Drake blinked his eyes and wet his thin, shriveled lips. He whined, “Actually, I didn’t look closely. That is—” His shudder was delicate, a slight tremor, and he lifted one hand. The nails were manicured and polished, with a faint rosy tint that hinted the application of artificial color. “The condition — you understand, Captain, that I couldn’t bear to—”
“Most men have a natural reluctance in such cases. They don’t relish looking at their dead victims.” The inspector’s voice was suddenly harsh.
Drake’s color changed from pasty white to gray except for a pinkish tint on each cheek. He stammered, “Surely you don’t think that I — that I — surely you can’t think that.”
“Why not?” Inspector Quinlan’s cold blue eyes stared at the little man. His chin pressed against his tie, and the skin appeared to have tightened over his fine features.
“But — but—” Drake’s flaccid left cheek twitched uncontrollably, the faint tint standing out in a pink blush against the gray flesh. “But I was on my way to see Barbara,” he panted. “That should prove I didn’t — Good heavens! Do you think I’d have gone there if I’d known she’d been murdered?”
Quinlan’s chin moved against his tie. “It’s not a bad supposition. Murderers often have a morbid impulse to go back to view their work — search for any clues they may have left behind in the excitement. You may have been dumb enough to think it would make an alibi,” he added casually.
Unnoticed, and some distance from them, Shayne grinned. Inspector Quinlan was undoubtedly clever. Sitting there behind his desk he was not the mild-mannered man he had been in Apartment 303. There was no mercy in his voice or in his eyes.
“Really, Captain, I’m overwhelmed,” Drake whined. He wriggled his body in the chair, crossed his skinny legs. “I don’t know what else to say.”
Quinlan let the swivel chair come forward and reached for a pad, took a pencil from his pocket and said, “What’s your full name?”
“Edmund Drake. I—”