“But I tell you she didn’t—”
“Tell it to the Marines,” Carson said.
So I took a cab uptown, nursing my headache and my secret, and thinking about what Carson had said. Someone — the someone who had shot Waldo — might be watching to make certain no one got on his trail. I know I had some weird ideas on the trip uptown. I thought first that maybe Ricardo had discovered that Waldo was in the know, and that Waldo had been making a nuisance of himself. So Ricardo had had Waldo rubbed out! It was a nice, clean, simple answer and didn’t hurt anybody I loved. But then I had a picture of one of Ricardo’s boys blasting someone with a woman’s toy revolver. With Joan’s revolver, because I was unpleasantly convinced that the missing gun was the one McCuller needed to convict her.
The whole thing kept coming back to us — to Mike, and me, to Erika, and Joan, and Kathy. We were the only ones who could have taken that gun out of Joan’s drawer and used it, and Erika had to be eliminated because she hadn’t had a chance to use it. She was being broiled alive when Waldo was killed. Not me. I knew that, if no one else did. Not Joan. And how on earth did Kathy fit into the picture? She loved Mike; she might have overheard Waldo’s phone call to Joan and she would protect Mike from hurt if she could, but to commit a murder just to protect the man you loved from having his feelings hurt — that was hard to take.
That left Mike.
As I thought about it I could feel the small hairs rising on the back of my neck. To begin with, Mike no longer had a real alibi. He could have been at the Wakefield. He certainly could have taken Joan’s gun, although he had one of his own that he was licensed to carry. Motive? Well, there were a dozen ways to figure that. There was one simple one: Suppose Waldo had gotten in touch with Mike last night — after he’d talked to Joan. Suppose Mike had gone to his room at the Wakefield and Waldo had said to him, “Mike, Erika is the one who’s been stealing your stuff and blackmailing people with it.” Mike hates Waldo, figures he can handle Erika himself, so he draws his gun and lets Waldo have it. But not his gun — Joan’s gun. The use of Joan’s gun suggested premeditation, a scheme.
I tried another tack: Waldo didn’t get in touch with Mike, but Mike, on his rounds, ran into something that convinced him Waldo was part of the blackmail setup. He could put two and two together. It would have to be Erika who was working with him. So he goes to the Wakefield and plugs Waldo, covering his tracks by using that little revolver which would have the police looking for a woman. And deliberately put Joan on the spot?
Oh, brother! But nonetheless, where could you go but Mike? Where could you possibly go but Mike?
The palms of my hands were damp when I paid off the driver and walked up the steps to Mike’s house. I had a key, of course, and let myself in. There was a light on in the library and I could see through into Mike’s study. There was a light on there, and though he would usually be out on the town at this time, it didn’t surprise me he was there now.
I remember I stood in the entrance hall and lit a cigarette. I was trying to figure out just what I’d say to him, just how I’d go about talking to him without involving Joan. Even then I wasn’t kidding myself about being a detective. There was probably something quite obvious that would clear Mike entirely. Actually, I hadn’t done anything like a complete check on his alibi. Maybe it would turn out to be airtight. McCuller had probably checked it already and found it was okay, or Mike wouldn’t be running around loose. Well, the first thing to do was find out if I was fired.
I walked through the library to the study. The door to the vault where he kept his files was open and I could hear him puttering around in there. I walked over to his desk, put out my cigarette, and lit another one. I could hear the file drawers open and close. He was hunting for something special, I imagined. Well, Kathy did the filing, not me.
I saw down in the chair beside his desk and closed my eyes. They felt hot and tired. It had been the longest day of my life, measured in stresses and strains.
Then I opened my eyes again and saw her standing in the vault door.
“Don’t move, Vance,” she said. “I’ve go to think this out.”
It was Erika! She was pointing the little .22 at me, her gray-green eyes as bright as diamonds.
The room began to do a slow, rhythmic spin. I’ve never fainted in my life, but I imagine I was as close to it then as I’ll ever be. The spinning stopped and Erika came back into focus. She had the gun in one hand and she had a small suitcase in the other.
“I counted on your being out with Mike,” she said. Her red lips moved in a smile. “Looking for me!”
“That’s what Mike is probably doing,” I said. I could feel anger beginning to rise up in me, hot, blind anger.
“Poor darling,” she said.
“I’ve seen Joan tonight,” I said. “She’s taking a rap for you, too.”
“My luck’s been so good up to now,” she said. “It seems to be changing. Joan told you things?”
“Joan told me things.”
“She’s protecting Mike, of course. How very noble and self-effacing.”
“She thinks you’re dead,” I said. “She’s not protecting you.”
The gray-green eyes narrowed. “She did tell you things.”
I began to think in terms of feet and inches then. I was about eight feet away from her. I wondered how accurate she could be with that popgun if I made a dive for her.
“Yes, my luck has gone very bad,” Erika said. “Sooner or later I knew she’d tell someone about the Spain. The fire was my first piece of luck. I wasn’t there, but someone died in my room — probably someone who got caught in the hallway and ran in there for safety. Joan would talk, I thought, and my passing would be duly mourned. You see, don’t you, how your coming home is very bad luck, Vance, darling?”
“You killed Waldo?”
“Waldo was far too greedy,” she said.
“I made a mistake tonight, myself,” I said. “I had a chance to break Austin Graves’ neck and I didn’t. He is your partner in blackmail, isn’t he?”
“Poor Austin, he’s probably half dead of fright by this time,” Erika said. “He started shaking last week when Waldo accidentally caught on to our little pastime.”
“I can understand why,” I said. “Who tipped you off that Waldo was going to spill to Mike?”
“I heard his chat with Joan on the library extension. I had just come in. I thought Joan and Kathy were asleep.” She smiled. “Needless to say, I went right out again to... to calm him down, shall we say?” Her eyes narrowed. “You know, Vance, perhaps your being here now is providential. I can tell Mike I found you rifling the vault, and when you tried to get away I shot you.”
“With the gun you used to kill Waldo? It will be hard to explain.”
She laughed. “Darling, I’m not a complete child,” she said. “I took Joan’s gun a long time ago, in case of emergencies. I used it to kill Waldo and it’s at the bottom of a Broadway sewer at this moment. This one hasn’t been used to kill anyone — until now.”
“And Joan? Are you going to kill Joan, too?”
“Why? Poor Joan — always behind the eight ball. I admit, Vance dear, to the horrible sin of leading a double life. I expose you as the double-crosser. Mike will forgive me, after he’s scolded me. He will be grateful to me for stopping the leak — by putting a bullet in you. It will be my word against Joan’s. Who does Mike always listen to?”
I tried getting my feet under me so I could make a fast move. Erika was thinking this out all too clearly.
“You’re a nice boy, Vance,” she said. “It’s really too bad for you it had to happen this way. But when you get into the kind of jam I’m in you have to get out of it.”