“It’s your business.” I stood up, laughing. “But I don’t want any part of it.”
“Ah, do not let us quarrel!” He jumped up and took one of my hands in his. “If you will not, you will not. But there remains the criminal aspect of the situation—the aspect that has engaged you thus far. You will not forsake that? You will fulfill your engagement there? Surely?”
“Suppose—just suppose—it should turn out that your wife had a hand in Main’s death. What then?”
“That”—he shrugged, holding his hands out, palms up—“would be a matter for the law.”
“Good enough. I’ll stick—if you understand that you’re entitled to no information except what touches your ‘criminal aspect.’ ”
“Excellent! And if it so happens you cannot separate my darling from that—”
I nodded. He grabbed my hand again, patting it. I took it away from him and returned to the agency.
A memorandum on my desk asked me to phone detective-sergeant Hacken. I did.
“Bunky Dahl wasn’t in on the Main job,” the hatchet-faced man told me. “He and a pal named Coughing Ben Weel were putting on a party in a roadhouse near Vallejo that night. They were there from around ten until they were thrown out after two in the morning for starting a row. It’s on the up-and-up. The guy that gave it to me is right—and I got a checkup on it from two others.”
I thanked Hacken and phoned Gungen’s residence, asking for Mrs. Gungen, asking her if she would see me if I came out there.