"If this is the missing half —»

"What does it mean?"

Zoe suddenly looked hollow-cheeked. She sat down and bit her lower lip. It was the mannerism that Qwilleran had found so unpleasant in Earl Lambreth. In Zoe it was appealing.

She said, slowly, "Mountclemens knew Earl was hunting for the monkey. He was one of those who offered to buy the ballerina. And no wonder! He had found the monkey!"

Qwilleran was making short stabs at his moustache with a thumbnail. He was asking himself, Would Mountclemens kill to get the ballerina? And if that were the case, why leave the painting on the premises? Because it had been removed to the stock room and he couldn't find it? Or because —?

With a crawling sensation in his moustache, Qwilleran remembered the gossip he had heard about Zoe and Mountclemens.

Zoe was gazing down at her hands clasped tightly in her lap. As if she felt Qwilleran's questioning stare, she suddenly raised her eyes and said, "I despised him! I despised him!"

Qwilleran waited patiently and sympathetically for anything she wanted to say.

"He was an arrogant, avaricious, overbearing man," said Zoe. "I loathed Mountclemens, and yet I had to play along — for obvious reasons."

"Obvious reasons?"

"Can't you see? My paintings were enjoying his critical favor. If I had made him angry, he could have ruined my career. He would have ruined Earl, too. What could I do? I flirted — discreetly, I thought — because that was the way Mountclemens wanted to play." Zoe fussed with her handbag — clasping, unclasping, clasping. "And then he got the idea that I should leave Earl and go with him."

"How did you handle that proposition?"

"It was a delicate maneuver, believe me! I said — or I implied — that I would like to accept his proposal, but an old-fashioned sense of loyalty bound me to my husband. What an act! I felt like the heroine in one of those old silent movies."

"Did that settle the matter?"

"Unfortunately, no. He continued his campaign, and I got in deeper and deeper. It was a nightmare! There was the constant strain of acting out a lie."

"Didn't your husband know what was going on?"

Zoe sighed. "For a long time he didn't suspect. Earl was always so preoccupied with his own problems that he was blind and deaf to everyone else. But eventually he heard the gossip. And then we had a horrible scene. I convinced him — finally — that I was trapped in a nasty situation." There was prolonged business with the handbag clasp. Falteringly she said, "You know — Earl seemed to cling to me. Even though we were no longer — if you know what I mean. I found it safer to be marred, and Earl clung to me because I was a success. He was born to be a failure. His only achievement was a happy accident — finding half a Ghirotto — and it was his life's ambition to find the other half and be rich!"

Qwilleran said, "You don't think Mountclemens killed your husband, do you?"

Zoe looked at him helplessly. "I don't know. I just don't know. He wouldn't have done anything so drastic merely to get me. I'm positive of that! He wasn't capable of loving that passionately. But he might have done it to get me and the other half of the Ghirotto."

That would be quite a package, Qwilleran reflected. He said, "Mountclemens had a passion for art."

"Only as a form of wealth, to be accumulated and hoarded. He didn't share his possessions. He didn't even want people to know he owned fabulous treasures."

"Where did he get the dough to buy them? Certainly not from writing art columns for the Daily Fluxion."

Zoe left his question dangling. She seemed to shrink into her chair. "I'm tired," she said. "I'd like to go home. I didn't mean to talk like this."

"I know. It's all right," Qwilleran said. "I'll call you a cab."

"Thank you for being so understanding."

"I'm complimented to have you confide in me."

Zoe bit her lip. "I feel I can say this to you: When Earl was killed, my reaction was more fear than grief — fear of Mountclemens and what would happen next. Now that fear has been removed, and I can't be anything but glad."

Qwilleran watched Zoe's taxi disappear into the dark, ness. He wondered if she had suspected Mountclemens from the start. Was the critic one of Earl's enemies — one of the "important people" she had been afraid to name to the police? On the other hand, would a man like Mountclemens — enjoying a good life and with so much to lose — take the risk of committing murder to gain a woman and a valuable painting? Qwilleran doubted it.

Then his thoughts went back to the monkey propped on the mantel in his apartment. What would happen to it now? Along with the Rembrandt drawings and the Van Gogh, the Ghirotto monkey would go to that woman from Milwaukee. She would be unlikely to know its significance. In all probability she would loathe the ugly thing. How easy it would be -

An idea began to take shape in his mind. "Keep it… Say nothing… Give it to Zoe."

He returned to the apartment to look at the monkey. On the mantel in front of the canvas sat Kao K'o Kung, straight as a sentinel, giving Qwilleran a reproachful stare.

"Okay. You win," said the newsman. "I'll report it to the police."

Thursday morning Qwilleran telephoned Lodge. Kendall at the press room in police headquarters.

He said, "I've picked up some information on Lambreth and Mountclemens. Why don't you bring the Homicide guys to lunch at the club?"

"Make it dinner. Hames and Wojcik are working nights."

"Do you think they're willing to discuss the case?"

"Oh, sure. Especially Hames. He's a relaxed type. Never underestimate him, though. He's got a mind like a computer."

Qwilleran said, "I'll get to the club early and snag a quiet table upstairs. Is six o'clock okay?"

"Make it six-fifteen. I won't promise; but I'll try to have them there."

Qwilleran wrote six-fifteen on his desk calendar and reluctantly considered the possibility of starting his day's work. He sharpened a handful of pencils, cleaned out his paper clip tray, filled his glue pot, straightened his stack of copy paper. Then he pulled out his draft of the Butchy Bolton interview and put it away again. No hurry; the Photo Department had not yet produced any pictures to accompany the story. Without much effort he found similar excuses to postpone most of the other chores in his «next» file.

He was in no mood to work. He was too busy wondering how the Daily Fluxion would react to the idea of a murderer on the staff — on the culture beat, no less! He could visualize the editorial embarrassment if the police pinned Lambreth's murder on Mountclemens, and he could picture the other newspaper gleefully capitalizing on the scandalous news…. No, it was unthinkable. News, paper writers reported on homicide; they never indulged in it.

Qwilleran had liked Mountclemens. The man was a delightful host, clever writer, unashamed egotist, cat, worshipper, fearless critic, miser with electric light bulbs, sentimentalist about old houses, and an unpredictable human being. He could be curt one minute, genial the next — as he was on the night he heard the news of Lambreth's murder.

The newsman looked at his calendar. There was nothing on his schedule until six-fifteen. Six-fifteen — the hour the clock stopped for Earl Lambreth. Six-fifteen? Qwilleran felt a prickling sensation in his moustache. Six-fifteen! Then Mountclemens had an alibi!

It was six-twenty that evening when the police reporter turned up with the two men from the Homicide Bureau: Hames, blandly amiable, and Wojcik, all business.

Hames said, "Aren't you the fellow with the cat that can read?"

"He can not only read," said Qwilleran; "he can read backwards, and don't laugh. I'm sending him to the FBI Academy when he grows up, and he may get your job."