Invitation to Violence

CHAPTER SEVEN

She lay sprawled out on top of the sheet, her eyes filled with hatred as he leaned over and spoke to her.

“I’m taking the gag out of your mouth,” he said. “If you yell, or make any trouble, I’ll knock your teeth down your throat. Just stay right where you are and be quiet. Someone is coming in to see you for a few minutes.”

She fought back the sudden fear, trying to understand. He’d told her that if she didn’t talk he’d bring someone in; someone who would do horrible things to her. Someone who would make his own cruelties seem like caresses by comparison.

“You’re not going to be hurt,” he said. “This man is just going to talk to you.” He sensed her fears and spoke quickly. “But remember, no yelling.”

She sensed relief then; he must be telling the truth. He wouldn’t be taking the gag from her mouth if anyone were going to hurt her. She wondered what would happen next. Wondered what they would eventually do with her. She knew the kind of man he was. She could guess.

Slaughter removed the gag and reached down, lifting her slender body so that she leaned back against the headboard. He turned and left the room, closing the door behind himself. For several minutes she just sat there and then, as she heard the sound of the footsteps approaching, her eyes once more went to the door, wide with fright.

Gerald entered the room and closed the door firmly behind himself. He walked over to the bed and leaned down, sitting on the edge of it. He spoke quickly, before she had a chance to say a word and while the expression on her face was rapidly changing first from fear to utter amazement and then from amazement to bitter amusement.

“Please don’t say a word,” he said. “I’ve only got a couple of minutes before he’ll be back and you have got to listen to me.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed.

“I might have guessed,” she began, “might have guessed that you…”

“Don’t guess anything,” he said quickly. “You’d be wrong. Just listen. If you are interested in saving your life, just do nothing and listen to me.”

“I don’t care what they do to me,” she said, half hysterically. “Sooner or later the police…”

“Shut up and listen to me,” he said, taking her by the arms and shaking her. “It isn’t only your life-it can be mine too. But if you do just as I tell you, we’ll both get out of this. We’ll not only get out of it, but you’ll get what you want.”

“You don’t know what I want,” she said, fiercely, trying to pull away from him.

“I do know what you want,” he said. “I know very well what you want. But you simply have to have faith in me. I can’t explain, I can’t tell you why. I can’t tell you anything. I haven’t time. But you must do exactly as I tell you.”

Watching her as he quickly spoke, he was glad to see her expression gradually change from antagonism to curiosity.

“Some of what I told you last night is true,” he said. “But there was a lot I didn’t tell you. A lot I didn’t know myself. I didn’t know that they were going to pick you up. I didn’t know…”

“Are you trying to tell me you aren’t in with…”

“Do please shut up,” Gerald said. “Shut up and listen. Don’t ask questions. I haven’t time to answer them. I’ve only got another minute. Listen.”

He still held her by the arms and he could feel her suddenly relax.

“I’ve made a deal. They’re getting the jewels and they’re letting you go free. On the understanding that you keep your mouth shut. That you never breathe a word of what has happened.”

“And you,” she began.

“Later,” he said quickly. “Later, when you are out of here and free, I’ll tell you all about myself. Right now please just trust and believe me. Do exactly what I tell you to do and I’ll promise that it will work out the way you want it to. You must absolutely convince them that if they let you go you will keep your mouth shut. Later, late today, Slaughter will bring you to a certain place. He’ll take the jewels and you’ll be released.”

“But why…”

“Look,” he said, “dear God, just promise to do what I ask.”

For a long moment she looked into his face, this time almost without expression. She half nodded her head.

“And you,” she said. “Just what are you going to get out of it?”

For a moment he stared back into her eyes and then he quickly leaned forward on the bed and his lips barely brushed her forehead.

“Me?” he said. “Why I’m going to marry you and live happily ever after.”

He stood up, watching her seriously as her mouth fell open in surprise.

“That’s right,” he said. “And I want you to know that I realize you wouldn’t marry a thief or a crook.”

