CHAPTER TWO
I
CHARLES FOREST, District Attorney, sat behind his big, flat-topped desk, a cigarette between his thick fingers and a brooding expression in his eyes.
Forest was a short, bulky man with a fleshy hard face, searching green eyes, a thin mouth and a square jutting chin. His thick white hair was seldom tidy as he had a habit of running his fingers through it when he was working on a knotty problem, and he seemed to spend most of his working hours solving knotty problems.
“McCann seems satisfied it was Jordan,” Forest said, waving his hand to the pile of newspapers that lay in an untidy heap on the floor. “On the face of it, Paul, he’s got a watertight case. I’ve read Bardin’s report, and that seems pretty conclusive. What’s worrying you?”
Conrad sank lower in the armchair. One leg hung over one of the arms of the chair and he swung it backwards and forwards irritably.
“It’s too damned pat, sir,” he said. “Doc Holmes said it looked like a professional job, and I think so too. I think a hop-head would have to be very lucky to kill six people with six shots, especially when he’s using a .45. Those guns kick, but each time he hit a bull’s eye. It seems to me the killer was a crack shot, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t killed before.”
“I know,” Forest said mildly. “I thought those five shots good shooting. I’ve checked on Jordan. He was a crack shot. He could hit a playing-card edge on at twenty yards, and that wants some doing.”
Conrad grimaced.
“I should have checked that myself,” he said, annoyed with himself. “Well, all right, that takes care of that. There is another thing: he uses an electric razor. From the look of him he hasn’t put a razor blade against his skin for years, and yet he had a cutthroat razor in his possession. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”