She shrugged. “If you insist. I’m very glad we got here. You were quite effective, Mr. Scarborough. Expensive, but effective.”
“Thank you, Your Highness. Don’t you ever worry about your neck at all?”
She stopped her inspection of the room to look at me, the large eyes devoid of any expression whatever. “Not publicly,” she said. Then she added, “I’ll take bourbon and plain water.”
If she wanted ice water, I thought, all she had to do was open a vein.
I nodded my head toward the doorway at the left of the living room. “Bath is in that hallway,” I said. “The bedroom is just beyond. Dining room and kitchen to the right.”
She raised her eyebrows. “The bedroom? Where are you going to sleep?”
She was running true to form, all right. I’d intended to turn the bedroom over to her, but she had already taken it for granted. The help could rustle up its own quarters.
“Oh,” I said, “I’ll just bed down on an old sweater outside your door and bark if I hear burglars.”
“You are clever,” she murmured. “You don’t mind, do you? I just wanted the situation clarified.”
“It is clarified. I won’t bother you. This is strictly business with me. You’re probably frigid, anyway. Aren’t you?”
The eyes were completely blank. “No ice,” she said.
“What?”
“The drink, dear. Remember?”
I went into the kitchen and got the bottle out of the cupboard. I mixed two drinks, making mine very short and weak. While I was out there I looked in the refrigerator to see if there was anything to eat. There was only an old piece of cheese. I could get something at the airport. But what about her?
The hell with her.
I took the drinks in. She was sitting on the sofa with her legs crossed and the dark skirt pulled down over her knees. She had long, lovely legs.
I took a sip of my drink and looked at my watch. I’d have to hurry and ditch that car so I could get back here before people were astir.
Something had been puzzling me, however, and I thought about it now. “Why do you suppose Diana James went up there?” I asked.
“It’s fairly obvious,” she said. “She had all your rapacious greediness for money. She read—or heard over the radio—that I had fled the country, and she was just hoping I hadn’t had time to pick it up when I ran. A sort of desperation try, you might call it.”
“I suppose so,” I said. “But why did you shoot her? Or do you ever need any particular reason?”
“I shot her because she set foot in my house,” she said simply. “She knew I would, of course, but she thought I was gone.”
I remembered the awful horror in her eyes when that light burst on her and she heard Madelon Butler call her Cynthia. She had known she was dead when she heard it.
“Why did you start that fire?”
“The house was mine,” she said coldly. “It belonged to my grandfather and my father, and I’m the only one of the family left alive. I’m sure no one can question my
right to burn it.”
“Except the insurance company.”
“Why?” she asked calmly. “They’ll never have to pay.
There is no one to pay it to.”
I thought of that. She was right. She no longer existed as Madelon Butler.
I was right, too; but I didn’t know the half of it.
Chapter Thirteen
It was fifteen miles out to the airport. The drink propped me up for a few minutes, but when it wore off I was more dead on my feet than ever. I wondered if I had ever slept. There was no traffic, however, and it didn’t take long.
I drove into the parking area. It was dark and no one was around. Before I got out I rubbed my handkerchief over the steering wheel and dash and the cigarette lighter. I left the keys in the ignition, and as I got out I smeared the door handle with the palm of my hand.
It would do. There was very little chance they’d ever connect us with this car. That blonde and her brother were in no position to report it. They’d keep their mouths shut. The car might eventually be stolen, with the keys left in it, and God knew where it would wind up. And even if the police did get on the trail of it and find it out here, they’d never know for sure whether we’d left it here as a blind or whether we’d actually taken a plane.
I walked back down the rows of cars and went into the main building. A few people waited for planes. The loudspeaker system was calling somebody’s name: Please come to the American Airlines desk. I looked at the clock. It was five minutes of four. I had plenty of time.
The morning papers were on the stand. I reached for one, and she jumped right in my face. There was her picture spread over two columns of the front page, looking as beautiful and arrogant as life.
“SOUGHT!” the caption said.
I dropped a nickel in the cup and folded the paper over as if I had to hide her while I hurried into the coffee shop. I sat down alone at the end of the counter and said, “Hotcakes and coffee,” to the waitress without even seeing her.
So she was sought. I knew that. What about that deputy sheriff?
I unfolded the paper and put it on the counter beside me, in such a hurry to read it all that even the headlines blurred. Somebody was saying something.
I looked up. The waitress was still there. “What?” “I said did you want your coffee now?” “Yes.” She was gone. I looked back at the paper, furiously
scanning the headlines. It was under her picture. “OFFICER’S CONDITION CRITICAL,” it said. He wasn’t dead. But that was hours ago.
Carl L. Madden, 29, deputy sheriff of Vale County, is in serious condition in a Mount Temple hospital following an attack by an unknown assailant last night.
Madden, who has not regained consciousness following the brutal slugging, was on duty at the time as one of the officers maintaining a round-the-clock watch on the home of the late
J. N. Butler at the edge of town. As a result of the sudden eruption of violence and confusion that followed, during which the old Butler mansion burned to the ground, Madden was not discovered until nearly an hour after the attack. Police were first alerted by telephone calls from residents in the vicinity of the Butler place, who reported
having heard gunshots. A patrol car was dispatched to the scene. Upon entering the grounds, the officers
discovered the whole basement area of the house in flames. A hurried call brought firemen to the scene, but the fire had gained too much headway and could not be brought under control.
The absence of Madden was noted shortly by other officers who were aware he had been assigned to keep the home under surveillance against the possible return of Mrs. Butler. This, coupled with the reports of gunshots, led to a horrified belief he might be inside the building, perhaps badly injured. An attempt was made to gain entry and institute a search, but was repulsed almost immediately as mounting walls of flame engulfed the old, tinder-dry house.
As the flames lit up the surrounding area, however, he was discovered unconscious and shackled with his own handcuffs to the base of some oleanders at the rear of the grounds. Taken immediately to a hospital, he was described by physicians as suffering from severe concussion and possible fracture of the skull.
He had apparently been hit from behind with great force with some hard object, such as a piece of pipe or a gun. No weapon was found.
Local officers are inclined to rule out the possibility that Madden could have been slugged by Mrs. Butler herself. They state that from the force of the blow it was almost certainly delivered by a man, and a big and perhaps powerful one, at that. They do believe, however, that Mrs. Butler was involved, and the state-wide search for her has been intensified. She is already wanted in connection with the murder of her husband.
An instant alarm was sounded, and all highways leading out of Mount Temple have been under constant patrol since minutes after the fire was discovered. It is considered extremely improbable that she could have slipped through the police cordon....