Cleaver's jaw sagged slightly, and his labored breathing was quite audible. "And between half past eleven and twelve o'clock," pursued Markham's relentless voice, "Miss Odell was strangled and robbed. What do you say to that?"

For a long time there was tense silence. Then Cleaver spoke.

"I've got to think this thing out."

Markham waited patiently. After several minutes Cleaver drew himself together and squared his shoulders.

"I'm going to tell you what I did that night, and you can take it or leave it." Again he was the cold, self-contained gambler. "I don't care how many witnesses you've got; it's the only story you'll ever get out of me. I should have told you in the first place, but I didn't see any sense of stepping into hot water if I wasn't pushed in. You might have believed me last Tuesday, but now you've got something in your head, and you want to make an arrest to shut up the newspapers, "

"Tell your story," ordered Markham. "If it's straight, you needn't worry about the newspapers."

Cleaver knew in his heart that this was true. No one, not even his bitterest political enemies, had ever accused Markham of buying kudos with any act of injustice, however small.

"There's not much to tell, as a matter of fact," the man began. "I went to Miss Odell's house a little before midnight, but I didn't enter her apartment; I didn't even ring her bell."

"Is that your customary way of paying visits?"

"Sounds fishy, doesn't it? But it's the truth, nevertheless. I intended to see her, that is, I wanted to, but when I reached her door, something made me change my mind, "

"Just a moment. How did you enter the house?"

"By the side door, the one off the alleyway. I always used it when it was open. Miss Odell requested me to, so that the telephone operator wouldn't see me coming in so often."

"And the door was unlocked at that time Monday night?"

"How else could I have got in by it? A key wouldn't have done me any good, even if I'd had one, for the door locks by a bolt on the inside. I'll say this, though: that's the first time I ever remember finding the door unlocked at night."

"All right. You went in the side entrance. Then what?"

"I walked down the rear hall and listened at the door of Miss Odell's apartment for a minute. I thought there might be someone else with her, and I didn't want to ring unless she was alone. . . ."

"Pardon my interrupting, Mr. Cleaver," interposed Vance. "But what made you think someone else was there?"

The man hesitated.

"Was it," prompted Vance, "because you had telephoned to Miss Odell a little while before, and had been answered by a man's voice?"

Cleaver nodded slowly. "I can't see any particular point in denying it. . . . Yes, that's the reason."

"What did this man say to you?"

"d.a.m.n little. He said 'h.e.l.lo,' and when I asked to speak to Miss Odell, he informed me she wasn't in, and hung up."

Vance addressed himself to Markham. "That, I think, explains Jessup's report of the brief phone call to the Odell apartment at twenty minutes to twelve."

"Probably." Markham spoke without interest. He was intent on Cleaver's account of what happened later and he took up the interrogation at the point where Vance had interrupted.

"You say you listened at the apartment door. What caused you to refrain from ringing?"

"I heard a man's voice inside."

Markham straightened up.

"A man's voice? You're sure?"

"That's what I said." Cleaver was matter of fact about it. "A man's voice. Otherwise I'd have rung the bell."

"Could you identify the voice?"

"Hardly. It was very indistinct; and it sounded a little hoa.r.s.e.

It wasn't anyone's voice I was familiar with; but I'd be inclined to say it was the same one that answered me over the phone."

"Could you make out anything that was said?"

Cleaver frowned and looked past Markham through the open window. "I know what the words sounded like," he said slowly. "I didn't think anything of them at the time. But after reading the papers the next day, those words came back to me, "

"What were the words?" Markham cut in impatiently.

"Well, as near as I could make out, they were: 'Oh, my G.o.d! Oh, my G.o.d!', repeated two or three times."

This statement seemed to bring a sense of horror into the dreary old office, a horror all the more potent because of the casual, phlegmatic way in which Cleaver repeated that cry of anguish. After a brief pause Markham asked, "When you heard this man's voice, what did you do?"

"I walked softly back down the rear hall and went out again through the side door. Then I went home."

A short silence ensued. Cleaver's testimony had been in the nature of a surprise; but it fitted perfectly with Mannix's statement.

Presently Vance lifted himself out of the depths of his chair. "I say, Mr. Cleaver, what were you doing between twenty minutes to twelve, when you phoned Miss Odell, and five minutes to twelve, when you entered the side door of her apartment house?"

"I was riding uptown in the subway from 23d Street," came the answer after a short pause.

"Strange, very strange." Vance inspected the tip of his cigarette.

"Then you couldn't possibly have phoned to anyone during that fifteen minutes, eh, what?"

