He sounded proud and businesslike at the same time. Madge Renfrew listened, beyond power of reply.
“So,” he went on, “when I cased this assignment I found out something. You’re the one with the big money — and that gave me an idea. Mrs. Renfrew, how would you like to double the ante and have me knock off your husband instead of you?”
“I — oh, this is ridiculous! I’m going to notify the police.”
“Notify them of what? That some loony they can’t find called you up and made a crazy proposal to you? Uh-uh. Think it over, lady. One of you is going to die. Which would you rather it be — your husband or you?”
She sat there silent and shivering.
“Take your time to decide, Mrs. Renfrew,” the man said. “I’ll call you again about this time tomorrow.” He hung up.
Howard didn’t come home that evening. Working late, he said. With Lotta? When she heard him come in and go to his own room, long after midnight, she had been lying awake for hours, thinking.
At last she came to a decision. In the morning she would tell Howard about the two calls — no, only about the first one. If he wanted a mistress, she’d tell him, why, all right; just keep it discreet, don’t make it public.
She couldn’t — nobody could — look him in the face and say aloud, “Somebody says you are paying him $10,000 to have me killed, and if I’ll make it $20,000 he’ll kill you instead.” With no proof but her own word. Howard would take her immediately to a psychiatrist, and any psychiatrist would declare her in need of treatment in a mental hospital. She’d rather be dead than that. Or a widow.
Wait. Wait and see if the man did call again. Then see if she could trap him into some slip that would enable her to tell both Howard and the police about it, and be believed.
So maybe she’d better not bring the subject up yet with Howard at all. Besides, what would be the use? He’d only laugh the accusation away, and then be aware she knew he was having an affair and was keeping quiet about it.
The more she thought about the second caller’s melodramatic story, the sillier it sounded. Why on earth should Howard want her dead? Imagine her balding, potbellied husband indulging in dreams of all for love and the world well lost! He knew she’d never divorce him, and in any event he wasn’t fool enough to disinherit himself of a really sizable fortune.
Oh. Her thinking came to an abrupt stop. But if she were dead, the thinking resumed shakenly, he’d be rid of her and have his Lotta and the money, too.
Nevertheless, if that man thought she was going to make herself an accessory to a murder — even the murder of an unfaithful husband—
The phone rang.
“Well?” the man’s voice said. “Have you made up your mind?”
And as if someone else had suddenly entered into her and was using her as a puppet, she heard herself say calmly, “Yes, I’ve decided. I’ll pay you $20,000 — if you make it another — what did you call it? — another subject.”
“The girl?” he asked coolly. So he knew — maybe everyone knew but her. All the better. Howard would stay alive, and stay married to her. And for the rest of his life he would be tortured by his bereavement, suspicious of the killer whom somehow he had been steered to, suspicious of her but afraid ever again to do anything but suffer.
Perhaps she would tell him then how she discovered he had planned her murder and that if she died before him, how she had given a sealed letter to her lawyer, revealing the facts and asking for a full investigation. Maybe she should have done that after the first call from the hired killer, to forestall any attempt on her life. But that wouldn’t have punished them enough. Anyway, it was too late now: she had cast the die.
All this darted through her mind in the split second before she answered calmly, “Yes. Her name is Lotta Corey. She is my husband’s secretary.”
“Why not?” said the man. “And I want to assure you, Mrs. Renfrew” — his voice took on the tone of an earnest salesman — “I have a reputation for honest dealing, and I value it. I never double-cross my clients. I’ll tell Mr. Renfrew at once that I’m turning him down, for reasons of my own, and from this moment on both you and he are entirely safe so far as I am concerned. Once the commission is carried out neither of you will ever hear from me again.”
She almost said, “Thank you.”
“Now as to details,” he went on briskly. “I don’t expect to be paid until the job’s done. But I have to protect myself and make sure of getting my money. You understand that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to give you an accommodation address. It will do you no good to inquire there — it’s just one of those places that receive mail to be called for, and they know nothing whatever about me. I’m going to dictate a short note to you, and you’re going to write it by hand and sign it and send it to William J. Smith at that address. That’s the name they’ll know me by — they expect phony names.”
“What kind of note?”
“Just a simple statement,” he said blandly, “that you, Madge Renfrew, are hiring me for $20,000 in cash to eliminate Lotta Corey.”
“I will not!” she screamed. “Why, that would make me an accessory to murder!”
“Precisely. It protects me against any attempt by you to investigate me. I will give the note back to you the day after you have proof of Miss Corey’s death, in exchange for $20,000 in used $50 bills, not numbered in sequence.”
“No, no!” she cried frantically. “The whole thing’s off.”
“I’d be sorry for that,” he said. “Your husband was more sensible. He agreed at once to send the note when I told him to. So if you renege I’ll just have to inform him I’ll go ahead.”
She thought hard and furiously.
“Tell me how the note should read,” she choked at last.
“Now that’s more reasonable. Get paper and a pen.”
Her hand shaking, she wrote the few lines.
“I won’t waste any time,” the man went on. “It will take a few days to complete my strategy. Then I’ll call you to have you send me the note. Two or three days later look at the obituary column in the morning newspaper. The day after that I’ll give you instructions for getting the money to me.”
She heard the click as he hung up. She had always known instinctively that his calls came from public booths.
That was Friday. On Monday he called, said curtly, “Mail the note,” and hung up. She began reading the obituary page of the paper. On Thursday she found a brief notice:
COREY — Lotta. Suddenly, in this city, on May 18, Lotta Corey, daughter of the late Richard and Aileen Corey, aged 24, a native of Cleveland. O. Funeral services and inurnment in Cleveland. Memorial gifts to your favorite charity preferred.
Howard was out of town. She did not have to pretend curiosity or interest.
The next day the man who called himself William J. Smith phoned again. She had drawn the money from three separate accounts, to avoid comment. The 400 bills fitted neatly into a small suitcase. According to instructions, she put it in a locker at the bus terminal.
She was tempted to sit there and wait till he came. But when would that be, and what good would it do? He probably had followed her at one time or another and now knew her by sight; and in any case he would not approach the locker until he had the key. She mailed it to him — what else could she do? She was at his mercy.
As he had said, he was honest. By return mail her note came back to her; she burned it immediately. She was even sure he had not had it copied; it would be of no use to him now without implicating himself.
That night, in a motel several hundred miles away, Howard Renfrew and Lotta Corey drank champagne to celebrate.