He put the telephone aside and went across the room to look at the mail on a table by the door. There were some magazines and nine letters. He looked rapidly at the envelopes, dropped them on the table again without having opened any, and went into his bedroom to undress, then into his bathroom to shave and bathe.
2
District Attorney Michael Joseph Farr was a stout man of forty. His hair was a florid stubble above a florid pugnacious face. His walnut desk-top was empty except for a telephone and a large desk-set of green onyx whereon a nude metal figure holding aloft an airplane stood on one foot between two black and white fountain-pens that slanted off to either side at rakish angles.
He shook Ned Beaumont’s hand in both of his and pressed him down into a leather-covered chair before returning to his own seat. He rocked back in his chair and asked: “Have a nice trip?” Inquisitiveness gleamed through the friendliness in his eyes.
“It was all right,” Ned Beaumont replied. “About this Francis West: with him out of the way how does the case against Tim Ivans stand?’
Farr started, then made that startled motion part of a deliberate squirming into a more comfortable position in his chair.
“Well, it won’t make such a lot of difference there,” he said, “that is, not a whole lot, since there’s still the other brother to testify against Ivans.” He very noticeably did not watch Ned Beaumont’s face, but looked at a corner of the walnut desk. “Why? What’d you have on your mind?”
Ned Beaumont was looking gravely at the man who was not looking at him. “I was just wondering. I suppose it’s all right, though, if the other brother can and will identify Tim.”
Farr, still not looking up, said: “Sure.” He rocked his chair back and forth gently, an inch or two each way half a dozen times. His fleshy cheeks moved in little ripples where they covered his jaw-muscles. He cleared his throat and stood up. He looked at Ned Beaumont now with friendly eyes. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I’ve got to go see about something. They forget everything if I don’t keep right on their tails. Don’t go. I want to talk to you about Despain.”
Ned Beaumont murmured, “Don’t hurry,” as the District Attorney left the office, and sat and smoked placidly all the fifteen minutes he was gone.
Farr returned frowning. “Sorry to leave you like that,” he said as he sat down, “but we’re fairly smothered under work. If it keeps up like this–” He completed the sentence by making a gesture of hopelessness with his hands.
“That’s all right. Anything new on the Taylor Henry killing?”
“Nothing here. That’s what I wanted to ask you about–Despain.” Again Farr was definitely not watching Ned Beaumont’s face.
A thin mocking smile that the other man could not see twitched for an instant the corners of Ned Beaumont’s mouth. He said: “There’s not much of a case against him when you come to look at it closely.”
Farr nodded slowly at the corner of his desk. “Maybe, but his blowing town that same night don’t look so damned good.”
“He had another reason for that,” Ned Beaumont said, “a pretty good one.” The shadowy smile came and went.
Farr nodded again in the manner of one willing to be convinced. “You don’t think there’s a chance that he really killed him?”
Ned Beaumont’s reply was given carelessly: “I don’t think he did it, but there’s always a chance and you’ve got plenty to hold him awhile on if you want to.”
The District Attorney raised his head and looked at Ned Beaumont. He smiled with a mixture of diffidence and good-fellowship and said: “Tell me to go to hell if it’s none of my business, but why in the name of God did Paul send you to New York after Bernie Despain?”
Ned Beaumont withheld his reply for a thoughtful moment. Then he moved his shoulders a little and said: “He didn’t send me. He let me go.
Farr did not say anything.
Ned Beaumont filled his lungs with cigar-smoke, emptied them, and said: “Bernie welshed on a bet with me. That’s why he took the run-out. It just happened that Taylor Henry was killed the night of the day Peggy O’Toole came in in front with fifteen hundred of my dollars on her.”