. The torso had been turned so that it rested partly on one side, and as he leaned down he saw the reason for the wide, dark stain that glistened moistly on the white shirt.

Because Adler’s back was away from him and not far from the wall it lay partly in shadow but he could see the wooden knife handle protruding from the ribs just to the left of the spine. The shape of that handle suggested that it was a kitchen knife and he thought it had probably come from the unit at the end of the room.

He remembered the description that had been given him by Doris Lamar and knew it fitted the sharp-featured face that now looked slack and gray and lifeless. The sleek, black hair needed cutting. There was a dark smudge of beard along the angle of one jaw and the nose, in profile, had a broad and flattened look. The hand that he finally reached for seemed surprisingly warm and limp, and he tried to concentrate now as he sought a pulse beat that never came.

He straightened slowly then, traces of shock still mingling with the confusion in his mind. He could feel the dampness in his palms and his breath came shallowly as he tried to put his thoughts in order. It took a while to relate Adler’s death to his own problems, and his first reaction was one of relief as he understood that the man no longer posed a threat to his happiness. The thought shamed him even as it came to him, but it did not last long. For he remembered other details now, and that fleeting sense of relief gave way at once to a fear that was real, genuine, and greatly disturbing.

This fear did not spring from any thought that he would be suspected or charged with murder, and he wasted no time speculating on the reason for Sam Adler’s death. The fear he felt came from remembered details that Marion had told him earlier. Adler had shown her a photograph of her first husband; he had shown her a second photograph of fingerprints that he insisted belonged to Ted Corbin. Therefore these photographs had to be on the body or somewhere in this room.

Under other circumstances there would have been no hesitation on Hayden’s part. His life had been well ordered and he had an inbred respect for the law that came from a proper background. The thing to do was to call the police immediately and let them take it from there. This was what the sensible part of his mind told him, but the things that had happened to him in the past two or three hours had shaken him mentally, morally, and emotionally.

Nothing that had happened to him before had equipped him to handle such a situation, but he was certain that the first thing the police would do would be to search the room. When they found those photographs they would eventually uncover the very things that he had been trying to protect. By digging into the past they would eventually know why Sam Adler had come here and what he had been trying to do. All this added up to a fine motive for murder, and the thought of what could happen induced a sense of panic that could have distorted his thinking.

Still undecided and torn between two conflicting demands, he backed away and made a slow, deliberate tour of the room. He moved to the kitchenette and saw again the gin and the bottles and glasses and the squeezed lemons. He continued on to the lighted bathroom and pushed the door open with his elbow. As he stepped inside he was at once aware of the distinctive odor that lingered in the air. It was a perfumed smell, not strong but definite; it also had a quality that he did not think had come from the plastic bottle of after-shave lotion which stood beside the razor and toilet kit on the glass shelf above the bowl. This was a more perfumed smell, more feminine, and as he backed from the room he remembered again the woman he had thought he had seen in the darkness of the quadrangle.

The thought did not linger because by now he knew what had to be done. In the light of what happened later, there were times when he doubted the wisdom of his decision, but he did not stop to consider whether he was acting wisely; he was motivated by those inner fears and emotions that revolved about himself and Marion and the threat Sam Adler had made to their future together.

Adler had shown Marion two photographs. They must therefore be somewhere in the room now. Without them the police could find no link between Adler and the past. A likely place to keep them would be a man’s wallet, and while he shrank from any contact with the lifeless figure he started toward it, only to stop when he saw the sport coat draped over the back of a chair.

He tried the outside pockets first but found only a pack of cigarettes and paper matches and two sticks of gum. But the inner pockets revealed a coat-type wallet of worn pigskin and he quickly found the two glossy prints in the center fold. He saw that they were about three inches by four, one showing the prints of four fingers of a right hand, the other a well-focused snapshot of a bareheaded man in coveralls. He took a moment to study this one and realize that his wife’s impression had been correct. The background did indeed suggest a filling station and there was some insignia on the breast pocket of the coveralls the man wore.

