made another mental note, that he would certainly have to inspect the other side of that wall.
But meantime—some investigation should be made of the unpleasant character who lived on the other side of the alley. There were plenty of good-sized stones lying about. The angry man evidently had a definite dislike of dogs. Or, perhaps, of postmen.
He could have got away with it the first time, of course. “I was pruning my roses. I heard a dog barking in the alley and I threw a rock at him. Unfortunately, it hit this poor man on the head and—”
Accident? Possibly, if it had happened only once. A stone thrown at a dog had hit an unfortunate postman on his head and killed him. The red-faced man had kept quiet about it because he disliked publicity. He looked, Malone reflected, as though he disliked everything, just on general principles.
But for that accident to happen three times, in reasonably rapid succession, and invariably at the same time of the day, would be a coincidence Malone wouldn’t believe if he watched it happening.
Of course, it might have been planned as an elaborate alibi. Only that, too, would work only once. If tried a second time, there might be a faint lifting sound, as of eyebrows raising. On a third occasion there might be embarrassing questions asked by the police.
Perhaps a few tactful questions. Something apparently quite unofficial. Obviously, under the circumstances, Malone could not ask the questions himself. He doubted if he and the red-faced man would ever be on the footing of casual friendship. Something would have to be done, but meantime—
Malone made a mental note to find out if there was any city ordinance against throwing rocks into alleys, or throwing rocks at homeless mutts. Perhaps the S.P.C.A. could give him some help there.
People who don’t like lawyers, Malone said to the wall, shouldn’t throw glass houses.
He considered collecting the stones and taking them to the fingerprint department, then gave up the idea. There were too many of them. They would be too hard to transport, anyway. They would probably all have the red-faced man’s fingerprints on them, and that wouldn’t prove a thing except that the red-faced man didn’t like dogs or lawyers. Besides he wasn’t going to spend any more money on taxi fare until he’d collected a retainer.
That reminded him it was time to call on the house of Fairfaxx. He picked up one medium-sized rock from the alley and stuck it into his pocket for possible future evidence. Or a possible future weapon if need be. He brushed the snow from his knees and, as he turned from the alley into the sidewalk, made an unsuccessful attempt to straighten his tie.
Three seconds after he pushed the doorbell a pink-eyed Bridie came to the door and said, “Oh, yes, Mr. Malone, the family is expecting you.”
He brushed a few cigar ashes off his vest as he went in through the wide doorway. The family? He’d already met Kenneth and Elizabeth Fairfaxx. Just how much more of the family would he have to meet? And who was going to pay that retainer?
Coming into the house from the blazing early afternoon November sunlight was like walking into a cave. He stood for a moment just inside the door. Bridie touched his arm and said, “This way please, Mr. Malone.”
The room into which she guided him seemed at first like a great pool of shadows. Malone blinked again and the effect of the sunlight began to leave him.
The room was enormous and magnificent, yet curiously, at the same time, pleasant. The furniture was large enough not to be dwarfed by the two-story ceiling, but it looked comfortable. The fireplace at the far end of the room was undoubtedly a priceless museum piece, but a friendly little blaze glowed in it.
Malone paused for a moment just inside the room. He felt uneasy. It was the very pleasantness of the atmosphere that oppressed him. He had a curious feeling that the Fairfaxx house should be dark and gloomy, festooned with spider webs, with doors that creaked and windows that rattled after dark. Instead, it was cheerful and warm, and somehow the very cheerfulness was frightening.
Malone damned himself for being a superstitious Irishman, took two more steps into the room, and realized that it was full of people.
At the far end of the room, one of the most beautiful blond girls in the world sat in a wing-chair, her exquisitely shaped head resting back on its cushions. Her hair was the color of cornsilk in August, that pale and that shining. Her slender lovely legs wore stockings that matched her hair. The rest of her wore a close-fitting dress of some soft woolen stuff the color of old oak leaves, and a lot of fluffy dark brown fur was thrown over her shoulders.
She jumped up and walked across the floor to meet him. Malone winced. He’d seen electric sparks like those in her eyes before.
“You rat, Malone!” Helene Justus said. “I’m ashamed of you. The idea of taking nice old Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx off to jail when you knew perfectly well he was innocent!”
Chapter 4
“I have trouble enough on my hands,” Malone said indignantly, “without you showing up to complicate everything.”
He wouldn’t have admitted it for anything on earth, but secretly he was very glad to see her. Helene had caused him a lot of trouble in the past; she also had been a great deal of help to him.
He’d met her for the first time in rather similar circumstances. A corpse had been involved and a friend of Helene’s had been carted off to jail. For just a moment the present scene blurred a little before his eyes and he visioned Helene as he had first seen her—clad in ice-blue satin lounging pajamas, a fabulously beautiful fur coat and—galoshes. She’d had Jake Justus with her. In fact, that had been the day she and Jake Justus had met.
It suddenly occurred to him that Jake would be the ideal person to interview the red-faced man next door. If the interview turned out one way, Jake—ex-reporter, ex-press agent—would be able to collect a lot of helpful information. If it turned out the other way, Jake would undoubtedly shove the red-faced man’s teeth right down his throat. Whichever way it turned out was going to be okay by Malone.
As a matter of principle, however, he glared at Helene and added, “And I didn’t take Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx off to jail. The police did that. I’m only his lawyer.”
The two young Fairfaxxes, Elizabeth and Kenneth, had risen from the conference at the far end of the room and come to greet Malone. From their appearance and manner no one could have guessed that the head of the house had just been arrested for murder.
“Good to see you, Mr. Malone,” Kenneth Fairfaxx said.
Elizabeth Fairfaxx smiled at him and said, “I don’t believe you’ve met all these people.”
It was all very ordinary, very normal. But before Elizabeth could begin introducing him around, Kenneth laid a hand on his arm.
“Mr. Malone. This is—frightful,” the young man said. “Frankly—we can hardly realize it.” He poured bourbon into a glass, aimed the siphon inaccurately at it and said, “Oh damn!” Then, “Mr. Malone, tell me—surely they realize—nothing can be done to him—I mean—they must realize that he didn’t know what he was doing—”
Malone caught the glass just in time, handed it back to him and said, “My dear boy, you have no need to worry. Your uncle couldn’t be in better hands.” He spoke with all the assurance in the world, with what his friends and enemies usually referred to as his “cell-side
