"Tell him I'm busy now. Maybe later."

"Yes, Sir, but he says it's terribly important and he has to see you right now."

"Well, all right." To Henry Maltzman, he said, "I've been treating you with kid gloves, but when I get back, Henry, you'll talk, or I'll have Lieutenant Jennings put you in a cell and you won't get another chance to talk until tomorrow morning. Keep an eye on him, Eban."

His greeting to the rabbi when he came out was, "This had better be good, David."

"It is good, Chief," said the rabbi earnestly and told him of Miriam's exploit.

Lanigan chuckled. "While you were out of the house, eh? She's a corker. When you get home, ask her if she'd like a part-time job with the force. All right. We'll probably check with this Dr. Sayre, but for now it's good enough." And, as the rabbi turned to leave, "Oh, and give Miriam my love."

Back in his office, Lanigan looked sourly at Maltzman and said, "Okay, you can go now. The lieutenant will check you out."

"Did Rabbi Small come here about me? Is that why you're letting me go?"

"Go on. Beat it before I change my mind."

48.

Returning from the board meeting, Herb was surprised to find Molly at home. "Your bridge didn't last very long," he remarked.

"Oh, I wasn't planning to stay. I just went to help with the decorations. It was a shower and bridge for a new bride."

"Mother?"

She pointed ceilingward. "Resting." Then she said eagerly, "How did the meeting go? As planned?"

"No, the rabbi got his contract renewed. It was close, but the rabbi won."

"But, but how? Henry was sure he had eight votes."

He smiled sourly. "I guess he had to twist an arm or two to get the eight. But then he outsmarted himself with his idea of a secret ballot." He was enjoying himself as he spelled it out for her. "You see, when you vote in secret, how is Big Brother Henry to know how you voted?"

"I don't understand." She seemed bewildered, unable to take it in. "I just don't understand."

"Oh, that's all right," he said breezily. "There are lots of things I don't understand." The coincidence of Maltzman's absence from the board meeting while she was presumably out playing bridge had made him change his mind. He now had to confront her. "For instance, I don't understand why you went out the night I was running the Brotherhood service and you were supposed to be staying with Mother." He saw that he had startled her and that she had the grace to blush.

"Stanley told you? I thought it was his jalopy I saw as I turned into the driveway."

"What driveway?"

"Ellsworth Jordon's, of course. I went to deliver that report I'd been working on."

"Gore asked you to?"

"No, I offered."

"Why?"

"Because I could tell that Larry was worried about not getting it in on time. The bank could lose the account. Jordon could be very nasty about things like that."

"And you delivered it?"

She shook her head. "The house was dark when I got there. I thought he must have gone to bed early, or gone out, so I came away." She hesitated, "I've thought about it ever since, that maybe ... Do you think he might have been-you know-dead at the time?"

"He might have been," he admitted cautiously. "But since you didn't see him and didn't know it, there was nothing you could do. So why not just forget about it?"

"But when that policeman came to ask about Mr. Gore's phone call, I should have told him that I went to the Jordon house that night."

"Gosh, yes. You certainly should have. It might be an important clue. Why didn't you?"

"Because you were right here with me," she said with a touch of acerbity. "I didn't want to say I had gone out when I'd promised I was going to stay in. I thought of seeing the detective later and telling him, but I kept putting it off and then never got around to it. But if they should find out I concealed information-"

"How would they find out?"

"Well, Stanley mentioned it to you, didn't he? What if he should mention it to the police?"

Learning that it was Jordon rather than Maltzman she had gone to see had lifted a great weight from his mind. He was now thoroughly ashamed of his doubts of her loyalty. He felt a great tenderness for her. He could see that she was worried and a little frightened, and he longed to allay her fears. On the other hand, having led her to believe that it was Stanley who had told him, it would be foolish now to admit that he had learned it from his mother.

"Oh, I don't think Stanley is apt to go to the police. Why should he?" He went on to explain at some length that people did not normally go running to the police, even when they had important information, simply because they didn't want to get involved; that people like Stanley who got drunk occasionally and were apt to get arrested for it were even less likely to help the police; that they had an innate antipathy toward them; that she had nothing to fear.

But he saw that she was not convinced. Finally he said, "I'll tell you what, I'll go to the rabbi and ask him what we ought to do."

"What's he got to do with it? Why go to him?"

"Because he is very friendly with Chief Lanigan. They see each other socially, I understand. I could explain to him just exactly how it happened. After all, he knows us and he knows my mother. Maybe he'd be willing to talk to Lanigan, and we wouldn't have to. Or at least he'd smooth the way for us."

"No, we can't go to the rabbi for help."

"Why not?"

"Because we wouldn't feel right about it. Here, I-we have been working to get him out. We can't just turn around and ask him to help us."

He grinned. "Don't let that worry you. Because I voted for him, and I guess it was my vote that settled it."

"You voted for him?"

Too late he realized he had talked himself into a trap and that his best course was to make a clean breast of it.

"I was jealous," he said candidly. "That night when you went out, Henry Maltzman came to the service at the temple late, after nine. And then last Sunday when I went out for the paper, he was here and you seemed to be-you know-awfully friendly. And then today you went out to this bridge thing, and when I got to the meeting, I found that Henry had called to say he wasn't going to make the scene. So I put two and two together and-"

"You were jealous of Henry Maltzman? You thought I might be playing around with Henry Maltzman? I would have thought you'd know me better than to think I'd be attracted to a professional macho type like Henry Maltzman."

