Lucy Hamilton came out first. There were two scratches across one cheek, and her left eye was beginning to puff and turn green. She blinked uncertainly, holding herself stiffly erect, looked around, then ran to Shayne with a little cry and with tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I feel so awful, Michael,” she sobbed. “You’re not going to be angry with me? I did the best I could. I–I didn’t know what else to do, and I just couldn’t let her get away with it.”
Shayne held her close and muttered soothing words while he watched anxiously for the second occupant of the Black Maria to emerge from its dark interior.
Marie Leonard wore the same yellow blouse and gray skirt he had watched her don earlier in the morning. One shoulder was ripped, and the sleeve dangled in shreds from a bare arm, and her blond hair was in mad disorder. Her face was livid with rage except for a red blotch across one cheek about the size of Lucy Hamilton’s hand. She fought furiously against the policeman’s firm grip on her arm, protesting angrily, but he hustled her along.
“Fancy meeting you again, Marie,” said Shayne pleasantly. “I didn’t realize you two girls knew each other.”
Marie Leonard glared at him, and the officer said curtly, “Cut it out and bring yours along if you can handle the hellcat. Nothing will do her but to see the chief, so that’s who she’s going to see.”
Shayne disengaged Lucy from her clinging position. “Take it easy, angel,” he said. “Don’t hold anything back from Will this time. He already knows about the envelope addressed to Betty Jackson.” He pressed a handkerchief into her hand, and she went beside him submissively.
Will Gentry met them in the doorway, looked gravely at Lucy’s scratched, tear-stained face and asked, “What’s the meaning of this, Miss Hamilton? The arresting officer says you started the fracas with no provocation at all, and practically forced him to arrest you and take you to headquarters.”
“I-had to-on account of the envelope,” Lucy told him in a choked voice. “She got there ahead of me. I was right behind her when she got it. I couldn’t let her get away, and all I could think of was to get us both arrested so she wouldn’t have a chance to hide it.” She turned to Shayne and added, “She’s still got it, Michael. Inside the front of her blouse. I tried to take it away from her after we left the post office, but this policeman interfered.”
“They were screaming and scratching like wildcats and pulling each other’s hair,” the officer interposed.
“I’ll have to explain one thing you don’t know about, Will,” said Shayne. “Betty Jackson asked Lucy to pick up an envelope for her from General Delivery and made her promise to tell no one about it. Lucy went to the post office to get that envelope right after she left headquarters. Now, Lucy, tell us exactly what happened.”
“When I went to the window, she was there. I didn’t hear her ask for a letter, and I didn’t think anything about it. When she left I asked for Mrs. Betty Jackson’s mail. The clerk looked at me suspiciously and told me that Mrs. Jackson had just picked up her mail, and he pointed her out to me.
“It was that woman,” Lucy continued, pointing a trembling finger at Marie Leonard who stood aside looking sullen and frightened. “I knew she wasn’t Betty Jackson, and I didn’t think she had any right to her mail. So I ran after her and saw her slipping a long white envelope in her blouse. So I grabbed her and demanded it. She denied having it and tried to run away, and so I-well, I tried to take it away from her. I’d have done it, too,” she added angrily, “if this policeman hadn’t come up and tried to separate us.”
“How about it, Marie?” Shayne asked. “Did you get Betty Jackson’s mail from the General Delivery window?”
“Certainly not,” she stormed. “I got a letter of my own and was just walking out with it when this crazy woman pounced on me and started pulling my hair and trying to tear my clothes off.”
“She has got it, Michael,” Lucy declared. “It’s inside her blouse. I’ve been with her every second since she put it there. That’s why I couldn’t let them release us at headquarters when they offered to.”
Will Gentry had listened in frowning silence. He turned to Marie Leonard and said, “It’s simple enough to prove the point,” in a mild rumble. “Show us the letter. If it belongs to you, I advise you to charge Miss Hamilton with assault.”
“I told you it’s mine,” Marie said stubbornly. “I don’t want any trouble, and I’m willing to call the whole thing quits without making any charge against her.”
Chief Gentry took two stolid steps toward her with his hand extended. “We’ll have to see the letter, Miss Leonard. You can give it to me now, or I can send you down to be searched by a matron.”
Marie hesitated, her eyes blazing with anger, then she thrust her hand down the neck of her blouse and jerked out not one but two long white envelopes. “Here they are,” she raged, “but you can’t blame me for trying. How did I know anyone else knew about it? With Bert dead I thought they’d finally go to the dead-letter office and I might just as well get it.” Gentry was studying the envelopes curiously. “Both addressed to Mrs. Betty Jackson,” he muttered. “One on a typewriter and the other in ink. What do you make of them, Mike?” He passed them over to the redhead.
Shayne tested each envelope for weight, a scowl between his gray eyes. There was no return address on either. The one addressed in ink was slightly the heavier. He studied the postmarks and noted that the heavier one had been mailed the preceding evening. The one addressed on a typewriter was postmarked 10:07 that morning.
Comprehension dawned slowly. After a long moment he said, “I’ve been all kinds of a damned fool, Will. I made two and two add up to three.” His tone was bitter with self-condemnation as he held out the typed envelope and explained, “This should contain two hundred and fifty hundred-dollar bills, a payment by some man whose name I don’t know for suppression of the City Hall scandal Bert Jackson dug up.
“This other one-” He paused, studying the envelope again, then burst out, “I have one hell of a hunch it contains all the data on that story. Betty Jackson must have hurried home from my apartment and mailed it to herself at six-thirty yesterday afternoon, the only safe way she could think of to stop Bert from carrying out his blackmail threat. That would explain Grandma Peabody’s timetable of Betty’s movements. She went directly home from my apartment in a cab, had it wait outside while she went in to get something, then was gone again just about long enough to drive to the post office.”
Will Gentry nodded slowly. “Ned Brooks has been telling me about the efforts he and Betty Jackson were making to keep Bert from selling out. But you told Tim Rourke that Betty killed her husband in order to get this money,” he objected with a heavy frown. “After she learned he was going to turn the story in to the paper instead of selling it. Now you say she mailed this data to herself to prevent Bert from selling it. That doesn’t add up, Mike.”
“Like two and two adds up to three,” Shayne agreed somberly. “I muffed that, Will. I honestly believed that when I told it to Tim. But I didn’t know then that Miss Leonard would be at the post office shortly after ten to pick up the money. I thought Betty had arranged the payment that way after killing Bert.” Shayne paused again. His eyes brightened, and his mouth quirked in a crooked smile. “By the way,” he said abruptly, “I haven’t introduced you properly, Will. Meet Miss Marie Leonard of apartment Three A at the Las Felice.”
The name didn’t immediately register with Gentry. He was absorbed in puzzling over the latest developments. He rumbled, “Then Tim was right all the time, and Betty did kill her husband because of him.”
“I’m not too sure about that yet,” Shayne hedged. He turned to Marie Leonard and said, “I think you’d better explain how you knew that money would be at General Delivery after ten o’clock.”