"He was; he's gone now," Rand said. "He and another man are going to help
me check up on what's missing from the Fleming collection."
"Hey!" Olsen exploded. "What I told you, now; he run ahead of us with a
tip-off! Gresham's skipped out, now!"
"What is all this?" Rand wanted to know. "What's he screaming about,
Mick?"
"Like he don't know!" Olsen vociferated. "He tipped off Gresham so's he
could skip out; I'll bet he's in it with Gresham!"
"Pay no attention," McKenna advised. "He doesn't know what the score is;
hell, he doesn't even know what teams are playing."
"Now you look here!" Olsen bawled. "We'll see what Mr. Farnsworth has to
say about this. You're supposed to cooperate with us, not go fraternizin'
with a lot of suspects. Why, it's plain as anything; him and Gresham's
in it together. I bet that was why he come around, the first thing in the
morning, to find the body!"
Kavaalen, behind the wheel, turned around and began jabbering at Olsen,
in the back seat, in something that sounded like Swedish. Most Finns
can speak Swedish, and Rand was wishing he could understand it. The
corporal's remarks ran to about a paragraph, and must have been downright
incendiary. At least, Olsen seemed to catch fire from them. He rose in
his seat, waving his arms and howling back in the same language.
"Shut up, goddammit, _shut up_!" McKenna bellowed into his face. "Shut up
before I sling your ass to hell out of this car! I'm talking, and I don't
want any goddam jaw from you, Olsen. You either," he barked at Kavaalen,
winking at him at the same time.
Silence fell with a heavy thump in the car.
"Well, now that the international crisis seems to have been averted,
how's about letting me in on it, too?" Rand asked. "For instance, what
about Gresham? What's he supposed to be a suspect for?"
"Ah, Olsen suspects him of chopping Rivers up," McKenna replied wearily.
"See, we questioned this Cecil Gillis, and he told us that last evening,
as he was leaving Rivers's, he saw Stephen Gresham drive up and go into
the shop. I wanted to talk to him, myself; I thought he might account for
the cigar-ashes, and the drink-fixings on that table. But when Farnsworth
heard about the killing, he sent Olsen around, and when Olsen heard that
Gresham had been there, he tried him and convicted him on the spot."
"Oh, obscenity! Is that what it's about?" Rand exclaimed in disgust.
"Yes, Gresham told me about that. He didn't have the drink, and he wasn't
smoking a cigar in the shop, and he left a little after nine. He got home
at nine twenty-two. I can testify to that, myself; I was there at the
time, and so were seven other people." Rand named them. "They dribbled
away at different times during the evening, but Philip Cabot and I stayed
till around eleven." He mentioned the approximate time at which the
others had left. "What time was Rivers killed, or hasn't the time been
fixed?"
"The M.E. says around ten to two," McKenna said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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