Staring at him, she suddenly realized that he was dead serious.

“Why,” she said, “why you don’t even know me! You must be a little crazy. We don’t…”

His finger went to his lips and he moved toward the door silently.

“I don’t even know myself,” he said. “But I’m not crazy. Not a bit. I’m completely and beautifully sane-probably for the first time in my life.”

He opened the door slightly and called out.

“O.K., Slaughter, we’re all through.”

He made the reservation over the telephone, using a public booth in the rear of a midtown tavern. He hit the right combination on his third try. The desk clerk at the Metropole had exactly what he wanted-two rooms, separated by a bath. He explained that he would be using the suite overnight, sharing it with a business acquaintance. Room 508 he reserved for himself, giving his correct name and address. Room 510 he reserved under the name of Fred Slaughter.

“Mr. Slaughter,” Gerald said, “will arrive sometime early this evening. However, I’ll stop by within an hour and will pay for both rooms at that time. I’d appreciate it if the maid can have them made up as I’d like an opportunity to arrange my samples.”

He wanted to leave the impression with the clerk that he was a salesman.

He took a cab from the tavern to Grand Central. He was vaguely worried by the possibility of being picked up. There was a chance that the police could have found out about his leaving the office and he guessed that the moment he was reported missing, the pickup order would go out.

He hurried into the station and found the checkroom where he had left the brief case and the zipper bag on Saturday. It only took a minute or so to retrive them.

The next stop was at a luggage shop in the arcade. Here he purchased a fairly large leather suitcase. He had the clerk remove the price tag and he opened the bag and put both of his other burdens in it.

A door or two away was a haberdashery and he went in and bought several shirts, some socks and underwear. One more stop and he had added a shaving and toilet kit to his luggage. And then he took a cab to the Metropole.

It was a rather small, very respectable semiresidential hotel in the Murray Hill section. The clerk greeted him with a smile when he identified himself. After Gerald had signed the register, he started to reach for his wallet.

“You can take care of it when you are ready to sign out,” the desk clerk said.

Gerald nodded and thanked him.

“I’ll go on up now,” he said, “but I’d like to leave Mr. Slaughter’s key for him to pick up himself when he comes in. I’ll probably be in and out of my room and I want to be sure…”

“Certainly. We’ll be looking for him.”

The bellhop doubled as elevator boy and he stopped the cage at the fifth floor. Gerald followed him down the carpeted hallway to room 508, and stood by as the boy put the bag on the floor while he opened the door. He entered the room and after dropping the bag, opened the closet door and then went to the window and made an unnecessary adjustment to the air-condition unit.

As Gerald was reaching in his pocket for a dollar bill, the boy opened the bathroom door.

“I understand you’ve reserved both rooms,” he said. “This door goes into the other part of the suite and you can lock either bathroom door from either side.”

Gerald thanked him and handed him the dollar. He shook his head when the boy asked if he wanted ice water.

“Nothing just yet,” he said. “Perhaps later. By the way, is there stationery and envelopes?”

“In the drawer over there,” the boy said, indicating a writing desk on which the telephone sat. “You want I should come up and get your mail in a while, maybe?”

“It won’t be necessary, but thanks,” Gerald said.

He waited until he was alone before he carefully inspected the suite. The rooms were exactly what he had wished for. The windows were closed on the air-conditioning units and they were covered by Venetian blinds and heavy drapes. Neither room was large, but they were adequate.

The bathroom was an old-fashioned and overlarge room. Doors led into each room and they could be locked from the inside to insure privacy. Going into 510, the room he had reserved for Slaughter, Gerald walked over to the radio and turned it on, fairly loud. Then he returned to his own room, carefully closing both bathroom doors.

He nodded his head in satisfaction. No sound from the radio penetrated.

“Perfect,” he said, half aloud. It would take the sound of a gunshot to penetrate the double walls.

