Cronjager was staring at him levelly now.
"That sounds like it might grow up to be a dirty story," he said.
"It's my experience most police stories are," Ohls growled and turned to me, his eyebrows bristling. "You're on the air, Marlowe.
Give it to him."
I gave it to him.
I left out two things, not knowing just why, at the moment, I left out one of them.
I left out Carmen's visit to Brody's apartment and Eddie Mars' visit to Geiger's in the afternoon.
I told the rest of it just as it happened.
Cronjager never took his eyes off my face and no expression of any kind crossed his as I talked.
At the end of it he was perfectly silent for a long minute.
Wilde was silent, sipping his coffee, puffing gently at his dappled cigar.
Ohls stared at one of his thumbs.
Cronjager leaned slowly back in his chair and crossed one ankle over his knee and rubbed the ankle bone with his thin nervous hand.
His lean face wore a harsh frown.
He said with deadly politeness:
"So all you did was not report a murder that happened last night and then spend today foxing around so that this kid of Geiger's could commit a second murder this evening."
"That's all," I said. "I was in a pretty tough spot. I guess I did wrong, but I wanted to protect my client and I hadn't any reason to think the boy would go gunning for Brody."
"That kind of thinking is police business, Marlowe. If Geiger's death had been reported last night, the books could never have been moved from the store to Brody's apartment.
The kid wouldn't have been led to Brody and wouldn't have killed him.
Say Brody was living on borrowed time.
His kind usually are.
But a life is a life."
"Right," I said. "Tell that to your coppers next time they shoot down some scared petty larceny crook running away up an alley with a stolen spare."
Wilde put both his hands down on his desk with a solid smack.
"That's enough of that," he snapped. "What makes you so sure, Marlowe, that this Taylor boy shot Geiger?
Even if the gun that killed Geiger was found on Taylor's body or in the car, it doesn't absolutely follow that he was the killer.
The gun might have been planted — say by Brody, the actual killer."
"It's physically possible," I said, "but morally impossible. It assumes too much coincidence and too much that's out of character for Brody and his girl, and out of character for what he was trying to do.
I talked to Brody for a long time.
He was a crook, but not a killer type.
He had two guns, but he wasn't wearing either of them.
He was trying to find a way to cut in on Geiger's racket, which naturally he knew all about from the girl.
He says he was watching Geiger off and on to see if he had any tough backers.
I believe him. To suppose he killed Geiger in order to get his books, then scrammed with the nude photo Geiger had just taken of Carmen Sternwood, then planted the gun on Owen Taylor and pushed Taylor into the ocean off Lido, is to suppose a hell of a lot too much.
Taylor had the motive, jealous rage, and the opportunity to kill Geiger.
He was out in one of the family cars without permission.
He killed Geiger right in front of the girl, which Brody would never have done, even if he had been a killer.
I can't see anybody with a purely commercial interest in Geiger doing that.
But Taylor would have done it.
The nude photo business was just what would have made him do it."
Wilde chuckled and looked along his eyes at Cronjager.
Cronjager cleared his throat with a snort.
Wilde asked:
"What's this business about hiding the body?
I don't see the point of that."
I said: "The kid hasn't told us, but he must have done it.
Brody wouldn't have gone into the house after Geiger was shot.
The boy must have got home when I was away taking Carmen to her house.
He was afraid of the police, of course, being what he is, and he probably thought it a good idea to have the body hidden until he had removed his effects from the house.
He dragged it out of the front door, judging by the marks on the rug, and very likely put it in the garage.