“But the clerk says you didn’t go to your room all evening,” the inspector reminded him.
“I went up the back stairs. I looked like hell and hated to go through the lobby looking like that.”
“He’s fast on the trigger,” Denton warned the inspector. “He sneaked in the back way to his room, stepped over here and did the job he was paid to do in New Orleans, jumped back and slipped down the back way again and out to the front to put up a show of innocence and discover the body of the girl he’d murdered. Why, Shayne? Who is she? What’s this got to do with the cock-and-bull story you handed me at the station this evening?”
Shayne turned his back on Denton and appealed to the Homicide men. “Does a harness bull conduct murder investigations in New Orleans? Can’t you see he hates my guts and can’t see anybody in the picture but me?”
The inspector lifted one grayish eyebrow. “Thus far,” he confessed, “I fail to see anyone else in the picture either.”
“Hell, you’ve been influenced by Denton’s spouting off,” Shayne argued. “What earthly motive would I have for killing the girl?”
“That,” said the inspector curtly, “will be worth looking into.”
“She’s the daughter of a client,” Shayne growled. “I came here to look her up, sure. I had her address and I bribed the clerk to give me the room opposite hers so I could keep an eye on her. Everything falls into line if you look at it the right way.”
“The way you’d like to have us look at it?” asked the inspector in a mild voice.
“Put it that way if you want. Before your men go,” Shayne said wearily, “you might have them dust the railing of my balcony and the interior of my room for fingerprints. According to Madame Legrand’s statement, the murderer must have got away through my room.”