He opened the suitcase and took out the brief case and the zipper bag and once more returned to Room 510. He opened the bottom bureau drawer and placed the bags in it. And then once more he returned to his own room. Sitting at the desk, he found the stationery.

For the next half hour he was busy composing the two letters. Finishing them, he addressed the envelopes and sealed them. Then he placed the letters in his inside breast pocket and left the room, turning the key in the lock.

Passing through the lobby, he ignored the postal drop. Once more he took a cab, this time directing the driver to the post office on Lexington Avenue, just north of Grand Central Station. He had the driver wait while he went inside and registered each letter before entrusting it to the mails.

When he returned to the Metropole, he stopped by the newsstand in the lobby and bought the afternoon newspapers and a couple of magazines. He had a little time to kill.

This time, when he returned upstairs, he told the combination elevator boy and bellhop to bring him up a drink from the bar.

“Make it a double Scotch and soda,” he said. “In fact, make it two of them.”

He might just as well do the thing right. Might just as well relax while he had the opportunity. Another few hours would tell the story. In another few hours, all decisions would have been taken out of his hands. He would either be a wealthy man with the world at his feet, or he would be in jail. There was, also, a fair chance that he might be dead.

Thinking about it as he waited for the whiskey to arrive, he smiled a little wistfully. At least he would not be bored.

At six-thirty he checked his watch for the dozenth time and got up from the chair under the reading light and carefully folded the newspaper he had been reading. He slipped into his jacket and then went to the door and carefully checked to see that it was locked.

He looked around the room for a final time and then opened the door into the bathroom. He closed the door between the bathroom and Room 508, not locking it, before entering Room 510. This time he was careful to see that the door between the bath and Slaughter’s room was locked, putting the key in his pocket after twisting it.

He had an almost irresistible desire to open the dresser drawer and take out the brief case and have one last look at the jewels, but he resisted it. Time was pressing now and he had things to do.

Gerald rechecked his watch and then sighed and went to the door of Room 510. Everything was going to hinge on what took place within the next few minutes.

When he left the room this time, he pressed the catch so that the door between the room and the outside hallway remained unlocked.

Back in the lobby, Gerald was pleased to see that the day desk clerk had been replaced by the night man. He went over to the counter and took out the key to Room 508.

“I’m Mr. Hanna,” he said. “Expecting a call shortly, but I have to be out for a while. I’d appreciate it if you’d tell the party I’ll be back around seven-thirty.” He left his key on the desk.

The man nodded.

“Certainly, sir.”

The telephone booths were in the mezzanine and Gerald walked up the short flight of stairs. He was glad that they were out of sight of the hotel’s desk.

Putting the coin into the slot, he was unable to resist the sudden chill which overcame him. Everything would depend on the success of this call. If his party should fail to answer…

He shuddered, not wanting to think about it.

The number answered on the second ring and he asked for his party. The voice at the other end requested his name.

“The name doesn’t matter,” Gerald said. “It’s a personal matter. But very important.”

“I’m sorry, but we have to know who is calling. We can’t disturb…”

“This is about Gerald Hanna and concerns the Gorden-Frost jewel robbery,” Gerald said, speaking fast and distinct. “I’ll call back in exactly fifteen minutes.”

He hung up fast. He couldn’t take a chance on the call being traced.

It was the longest fifteen minutes in his life.

He made the second call from a different booth and this time when he asked for his party, he added, “and if he isn’t on the phone within less than half a minute I am hanging up.”

He didn’t have to wait a half minute. And he recognized the second voice the moment it spoke.

“If you are interested in the whereabouts of Gerald Hanna,” he said, “he has checked into the Metropole Hotel in New York City. Got that-the Metropole. Room 508. The Metropole-Room 508.”

He slammed the receiver back on the telephone as the voice spluttered at the other end of the wire.

Returning to the booth from which he had placed his original telephone call, Gerald once more closed the door after himself and placed a coin in the slot.

