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“We still friends, Colonel?” Commissioner Czernick asked.

“Don’t be silly,” Mawson said. “Of course we are.”

“Then can I ask you a question?” Czernick asked, and went ahead without waiting for a response. “Why is Philadelphia’s most distinguished practitioner of criminal law involved with the routine interview of a witness to a homicide?”

“Homicides,” Mawson said. “Plural. Two cases of murder in the first degree.”

“Homicides,” Commissioner Czernick agreed.

“Okay, Ted,” Mawson said. “We’re friends. At half past three this morning, I had a telephone call. From London. From Stanford Fortner Wells III.”

Commissioner Czernick shrugged. He didn’t know the name.

“Wells Newspapers?” Mawson asked.

“Okay,” Czernick said. “Sure.”

“He told me he had just been on the telephone to Jack Tone, of McNeel, Tone, Schwartzenberger and Cohan, and that Jack had been kind enough to describe me as the . . . what he said was ‘the dean of the Philadelphia criminal bar.’ “

“That seems to be a fair description,” Commissioner Czernick said, smiling. He was familiar with the Washington, D.C., law firm of McNeel, Tone, Schwartzenberger and Cohan. They were heavyweights, representing the largest of the Fortune 500 companies, their staff larded with former cabinet-level government officials.

“Mr. Wells said that he had just learned his daughter was in some kind of trouble with the police, and that he wanted me to take care of whatever it was, and get back to him. And he told me his daughter’s name was Louise Dutton.”

“Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it?” Czernick said. “Dutton must be a TV name.”

“We’re friends, Ted,” Mawson said. “That goes no farther than these office walls, right?”

“Positively,” Commissioner Czernick said.

“Presuming your Inspector Wohl hasn’t had her up at the House of Correction, working her over with a rubber hose, Ted,” Mawson said, “asking him to look after her was probably a very good idea.”

Commissioner Czernick laughed, heartily, and shook his head, and walked to Mawson and put his hand on his arm. “Can you find Homicide all right, Colonel? Or would you like me to have Sergeant Jankowitz show you the way?”

“I can find it all right,” Mawson said. “Thank you for seeing me, Commissioner.”

“Anytime, Colonel,” Czernick said. “My door’s always open to you. You know that.”

The moment Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson was out the door, Commissioner Czernick went to the telephone, dialed the Homicide number, and asked for Inspector Wohl.

When Wohl came on the line, Commissioner Czernick asked, “Anything going on down there that you can’t leave for five minutes?”

“No, sir.”

“Then will you please come up here, Peter?”

****

There are four interview rooms in the first-floor Roundhouse offices of the Homicide Division of the Philadelphia Police Department. They are small windowless cubicles furnished with a table and several chairs. One of the chairs is constructed of steel and is firmly bolted to the floor. There is a hole in the seat through which handcuffs can be locked, when a suspect is judged likely to require this kind of restraint.

There is a one-way mirror on one wall, through which the interviewee and his interrogators can be observed without being seen. No real attempt is made to conceal its purpose. Very few people ever sit in an interview room who have not seen cop movies, or otherwise have acquired sometimes rather extensive knowledge of police interrogative techniques and equipment.

When Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson walked into Homicide, Miss Louise Dutton was in one of the interview rooms. Mawson recognized her from television. She was wearing a suit, with lace at the neck. She was better-looking than he remembered.

With her were three people, one of whom, Lieutenant DelRaye, Mawson had once had on the witness stand for a day and a half, enough time for them both to have acquired an enduring distaste for the other. There was a police stenographer, a gray-haired woman, and a young man in blue blazer and gray flannel slacks who looked like a successful automobile dealer, but who had to be, Mawson decided, Staff Inspector Wohl, “very bright; very young for his rank.”

“Miss Dutton, I’m J. Dunlop Mawson,” he said, and handed her his card. She glanced at it and handed it to Inspector Wohl, who looked at it, and handed it to Lieutenant DelRaye, who put it in his pocket.

“Lieutenant, I intended that for Miss Dutton,” Mawson said.