When he had first begun to call on Marion there had been a cabinet photograph of her first husband in her apartment. This had disappeared after their engagement, but he was as convinced now as she had been that this was an unposed snapshot of Ted Corbin. That he seemed older-looking and leaner than the remembered man in the other photograph seemed to bear out Adler’s contention that the picture had been taken recently.

A quick inspection of the inner pocket of the wallet revealed no other pictures, but he did find a Social Security card and two driver’s licenses. One had been issued in New York State and gave a Flushing address. When he saw that this was an old license he turned to the other, which gave a Conti Street address in Mobile, Alabama. He copied this address in a small notebook before he replaced the wallet, and now a new and urgent thought came to him that was at once discouraging.

If there were photographic prints there had to be negatives. If these were found they would be equally damaging. With this thought in mind he began a quick but thorough search of the room. He made himself bend over the body and pat the hip pockets. He searched the suitcase and the small blue flight bag. He went through the pockets of the gray suit that hung in the alcove and did the same thing to the blue topcoat. The drawers in the chest and the built-in vanity held nothing to interest him, and when he finally ran out of places to look, he was forced to accept the fact that there were no negatives in the room.

But if there were prints there _had_ to be negatives. So where were they?

He repeated the question aloud, a sense of frustration growing in him until he realized that time could be important and he was wasting it. He did not think he had been here long, and as he stepped to the door he told himself that no one could prove he had been here tonight. Or could they?

“How about fingerprints?” he said, half aloud.

What had he touched that might betray him? Not the bathroom door because he had opened that with his elbow. The drawer pulls? No, they were too small. The wallet was something else again and he removed it, rubbed it with his handkerchief, and replaced it gingerly. That left only the outer doorknob, and as he reached for it, handkerchief in hand, one more thought came to nag him.

Marion knew he was coming here but he felt certain he could trust her to say the right thing. But how about Roger Denham? Denham knew he was coming. If questioned, Denham would naturally say so. True, Denham could be cautioned not to give the facts as he knew them, but that might imply guilt and he did not want to be under that sort of obligation to the lawyer. Then, even as he considered the problem, a solution came to him.

The door had been unlocked when he came. All he had to do now was to release the safety catch, thereby locking it. Whoever discovered the body would have to admit that the door was locked from outside and this was exactly what he would tell the police if they ever questioned him.

“I’ll admit I came to see Adler,” he’d say to them. “I knocked and no one answered. I tried the door. It was locked. I figured he was out. There was no way of knowing when he’d be back, so I went home.”

Still with the handkerchief in his hand, he inched the door open, fixed the lock, and mentally crossed his fingers as he prepared to leave. If someone saw him now it would be too bad, but it was a chance he had to take, so he sucked in his breath and went out quickly, closing the door behind him.

The darkness seemed complete after the lighted room but he stepped close to the side of the car with the New York license plates and stood in a half-crouch until his eyes adjusted themselves. He could see nothing, hear nothing but the muted sounds of the radio. Because he did not dare walk the length of the quadrangle and expose himself to the lights of the office and the motel sign, he moved the other way, peering for an opening in the hedge at the rear and finding one, then circling around the far side of the building until he reached the elm, which cast its inky shadow over his car.

He coasted into his garage a few minutes later and came to a stop beside the station wagon. He turned out his headlights and stepped to the floor and then he had to grope in the darkness for the switch that activated the overhead bulb. In doing so he stumbled, and as he put out a hand to steady himself his fingers found the hood of the station wagon. It was then that he became aware of the warmth of the metal and, not quite believing his senses or understanding how this could be, he moved forward, his hand finding the ornamental grille in front of the radiator.

By then he was sure. There could be no mistaking the heat in the radiator and he stayed where he was as his mind raced on, disturbed and strangely frightened by his discovery and the knowledge that Marion had used the car, and recently.

But how recently? And for what purpose?

He tried to tell himself that this was not unusual, that there was some simple and innocent explanation. A trip to the drugstore for a prescription or some toiletry or a late newspaper. This, he knew, had happened before, but even as he acknowledged the possibility he remembered again the woman he had seen so briefly at the motel, the distinctive odor of perfume in the lighted bathroom. To arrest such unwanted imagery he glanced at his watch and was surprised to see that it was still only ten minutes after nine.

