The Eleventh Hour

by Robert Bruce Sinclair

  “There’s no point in playing dumb,” Bauer said. “You saw him. We finally picked him up last night. You never saw a scareder guy than Harry Taylor. But we got the whole story.”

  “Harry Taylor?”

  “In person.”

  “Was he in that last line-up?” Conway struggled to recall the individuals in the final group. “He must have been the one next to the end, on the right — the tall one. I swear, though, I didn’t recognize him. I’ve only seen him twice in my life, and — well, all that gang looked like bums.”

  “He’s no man of distinction this morning,” Bauer admitted.

  “But why are you holding him?”

  “You know why we’re holding him,” the detective said.

  “I’m not sure that he does, Bauer,” the captain said. “I want the truth, Mr. Conway — we won’t hold it against you that you haven’t told us before — didn’t you know that your wife had been seeing a good deal of Taylor recently?”

  “I don’t believe it!” This is another of Bauer’s fantastic theories, Conway thought.

  “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it’s true,” Ramsden said. “Taylor is a salesman for a machine-tool concern. He has quite a large territory to cover in Southern California, and he’s out of town four or five days a week. That’s one reason it’s taken us so long to find him. But on the days — and nights — he was in town, your wife spent a great deal of time with him. They were very good friends, Mr. Conway, if you know what I mean. He’s admitted it.”

  Conway felt as if he had been hit in the pit of the stomach. He knew that he must think clearly, logically, that he must determine how this incredible revelation might affect him. But his brain at the moment was beyond discipline; it whirled in a chaos of confusion. How much had Taylor told them? How much did Taylor know? What did Taylor know that he himself did not? One fact emerged clearly: his whole plan had been based on the fact that he and Helen were an island alone in this community; that they had no intimates, no confidantes, who could give the lie to his version of their relationship. Now, suddenly, there had appeared someone who had been much closer to Helen than himself.

  The shock of the disclosure was so great that it did not occur to Conway that he should act like a trusting husband who has just learned of his wife’s perfidy. But the emotions his face revealed must have seemed valid enough to the two detectives; they sat in silence as he struggled to assay the full meaning of the horrifying discovery. It was Bauer who finally spoke.

  “I guess maybe he really didn’t know,” he said to Ramsden. “I don’t see how a guy could help knowing if a thing like that was going on, but it looks like maybe he didn’t.”

  “You didn’t know she was seeing Taylor at all?” Ramsden asked.

  “I–I still can’t believe it,” Conway said, and realized that the fear and confusion in his mind gave his voice a genuinely shaken quality. “What did Taylor say?”

  “Had you and your wife discussed a divorce?”

  Here was the trap, he thought. What had Taylor told them? But it didn’t matter — he had to stick by what he had told Bauer. “No — of course not,” he said.

  “Taylor says she was going to divorce you and marry him.”

  “What!”

  “He says she was going to divorce you as soon as she got a little money — meaning, I suppose, as soon as you got a little money — which she expected to be soon.”

  So Taylor knew about the money. And if he knew that, he probably knew all the rest — the quarrels, the threats, the letters... But the letters had never been sent; if Taylor thought he knew about them, he would be proved wrong. As for the rest, it was Taylor’s word against his, and the word of a husband would carry greater weight than that of a paramour.

  “He’s lying,” Conway said. “I don’t believe any of it.”

  “About that — maybe he is,” Ramsden admitted. “But not about the essentials. You don’t think he wanted to admit any of this, do you? He wasn’t anxious to get involved.”

  “But why did he? I mean, how did you get him to admit — whatever he did?”

  “She’s been going to see him for almost three months. The apartment superintendent identified her from her picture. When we told Mr. Taylor we knew that, the young man saw he was really in a jam, and started to talk.”

  “A jam?” Conway’s head began to clear; somewhat incredulously he realized that the detectives’ suspicions were directed, not at himself, but at Taylor. “You mean you think he was the — that he had something to do with it?”

  “That’d be a pretty good guess, wouldn’t it?”

