Pellingham scowled savagely.
I said, “Marilyn Winton says she heard the sounds of the murder taking place at two-thirty. She’s the only one that did. I think if you give Hale the right sort of third degree, you’ll find that he was actually talking with Nostrander at about two-thirty. Suppose after he left, Marilyn Winton walked into Roberta Fenn’s apartment, looking for a showdown.”
“But she heard the sound of a muted shot at two-thirty.”
“She says she did. If I intended to go into someone’s apartment and kill him at three o’clock, I could manufacture a pretty good alibi by telling my friends that just as I opened the street door of the apartment I’d heard a shot at two-thirty, couldn’t I?”
Pellingham kept looking at me as though I’d jerked a veil from in front of his eyes.
Bertha Cool said, ‘“Fry me for an oyster!”
Pellingham gave a low whistle. He reached a sudden decision. “All right, Lam,” he said, “you’re going back to New Orleans with me.”
“That’s what you think,” I told him, and walked up the stairs and through the entrance to the Navy Recruiting Bureau, before either of them knew where I was going.
I said to the man behind the desk. “Donald Lam reporting for duty.”
“Okay, sailor. Go through that door. There’s a bus waiting out in back, get in.”