The Second Confesion

Actually it's even narrower, say between nine thirty-two and nine forty-six-only fourteen minutes. During that time I was up in the bedroom with Mr Wolfe. Where were the others? Because of course it's all in the family now, since our car was used. Someone here did it, and during that fourteen minutes. You'll want to know where the key to the ignition was. In the car. I don't remove it when I'm parking on the private grounds of a friend or a client. I did remove it, however, when I got back from Chappaqua, since it might be there all night. I didn't know how long it would take Sperling to decide to let go of forty grand.

You will also want to know if the engine was warm when I got in and started it.

I don't know. It starts like a dream, warm or cold. Also it was June. Also, if all it had done was roll down the drive and kill Rony, and turn around at the entrance and come back again, and there wasn't time for much more than that, it wouldn't have got warmed up to speak of.” I considered a moment. “That's the crop.” “You can eat that timetable,” Noonan said in his normal voice, which you ought to hear. “Try again, bud. He wasn't killed in that fourteen minutes. He was killed at nine fifty-two, when you went down the drive on your way to Chappaqua.

Do your statement over.” I turned my head to get his eyes. “Oh, you here?” Archer said to Dykes, “Ask him some questions, Ben.” I had known Ben Dykes sort of off and on for quite a while, and as far as I knew he was neither friend nor enemy. Most of the enforcers of the law, both in and out of uniform, in the suburban districts, have got an inferiority complex about New York detectives, either public or private, but Dykes was an exception. He had been a Westchester dick for more than twenty years, and all he cared about was doing his work well enough to hang on to his job, steering clear of mudholes, and staying as honest as he could.