  Conway’s mouth was dry, and perspiration stood out on his head. “Have you any proof — any evidence, beyond what you’ve told me?”

  “That’s quite a bit, don’t you think?” Ramsden said dryly. “Of course we don’t know yet why he’d do it. Maybe he found out she was stringing him along, and had no intention of divorcing you and marrying him.”

  “Maybe she found some other guy and was going to give Taylor the air,” Bauer suggested.

  The notion seemed absurd to Conway, but not, apparently, to Ramsden. “Are you sure you’ve told us everything you know? About her friends, I mean, or the names of anyone she may have mentioned, or who may have called her?”

  “I’m positive,” Conway said. “I gave Sergeant Bauer her address book, and I haven’t been able to think of anyone she knew who wasn’t listed there. I’d even forgotten about Taylor.”

  “Well,” Ramsden said, “maybe we won’t have to look any further.”

  Conway realized that he was treading on dangerous ground, but he had to know more. Did they really believe Taylor had done it, or was this all merely a screen for their suspicion of himself? How much were they keeping from him?

  “But you must have more to go on than you’ve told me. You can’t convict a man just because he thought she was going to divorce me and marry him — if he did think that.”

  “Hardly,” Ramsden said. “But it’s something to start from. As I said, we don’t know the motive yet — but there’s a pretty good chance we can find one.”

  “You could say I had a motive.” He had to take the chance — had to find out where he stood. “I didn’t have, until two minutes ago, and I wouldn’t have killed her, or anyone else, for that reason. But you don’t know that. So you might say I had a motive.”

  “Yeah, you might of had,” Bauer said quietly.

  Conway glanced quickly at the sergeant, frightened by something in his voice. But he plunged on because, having gone this far, he dared not stop.

  “Where does he say he was? Hasn’t he some alibi?”

  “Yes,” Ramsden said. “Claims he was in San Bernardino that night — on business. We’re checking it now. Of course, he’s had four days to fake a story — or he may even have planned it in advance.”

  “That’s the difference between you and him.” Bauer sat on the edge of the desk and smiled, and Conway’s pulse began to resume its normal beat. “Even if you had the motive, you had an alibi you couldn’t have faked. I know — I checked it. For one thing, the car was parked by the murderer at ten-o-four, and it’s impossible you could of been there at that time. That’s what makes a good detective — being able to tell the real thing from the phoneys. Right, Captain?” Rams-den nodded, a little indulgently, it seemed to Conway. “And I’m never wrong on those things. You positively couldn’t of done it, and nobody in his right mind would try to pin it on you. Him? Well, we’ll see.”

  “Now that you’ve told Mr. Conway the secret of your success,” Ramsden said, “I think you might go out to his house and take another look around. See if you can find any letters, or phone numbers — anything at all that hasn’t been covered. If Mr. Conway didn’t know about Taylor, there may be other things that escaped his notice.”

  “Okay.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Conway.” Ramsden held out his hand. “Sorry I had to be the one to tell you about this.”

  “Th
ank you, Captain,” Conway said, and followed Bauer through the door.

  Larkin was waiting in the outer office. “I’m going over to the garage with Mr. Conway,” Bauer said. “He’s going to get his car back. Meet me there and we’ll go out to his house. Might as well walk over,” he said to Conway. “It’s just around the corner.”

  They walked down the corridor in silence. Free of the terror which had gripped him in Ramsden’s office, Conway could think calmly. Now that he knew he was in the clear, he could consider Taylor and his plight. He had no particular fondness for Taylor, but he did not want to see him — or anyone else — go to the gas chamber for the murder of Helen; she was dead, she had deserved death, and no one merited punishment for it. Nor did he resent what Taylor had done; he could understand, vaguely, that someone might be taken in by Helen, for after all he himself had been, although it seemed a long time ago. His predominant emotion was one of anger at himself, at his stupidity in not knowing of the affair with Taylor. He could have divorced her with no trouble at all and thus have been spared the worry and strain of this past week — and of the past two months, for that matter. The fact that Helen might also have preferred to be alive rather than dead did not occur to him.

