"Clayton made sure of being alibied the whole weekend. Of course, it was simple enough to make the call which lured Bruce to his death. He could have phoned from a pay booth right in sight of the world. I don't know what he told Bruce, probably that he might have something for Guido after all but it was confidential. Make your own lie. "Monday he returned to the City. Silenio reported to him, got paid off, and was told to wait. Clayton had a problem: Bruce's files were still in Margery's apartment. Silenio would have learned that. Clayton had to choke off this last source of information. He came back here Tuesday and invited me to lunch with him. I gave him some idea of how well his tracks really were covered--and when I told him Margery's place had already been raided, it was a shock. He questioned me, found that the papers he was after were still unread, and deftly turned suspicion back on Owens: where for once it actually belonged. However, he must have felt the need to act fast. So he stayed in Berkeley, though he'd told me at lunch he planned to go back to San Francisco. (Will any hypothesis of yours explain why he changed his mind and spent more than twenty-four unproductive hours on this side? He, the animated cash register?) I met him again on Wednesday, when we had our run-in with Owens." Kintyre sighed. "That's the damnable part of it. I sat there drinking coffee with the true, ultimate murderer. He urged me to take Margery out. I told him I had another engagement. If I had gone out with her, she'd be alive. God, if she'd dated him she might be! He was going to ask her. She told me, when I mentioned it, that she would refuse his invitation. He wanted to get her out of the way. But when she stayed-- "I helped her read those letters!" "Slow down there," said Yamamura. * * * * * It was still later when the detective went back outdoors. An officer was watching Guido, who was laying out a solitaire hand on the stoop. The policeman said: "Inspector Harries would like to get a formal statement from you at headquarters, sir." Yamamura nodded. Guido raised his brows and slanted his head at the cottage. "Could be worse," said Yamamura. "Suppose you leave him alone for an hour or so and then go in and make him some lunch." "Sure," said Guido. The policeman followed Yamamura out the drive. At the station, he was shown directly into Harries' office. The inspector was just laying down the phone. "San Francisco," he said. "They raided that address. Traces of occupancy, but nobody home." "Any other news?" Yamamura sat down and folded his long legs. "They let the Michaelises go. Gene broke down when they did--reaction, I guess--and admitted where he'd been Saturday night and Sunday. Shacked up." "I wouldn't think he'd try to hide that. He'd have bragged." "This time he had two metal legs and he paid. Not much, he hasn't got much, but he paid, for the first time in his life."