“I don’t feel like talking to anybody right now,” Conway said. “Would you do me a favor — see who it is, and try to get rid of them?”
“Sure.” The detective started down.
“I’ll wait up here. Call me when they’ve gone.” Conway retreated into Helen’s room, closed the door, and went directly to the dresser.
He pulled out the drawer as far as Bauer had and stood looking into it. The gloves lay in the corner, undisturbed; their whiteness and newness were so glaring that it seemed as though they rested in the beam of a spotlight, that made all the other contents of the drawer appear to be in shadow. Why was I such a fool? he asked himself. Why put them back here, on top of everything? I could have wrapped them up, put them in any drawer, or under the handkerchiefs, or in the back. I knew they might be evidence — why flaunt them in the face of this birdbrain?
But when he took them to the window to examine them in the sunlight, he could find no reason for his panic. To the naked eye, even of a considerably more astute observer than Sergeant Bauer, there was no evidence that the gloves had ever been worn. The police had not questioned him about his activities the afternoon before the murder; therefore they did not know the gloves had been purchased then. There was no reason for Bauer to attach any significance whatever to the gloves. But what, then, had caused him to pause before closing the drawer?
Conway returned the gloves to their place, afraid, now that Bauer had seen them, to move them to a less conspicuous spot. He stared into the drawer from where Bauer had stood, and then, remembering the other’s height, stooped to make himself three inches shorter. There was the usual clutter of a woman’s catch-all drawer: a couple of handbags, scarves, handkerchiefs, a few letters, a bank statement. Aside from the gloves, there was nothing in the drawer which had the slightest connection with the death of his wife.
Bauer’s voice, from downstairs, interrupted him. “Come down here, will you, Mr. Conway?”
He shut the drawer, convinced now that his alarm had been caused by some figment of his imagination, but genuinely frightened at the realization that he had let himself become panicked. He had not betrayed himself to Bauer, he was sure, but it had been close; anyone a little less obtuse than the detective might have noticed something. He was in the clear; not a glimmer of suspicion had been directed at him. And none would be, unless he himself directed the suspicion. That was the one thing he had to remember.
Chapter seven
As Conway reached the head of the stairs, he saw Bauer holding the front door open. A girl, carrying a suitcase and an overnight bag, came in. “Thank you,” she said frigidly to the detective. Then she looked up and saw Conway descending the stairs. She put down the bags and smiled up at him. “Hello, Arthur,” she said.