I suddenly remembered Alys La Fosse's statement that Cleaver had telephoned to her on Monday night at ten minutes to twelve. Vance, by his question, had, without revealing his own knowledge, created a state of uncertainty in the other's mind. Afraid to commit himself too emphatically, Cleaver resorted to an evasion.

"It's possible, is it not, that I could have phoned someone after leaving the subway at 72d Street and before I walked the block to Miss Odell's house?"

"Oh, quite," murmured Vance. "Still, looking at it mathematically, if you phoned Miss Odell at twenty minutes to twelve, and then entered the subway, rode to 72d Street, walked a block to 71st, went into the building, listened at her door, and departed at five minutes to twelve, making the total time consumed only fifteen minutes, you'd scarcely have sufficient leeway to stop en route and phone to anyone. However, I sha'n't press the point. But I'd really like to know what you did between eleven o'clock and twenty minutes to twelve, when you phoned to Miss Odell."

Cleaver studied Vance intently for a moment. "To tell you the truth, I was upset that night. I knew Miss Odell was out with another man, she'd broken an appointment with me, and I walked the streets for an hour or more, fuming and fretting."

"Walked the streets?" Vance frowned.

"That's what I said." Cleaver spoke with animus. Then, turning, he gave Markham a long, calculating look. "You remember I once suggested to you that you might learn something from a Doctor Lindquist. . . . Did you ever get after him?"

Before Markham could answer, Vance broke in. "Ah! That's it!, Doctor Lindquist! Well, well, of course! . . . So, Mr. Cleaver, you were walking the streets? The STREETS, mind you! Precisely!

You state the fact, and I echo the word STREETS. And you, apparently out of a clear sky, ask about Doctor Lindquist. Why Doctor Lindquist? No one has mentioned him. But that word STREETS, that's the connection. The streets and Doctor Lindquist are one, same as Paris and springtime are one. Neat, very neat. . ..

And now I've got another piece to the puzzle."

Markham and Heath looked at him as if he had suddenly gone mad. He calmly selected a Regie from his case and proceeded to light it.

Then he smiled beguilingly at Cleaver.

"The time has come, my dear sir, for you to tell us when and where you met Doctor Lindquist while roaming the streets Monday night. If you don't, 'pon my word, I'll come pretty close to doing it for you."

A full minute pa.s.sed before Cleaver spoke; and during that time his cold, staring eyes never moved from the district attorney's face.

"I've already told most of the story; so here's the rest." He gave a soft mirthless laugh. "I went to Miss Odell's house a little before half past eleven, thought she might be home by that time.

There I ran into Doctor Lindquist standing in the entrance to the alleyway. He spoke to me and told me someone was with Miss Odell in her apartment. Then I walked round the corner to the Ansonia Hotel.

After ten minutes or so I telephoned Miss Odell, and, as I said, a man answered. I waited another ten minutes and phoned a friend of Miss Odell's, hoping to arrange a party; but, failing, I walked back to the house. The doctor had disappeared, and I went down the alleyway and in the side door. After listening a minute, as I told you, and hearing a man's voice, I came away and went home. . ..

That's everything."

At that moment Swacker came in and whispered something to Heath.

The sergeant rose with alacrity and followed the secretary out of the room. Almost at once he returned, bearing a bulging manila folder. Handing it to Markham, he said something in a low voice inaudible to the rest of us. Markham appeared both astonished and displeased. Waving the sergeant back to his seat, he turned to Cleaver.

"I'll have to ask you to wait in the reception room for a few minutes. Another urgent matter has just arisen."

Cleaver went out without a word, and Markham opened the folder. "I don't like this sort of thing, Sergeant. I told you so yesterday when you suggested it."

"I understand, sir." Heath, I felt, was not as contrite as his tone indicated. "But if those letters and things are all right, and Cleaver hasn't been lying to us about 'em, I'll have my man put 'em back so's no one'll ever know they were taken. And if they do make Cleaver out a liar, then we've got a good excuse for grabbing 'em."

Markham did not argue the point. With a gesture of distaste he began running through the letters, looking particularly at the dates. Two photographs he put back after a cursory glance; and one piece of paper, which appeared to contain a pen-and-ink sketch of some kind, he tore up with disgust and threw into the wastebasket.

Three letters, I noticed, he placed to one side. After five minutes' inspection of the others, he returned them to the folder.

Then he nodded to Heath.

"Bring Cleaver back." He rose and, turning, gazed out of the window.

As soon as Cleaver was again seated before the desk, Markham said, without looking round, "You told me it was last June that you bought your letters back from Miss Odell. Do you recall the date?"

"Not exactly," said Cleaver easily. "It was early in the month, though, during the first week, I think."

Markham now spun about and pointed to the three letters he had segregated.