He could detect the nervousness in Slaughter’s gravel voice the moment the other man picked up the receiver and spoke.

“You’re late,” Slaughter said. “Is everything…”

“Everything is fine,” Gerald said. “Now listen. I want you to be at the Metropole Hotel in exactly one hour. Not before and no later. You are registered in Room 510. Under your own name. Get your key at the desk and come directly upstairs. You must have Miss Dunne with you and no one else. You must be prepared to consummate our deal. You have the…”

“I’ll have what I need,” Slaughter said. “But wouldn’t it be just as well if the lady…”

“It would not,” Gerald said. “She must be with you. In exactly one hour.”

Again he didn’t wait for an answer, but quickly replaced the receiver on the hook and left the booth.

When he returned to the staircase, instead of going down to the lobby, he turned and started up. He climbed the five flights of stairs and the sweat was soaking his shirt by the time he reached the fifth floor.

This time, walking down the long carpeted hallway, he ignored Room 508 and passed on to 510. He entered through the unlocked door, but was careful to snap the catch so that it clicked behind him. He rechecked the bathroom door to be sure that it was still locked.

Opening the bottom bureau drawer, he removed the zippered bag-the bag in which he had placed the fragments from his broken windshield and the gun which young Vince Dunne had dropped on the floor of his car. He took out only the gun and then reclosed the bag. He used his handkerchief to remove any possible fingerprints from the weapon. When he was finished, he placed the gun on the bed while he hauled the heavy upholstered chair around so that it half faced the door leading into the room.

Then he picked up the gun, still using the handkerchief, and tucked it down between the cushion and the seat of the chair. The handkerchief remained loosely twisted around the checkered grip.

He was kneeling at the door of the room, some thirty-five minutes later, his ear pressed to the keyhole, when he heard the elevator come to a stop at the end of the hallway.

It wasn’t until the footsteps were almost opposite the door that he heard them, softened as they were by the thick carpet. They died out and a moment later he heard the small click of a key in the lock of what he knew must be the door of Room 508. He waited only until he heard the door close and then swiftly got to his feet and crossed to the bathroom door. Once more he knelt, putting his ear to the crack.

There were several moments of silence and then he heard someone enter the bathroom. He heard the sound of voices but was unable to distinguish the words.

A hand tried the knob of the door against which he was standing and it turned but failed to open.

And then all was quiet.

Gerald half smiled, a nervous smile. He looked at his wrist watch and nodded with satisfaction.

He tried to remain oblivious of the time, tried to blank his mind, knowing that it would be futile to worry. The die was cast and there was nothing more to be done. It would happen the way he planned it or it wouldn’t happen and there was nothing more to do now but sit here in the big leather upholstered chair facing the doorway of the room and wait.

Once, after endless minutes had passed, he became conscious of the ticking of his wrist watch as his right elbow rested on the arm of the chair and his head rested against his hand. He began to count the ticks, counting up to sixty, and checking the minutes on the fingers of his hands-until he suddenly realized that the individual ticks of the watch didn’t mark off the seconds but marked off the half seconds.

He was thinking about that, half smiling to himself, when he heard the alien sound; heard the key turning in the lock of the outside door. He knew then for the first time that someone was on the other side of it, someone who had approached on silent footsteps and was standing there at this very moment, preparing to enter.

He sat suddenly stiff and tense in his chair and watched as the knob slowly turned and then the door was quickly opened and Sue Dunne stepped into the room. Slaughter was directly behind her and he followed the girl inside, wordlessly turning and softly closing the door and snapping the night lock.

Gerald Hanna watched the man, but conscious of Sue tense and silent a couple of feet away. Slaughter stood there, his hands thrust deep into the side pockets of his light-weight jacket. He stared at Gerald coldly. Somehow or other he seemed to have lost his suaveness and he no longer appeared to be a small-time businessman or a bank teller or a salesman. He looked hard and dangerous.

“All right,” he said, his gravelly voice very low.