  Bauer’s voice broke in on his reflections. “I don’t understand,” he said, “how a fellow’s wife could be pulling a thing like that, and him not get on to it.”

  For once, Conway thought, he’s got a point. “It’s hard to believe,” he said. “But you see I worked a lot at night. It got pretty dull for her sitting home every evening, so she used to go to the movies. Every once in a while I’d offer to take her, but she’d say she didn’t want to interfere with my work, and I believed her. I think it was true, at first. Lately, of course — well, I guess she didn’t see as many movies as I thought.”

  “Still and all, I should think you coulda told from the way she acted—”

  “I guess I’m like most men — conceited enough to think ‘How could a woman want another man when she has me?’ ”

  “Not me — I’m no egotist,” said Bauer. “I take nothin’ for granted — especially about women. I watch Greta like a hawk.”

  “Probably the best way,” Conway said.

  “Sure. She knows it, so it makes it easy for her. That way there’s no temptation for her to step out of line.”

  “She’s a lucky girl.” Conway was beginning to lose interest in Detective Sergeant Bauer’s philosophy of life and love.

  The detective looked at him reflectively. “You don’t seem to be very much upset about this Taylor,” he said.

  Conway realized that his preoccupation with other matters was causing him to forget his role of the bereaved, and deceived, husband. “I don’t know,” he said. “After the week I’ve had — first her disappearance, then learning she’d been murdered, I guess nothing can hit you very hard.”

  “Yeah,” Bauer said, “you’re sort of paralyzed.”

  “How about Taylor’s alibi?” Conway asked. “What do you think of it?”

  “Can’t tell yet. We’ll know more by morning.”

  “The captain seemed to think he might be able to fake an alibi. Isn’t that pretty hard to do?”

  “Practically impossible,” Bauer said. “Unless there are a lot of awful dumb detectives around.”

  Conway felt encouraged to go on. “I didn’t understand what you said up in the office about my having an alibi. What did the car being parked at ten-four have to do with it?”

  “That was just one thing,” the detective replied. “Like to know why we were sure so quick that you didn’t do it?”

  “I’d be very interested,” Conway said, conscious of his understatement.

  Bauer assumed his professorial air. “Any time a woman’s murdered,” he said, “naturally the first suspect is her husband. That’s only common sense, because, the way it works out, most married women who get killed, it turns out it’s their husband did it. I don’t know why that is,” he mused. “Funny thing, because most men aren’t killed by their wives.”

  “Very interesting,” Conway said. “I’d never realized that.”

  “Anyway, the first thing I did was check up on you to see if you might have killed her. Not if you did, mind you, but if you could have.”

  “It never occurred to me that I might need an alibi,” Conway said. “All the time I was looking for her, after the squad car left me, and then on the trolley going down to the police station — I doubt if anyone would remember seeing me then, or that I could prove where I was, and when.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” the detective stated. “When a guy’s on the level, he’s got a lot of things working for him he don’t even know about. And vice versa. When he isn’t, there’s a lot of things working against him.” The remark disturbed Conway vaguely, but he dismissed it as Bauer went on. “For instance, that squad car looked all over the neighborhood after it left you, and there was no sign of your car. If you’d done it, the car couldn’t be very far away. But, of course, they might of missed it, so I don’t count that as a positive fact.”

  “I see.”

  “But then we got two very positive facts. The car was parked between ten-o-two and ten-o-four, and you were at the police station at ten twenty-three. No taxis picked up any fares around there at that time, and there’s been no report of a private car giving anybody a lift. Besides, nobody who’d just left a dead bod}^ in a car would be fool enough to ask for a lift. And a man running down a quiet street couldn’t help but be noticed. So if it was you parked that car, it means you’d have to of walked to the station in twenty-one minutes. Well, that can’t be done — I checked it personally, so there’s no possibility of me being wrong.”

  “I’d never have thought of that,” Conway said.

