Something’s wrong, thought Quinn. I’m not handling myself right. I’m in the wrong situation. I wonder how he came to get the upper hand, at what point along the way?
He pinched the bridge of his nose tight for a minute.
Holmes was hunched forward, making a papery noise with his hands down close against the dashboard lights. “Here’s two hundred dollars,” he said, “now give me the check.”
Quinn didn’t answer.
Holmes turned around and looked at him. “Two hundred and fifty.”
Quinn didn’t answer.
“How much do you want?”
Quinn spoke slow and quiet. This was his inning now. “What makes you think I want money for it?”
Holmes just looked at him.
“Here’s what I want for it: I want a written confession that you killed Stephen Graves tonight. If you don’t give me that, then I’m going to take you and the check, both, to the police.”
Holmes’ lower jaw kept trying to adhere to his upper, and falling away loose again. “No, wait—” he said two or three times over. “No, wait—”
“You weren’t up there tonight, Mr. Holmes?”
The lower jaw suddenly clamped tight and didn’t fall away any more; so tight that not a word came through.
“He’s dead up there. And you’re the man that did it. You don’t really think I found that check skating around town loose in a taxi, do you? Where d’you suppose I found it? Where I found Stephen Graves’ body lying sprawled out!”
“You’re lying. You’re trying to take me for something that you couldn’t possibly know.”
“I was up there.”
“You were up there? You’re lying.”
“You and he were sitting face-to-face in those two leather-covered chairs, in that second-floor room, that study, at the back. He had a drink, but he didn’t offer you one. He had a cigar, but he didn’t offer you one. You chewed one of your own to pieces. I’ll even tell you what kind it was. Corona. I’ll even tell you what you had on. You had on a brown suit. You put on a gray one to come out and meet me now, the second time, but you had on a brown one then. You’re missing a half-button from the left sleeve. Never mind jerking your hand back; let it ride, let it grab at the cuff of this one. I know anyway, without that. Now am I lying? Now do you believe I was up there? Now do you believe I saw him dead — and know that you killed him?”
Holmes didn’t answer. Again his head turned aside.
“Never mind looking at your watch. Your watch can’t save you.”
Holmes put it away. He spoke at last. “Yes, my watch can. You’re just a kid, aren’t you? Gee, I almost feel sorry for you, son. I didn’t know you were as young as you are, over the phone.”
Quinn blinked.
“You’re having a lot of trouble with your eyes, aren’t you? Lights on the dashboard’ve got rings around them, haven’t they? Like big soap-bubbles. That’s it.”
“That’s what?”
“See, you talked too much. You’ve talked yourself into the grave. If you had just kept your mouth closed, I really would have believed you found that check in a taxi. You would have gone to sleep here in the car. And you would have awakened in a couple of hours beside the river here,
Quinn suddenly pushed at it and held it back.
Holmes smiled a little, patronizingly. “If you’d stuck to your own highball-glass, this wouldn’t have happened to you, you would have been all right. You were suspicious, but not suspicious enough. You took the wrong glass. Mine. I’m a chess-player. You’re evidently not. Chess is figuring out your opponent’s move before he makes it.”
He stopped and watched him some more. “Tie too tight? That’s right, pull the knot down. Bust open the neck of your shirt too. That’s right. Doesn’t help much, though, does it? Can’t keep it from happening. You’re going to sleep. Here in the car. You’re going into the river. Without a mark on you. I’ll take the check off you before you do, don’t worry. I’ll find it, it’s on you. You wouldn’t have come to the pay-off without having it on you somewhere. It’s stuck in your shoe, probably. That’s about where your type of youngster would think was a clever hiding-place for it.”
Quinn ripped himself off the seat as though he were pulling out stitches binding him to it, clawed for the door-catch in a sort of toppling, forward fall. Holmes kept him up off the floor by slipping an arm around under his stomach and drew him back onto the seat again, like a topheavy sack.
“What’s the good trying to get down? Even if you did get out, you probably couldn’t stand up any more anyway. You’d only fall down on the ground outside.”
One of Quinn’s legs flexed a couple of times, trying to gain altitude.
