“Very interesting,” Conway said. “I’d never realized that.”
“Anyway, the first thing I did was check up on you to see if you might have killed her. Not if you did, mind you, but if you could have.”
“It never occurred to me that I might need an alibi,” Conway said. “All the time I was looking for her, after the squad car left me, and then on the trolley going down to the police station — I doubt if anyone would remember seeing me then, or that I could prove where I was, and when.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the detective stated. “When a guy’s on the level, he’s got a lot of things working for him he don’t even know about. And vice versa. When he isn’t, there’s a lot of things working against him.” The remark disturbed Conway vaguely, but he dismissed it as Bauer went on. “For instance, that squad car looked all over the neighborhood after it left you, and there was no sign of your car. If you’d done it, the car couldn’t be very far away. But, of course, they might of missed it, so I don’t count that as a positive fact.”
“I see.”
“But then we got two very positive facts. The car was parked between ten-o-two and ten-o-four, and you were at the police station at ten twenty-three. No taxis picked up any fares around there at that time, and there’s been no report of a private car giving anybody a lift. Besides, nobody who’d just left a dead bod}^ in a car would be fool enough to ask for a lift. And a man running down a quiet street couldn’t help but be noticed. So if it was you parked that car, it means you’d have to of walked to the station in twenty-one minutes. Well, that can’t be done — I checked it personally, so there’s no possibility of me being wrong.”
“I’d never have thought of that,” Conway said.
“There was another thing, and this is what I mean about things working for a fellow that he don’t even know about. You happened to mention something I bet you don’t even know you said, and you know I’m not conceited, but not one man in a thousand would of paid any attention to it.”
“What was that?”
“You just happened to mention that when you were on that streetcar, you missed the stop at Wilcox and had to ride on to Cahuenga. You didn’t even know it meant anything when you told me. Well, it was certainly a long shot that the motorman or conductor would remember what stops they made three nights before, but I took it. And whaddya know, the motor-man was coming down with the flu that night, and that was the last trip he made. He was in a hurry to finish the trip, and trying to make up time, and he remembered that he beat a light at Wilcox. Somebody bawled him out for it when he stopped at Cahuenga. So now you see why I said you had an alibi you couldn’t of faked?”