"Forgive me," he begged. "I love you so much, Molly, that sometimes I just can't think straight."

She relented. He was such a boy. She came over and, putting her arms around him, murmured, "Silly Herbie."

He brightened. "But it all worked out for the best, didn't it? Because now I've got the right to ask the rabbi for a favor."

49.

"You see, Rabbi, she's so loyal. When she sensed that Gore was upset that he wouldn't be able to get that report in the old man's hands on time, she offered to bring it over. I guess she thought Gore might lose the account. Jordan was that type of man." He laughed. "The funny part of the whole thing is that the report didn't even balance."

"Then what was the point of bringing it since it was incomplete?"

"That was my view, Rabbi. But Gore felt that what was important was to get it in on time."

"And she couldn't tell the detective that she had gone there because you were present during the interrogation?"

"That's right. She was planning to see him afterward and tell him, but you know how it is, she kept putting it off."

"Does she know that it was your mother who told you that she left the house?"

"Uh-uh. She thought it was Stanley, because I'd just come from the temple, from the board meeting, you know-"

"Why Stanley?"

"Well, she thought she'd seen his car just as she was turning into Jordon's driveway, and she assumed he saw her. And I let her think so. I mean, I didn't contradict her."

"I see. Now what do you want me to do?"

"Well, I thought where you and Chief Lanigan are supposed to be so friendly, I thought maybe you could explain it to him, just how it happened." He looked eagerly at the rabbi.

"No, Mr. Mandell. You must see that it wouldn't do. Chief Lanigan would still have to question your wife. That's his job. And the net effect of my trying to smooth the ground first would only make him suspicious."

"So what should we do?"

"My advice, Mr. Mandell, is that you and your wife go and see Chief Lanigan as soon as possible, this afternoon, or right now, if you can, and tell him the whole story just as you've told it to me. He may be annoyed with you for waiting this long, but the longer you wait, the worse it will be. And if he finds out on his own, it could be very serious for you."

Later when Miriam noticed that the rabbi appeared to be unusually abstracted, she asked, "Are you bothered about the Mandells, David? Do you think Lanigan will give them a rough time?"

"Oh, I'm sure he will, if only to impress on them the seriousness of withholding evidence from the police in a capital case. But a lot of it will be put on, because he knows that people do it all the time. He's told me on more than one occasion that it's one of the facts of life as far as the police are concerned. What bothers me is that Mrs. Mandell's story tends to show that Stanley was near the Jordon house at the crucial time, and Lanigan might decide to follow that line and pull him in."

"But he's innocent-"

"Then he'll get off eventually, I suppose. But in the meantime they'd give him a hard time. They might reason that if she was able to identify his car, he should have been able to identify hers, and that in not telling them he was concealing information."

"But Mr. Mandell didn't find out from Stanley. It was his mother who told him that Molly had gone out."

"True. But Mr. Mandell won't dare say so, because his wife will be there and he doesn't want her to know. It seems terribly unfair to Stanley somehow."

A couple of hours later, however, the rabbi received a telephone call that proved his fears were groundless, or at least misplaced. It was from Herb Mandell. He was angry, perhaps a little frightened. It showed in the sarcasm of his tone. "I want to thank you for your advice, Rabbi. We did exactly as you suggested. Lanigan questioned Molly for over an hour. He had the poor girl crying before he was through. But that's not all. He told her he didn't want her leaving town. Thanks to your advice, she's now a suspect and will be followed everywhere she goes by cops."

"Oh, surely not-"

"No? Well a few minutes ago I looked out the window, and there's a car parked in our street, diagonally across from our house, and there are a couple of cops sitting in it. And I'll bet you everything you like there's one parked on Francis Street, too, so they can see if anyone comes out the back door."

"I'm sure you must be mistaken, Mr. Mandell. Chief Lanigan may want her to be available to give evidence. If you like, I'll get in touch with him and find out, if I can, just what the situation is."

"I'd like."

50.

After releasing Maltzman, Lanigan had suggested to Jennings that he go on home and relax a little.

"Good idea, Hugh. The missus has been complaining about eating alone the last couple weeks. How about you? Why don't you go home, too?"

"I will a little later. I want to get everything organized for my meeting with Clegg first. I'll see you in the morning."

Not many hours later, however, while he was dozing on the divan in the midst of the litter of the Sunday paper, Jennings was awakened by a call from Lanigan. There were new developments. Could he come down?

He could tell that his chief was excited. "I'll be right over, Hugh."

Although he arrived in less than ten minutes, Lanigan growled at him, "What kept you?" And as Jennings, his Adam's apple bobbling, was on the point of being indignant, "Never mind. For the first time, we've got a break. We can place someone at the scene just about the time the murder happened. We don't have to prove it. She admits it."

"She?"

"Right." He told of the Mandells coming to see him. "From the beginning, I've felt the pattern of the shooting was the basic clue in this case. Doc Mokely put his finger on it when he said it was like a woman shutting her eyes and firing away until the gun was empty. And that's exactly the way it looked to me. That's why I was so anxious to trace Martha's movements. When we had to cross her off, I thought the boy might fill the bill, but I wasn't happy with the idea. So along comes another woman-"

"But she said the place was dark, and Stanley said it was dark."

"Jordon used only the first floor, and that's practically hidden by the trees. From the street he wouldn't be able to tell if there was a light on in the living room or not. As for Mrs. Mandell, what else is she going to say?"

"Yeah, Hugh, but what's her motive? Why would she want to kill Jordon?"