“No. I just got aboard, climbed in, and went to sleep.”
“It’s queer the conductor didn’t wake you up to take your ticket.”
“That,” I said, “is because the porter didn’t see me. He didn’t report to the conductor that anyone had got aboard with a ticket for lower nine.”
“Isn’t that going to make it rather tough?”
“Perhaps.”
Bertha said, “Well, you’re a brainy little devil. You can keep yourself out of jail all right, but we must do something to help Mr. Whitewell. Do you suppose this murder has anything to do with Corla Burke’s disappearance?”
“I don’t know yet. A lot of people could have killed Harry Beegan — and among them is my very estimable friend, Lieutenant William Kleinsmidt of the Las Vegas police force.”
Bertha said, “Don’t be a sap, Donald. If Kleinsmidt had killed him, he’d have admitted the shooting — posed as a hero — ‘Fearless-officer-kills-desperate-criminal-who-has-terrorized-neighborhood,’ and all that sort of bunk.”
I said, “I’m not sold on it. I’m suggesting it as a possibility.”
“I don’t see where it’s even possible.”