Kiss Your Elbow. Alan Handley

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СКАЧАТЬ ten o’clock, I think.”

      “And she was dead when you saw her, whenever it was? As a matter of fact, I don’t imagine she was dead at all. Probably drunk. She’s a notorious nipper.”

      “She was dead, all right. I took her pulse. She was still warm, but definitely dead.”

      “Oh, but that doesn’t mean a thing. I’m forever reading about people with no pulse at all carrying on like mad. I read about a chicken with his head chopped completely off, mind you, living to a ripe old age.”

      I didn’t like it one bit that my big moment did not turn out to be a big moment after all. And besides, I knew Nellie was dead. The picture of that body kept coming into focus in spite of the Scotch. I kept fighting it, trying to make it vague and blurry again, but it didn’t work. I lay down on the floor beside Maggie and stared up at the ceiling.

      “Here, lift up your head a minute.” I lifted up my head and she pushed a pillow under it. “Now lie back.” She stroked my forehead. Her hand was cool. It felt good. “Now then, tell me all. She called you at ten and then what happened?”

      I told her exactly what had happened, or at least as near as I could remember. She thought it over for a moment.

      “What about fingerprints? They’re very smart this season.”

      “I had my gloves on,” I said. I was rather pleased with myself not to be caught with that one.

      “Pretty damned clever, aren’t you, to…”

      “Actually, I didn’t really plan it that way,” I said. “It just happened.”

      “…to be able to take a pulse with your gloves on.” She finished on what I thought was an unnecessarily triumphant note.

      And, of course, I must have taken my gloves off to feel for Nellie’s pulse. I admitted that rather sheepishly.

      “And did you put your gloves back on right after you picked up the Youth and Beauty Book?” I couldn’t remember. “And did you close the door after you left?” Yes, I was positive of that. “Well, then, you have probably left a print large as life and twice as natural on the office door.” I tried desperately to remember if I had put my gloves back on or not.

      “But what if I did,” I said defensively. “They won’t necessarily know whose they are. I’m not in the rogues’ gallery—yet.”

      Maggie regarded me with what I can only describe as a pitying expression.

      “Well, what’s wrong now?”

      “But you were in the army, weren’t you? You can remember that much, can’t you?” After four years of that production you’re not liable to forget it in a hurry, and I told her so. “Remember that little card you had to carry about with you that had that repulsive picture of you on it…I could never understand why you didn’t go to a really good photographer….”

      “So what? I didn’t leave my, what you describe as ‘repulsive,’ portrait on the doorknob, did I?”

      “You might just as well have. In case you don’t recall, your fingerprints were on that card, too, with a copy probably crouching somewhere in a Washington filing cabinet, with your repulsive portrait on the same page, waiting for just this moment.”

      I got up and walked over to the window and looked down on Fifth Avenue. It was all crawling and busy and it wasn’t raining and it wasn’t snowing and it looked fine. Central Park was pleasant, too, even for February. It looked like I would like to keep on seeing it for quite a while yet, but the odds at the moment were less than even.

      “Well, I suppose I ought to save the taxpayers some money and give myself up before they go to all that trouble and expense of spreading a dragnet to apprehend the fiend. A flock of New York’s Finest are no doubt right this minute combing the Casbah from top to bottom.”

      Maggie gingerly got to her feet somewhat like a camel, one end at a time. After several exploratory pokes, she evidently decided she could navigate under her own power and came over beside me at the window. The sunlight made her hair shine. I was going to miss that, too. She took my arm and very gently led me to the couch and pushed me down on it. She stood in front of me with arms folded and just looked at me. I resented being treated like an idiot.

      “Now you listen to me for a minute,” she began. “You’ve been having one hell of a fine time working yourself up to a good second-act curtain and it’s all a lot of nonsense.”

      “That’s all right for you to say. You’re not wanted for murder.” I started to get up and she pushed me back down again. I considered swatting her.

      “But that’s the point,” she went on. “You didn’t kill that old battle-axe, did you? Or did you?”

      “Of course not, but…”

      “Then as far as I can see all you did was not tell somebody you found her murdered—if she was murdered, which I doubt. It might have been an accident.”

      “I took the book away.”

      “That’s another thing. Why ever did you do that?”

      “Well, it had my name on it and your name on it and that would have meant that we were there, and there you are.”

      “So what? I wasn’t there.” Then her eyes got very round and she suddenly bent over as if to kiss me, but midway she yelped from the reminders that she wasn’t quite capable of such action yet. “But you, darling, you were trying to shield me. I think you’re wonderful. Let’s have another drink.” And we did and I began to feel better. It’s nice being thought a gentleman capable of shielding someone from something. We got all the pillows from the chairs and couch and put them on the floor and lay down with our drinks.

      “Now then,” I said, after we were comfortable. “What were you about to be all stern about a minute ago?”

      “It’s all really too simple. You’ve done all the wrong things so far just because you’re a ham at heart and you felt you had to pad your part. Anybody but an actor would have given a yell and, when people started to come running, said ‘look what I found’ but not you, you little Hamlet you…Oh, no…Well, anyway you’ve done it and that’s that. As it stands now we’ve got two choices. You can call up the police right now and tell them all about it. How you are going to alibi taking that filthy book I have no idea.”

      “What’s the other choice?” I asked. “If I do that it will mean a lot of explaining. I’m liable for attempting to obstruct justice or concealing evidence, or something.”

      “Then we could just assume that you did put your gloves back on or someone messed up your prints after you left, and then we could burn the Youth and Beauty Book to a crisp and cast the ashes off the Triboro Bridge.”

      That sounded good so far.

      “And then what?”

      “Then we’ll just say no more about it.”

      “Oh, fine. But don’t forget the book was open on her desk and the heavy of the piece might have seen our names as well as one Bobby LeB., whoever the hell he is.”

      “Then СКАЧАТЬ