“Well, I think we ought to go back as far as we can, working on whatever happened to anybody involved, in chronological order. Things might follow through then. For instance, there’s that Filipino, Ramirez. He was the first one to know about the murder. Maybe he can help us. I think I’ll go see him.”

“Let’s go.”

“I said I’ll go see him. You’re going home first,” Lowry said.

“Please, Ned. Stop treating me as though I’m ninety years old. I want to go with you. I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.”

But he was adamant. Having the girl along would only make it harder to deal with the already frightened and suspicious Ramirez.

“Sorry, lady. It’s too late for you to be making calls on strange men.”

“But—”

“No.”

Lowry drove rapidly back to Hollywood and saw Terry safely into the apartment.

“If Carrol comes back, slug him,” Lowry told her. “But I don’t think he’ll be back here tonight. He’ll be needing a rest.”

He drove back downtown. Ramirez’ shack was at the edge of a lot that had somehow escaped being used as an industrial site. It was only a short distance from a maze of factories, railroad sidings, and warehouses.

At that hour the neighborhood was as quiet and deserted as the remotest cabin of some early pioneer. Lowry walked up to the ramshackle shack and knocked briskly at the door. Through the window, he saw somebody lighting an oil lamp.

A moment later, the Filipino opened the door a trifle and looked up at Lowry through frightened, sleepy eyes.

Lowry smiled pleasantly.

“It’s little late to come calling, I know,” he said. “But I hope you won’t mind. It’s fairly important. I’m Ned Lowry from the Gazette. Do you mind if I come in and talk to you?”

The Filipino hesitated. For an instant Lowry thought that he was going simply to close the door on him and go back to sleep.

“It’s all right,” Lowry said persuasively. “I just wanted to talk to you about McKay.”

He was sorry he said it, almost instantly. Ramirez began to tremble, and his thin, drawn face grew pale and tense.

“Please. No talking. I have to work in the morning,” he said agitatedly. “I must go back to sleep. We talk some other time.”

Lowry grew impatient. “I won’t hurt you,” he said. “I’m just here to talk to you, not to get you into trouble.”

He pushed the door open and went past Ramirez into the small room. The place was furnished with a weird assortment of miserable, cast-off odds and ends of chairs and tables. Behind a drawn curtain, frayed and moth-holed, Lowry saw a mattress and blanket on the floor, without linens.

He sat down on a rickety chair and offered Ramirez a cigarette. The Filipino shook his head nervously. Lowry lit one himself.