“All right, where is it? Where’s the stuff.”

Gerald jerked his head, indicating Sue.

“Let’s wait until Miss Dunne leaves,” he said.

Slaughter smiled, without humor.

“She stays,” he said. “Right here, until we get through.”

Gerald looked at her and saw that she was staring past him, as though he didn’t exist. Her face was totally without expression.

“Witnesses,” he said. “It’s foolish to have…”

“She stays,” Slaughter repeated. “You are the one who guarantees her silence, remember?”

Gerald shrugged, nodded. He looked up again at Sue and this time she was watching him, but he could tell nothing by her expression. Was she trusting him; did she believe in him? He couldn’t tell. Couldn’t guess.

It wasn’t the way he wanted it, with her there in the room, but there was nothing he could do about it. He’d just have to play it that way, take this one additional gamble.

Gerald looked over at the zipper bag sitting on the night table.

“Where’s the money?” he asked.

Slaughter ignored the remark and stepped quickly across the room. He opened the bag and dumped its contents on the white bedspread.

For a moment then the man just stood there, his dark eyes wide and staring as he looked at the collection of broken glass. The blood began to surge up his thick neck and into his beefy face. He swung around with a curse on his mouth.

“What is this,” he half yelled. “What kind of lousy joke…”

“The money,” Gerald said. “You were to bring the money. The thirty-five thousand dollars. I haven’t seen it yet.”

Slaughter stared at him.

“You’re cute, aren’t you,” he said. “Real cute. The fact is, I suspected there was something screwy about this deal. Suspected something like this. Figured you for a phony. So I put the money in an envelope and checked it down at the desk. Now, if you aren’t a phony, and you want to play it smart, just show me the stuff and then we can go downstairs together and we pick up the dough.”

Gerald smiled thinly at the other man.

“I don’t suppose,” he said, “that you’d just happen to be carrying a gun in that coat pocket of yours, would you?” he asked, his eyes going to Slaughter’s right hand which was still thrust into his jacket pocket.

Slaughter removed his hand, looking at Gerald in disgust.

“Don’t be a damned fool,” he said. “What do you think, I was going to come up here and stick you up or something? Of course I’m not carrying a gun. You think I’d be crazy enough to shoot anyone in a place like this? I’m no gun-happy desperado.”

“I just wanted to make sure,” Gerald said.

“All right, now you know. Let’s get back to the jewels. Have you got the stuff or haven’t you? If you have, then let’s see it!”

Gerald nodded his head in the direction of the bureau.

“The bottom drawer,” he said. “In the brief case.” He turned to the girl as Slaughter crossed the room in a couple of quick steps.

“Go over and sit in that chair by the window,” he said. It wasn’t a request; it was an order.

For a long moment her hot, tired eyes looked into his and he was unable to read anything in their depths. She stood as though frozen and he wondered if she had even heard his words. But then slowly she turned and without a word crossed the room and found the chair by the drawn Venetian blinds.

Slaughter had jerked open the drawer and had the brief case in his hands. He lifted it, almost as though he were mentally weighing it, and then he fumbled with the catch and opened it.

He was staring, fascinated, into the contents of the brief case as Gerald took the gun from the place where it was half concealed beneath his body at the side of the seat cushion.

As he started to rise from the chair, his finger pressed the trigger.

The bullet crashed into the panel of the bathroom door and even as the sound of the shot reverberated in the confines of the small, closed room, Slaughter dropped the brief case and swung around.

Sue, in the chair by the window, gasped, but sat still and stiff, as though frozen to the seat.

“You damned insane fool!” Slaughter screamed. “What in the name of God…”

He was across the room in a single wild leap and slashing down at Gerald’s arm with his closed fist. He caught the revolver as it started to fall to the floor, but Gerald held on to the handkerchief which had been wrapped around its stock.

