“You’re nuts!” Conway said, but he was rigid with terror. He had selected the seats in the theatre with a view to being inconspicuous, so that their early exit would not be noticed; their leaving had attracted no attention, which he had counted as an added bit of luck. He had foreseen no need of having to prove his presence in the theatre, for he could not have imagined that a muddle-headed detective would manage to prove, to a presumably sane district attorney, that the crime had taken place an hour earlier than it actually had.
The muddle-headed detective spoke. “Mind if I say something to him?” he asked Davis.
“Go ahead.”
“Like I told you,” he said to Conway, “I take an interest in my clients. You’re not really a client now, of course, but I’m still interested in you. Naturally, you shouldn’t of killed her, but I can see extenuating circumstances.”
“You’re seeing double,” Conway said.
“I knew there was something phoney when I saw that glove you said she sent you to get. And, of course, I was right. But that’s one of the things makes me think it wasn’t premeditated, because if you’d planned it, you’d of figured out something better than that, you being a writer and all, so I’m right on that one, too. Well, if it wasn’t premeditated, it wasn’t first-degree murder. So, if you play ball with the D. A., maybe he’ll let it go at second-degree. Can’t ask for more than that.” He turned to Davis. “How about it?”
“There do seem to have been some extenuating circumstances,” Davis said. “Of course, I can’t promise anything, but I’ll talk to the boss. In fact, I’ll definitely recommend that we accept a plea of second-degree — if you’ll co-operate.”
“You’re all insane,” Conway said, and his voice shook with real outrage, the righteous indignation of the artist who has created a perfect work, only to have it misunderstood, distorted, perverted, by a crass and ignorant public. “This whole idiotic accusation stems from the fact that this chowderhead detective, advised by his cretin girl friend, thinks it’s unnatural for a woman to get upset about losing a glove — even an old, worn one. From that magnificent start, he’s gone on to a series of asinine deductions, based on falsified facts. I knew my wife had withdrawn the money from the bank — I didn’t know she had it with her in the drugstore, but that discovery would hardly put me into a homicidal rage. I knew nothing at all about Taylor until I was told about him this morning in this office — and I still don’t know if it’s true. I was in the theatre at nine o’clock, and the car was parked at ten. I don’t know that,” he hastened to add, “but that’s what you’ve said right along, and I do know it wasn’t parked at nine, because it was in the parking lot, and my wife was alive, at nine-thirty. And there aren’t any extenuating circumstances, because there aren’t any circumstances at all.”
Conway found that he was convincing himself, which, after all, was not too surprising, because everything he had said was true. “All this ‘evidence’ you think you have is phoney from start to finish,” he continued, “and if you’re silly enough to take me into court, I’ll prove it to any jury in the world — unless they’re all raving lunatics.”
“He don’t know what he’s saying,” Bauer said.