“They’re good cops,” Captain Leland said when they had passed. “They can work for me any time and they know it.”

The answer, that this precinct would be too slow for them, came to Leland’s lips and he held it in. “Do you want me to call Mom for you? It might be less trouble for me.”

“No, I’d rather do it later. Listen, did you want to talk to me about anything?”

“I had an idea that we could thrash out my own case, but it will keep.”

They were at the bottom of the stairs. One of the television people saw them and stepped up. “Captain Leland?”

“What is it?”

“Not you, sir, your son. I’m sorry.”

“It’s Mister, now,” Leland said. “What can I do for you?”

“A little interview. You worked with Lieutenant Schoenstein on the Leikman case.”

“I had nothing to do with this,” he said.

“We have the film. We’d like to use it.”

“Go ahead, Joe,” his father said. “Even if they hurt your father’s feelings.”

“I’m sorry,” the man said again.

Leland turned to his father. “What do you think?”

Captain Leland pushed him. “Go ahead, you know you want to do it. Enjoy yourself.”

He was hungry now but his mind had cleared and he wanted to try something else. The building in which MacIver had had his office was an eight-story sandstone in the center of the business district, as deserted now as the rest of the city would be in the hours before dawn. Leland parked the Cadillac a block away and walked to the service entrance on the side street.

The night watchman was an old Negro man, a head taller than Leland and perhaps twice Leland’s weight. He wore carpenter’s overalls and a flannel shirt. Leland identified himself and said he would like to ask a few questions.

“Go ahead,” the man said. His voice was a revelation, a bass as true as a musical instrument. Leland asked him if MacIver’s office had been rented.

“Last month,” he said. “Oh, that was all cleared out, anyway. Nothing of his for quite a while.”

“Has anybody been around to inquire about him?”

“No, not that I know of.”

“Was the office ever broken into or tampered with?”

“Why, yes. Yes, it was. That, and half a dozen other offices in the building. Little things were taken, a couple of dollars the girls had in their desks. Souvenirs and things. It was a funny, strange kind of robbery. Nothing was taken from his office because it was empty by then. As a matter of fact, the break-in happened the night after his office was cleaned out.”

“Where were you at the time?”