I said, “Wait a minute. There’s one other possibility.”
“What’s that?” the D.A.’s man asked.
“Is there anyone who saw this man go into the hotel but doesn’t know that you’ve picked on me and hasn’t seen my picture?”
“That girl at the cigar counter,” the D.A.’s man said.
“All right. We go up to her apartment. You call her out. Ask her if she’s ever seen me before. If she says I’m the guy, we go to jail, and you book me. If she says I’m not, you turn me loose, the newspapers don’t blow the works, and we forget the kidnapping charge.”
He hesitated, and I went on quickly. “Or you can take the woman who stood in the doorway. You can—”
“Nix on her,” the D.A.’s man said hastily. “She didn’t have her glasses on.”
I said, “Suit yourself.”
The investigator reached his decision. “Okay, boys,” he said. “Has anybody got the name and address of that girl?”
“Yeah,” one of the men said. “Her name’s Clarde. I was talkin’ with her right after the shootin’. She gave me a description of the man. It fits this guy to a T.”