I took a handkerchief from my pocket, made futile attempts at sopping up the mess.
“No, no!” she said, underneath it! Quick! Before it reaches the table.”
She came flying across the room, and as she got on the other side of the table I tipped the whole thing over on top of her, reached across the tilted table-top, grabbed her gun wrist, twisted the arm, took the gun, and said, “Not a sound. Out the back way. Quick!”
She was so white the make-up showed as orange patches on each cheek.
“Down the back way,” I repeated, and then added, fiendishly, “Do you want a stocking tied around your little white neck, a nice stocking that would shut off the air? My, you’d look pretty choking to death, you…”
That did it. She started to scream. I clapped my hand over her mouth, and said, “One word out of you and I’ll wrap that stocking around your neck. Out the back way.”
She was trembling violently. I took my hand from her mouth, patted her reassuringly on the shoulder, and said, “Shucks, Babe, I haven’t the heart to go ahead and torture you this way. Take me out the back way. I didn’t know anything at all about that Hollister killing.”
“Don’t... Don’t choke me. I’ll do... anything. Anything you want. I…”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I never choked anybody in my life, but I want to be out of here fast, and I want to take you with me so you don’t run down the hall and tell Sam. Now let’s go.”
She led the way through a back door, into a screened back porch. We went down the first of the stairs, our feet echoing on the wood. I shoved the gun back under my coat.
Halfway down, I said, “You can go on back now, Babe. I’m sorry I had to play it this way, but I needed to get out. I hadn’t counted on that radio broadcast coming in just when it did.”
She said, “You aren’t going to... to take me with you… to do things... to choke me?”
I laughed, and said, “Forget it. Here, here’s the gun.” I broke the gun open, took the shells out, handed her the shells. “Don’t try shooting until you get the shells in,” I said, “and by that time you’ll have thought better of it. There’s no need attracting a lot of attention and getting your name in the papers. After all, Bob Elgin wouldn’t like it if he knew you were here. Good-bye, Babe.”
She hesitated a moment, then her lips twisted in a half-smile. “Good-bye,” she said, “I guess you’re — pretty damn smart — and a good egg, after all.”
I ran down the rest of the stairs. I looked back and saw she was holding the gun, still making no effort to load it.
Fourteen
Thirty minutes after I made my getaway from Lowry’s apartment, I was playing tunes on Claire Bushnell’s door-bell.
She let me in.
I said, “I’m back.”
“So I see. You certainly do pop in and out, don’t you?”
“Uh huh? Seen the late newspapers?”
She shook her head.
“Been talking with people?”
Again she shook her head, said, “I’ve been doing my nails.” I said, “Okay, Claire, I’m working for you. You’re putting me up.”
“What do you mean?”
I said, “I have some people looking for me. I don’t want to see them. I want to stay here.”
“For how long?”
“The rest of the day, anyway. Perhaps all night.”
“My God you certainly do move in!”
“Don’t I?”
“You can’t spend the night here.”
“Why not?”
“There are other tenants. It would look bad.”
I said, “It wouldn’t look bad if they didn’t see me.”
She couldn’t think of the answer to that one.
She walked over to the window, stood looking out for a moment, then turned back to face me.
“Donald,” she said, “I know.”
“Know what?”
“I heard the radio.”
I moved, so that I was between her and the door. “So what are you going to do?”
She came towards me, her eyes steady. “You didn’t do it.”
“Thanks.”
“Why do you want to hide, Donald?”
“I want to clear this thing up before they get me. If they catch me, I’ll go in a cell and be held without bail. I can’t do anything from a cell.”
“And if they don’t catch you?”
“I may be able to clear things up.”
“You can’t clear them up here, Donald.”
“I could make a start, and when I had a chance to make a stab at the thing, I could be in a position to move. In a cell I couldn’t move.”
“How do I know that I wouldn’t wake up with a stocking around my neck?”
“You don’t.”
She moved closer to me. Her hands were on my shoulder. “Donald, look at me.”
I met her eyes. She said, “Tell me what happened with that... that other girl.”
I said, “I moved around the house, reconnoitering. I found her in the back bedroom. The blinds weren’t drawn on the windows. The french windows were open. It was a warm night. She was dressing. She saw me. I went in. I think she was a little frightened.”
“Of you?”
“She’d been doing something that she was afraid of. She knew something she didn’t want me to find out.”
“What did she do?”
“She tried the vamp act. I can’t tell, it may have been sincere. Then she told me to go in the other room and sit down and wait for her. I did.”
“And the other room was the sister’s bedroom?”
“That’s right.”
“Why didn’t you wait for the police to come?”
“Because then I’d have gone to jail and wouldn’t have had any chance to clear the thing up.”
“Couldn’t the police have cleared it up?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You understand that running away puts you in a position where you don’t stand any chance.”
“I don’t stand any chance, anyway,” I told her. “I either have to clear the thing up or I’ll get the death penalty as a sex murderer. What’s more, they’ll bring up every unsolved sex murder they’ve had in the last five years and pin them on me as well. They’ll try to write a solution to the whole smear of stuff by making me out a fiend.”
“And you think you can clear it up if you have a chance?”
“There’s a good gambling chance that I can. It’s the chance I have to take. It’s the only one I have.”
“How can you clear it up, Donald?”
I walked over to a chair and sat down. She hesitated a moment, then came over to sit down opposite me. “I like you,” she said. “I’m going to take a chance. That is, I think I’m going to take a chance, but I want you to start talking. I want the facts.”
I said, “I started out with Tom Durham. You wanted me to find out about him. You came to the office with a nice story about the reason you wanted him shadowed. That wasn’t the real story. You wanted him shadowed because Minerva Carlton wanted to find out about him.”
“I told you that.”
“How did Minerva know Durham was seeing your aunt?”
“I don’t know.”
I said, “I don’t think Tom Durham intended to marry your aunt.”
“He’d be foolish if he did.”
“And I don’t think he was trying to sell her any stock.”
“Well, he certainly wanted something.”
I nodded. “I think Tom Durham is a blackmailer. I think Tom Durham is blackmailing your aunt. Now put your mind on that and tell me how he could blackmail her. What he could possibly have on her.”
She frowned and said, “Blackmailing? Aunt Amelia?”