“Well, as far as that is concerned, the Clutmers are out of it. That means that the time of the murder stands. Now come on, Lam, let’s be fair about this. If you were going to have a meeting with the girl, we’ll find it out. If that’s all there was to it, we’ll forget it. But you know good and well that’s why you wanted to go to Los Angeles. Now, isn’t it?”
“I don’t get you.”
“You fixed it up with the girl to meet you in Los Angeles.”
“No.”
He said, “That denial just doesn’t register with me.”
“That’s okay. Too bad you dragged me off the train.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m only a private detective,” I said. “I don’t want to tell you how to run your business, but if you had let me go on to Los Angeles and put a shadow on me and if I’d met the girl there, then you’d really have had something. As it is now, you can’t prove I was going to meet the girl.”
“It’s a fair inference.”
“Nuts!”