This, he told himself as he pulled down the overhead door and turned toward the breezeway, was all to the good, and as he crossed the area to the darkened kitchen he outlined the tentative timetable which began with his prompt arrival at Roger Denham’s place at eight o’clock.

He had been there no more than a half hour, if that. Another ten minutes, say eight-forty, had brought him to Jerry’s Tavern. Five minutes with his brandy would put him at Sam Adler’s door at eight-forty-five or a minute later. Since it was about a ten-minute drive from the tavern here, he must have been at the motel no more than twelve or fourteen minutes.

And he not only had the two pictures; he had not been seen. So what should he do about Marion? Ask her where she’d been or pretend he did not know she had been gone? This, he knew at once, would be best, and he was determined to stick with the decision as he entered the kitchen and locked the door behind him.

_6_

He did not stop in the kitchen but continued on into the lighted living room, expecting to find his wife in her chair and wondering just what he was going to say to her. Then, even as he brought some discipline to his thoughts, he realized that the effort was wasted. The room was empty and the only light came from a floor lamp by the wing chair.

For a second or two as he stood there he felt a welcome sense of relief, but it did not last when he remembered the station wagon and its warm radiator. Because he knew she must be home he moved quietly to the inner hall. From there he could see the open door of their bedroom and the darkness beyond. Still moving soundlessly, he reached the doorway and peered inside. There was enough light behind him to reveal the elongated mound her body made under the covers and the dark hair spread upon the pillow.

The fact that she had gone to bed early was, in itself, not unusual. In the last couple of months there had been several times when she had retired soon after dinner and he understood the reason for this. On those occasions he would come into their darkened room and undress as quietly as he could. Sometimes she would be awake, or would waken, and he would slip into bed beside her and hold her until she fell asleep again. At other times, knowing that she was asleep and not wanting to disturb her, he would move down the hall to the guest bedroom. The fact that the light was already on here was her way of telling him that tonight she was inviting him to sleep alone, and he stood another moment, watching for some sign of movement and wondering whether she was asleep or whether she was afraid of the questions he might ask.

The thought brought with it a sense of frustration but it gave him little alternative and he went back to the kitchen and turned on the light. The dishes they had used for their soup and salad earlier had been rinsed and stacked on the counter and he now put them into the dishwasher. He thought about making a drink and knew he did not want one. But he wanted something and he compromised by getting a beer from the refrigerator. He took this into the living room, and when he had a cigarette going he eased into the chair, his somber gaze fixed but unseeing and his mouth set grimly as his mind began again to grapple with his problems.

He made no conscious effort to think; he simply could not help himself. He found himself wondering how long it would be before Sam Adler’s body was discovered. He wondered what course the police investigation would take, and as he recalled again the story of George Freeman’s fight with the stranger he found a new motive for Adler’s death. Freeman was the quiet type that no one seemed to know too well. That he was intensely jealous where Doris Lamar was concerned seemed obvious in the light of what had happened, but he realized now that there was no point in trying to imagine what Freeman might do under extreme provocation.

Once the investigation was under way, the police would be sure to learn about the relationship between Freeman and Doris Lamar and Sam Adler. But--and this thought jarred him--they might also learn from Doris that Adler had been asking questions about him. Suppose they came here to ask other questions. Suppose someone had seen Marion tonight when she was out in the station wagon. Suppose...

This line of reasoning angered him and he swore aloud. Such disloyalty shamed him and he told himself again that Marion could not have killed Adler; she could not kill anyone. She was a completely normal, well-adjusted, and sensible girl. She always had been. The fact that her pregnancy had given her some moments of emotional turbulence could not possibly have brought her to the point of violence. This is what he told himself and this is what he believed, and yet some obscure segment of his brain that he could not control persisted in asserting itself.

