“Fancy woman! Barton Bender, are you going to sit there and let a cop insult me?”
“No, no, honey baby. Don’t you worry your pretty head. The truth is, Mr. Rosenblatt, I did rent an apartment specially for Mrs. Carmody when she left her husband. She didn’t wanna let him know so she took a hotel room, too. It’s not a crime to take a hotel room and not stay there.”
“Nor to spend the night with a lady friend.”
“I hadda try and pertect her good name, now, didn’t I? You gotta unnerstand, Elva’s real sensitive.”
“And you’re ready to lie to the police to protect her feelings.”
“Sure, sure, no harm done.”
“Izzat so?” Gilligan broke in. “I guess you’d be ready to do anything for the little lady, huh? Even croak her husband!”
“No!” cried Mrs. Carmody. “You didn’t, Bart, did you?”
“No, of course I didn’t, honey baby. Not that I wouldn’t’ve if you’da been in danger from him, but he wasn’t giving you any trouble a good lawyer couldn’t straighten out.”
“He was giving you trouble, then, Mrs. Carmody?” said Rosenblatt.
“Nothing serious,” she said quickly, “like Barton says. We had a bit of a tiff, Otis and me, but we’d have patched things up. A girl can have her fling, same as a man. You know what it’s like being married, all ups and downs but till death you part.”
“And death has you parted!” put in Gilligan. “Mighty convenient, ain’t it?”
Bender, who had gaped flabbergasted at Mrs. Carmody’s last statement, found his voice. “But honey baby, you’re going to marry me!”
“So we understood,” said Rosenblatt. “There was talk of divorce, not reconciliation.”
“Howdya know that?” shrilled Mrs. Carmody. “I wouldn’t never have let Otis divorce me.”
“Maybe not. What were you looking for in your husband’s room?”
“We didn’t even get in,” she objected.
“Some stuff Elva left there,” said Bender at the same moment.
“No, it wasn’t either. It was some of Otis’s papers Bart said I’d need now he was dead. I dunno what, he was gonna look through everything and pick them out for me.”
“Gonna go through Carmody’s papers, was you? Course, you wasn’t looking for the stuff he got on you, no sirree. Where was you lunchtime yesterday?”
“Business meeting,” Bender said promptly. “Started at eleven and we was still at it at twelve so we sent out for lunch. Didn’t knock off till after two.”
“Who was there? Let’s have names and addresses, and let’s not try on any funny business about not knowing.”
Bender didn’t try on any funny business. He gave the names and addresses of three men, one of which made Miss Genevieve raise her eyebrows.
Gilligan was impressed. “Geez, Henry Morgan! The banker’s son, huh?”
“Yeah, he just graduated Harvard and they got him starting at the bottom as a messenger, fifteen bucks a week. He wants to spread his wings a little, only nacheral. I got a bit of property he’s interested in,” said Bender importantly.
“Waal, we’ll check it out, but I guess if you was with him, you didn’t shoot Carmody.”
“I’d have told you if he was the man I saw,” said Daisy indignantly.
Gilligan ignored her. “Still, if you’re swimming with the big fish, you don’t want nuttin to spoil the deal, like maybe stories in the papers, like Carmody was writing. I figure you musta hired it done.”
“You’re nuts!”
“Oh I am, am I?” Gilligan said nastily. Standing up, he loomed threateningly over Bender. “Well, lemme tell you,MisterBender, we know you got toughs on your payroll and we know who they are. I’m gonna pull ‘em in and grill ’em and sooner or later one of ’em’s gonna crack and spill the works to save himself some grief. And meantime,MisterBender, I’m gonna take you downtown and try if we can improve your memory down at headquarters.” He signaled to Larssen, who lumbered over.
