That made him mad. He sapped me and the girl was too scared not to help him get me to her apartment and up into it. I don't remember any of that. It would be nice if I did, but I don't. They got me up there somehow, and they had a fight, and De Spain knocked her out and then he deliberately murdered her. He had some clumsy idea of making it look like a rape murder and making mc the fall guy. Then he beat it, turned in an alarm, horned in on the investigation, and I got out of the apartment before I was caught there. He realized by this time that he had done a foolish thing. jewelry store He knew I was a private *** from L.A., that I had talked to Dolly Kincaid, and from the girl he probably knew that I had gone to see Conned. And he may easily have known I was interested in the Austrian case. Okay. He turned a foolish play into a smart one by stringing along with me on the investigation I was trying to make, helping me on it, getting my story, and then finding himself another and much better fall guy for the murder of the Matson girl. De Spain said tonelessly: I'm goin to start climbing on this guy in a minute, Chief. Okay? The chief said: Just a minute. What made you suspect De Spain at all? The jewelry store blood and skin under his nails, and the brutal way he handled Lorenz, and the fact that the girl told mc he had been hen sweet and he pretended not to know who she was. What the hell more would I want? De Spain said: This. He shot from his pocket with the white-handled gun he had taken from Dr. Austrian. Shooting from the pocket takes a lot of practice of a kind cops don't get. The slug went a foot over my head and I sat down on the floor and Dr. Austrian stood up very quickly and swung his right hand into De Spain's face, the hand that held the wide-mouthed brown bottle. A colorless liquid splashed into his jewelry store eyes and smoked down his face. Any other man would have screamed. De Spain pawed the air with his left hand and the gun in his pocket banged three times more and Dr. Austrian fell sideways across the end of the desk and then collapsed to the floor, out of range. The gun went on banging. The other men in the room had all dropped to their knees. The chief jerked his hogleg up and shot De Spain twice in the body. Once would have been enough with that gun. De Spain's body twisted in the air and hit the floor like a safe. The chief went over and knelt beside him and looked at him.