The moment Slaughter’s fist struck his arm and he reached for the falling gun, Gerald side-stepped, moving like lightening to Slaughter’s right. His hands reached out as he moved and he swung the other man around so that he was momentarily facing the bathroom door.

Gerald was in time to see the door itself bursting inward on its hinges as he made a flying tackle across the room, dropping Sue Dunne to the floor as her straight-backed chair went over backwards, and half falling on top of her.

“You double-crossing son…”

Slaughter was screaming the words as the door gave way. The gun in his hand was half lifted and instinctively he pressed the trigger.

The sound of the explosion blended with that of Lieutenant Hopper’s service revolver as the detective fired.

Slaughter never had the opportunity for a second shot. The dark red blood was gushing from twin holes just above his eyes as he crumpled and dropped to the carpeted floor.

Gerald himself had time for only the few brief words as he pressed his mouth close to the girl’s ear.

“Remember,” he said, “remember what you told me. You’d give anything to get the man who got your brother into it. Keep trusting me. Say nothing-and trust me.”

Lieutenant Hopper waited until the basket arrived from the morgue and they’d removed the body; until after the chalked outlines on the floor had been photographed and the lab men were all through.

The room was cleared now and there were only the four of them. Gerald Hanna sat as Lieutenant Hopper stalked in front of him. Sue was on the edge of the bed, with Finn next to her chewing his nails and muttering under his breath. The uniformed patrolman was outside the door and all the others had left.

“You certainly have the damnedest way of turning up, the lieutenant said. “Maybe you are going to try and explain this one away.” His voice was thin with sarcasm.

“Nothing to explain,” Gerald said. “I’m just glad you took my telephone calf seriously and showed up. I was getting a little nervous.”

“You will probably be a lot more nervous before it’s all over,” Hopper said. “Maybe you’d like to tell me about it. It might relieve you and it certainly…”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

Gerald looked over at the detective and smiled as he continued.

“You have it all in the registered letter which I mailed you this afternoon,” he said. “The letter which you will have in the morning. I said in that letter that if you came here after I called you on the phone, you’d find the loot from the Gorden-Frost robbery. Well, there it is-in that brief case which your men checked and put over on the dresser.”

“So you wrote and explained,” Hopper said softly. “How nice of you.” And just how do you fit into this thing?”

“That’s very simple, Lieutenant,” Gerald said. “As you know, I’m in the insurance business. Well, I figured after I read about the robbery, that the stuff must be insured. And I knew that the insurance company would offer a reward for the return of the jewels. Yesterday, through a connection in my office, I found I was right. There’s a hundred thousand dollar reward. I’m claiming that reward. I sent you a note advising you to come here and pick up the stuff and you did and here it is. I have a receipt for that note.

“To make doubly sure there would be no misunderstanding later on, I mailed a second registered letter to the insurance people, establishing my claim.”

Lieutenant Hopper stared at him, his face growing red and congested as Gerald finished speaking.

“That’s dandy,” he said. “Just downright dandy! So you’re going to claim the reward, eh?”

He hesitated, fighting to control his temper.

“And how about the rest of it? How about the two police officers who were killed? By God, don’t you remember our little conversation? Don’t you remember what I told you about how we feel about things like that? Don’t you…”

“I think I can help you out a little there, too, Lieutenant,” Gerald said. Once more he smiled, conciliatorily.

“Yes,” he went on. “I believe I can help you. You took a gun out of Slaughter’s hand when you broke into this room and after he was shot down. Remember? Well, check that gun down at ballistics, and I’m pretty sure you’ll find that it was the same gun which was used to kill your policemen. Slaughter had the jewels and he had the gun. What more do you need?”

The lieutenant looked at him closely for several moments. At last, when he again spoke, his voice was more nearly back to normal and had lost a little of its bitterness.

“All right, just for the sake of argument, we’ll assume it was the murder weapon. But how do you plan to prove that Slaughter was in on the job? That he used the gun?”

