She turned her back to him, took a deep breath and threw words at me:
“While we were waiting here for Donald I had a telephone call. It was a man who wouldn’t give his name. He said Donald had gone to the home of a woman named Dinah Brand with a check for five thousand dollars. He gave me her address. Then I drove out there and waited down the street in the car until Donald came out.
“While I was waiting there I saw Max Thaler, whom I knew by sight. He went to the woman’s house, but didn’t go in. He went away. Then Donald came out and walked down the street. He didn’t see me. I didn’t want him to. I intended to drive home–get here before he came. I had just started the engine when I heard the shots, and I saw Donald fall. I got out of the car and ran over to him. He was dead. I was frantic. Then Thaler came. He said if I were found there they would say I had killed him. He made me run back to the car and drive home.”
Tears were in her eyes. Through the water her eyes studied my face, apparently trying to learn how I took the story. I didn’t say anything. She asked:
“Is that what you wanted?”
“Practically,” Noonan said. He had walked around to one side. “What did Thaler say this afternoon?”
“He urged me to keep quiet.” Her voice had become small and flat. “He said either or both of us would be suspected if anyone learned we were there, because Donald had been killed coming from the woman’s house after giving her money.”
“Where did the shots come from?” the chief asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see anything–except–when I looked up– Donald falling.”
“Did Thaler fire them?”
“No,” she said quickly. Then her mouth and eyes spread. She put a hand to her breast. “I don’t know. I didn’t think so, and he said he didn’t. I don’t know where he was. I don’t know why I never thought he might have.”
“What do you think now?” Noonan asked.
“He–he may have.”
The chief winked at me, an athletic wink in which all his facial muscles took part, and cast a little farther back:
“And you don’t know who called you up?”
“He wouldn’t tell me his name.”
“Didn’t recognize his voice?”
“No.”
“What kind of voice was it?”
“He talked in an undertone, as if afraid of being overheard. I had difficulty understanding him.”
“He whispered?” The chief’s mouth hung open as the last sound left it. His greenish eyes sparkled greedily between their pads of fat.
“Yes, a hoarse whisper.”
The chief shut his mouth with a click, opened it again to say persuasively:
“You’ve heard Thaler talk…
The woman started and stared big-eyed from the chief to me.
“It was he,” she cried. “It was he.”
Robert Albury, the young assistant cashier of the First National Bank, was sitting in the lobby when I returned to the Great Western Hotel. We went up to my room, had some ice-water brought, used its ice to put chill in Scotch, lemon juice, and grenadine, and then went down to the dining room.
“Now tell me about the lady,” I said when we were working on the soup.
“Have you seen her yet?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“But you’ve heard something about her?”
“Only that she’s an expert in her line.”
“She is,” he agreed. “I suppose you’ll see her. You’ll be disappointed at first. Then, without being able to say how or when it happened, you’ll find you’ve forgotten your disappointment, and the first thing you know you’ll be telling her your life’s history, and all your troubles and hopes.” He laughed with boyish shyness. “And then you’re caught, absolutely caught.”
“Thanks for the warning. How’d you come by the information?”
He grinned shamefacedly across his suspended soup spoon and confessed:
“I bought it.”
“Then I suppose it cost you plenty. I hear she likes dinero.”
“She’s money-mad, all right, but somehow you don’t mind it. She’s so thoroughly mercenary, so frankly greedy, that there’s nothing disagreeable about it. You’ll understand what I mean when you know her.”