“Yes,” I said, still crowding her. “I realize it was dark, of course. But did he say anything when he lunged at you? I mean, would you recognize his voice?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I was just up in my room—”
“That’s right,” I interrupted. I put the wallet back in my pocket while I went on talking. “You were playing the phonograph, you said. And when I found you out there on the lawn you had a record in your hand. I don’t think you even knew you were carrying it, but I couldn’t get it away from you. You had a death grip on it. At first I couldn’t make any sense at all out of what you were trying to say.”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember any of it,” she said. “Maybe you’d better tell me what happened.”
“Sure.” I lit a cigarette for myself. “I had to talk to you. We’re trying to run down a lead our Sanport office dug up—but I’ll get to that in a minute. Anyway, I got into Mount Temple last night after midnight, and when I’d checked into the hotel I tried to call you. The line was busy. I tried again later, and it was the same thing, so I got a cab and went out to your house.
“And just as I was coming up the drive in the cab I saw you in the headlights. You had run out the front door and were going around toward the garage. When I got over to where you were, you had fallen on the lawn. You had this phonograph record in one hand and your purse in the other. You were in a panic, and practically hysterical. I couldn’t make out what you were trying to say at first. It was something about listening to the music in your room by candlelight, and that you had looked around over your shoulder and there was a man standing behind you. I tried to calm you down and get the story straightened out, but you just kept saying the same thing over and over—that the man had lunged at you with something in his hand.
“You didn’t seem to know how you’d got away from him, but when I suggested we go inside you started to go to pieces. Nothing could make you go back inside the house. All you wanted to do was get in the car and get away. I was afraid we’d wake the neighbors, so I went along with it. I drove, and tried to figure out what to do. I couldn’t take you to the hotel or a tourist court there in town, of course, because you’d be known everywhere. You went to sleep, and I finally thought of this place. It’s a duck club I belonged to when I was in Sanport and I knew there wouldn’t, be anybody out here this time of year. Maybe you could get some rest, and we could talk it over when you woke up. That’s about it.
“I wish you could remember something about that man, though. If he was trying to kill you, he may get you next time.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. Her eyes were thoughtful.
“Do you have any idea who he could have been?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Do you really think I saw anybody?”
“Yes,” I said. Baby, I thought, if you only knew. “Yes. I think you did. You were under a terrible strain.”
“I must have been.” She stared moodily down at her hands. When she looked back up at me she said, “You said you came to talk to me. What about?”
“Your husband.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “I suppose you want to ask some more questions. Or the same ones over again. I’ve told it so many times...”
“Yes,” I said. I felt good. I’d put it over. “It’s been rough on you, and we hate to be the pests we are, but we’ve got a job to do. However, mine isn’t quite the same
as the police’s. They’re looking for your husband.”
“Aren’t you?” she asked.
I studied the end of the cigarette. “Only incidentally.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll be frank with you, Mrs. Butler. My orders, first and last, are to find that money. Any way I can. We have to pick up the tab for it if it’s not recovered, so you can see where our interest is.”
“I wish I could help you. You can see that, can’t you? But there isn’t anything I can tell you that hasn’t already been told.”
I waited, not saying anything.
She sighed again. “All right. He came home from the bank at noon that Saturday, said he was going to some lake in Louisiana, fishing, and that he’d be home Sunday night. I didn’t see any money, or anything that could have held that much money, but maybe it was in the car, if he had it. He didn’t take any clothes except fishing clothes, as far as I could tell afterward. I know he didn’t take a bag. Just the fishing tackle. I was a little worried when he didn’t return Sunday night, but I thought perhaps he had merely decided to stay over another day. And then, Monday morning, Mr. Matthews, the president of the bank, came out and told me—” She quit talking and just stared down at her hands.
“You don’t have any idea why he would do a thing like that?” I asked.
The hesitation was hardly noticeable. “No,” she said.
I frowned at the cigarette in my hand, and then looked squarely at her. “Well, I’m afraid we do now,” I said. “It’s unpleasant, and I wish I didn’t have to be the one to tell you.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was running off with another woman.”
“No!”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Butler. But that’s the lead I mentioned, the thing our Sanport office found out. The girl’s name is Diana James, or at least that’s what she calls herself. She had an apartment in Sanport, and that’s where he was headed. She was going to hide him there.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“Unfortunately, it’s true.”
“Then,” she said, “under the circumstances, don’t you think you’re just wasting your time talking to me? Apparently this James person is the only one who really knows anything about my husband.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not quite as simple as that. You see, he never did get to her apartment. And the only answer to that is a very ugly one.”
She was watching me narrowly. “What?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Buder. But he’s dead, and has been ever since that Saturday.”
She tried to get up from the chair, but her legs wouldn’t hold her and she slumped onto the table. I carried her into the other room and put her on the bed. In a moment her eyes opened. She just lay there looking up at the rafters. She didn’t cry.
I went out to the other room and got the bottle. It had gone all right so far. She knew now that at least one outfit was wise to the fact that Butler had never reached the James girl’s apartment, and had guessed why he hadn’t. Maybe not the police, but the insurance company was working with them, wasn’t it?
“I’m sorry,” I said. I held out the drink. “This will make you feel better.”
She sat up and brushed the dark hair back from her face with her hand. She drank the whisky and shuddered.
“You must have suspected it,” I said. “After all, it’s been over two months, with the police in twenty states looking for him.”
“I suppose so,” she said. “Maybe I just didn’t want to admit it.”
I sat down in the chair and lit her a cigarette. She took it between listless fingers and forgot it.
“You see how that changes the picture, don’t you?” I said. “We’re not looking for your husband any more. We’re looking for whoever killed him. That is, the police are, or will be as soon as they get the word about the James girl. What I’m looking for is the money. And that brings us to why I wanted to talk to you. You might be able to add something.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you might think of something that didn’t seem important before, but that might be significant now in view of this. Was there somebody who could have found out he was going to do it? Was there somebody who knew about Diana James? You see the jealousy angle, don’t you? I mean—he had one girlfriend that we know of, so there might have been another.”