“Well — yes. That’s the point I’ve just made.”
“And your wife was on her deathbed. You knew that. So you made a hurried trip away from home. You went to Miami and demanded that Little put you in touch with Barbara. He refused, but you knew she was in New Orleans and came here to locate her.”
“Those are partial truths,” Drake admitted. “I knew my wife had little longer to live. She wanted to see Barbara again before she died. I pleaded with Little in Miami to give me her address. But he refused his only sister that final consolation.”
“Yet your visit to New Orleans so alarmed him that he hired me to rush here and protect her from you. That’s a fact, isn’t it, Little?”
Joseph Little said, “It is,” with compressed lips.
“You’ve got one more chance,” Shayne told Drake slowly, “to explain the telephone message.”
“You still seem to miss the main point,” Drake said with dignity, “that at the time of the murder I had no possible motive. It was then too late even if, as my brother-in-law has charged, I had had such a plan. Good heavens, don’t you see? Elizabeth had already passed away.”
Shayne shook his head. “You’re the one who is missing the real point, Drake. You didn’t know about your wife’s death until after Barbara was murdered.”
Drake’s face blanched. He had left off his make-up, and his skin was gray and withered.
“That gives you a perfect motive,” Shayne went on harshly. “Now do you want to explain how Barbara knew how to reach you — or do you still believe you’re not the logical suspect?”