“That’s simple, too,” Gerald said. He pointed over to the desk. “Among your other souvenirs,” he said, “you have that pile of broken glass which was swept up off the bed. I saw in the newspapers that police found fragments of glass from a shattered windshield at the scene of the robbery. Glass shot from the windshield of the getaway car. I think-in fact I feel absolutely sure-that if you take that glass along with you and match it up with the glass you already have, you’ll end up with a complete windshield. So can’t we just assume that Slaughter had to be in the getaway car in order for him to have the glass in his possession?”

Gerald stood up and yawned, putting his hand delicately to his mouth to cover his social lapse.

“And now,” he said, “I’m rather tired and I would appreciate it if you would just let me leave. I’m sure Miss Dunne is tired too and I’d like to take her home.”

Gerald’s eyes went over to Sue and he smiled, a little weakly, at her.

He noticed then, for the very first time since he had seen her, that the antagonism and the bitterness was gone from her face. That she was looking at him, still wide-eyed and with a trace of amazement in her expression. But there was something else; there was a warmth that had never been there before.

She nodded ever so briefly and half smiled, as her eyes met his.

Lieutenant Hopper was eying Gerald with grim distaste.

“At the very best,” he said, “you’re a material witness. And so is Miss Dunne. I’m going to hold…”

“Lieutenant,” Gerald said. “You don’t want to do anything foolish. The fact is, I’m a sort of hero. I feel quite sure that’s what the morning newspapers are going to say. Of course, up until now I have had every intention of explaining to the reporters that I have worked with the police on this and that I am sharing the reward with them-in the hope that their share will be turned over to the widows of the officers slain in the robbery…”

Detective Lieutenant Hopper shook his head slowly, staring at Gerald as though he were observing some completely new specimen in the Bronx Zoo.

“All right,” he said, at last. “All right, Hanna. You’ll get the reward, I guess. Maybe you are a hero. But I still don’t understand it. I know that I won’t be able to make you talk and tell me about it, but in the long run, I am glad to have the thing cleaned up. We’ll go over the glass and the gun of course, but I’m satisfied that they’ll check out.

“The thing I can’t understand, though, is why Slaughter would have the glass with him. Why he’d bring it here to the hotel. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Gerald looked at the detective and smiled.

“You are so right,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense at all. But then so many things haven’t made sense. Why don’t you just be satisfied that he did have the glass with him? After all, that broken glass is the evidence, that if found, would possibly have put him in the electric chair. The same as the jewels would. Well, he had the jewels, so why not the glass? Certainly he wouldn’t be leaving it around for someone else to find and possibly use for blackmail, would he? The safest place for it, from his point of view, was with him. After all, he wasn’t expecting to be picked up, to be questioned in the case. He was in the clear. But I wouldn’t let it bother me. I’d just be satisfied that he did have it.”

Hopper nodded, morosely.

“There’s one more thing that, for my personal satisfaction, I would like to know,” he said. “Since you seem to have all of the answers, perhaps you can satisfy me on this one. If that glass came from the windshield of the getaway car, maybe you can tell me where I can find the car?”

Gerald moved toward the door.

“Miss Dunne is exhausted,” Gerald said. “Would it be too much to ask you to give us a lift out to Long Island?”

Hopper nodded, his expression unhappy.

“Glad to,” he said. “But about the car? I suppose that’s one you wouldn’t know…”

“Listen, Lieutenant,” Gerald said, “don’t you want me to leave something for the police department to do? I’ve found your hot jewels for you and I’ve given you your cop killer. You won’t even have to prosecute him. And as far as I am concerned, you can share equal billing in credit for solving the case. What more…”

Lieutenant Hopper grunted and shrugged.

“Oh, I’m happy enough,” he said. “Let’s get moving. Miss Dunne’s tired, Finn’s tired, I’m tired…”

Sue had crossed the room and Gerald felt her slender hand slip into his and as she leaned toward him his arm went around her waist.

“Tired?” he said. “Why I never felt better in my life.”