them.
âThat it wasâwas sitting right there,â she said. âWasnât that it, Jerry? About it? Andâyou were sitting there with Mr. Blanchard, you know. It sounded as ifââ
âNo,â the girl said, and spoke quickly. âThere wasnât anything like that. I donât know why you sayâI was a little embarrassed, because all at once everybody was looking at us andâthere wasnât anything like that.â
Pam looked at Jerry.
âThatâs the way I remember it,â Jerry said. âYou said âDougâ a couple of times as ifâas if you were asking him toâcall it behave himself. As if how he behaved concerned you.â
âDoug Mears?â she said, in apparent astonishment. âWhy on earth should what he doesâoh, I didnât want to be part of a scene. Nobody does. Perhaps I did say something toâto stop him. Said âOh, Doug â the way one does, meaningââ She stopped again. She looked at Bill Weigand. âThat was all,â she said. âIf Doug said anything about Johnâs having what he wanted I donât know what he meant. And, I donât remember anything likeââ
The doorbell rang. Jerry went to the door. Two men were outside itâa rangy young man, hatless, with blond short hair; a heavier and somewhat older man, who wore a hat.
âCompliments of Detective Shapiro,â the heavier man said. âA Mr. Doug Mears. Showed up at the apartment, Shapiro says, andââ
âHildy!â Doug Mears said. âWhat the hell are youââ He did not finish. When he first saw the girl, Pam thought, there had been light in his face. The light went out.
âCome in, Mr. Mears,â Bill Weigand said. âWe were just talking about you.â
Mears hesitated.
âIâd do what the captain says, Mr. Mears,â the heavy man said. âHiya, Al.â
Mullins had moved closer to the door. He looked very large. He said, âHiya, Jimmy. Howâs tricks?â but not as if either remark were a question, requiring an answer.
Mears came in. He stood in the room as the heavy man closed the door on them.
âWhat about me?â Mears said. He didnât look particularly like a kid. His face was young enough. His expression was not. He spoke, not to Bill Weigand, or to Mullins or the Norths. He spoke to Hilda Latham. âYouâve been doing the talking, Hildy?â
âNothing,â she said. âTheyâve got some crazy idea. I was justâjust telling them how crazyââ
Mears did not wait for her to finish. He looked now at the others. He said, âWhat kind of a deal is this, anyway? Seems to me Iâm being pushed around. Whatâs the idea?â
âNot pushed,â Bill Weigand said, and spoke pleasantly, without insistence, without rancor. âIâm a police captain. Investigating a murder. John Blanchardâs murder. This is a police sergeant. Mr. and Mrs. North areâfriends of mine. Things happened to work out so thatââ He paused; momentarily he blinked. When he told Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus OâMalley how things had âhappenedâ to work outâAnd, until that moment, the course of events had seemed so natural. Momentarily, in his mind, Bill listened to the explosion of Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus OâMalley.
âYou donât need to say anything unless you want to,â he said, mildly, to the tall, the rangyâand most obviously the angryâtennis player.
âYouâre damned right,â Mears said.
âOnly,â Bill said, âI could take you in for questioning. To a station house. Even hold you for a while as a material witness. You could have a lawyer andââ
âWhatâs she been telling you?â Mears said.
âNothing,â Hilda Latham said. âNothing, Doug. Because thereâs