He could not forget the knife that had been thrust into Sam Adler’s back. It was, he felt sure, a kitchen knife of some sort, and the obvious assumption was that it had come from the kitchenette in Adler’s room. But he could not dismiss the thought that Adler had been stabbed in the back. It was hard for him to understand why a man would use this method unless the killing was premeditated. But to a woman a kitchen knife was a familiar object. Driven by fear or desperation or a moment of temporary insanity, a woman wanting to strike back and finding such a knife handy might use it.

He lost track of time as he sat there brooding, his beer forgotten and growing flat in the glass. In an effort to curb his imagination and to submerge his present doubts and fears, he forced his mind back into the past while he considered the girl he had married, not just as he knew her since they had been together, but before that, before Ted Corbin.

She had been brought up in Westchester in a family that was socially acceptable and soundly rooted. As Marion Haskell there was enough money for a good finishing school and a college education, even though the Haskells had never been wealthy. Her father worked in Wall Street and his speculations were not always too wise, so that when a heart attack took him a month or so before Marion was to graduate from Vassar, there was not a great deal left except the house, two small insurance policies payable to her and her brother, and a large one that went to her mother, who, for the past few years, had been living with her son in Texas.

Marion had gone to work for an advertising agency in New York immediately after graduation. She had been sharing an apartment with another girl when she met Ted Corbin, who was a friend of a friend of her roommate’s. Corbin was working as a paper salesman at the time, and the factors that caused the marriage to founder after three years were the very ones that attracted Marion to him in the first place.

That Corbin was a big, good-looking, and easygoing man was at once in his favor, but what intrigued her most was the fact that he was so different from the young men she had gone out with in the past. Mostly these were Ivy League youths whose standards, conduct, and ambitions were so similar to her own. The pattern was familiar to her and she enjoyed being with them; the affairs that she had with one or another from time to time were in a minor key, but always the language they shared was the same.

Since Ted Corbin had not been trained to fit the pattern, he presented an approach that Marion found both different and exciting. For Corbin had been born and brought up in a small Pennsylvania mining town, and if his intelligence quotient was perhaps less than some, he had other skills, one of which was the ability to play a hard and aggressive type of football that was much in demand. This got him into a school in South Carolina, and by the time he had graduated he had gained some prominence in his field. He had lasted two years in the professional league, and when he realized he would never be a first-string regular, he had taken a job with a southern paper company, which eventually brought him to New York.

The fact that he was not adept or skilled in social intercourse did not seem important to Marion, even though she was aware of this. She liked his breeziness, his easy manners, his offhand ways; it was only much later that she discovered these ways were a little crude, a little too coarse for her taste. For he was, basically, an outdoor man. He liked to hunt and fish and go to the fights or the ball game. He had not read a book since he left college and she discovered that he had no intention of ever reading another. His taste in newspapers was limited to the tabloids or the sporting pages. His friends were not her friends, and even though he tried at times, the lack of communication eventually made him sullen and distant.

Friction developed early in the marriage but they tried in their own ways to combat it. But it was harder for Corbin because there was little depth to his thinking and he did not have the basic equipment to adjust to new things. Discouraged by his failure to make the marriage go, he had sought comfort in earlier friends. He drank too much and had difficulty in holding a job. There had been three jobs in three years, and he was on his way to see about a fourth when tragedy struck the aircraft. Even before that, they both knew that their marriage was finished. They had practically agreed on a separation and Marion had started to look for another job in the advertising field....

The sound that cut through Hayden’s thoughts and made him jump in the chair so startled him that for the moment he did not know whether it came from the telephone or the front door. It took him another few seconds to break the spell of nervous tension that gripped him, to glance at his watch, to understand that he had been sitting here for nearly two hours. For it was now a few minutes after eleven, and as the sound was repeated and he came to his feet, he understood that whoever had rung the doorbell had not come here on a social call. He moved quickly then, the trepidation growing in him as his pulse quickened.

He did not know the two men who faced him as he opened the door, but he saw that one was tall and lean-looking in his trench coat, the other somewhat shorter and more heavily built. It was the tall one who made the introduction.

“Mr. Hayden?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m Lieutenant Garvey of the State Police.... This is County Detective Ball from the State’s Attorney’s office.”

