Kells was drinking his coffee, watching the door. He turned to her slowly, said slowly: “No — but I’ve heard one.”
“All right. You tell me.”
“I was born of rich but honest parents...”
“You can skip that.”
He grinned at her. “I came back from France,” he said, — “with a set of medals, a beautiful case of shell shock and a morphine habit you could hang your hat on.”
He gestured with his hands. “All gone.”
“Even the medals?”
He nodded. “The State kept them as souvenirs of my first trial.”
Granquist poured two drinks.
“I happened to be too close to a couple of front-page kills,” Kells went on. “There was a lot of dumb sleuthing and a lot of dumb talk. It got so, finally, when the New York police couldn’t figure a shooting any other way, I was it.”