Drake shook his head laxly. “I can’t explain it. I don’t know.”
“Think hard,” Shayne urged him. “Your guide to the Club Daphne was Henri Desmond. He knew Margo Macon well. Did you have some conversation about your niece? Did you say anything to him that might have given him the idea you were her uncle?”
“No,” Drake muttered. “I’m sure we didn’t.”
Shayne turned to Henri Desmond. “How about it? Do you recall anything you might have said to Margo about Drake’s presence here at the Angelus?”
“I don’t know nothing about that,” he answered sullenly. “I got mad at her, sure. But I never went back. I can prove—”
Shayne turned from Henri and explained to Inspector Quinlan, “That point has bothered me. I realized there was a chance Barbara might have learned about her uncle through Henri. If she didn’t, there’s just one other answer,” he ended slowly.
Shayne took a cigarette from his pack, snapped a match on his thumbnail, and the sound was like a small explosion in the intense stillness of the inner room. He swung on Joseph Little and said, “That leaves you.”
The editor smiled wanly. “Are you joking, Mr. Shayne?”
“I don’t joke at a time like this. You knew Drake was in New Orleans. You knew he was at the Angelus Hotel — you phoned him there as soon as you hit town today. You saw a chance to drag him into it — to complicate the picture — so you had Margo Macon phone him just before you murdered her.”
“I?” Little exclaimed, frowning over his pince-nez. “Surely you’re not serious, Shayne. I was on the New York train at the time. Inspector Quinlan’s telegram was delivered to me on the train.”