Hayden’s acknowledgment was a mumbled “Hello,” and although he had already considered the possibility of such a call, he was glad the light was at his back. For in those first moments he could feel his features stiffen as the blood drained from his face. He had the impression that the shadowed eyes beneath the hat brims were intent upon his reactions and he concentrated on making his voice sound reasonably surprised but not disconcerted.

“What can I do for you?”

“We’re sorry to bother you at this hour,” Garvey said, “but we need some information and we thought you might help us. May we come in?”

“Certainly.” Hayden stepped back and waved them toward the living room. “In there. Take off your coats.”

They removed their hats and unbuttoned their coats but did not take them off. They sat down on the divan and he could see now that Garvey was in his late thirties, a confident-looking man with a prominent jaw, deep-set gray eyes, and short brown hair. Ball was older and more round in the face. His head was nearly bald on top and Hayden was at once aware of the dark eyes which were steady, watchful, and inquisitive.

“I was just having a beer before I went to bed,” he said, and took a swallow of the stale brew to prove it. “Can I offer you anything?”

“No thanks,” they said.

“We’ll try not to keep you up,” Garvey said. “But we’d like to find out what you know about a man named Adler.”

_7_

John Hayden took another slow and deliberate swallow of the beer and reached for a cigarette. He knew then that he was as ready as he ever would be for the questions and it pleased him to see that the flame from their table lighter was steady when he held it up. He could still feel his pulse but it was no longer racing, and he frowned deliberately at the end of the cigarette before he replied.

“Adler?” he said on a note of puzzlement.

“You don’t know him?” Ball asked.

“I don’t think so. At least I don’t remember anyone by that name.”

“He was staying at The Shady Maple Motel.”

Hayden frowned again for their benefit. “What about him? Is he in some kind of trouble?”

“Not any more.”

“Someone stuck a knife in his back,” Garvey said. “According to the medical examiner he probably died somewhere between eight and nine o’clock tonight.”

Hayden heard them out and then, nothing showing in his face, he rose and moved over to close the door to the inner hall.

“My wife went to bed early,” he said. “She’s four months pregnant and I’d like her to get her rest.” He came back and sat down. He looked right at them. “I don’t know anyone named Adler,” he said, “but I’m curious to know why you came here at all.”

“We’ve been making a lot of inquiries, Mr. Hayden,” Ball said. “From things we’ve heard we got the impression that you _did_ know Adler.”

“To the best of my knowledge I never laid eyes on the man.”

“George Freeman--he’s managing The Shady Maple--” Garvey began.

“I know him.”

“--found the body around nine-thirty, or so he says. He couldn’t tell us much about Adler except that he was a stranger who registered yesterday afternoon.”

“We started to check on him,” Ball said. “We put some men on the main street to see what we could find. You know Lee Cramer at the filling station, don’t you?”

“Know him well.”

“He remembered Adler. He had some conversation with him yesterday afternoon and Adler asked if he knew you. He asked where you lived and Cramer told him. Now why would Adler do that if he didn’t intend to get in touch with you?”

“Cramer told me about that conversation,” Hayden said and was pleased that his voice sounded so steady and unruffled. “He described the man but he didn’t mention any name.”

Garvey, who had been examining a small, leather-covered notebook, looked up. “We made some inquiries at Jerry’s Tavern,” he said. “The way we get it you stopped in there twice tonight.”

“That’s right.”

“You had some conversation with the waitress there--Doris Lamar--”

“That was around a quarter of six.”

“Mind telling us the substance of that conversation?”

“It was mostly about her and George Freeman.”

“Did she tell you that a man named Sam Adler had been making some inquiries about you?”

Hayden hesitated but not for long.

“Yes, now that I stop to think of it. She said she and George had had an argument about something. Adler made a play for her the night before and she decided to put Freeman in his place. They went dancing later at the Log Cabin and Freeman came in and took a swing at Adler and Adler beat him to the punch. When I saw Freeman he was wearing dark glasses. He looked as if he had a shiner.”

“He did,” Ball said. “It was a beaut.”

