Madelaine looked at me. “You don’t suppose Combs is...?”
“To the gills.”
After five minutes, Frederick got the hiccups.
“Oh, dear,” Madelaine said. “I imagine that thousands of people are watching.”
“Possibly millions.”
And then Frederick Combs fell off his chair.
In his defense, I must say that he did it with considerable aplomb. And apparently he found the floor comfortable, for he lay smiling beautifully and exhibited no discernible intention of rising.
The moderator made frantic gestures toward the camera and in a moment the screen became blank. A travelog on the Swiss Alps followed almost immediately.
Madelaine switched off the set. “That ends that political career.”
It also put an end to my hopes for twenty thousand dollars from Hermione. She would now certainly throw Combs out of the house and whether he was blackmailed or not no longer concerned her.
I sighed for the lost twenty thousand and began thinking about the still attainable twenty thousand Frederick had promised me for disposing of Hermione. I would have to act before there was a change in her will or a divorce.
“Has this ruined the purpose of your visit?” Madelaine asked.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Well, anyway,” she said soothingly. “Have another drink.”
The next morning I was busy planning the immediate demise of Hermione when there came an imperious knock on my hotel room door.
Hermione’s color was high and she stalked into the room, a furious Valkyrie bursting with vengeance. “I want him shot!”
I had no doubt whom she was referring to.
Her eyes sparked with anger. “Three years of hard work and the fool’s ruined it in ten minutes.”
“Please sit down.”
But she remained standing. “Fifty thousand dollars for his hide nailed to the door!”
I hoped she was speaking figuratively, though from the nature of her temper she left some doubt.
“You could divorce him?” I suggested, but I offered that cheaper alternative only because I was certain her mood would not tolerate it.
“No,” she said firmly. “He might sue me for support and he has a case. He’s got to go.”
It was hardly necessary to weigh Hermione’s offer against Frederick’s paltry inflation-ridden twenty thousand dollars. “Very well, I’ll arrange some kind of an accident immediately.”
“I don’t even want it to look like an accident,” she stated emphatically. “I want him shot.”
Some of my clients do have their whims and I try to adjust to them. Certainly for fifty-thousand.
“It must be done tonight,” Hermione said. “And I want the job done directly at the front gate of my estate.”
I grasped the symbolism of her demand immediately. She had been cruelly wronged and she wanted Frederick sacrificed on her doorstep, so to speak.
“There is a gatehouse there,” Hermione said. “But I have given the gatekeeper and his wife a vacation. The area will be isolated. Frederick is seeing his campaign managers tonight — to withdraw from the congressional race, of course — and he will return at ten. When he stops his car and gets out to open the gate, I want you to shoot him.”
“You are certain he will be there at ten?”
The set of her jaw was firm. “He still obeys orders from me. Drunk or sober.”
I don’t particularly enjoy rush jobs, but I nodded. “You will provide yourself with some kind of an alibi?”
“I’ll be in the house with a friend or two when we hear the shot.”
At nine that evening, following Hermione’s directions, I drove the winding river road until I found the entrance to her place. I parked my car a hundred yards beyond and returned to the gatehouse. The windows were dark, but to satisfy myself I knocked on the door and even tried the knob. The place was locked and apparently deserted.
From the viewpoint of geography the setting was ideal. The area was innocent of passers-by and the lights of the main house were barely visible behind the pampered forest grounds. However I did not like a moon so full. Nor did I care for the light which illuminated the entrance.
I stepped into the bushes shadowed by the gatehouse and waited for Frederick to appear.
No traffic passed my stand until approximately five minutes to ten, when light beams flickered around turns and a hyperthyroid sedan appeared, slowing at the entrance. The vehicle stopped in front of the lighted gate and Frederick, after a bit of difficulty, got out of the driver’s seat and swayed forward. He began fumbling at the gates.
I made certain that Frederick was alone, and then stepped out behind him. I do not believe that he even heard me.
His death was swift. One shot in the back and Frederick was efficiently exempt from any further political activity.
I returned to my car and after a mile of driving I tossed the revolver out of a window. That night, I slept well, as I do after a successful night’s work, and my dreams were pleasantly monetary.
At one o’clock the next afternoon, the knock I had been expecting came at my door.
But Hermione Combs was not alone. She was accompanied by Madelaine Westley, and they were both smiling.
Needless to say, I entertained a premonition that something unpleasant was certainly about to happen.
“When I want medical services,” Hermione said, “I go to a doctor.”
I failed to grasp the purpose of that statement.
“When I want a murder, I go to a murderer.”
Granted, I thought, but shall we go on?
“And when I want to blackmail somebody, I go to a blackmailer.” She smiled with incredible self-satisfaction. “So naturally I went to see Edmund. But, of course, Edmund was dead. So I turned to Madelaine for help.”
“Edmund taught me all those technical things,” Madelaine said proudly. “About cameras, lighting, angles, and such.”
“I am definitely pleased to state that you are photogenic,” Hermione said.
“I developed the films last night,” Madelaine said. “And we ran them. Your left profile is your best.”
“My dear ladies,” I said patiently, “would you trouble yourselves to make some sense?”
“When Frederick ruined everything,” Hermione said, “I immediately determined that he was. dead-wood and must be done away with.”
“I hope my services were satisfactory?”
“Eminently. Madelaine and I were in the gatehouse garret when you murdered Frederick. We had two cameras running — just in case one strip of film didn’t turn out too well.”
I’m afraid that my mouth dropped, though I do pride myself on self-possession. “You have films of me murdering Frederick?”
“Black and white,” Madelaine said. “I don’t know much, about color photography. And besides, I don’t think the gatehouse light was bright enough for them.”
“We’re going to blackmail you,” Hermione said happily.
My smile was agony. “My dear Madam, you are insane.”
“Not for money, of course,” Hermione said.
I folded my arms. “Just what is it you want of me?”
She regarded me with frightening fondness. “I need a replacement for Frederick and I think you’ll do perfectly. You will marry me and run for Congress.”
I sat down. I remembered my philosophy professor who maintained that we must accept the inevitable with dignity and calm. He broke his neck five years ago when he calmly jumped out of a hotel window during a minor fire. Everyone else took the elevator down and survived.
“Just who has these films?” I asked.
“I have,” Hermione said. “In a safe deposit box that will be opened by my lawyer if I should meet an untimely end.”
That eliminated my only avenue of escape.
“I will see that you get the fifty thousand dollars for disposing of Frederick.”