“That’s right.”
She shook her head and said, “Amelia wouldn’t blackmail.”
“Then he was trying to blackmail her.”
“She’d have called the officers.”
“I don’t think so. I think the evidence indicates he must have had something on her, or thought he did.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what it could have been.”
“Is your aunt at all vulnerable?”
“I don’t see why. She’s not accountable to anyone for her actions.”
“There’s nothing in her past?”
She shook her head.
“How about her dead husband?”
“Nothing there. His memory is nothing to her. He bored her.”
“She got some money from her last husband?”
“To tell the truth, Donald, I don’t know. She’s always been exceptionally secretive about finances. I think there was some money, but I don’t know how much. If there was money, it was mostly insurance.”
“And how did you uncle die?”
“He died very suddenly. Some sort of food poisoning, I think.”
I said, “That may be it.”
“Donald, what are you saying?”
I said, “I’m thinking out loud. I’m exploring the possibilities. How long ago did he die?”
“Three or four years.”
I said, “I think your aunt’s being blackmailed. How long has she had that maid with her?”
“Susie?”
“Yes.”
“Years.”
“Susie was with her when her husband was alive?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And did Susie like the husband?”
“Susie has always been very, very devoted to Aunt Amelia. There’s some sort of strange bond between them.”
“And your Aunt Amelia’s married life wasn’t particularly happy?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t tell you, Donald. I didn’t see too much of her. She irritated me and — well, that’s the way it is. I do know that Aunt Amelia always wanted to be free. She was looking for romance.”
I got up and moved over to look out of the window, lit a cigarette, paced the floor for a few minutes, then went back and sat down.
“Why do you think my aunt was being blackmailed?”
“Because I think Tom Durham was a blackmailer.”
Claire Bushnell said, “Well, I don’t know as there’s any way that we can find out anything about it. Of course... Well, come to think of it, there was something rather peculiar about my uncle’s death; that is, it was sudden, and Aunt Amelia didn’t seem to have any of the symptoms that he had. I remember she said she had been a little ill, but, to tell you the truth, I didn’t think too much about it.”
I said, “Minerva Carlton was being blackmailed. That is, someone was putting a bite on her. I think it was Tom Durham. I think she also found out that Tom was trying to blackmail your aunt. I think she wanted to find out all she could about Tom, and, because Tom was trying to bleed your aunt white, it gave Minerva a good opening to get a private detective agency to work on the job through you.”
“What makes you think Minerva was being blackmailed?”
I said, “Everything points to it. I…”
The bell rang.
I said, “Let it ring for a while. Try not answering it.”
Whoever was downstairs kept playing a persistent, steady tune on the door-bell.
After a while I said, “Okay, find out who it is. If it’s the police you’ll have to let them in. Can you lie about my being here?”
“Like a trooper,” she said, picking up the cigarette ends I had left in the ash-tray and with the tip of her finger putting little smears of lipstick on the ends.
I laughed, and said, “You must have been caught in that trap before.”
“What trap?”
“Having cigarette ends in an ash-tray that didn’t have lipstick on them.”
“Is that nice?” she asked, pouting.
“No,” I said.
She went over to the speaking tube and whistled down. “Who is it?” she asked.
Bertha Cool’s voice came booming up the speaking tube. “This is Bertha Cool. I want to see you right away!”
Claire Bushnell looked at me questioningly.
I said, “Wait a minute. Tell her you’re... No, that’s all right. Tell her to come up.”
Claire pushed the electric door release. “Now what do you do?” she asked. “Hide?”
I nodded. “I’ll be in the cupboard back of the wall-bed. Tell Bertha you haven’t seen me.”
“Okay,” she said.
I moved over to the door which concealed the wall-bed, pushed it open, stepped inside, and Claire Bushnell pushed the door to. I heard the latch click into place.
A few moments later I heard Bertha Cool’s voice. “Hello, Miss Bushnell.”
“Hello, Mrs. Cool. What brings you here?”
“We’re working on a case for you. Remember?”
“Yes indeed. Do come in and sit down.”
I heard the floor creak with Bertha’s weight moving across it, then she settled herself in a chair with a plunk and said, “Your cheque bounced, dearie.”
“What do you mean?”
“The cheque that you gave us for two hundred dollars. It wasn’t any good. Damn it, I told Donald to tell you. I thought I’d find him here.”
“Why, it must have been good. I had money in the bank.”
“The bank says you didn’t. The bank says a cheque that you had thought was deposited was taken for collection. It was a cheque on an out-of-the-state bank. It was no good, so they debited your account.”
“Well, I like that! That cheque is just as good as gold.”
“Whose cheque was it?” -
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Mrs. Cool, but I’ll certainly be glad to go to the bank with you.”
I couldn’t see Claire Bushnell’s facial expression, but the tone of her voice was perfect. She was a darned good little actress. Thinking back on the smooth manner in which she’d smeared lipstick on the ends of my cigarette stubs, I began to wonder just how much experience our client had had in the art of deception.
“We want you to make that cheque good,” Bertha said.
“But the cheque is good, Mrs. Cool.”
“The bank says it isn’t.”
“Well, I’ll take that up with the bank.”
“I don’t give a damn who you take it up with or what you have to say,” Bertha said vehemently, “but before I leave, I want something that’ll balance that two-hundred-dollar red-ink entry on our bank account, because I deposited your cheque in good faith.”
“Well, of course I... if the person who gave me the cheque... well... that would leave me in a position where I’d be temporarily financially embarrassed.”
“You will be embarrassed in a lot more ways than that if you don’t meet that cheque,” Bertha Cool said grimly.
“But I’m sorry, Mrs. Cool, I haven’t a thing.”
“The hell you haven’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Be your age, dearie,” Bertha said. “Go to your boy friend and…”
“I haven’t a boy friend.”
“Get one, then.”
“I...I... well, you see, I…”
“You haven’t seen Donald Lam today, have you?”
“No.”
“My God,” Bertha said, “What a mess! The police are spreading it all over the country that he’s guilty of a sex murder. The little stinker!”
“Oh, no!” Claire Bushnell exclaimed.
“That’s right. This girl who was choked to death with her own stocking, lying half-nude on the bedroom floor.”
“Why, Mr. Lam seemed like a — why, I wouldn’t have thought anything like that of him.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Bertha said judicially. “I’ve always been fond of him, all right, but there’s something wrong with him. Women throw themselves at him and he doesn’t go overboard the way he should. Come to think of it — well, looking back on things, I am starting to wonder a little bit.”