“So Adler asked Lee Cramer if he knew you and where you lived,” Garvey continued. “Cramer told him. Tonight Doris Lamar told you the same thing. But you still say you don’t know Adler?”

“That’s right.”

“He didn’t come here to see you?”

“He did not.”

“And you have no idea what he wanted?”

“No.”

“Where were you this evening?” Ball asked.

Hayden suddenly found it difficult to meet the unremitting steadiness of the county detective’s dark gaze. The uneasiness was growing in him now and for some reason his thoughts moved off on a tangent and he found himself comparing these two with the detectives he had seen on television and in the movies. He had never been questioned by a policeman about anything, but the detectives he had seen on the screen were hard-nosed, tough-talking characters who threw their weight around and wore down suspects by intimidation and threats. In contrast, these two men spoke quietly and in matter-of-fact tones. They were polite, and at the moment well mannered, but he understood that they would be relentless in their pursuit of any information they thought pertinent.

He thought about the two photographs he had in his pocket and was thankful that they could not know about them. There had been moments of misgivings when he left the motel room, but he was glad now that he had acted the way he did. They might pin him down on this or that, but without those pictures which linked him and Marion with the past there was no motive--unless they somehow located the original negatives.

“I had an appointment with my attorney at eight o’clock.”

“Who would that be?” Garvey asked.

“Roger Denham,” Hayden said and mentioned the address.

“You went to his house?”

“That’s right.”

“When did you leave?”

“I’d say around eight-thirty.”

“Then what?”

“I stopped at Jerry’s Tavern.”

“For a drink?” Ball asked in his customary even tones.

“Naturally.”

“What did you order?”

“A double brandy and water,” Hayden said, and even as he spoke he knew that the announcement would bring forth additional comment.

“Was that the usual thing for you at that time of the evening?” Garvey asked.

“No. I felt like a double brandy and I ordered it. I drank it and drove home.”

“Jerry said that when you left you started across the street toward the motel,” Ball said.

“Sure,” Hayden said, “because my car was parked on that side of the street.”

“You got home about when?”

“Nine, or a little after.”

Ball leaned back and exchanged glances with the lieutenant. Apparently this was sufficient for a silent meeting of the minds because when he continued he seemed to speak for both of them.

“We’d like very much to speak to your wife for a few minutes, Mr. Hayden,” he said. “I know it may seem to you like an imposition and I appreciate her condition, but in a murder case it’s important that we find out as much as we can and as quickly as we can. Perhaps if you explained--”

He did not finish the sentence but stopped abruptly, his gaze shifting and the dark eyes opening. In the next instant he started to rise and so did Lieutenant Garvey. The reaction was so surprising that Hayden turned; not until then did he realize that his wife was standing in the doorway, her hand still on the knob.

“I thought I heard voices,” she said. “Is something wrong, darling?”

He got to his feet as she spoke, and even with all the confusion in his mind he had time to notice how pretty she looked. She had never been a girl who went to bed with cream on her face or curlers in her hair, except when it had just been washed; now her face had a clean, scrubbed look, and her dark hair was caught at the nape with a ribbon. The hazel eyes had a sleepy look and the dark blue robe she wore was long and tailored. He found his tongue as he stepped to her side and drew her into the room.

“Marion, this is Lieutenant Garvey and Detective Ball--my wife.”

The two men said: “How do you do, Mrs. Hayden,” and looked impressed.

“Police officers, darling?” she said with just the right inflection. “But why?” She smiled at them. “Please sit down. Tell me about it.”

“A man named Sam Adler was killed sometime this evening at The Shady Maple Motel,” Hayden said before the two detectives could reply. “Someone stabbed him. They seem to think we might know him.”

He saw the effect of his words on her as she sat down. The long lashes lifted and her eyes were suddenly wide open and staring at him. He watched the slackness working on her mouth and the color slowly drain from her face. It was a frightening thing to see, this change in her face, and he was terribly afraid that she might blurt out the things she knew before she had a chance to think. He knew she was about to speak, and he could not stop her, and it came to him then that the look of shock and fear in her eyes was concerned not with the two officers but with him.