Shadow of Guilt by Patrick Quentin Read Free Book Online Page A

come and…” She stopped.
    I said, “And?”
    “I came here. That’s all. And… and I found him. He was lying there… just like that.”
    “He was?”
    “Yes, of course he was.”
    “Then how did you get in?”
    The blood came to her cheeks. “I have keys. He… he gave me keys last night in the motel, so I could always come, so—”
    “You used the keys?”
    “Yes.”
    “You didn’t press the buzzer?”
    “Yes. But… but he didn’t answer and he’d said that sometimes the buzzer didn’t work, so I used the keys and—”
    “Give them to me.”
    For a moment she looked completely stupid. The awful feeling came: She’s lying. She made up that story. She doesn’t have any keys. Then she went to a table. Her bag was there. She picked it up, fumbled in it and held out to me two keys on a little chain. I took them and put them in my pocket, relief mingling with the ever mounting anxiety.
    “So you let yourself in and—”
    “I found him,” she cut in passionately. “That’s all. That’s absolutely all. I came in and there he was… just like that, lying on the floor. I ran to him; I saw all the blood; I saw the gun. It’s there, under the chair. I… I wanted to get away. That was all… just to get away. Then I… I was too scared to go out in the hall. There are people in the next apartment. I’d heard their radio. I… I don’t know. It was just panic. I’ve got to get someone to help me, I thought, and… and the only person I could think of was Mrs. Lord. I looked up her number in the phone book. I… I called her and… and then, well, that’s it, that’s all, that’s—”
    “With your gloves on?” I said.
    She watched me blankly.
    “You looked up Eve’s number in the book and dialed the number with your gloves on?” I said.
    She glanced down at her hands. “I suppose so. I don’t really remember. I…”
    She could have dialed that way, I thought. When you’re in a panic you can do things which could seem impossibly clumsy under other circumstances. Suddenly my normal instincts were re-established and it astounded me that I could have permitted myself even to half suspect her. Of course she had done what she said she had done. How preposterous to connect criminal violence with Ala, who had never got nearer to criminality than a traffic ticket.
    I said, “Ala, listen, did anyone see you come?”
    “No, no.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Yes. There was no one on the street. No one in the hall or the elevator.”
    “And you’ve never taken your gloves off since you were here? You’re sure?”
    “Yes, yes. I’m sure now.”
    “Okay.”
    I moved back to Don Saxby. I knew it might be enormously important later that I had used my eyes to take in whatever there was to take in. His shirt-sleeved left arm was thrown out toward the empty fireplace. I saw that there had been a fire in the grate, not a real fire, but, from the curled heap of black ash, it was obvious that someone had been burning something—probably paper. My eyes moved back to the body and, as they did so, I saw a glistening fragment on the carpet by the left arm—a piece of glass. I saw another and then another and then a much larger jagged piece with a handle attached, clearly the handle of a cocktail shaker. So he’d been holding a cocktail shaker when he’d been shot.
    I dropped down, bending over him. Yes, there was a little cut on one of the fingers of his left hand where the smashed glass had nicked it. And, close to the wrist, the shirt was sticking to his arm, outlining its contour. Cautiously, I touched the material. The whole area of shirt around the forearm was still slightly damp and there was the familiar, sickly smell of gin.
    I got up, making myself study the room. There wasn’t any disorder, no sign of a struggle. There was the phone, and there was the phone book open on a magazine-littered table. I went over to it. The exposed page was in the L’s, and, by chance, Eve’s name was the name