  “There was another thing, and this is what I mean about things working for a fellow that he don’t even know about. You happened to mention something I bet you don’t even know you said, and you know I’m not conceited, but not one man in a thousand would of paid any attention to it.”

  “What was that?”

  “You just happened to mention that when you were on that streetcar, you missed the stop at Wilcox and had to ride on to Cahuenga. You didn’t even know it meant anything when you told me. Well, it was certainly a long shot that the motorman or conductor would remember what stops they made three nights before, but I took it. And whaddya know, the motor-man was coming down with the flu that night, and that was the last trip he made. He was in a hurry to finish the trip, and trying to make up time, and he remembered that he beat a light at Wilcox. Somebody bawled him out for it when he stopped at Cahuenga. So now you see why I said you had an alibi you couldn’t of faked?”

  “I didn’t realize you’d gone to so much trouble on my account, Sergeant,” Conway said in all honesty. “And I’m truly grateful to you. You haven’t missed a trick.”

  Chapter twelve

  Conway signed a receipt for the car, and a mechanic brought it out as Larkin drove into the garage in the police car.

  “I’ll ride with Mr. Conway,” Bauer said. “You follow us out to the house.”

  “Car seems to be all right,” Conway said. “What have they been doing with it all this time?”

  “They take it apart, they analyze everything, they put it together, and finally figure out the guy who done it was under nine feet tall because he didn’t poke a hole in the roof with his head. They drive me crazy, those scientifics.”

  “I can believe that,” Conway said.

  “Betty home?” the detective asked.

  “She was when I left. I promised to take her for a drive this afternoon — show her some of the town.”

  “I wouldn’t say anything about this Taylor business to her,” Bauer said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think nice women ought to hear about that kind of stuff. Certainly can’t do any good. And her own sister and all — might even give her ideas.”

  “She’ll read
about it in the papers anyway.”

  “Only if we really pin it on this guy,” the detective replied. “And I don’t think we can. Just tell her I’m looking around to see if there’s anything I might have missed — letters or phone numbers or anything.”

  When they arrived at the house, they found Betty listening to a speech on the radio.

  “What’s that?” Bauer demanded. “Couldn’t you get a ball game?”

  “I didn’t try,” Betty answered. “That’s the President.”

  “Rebroadcasting that speech he made last night?” Conway asked. Betty nodded.

  “If it wasn’t for the baseball, I’d never look at a radio,” the sergeant said. “Why do they keep rebroadcasting these speeches? Once is plenty for most of ’em.”

  “They’re ‘broadcasting it at this more convenient time,’ “ Betty answered. “That’s what the man said.”

  “What’s more convenient about it?” Bauer growled.

  “He made the speech about eight-thirty last night in New York,” she explained patiently. “That’s five-thirty here, which isn’t a very good time, so they put it on again this morning. Public service, the radio people call it.”

  “It’d be more of a public service if they’d broadcast a game from the Polo Grounds out here right now,” Bauer said.

  “Well, do you want to get started?” Conway asked.

  “H-mm?” A faraway look had come into the detective’s eyes, and he seemed to recall himself with an effort. “Oh — yeah,” he said rather uncertainly.

  “Started at what?” Betty asked.

  Conway was about to explain when Bauer interrupted. “I just happened to think of something,” he said. “I forgot it was Saturday — something I got to do before noon.” He was on his way to the door. “The other thing can wait — I’ll be out this afternoon sometime.”

  Conway wondered what new inspiration had struck the detective, but Betty was more practical. “At least we don’t have to ask him to lunch,” she observed.

  While she prepared the meal, Conway made a thorough search of Helen’s room. In a cardboard box, with some other costume jewelry, he found a pair of earrings he had never seen before; they were, he assumed, a gift from Taylor which she had thought it unwise to wear. Otherwise there was nothing, not even a scrap of paper, which could possibly have been a clue to the liaison with Taylor. Conway took some slight consolation from the fact that he had not been exceptionally stupid; he could see no reason why he should have known about, or even suspected, the affair.