I said, “I get it now. You had an appointment with him for a definite time. You made some mention of the time when he came in so that he would see that he was exactly on time. Then when he became unconscious you’d set his watch back to the right time, tell him that he’d only been out for ten or fifteen minutes; that it must have been a spell with his heart, and let it go at that.”
“Exactly.”
“And during that hour and fifteen minutes, what were you doing?”
“During about forty-five minutes of that time, I was playing burglar.”
“Did you leave any back trail?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How did you work it?”
She said, “About a month ago, I got an apartment in the Fulrose Apartments. I was very careful never to go there except when I knew Stanberry was out. And even then, I only stayed there overnight once in a while so the maids would find the bed had been slept in. My story was that I was a newspaper woman who was working on a story and commuting between here and San Francisco. When I get ready to give up the apartment, it’s going to be because I find that I’m in San Francisco so much of the time it will be cheaper to stay at a hotel whenever I happen to be back here.”
“Go on with the rest of it.”
“That’s just about all there was to it. He had his drugged drink, got groggy and started for the bathroom. Then he got sleepy and half fell in the bathtub. I slipped the keys out of his pocket. We already knew that the combination of the safe was written in his notebook so it would look like a telephone number. Rufus Stanberry never trusted anything entirely to memory.
“It was duck soup. I simply whizzed out to the Fulrose Apartments, went up to my apartment, then down the hall to his, opened the door with his key, spun the combination on the safe and cleaned it out of everything that was at all incriminating to anyone. We put Rufus Stanberry out of the blackmail business in one clean sweep.”
“Then what happened?”
“You know. I got back to my apartment. He was dead.”
“What did you do with the keys?”
She said, “I put them back in his pockets.”
“Then what?”
She said, “I telephoned Rimley. He told me over the telephone to beat it out right away to Philip Cullingdon’s place and find out everything he knew about an Irma Begley who had shaken him down in an automobile accident.”
“Did you ask him why?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That Irma Begley was Mrs. Crail.”
“Who told you about the amount of the settlement and about those other actions?”
“Rimley did.”
“Over the telephone?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he tell you to do after that?”
“He said to get out and get the stuff on Mrs. Crail, then I was to pick up some witness, very casually, make it seem accidental if possible, and go to my apartment and discover the body.”
“So you picked me as a witness?”
“After you horned in on my play I thought that you might make a swell witness. The trouble was you were too good. You figured things out because of that key.”
“Why the sudden interest in Mrs. Crail?” I asked.
“Because Mrs. Crail was with him in the Rendezvous. She went out when he did. And when Stanberry’s car pulled away, Mrs. Crail was following it.”
“How do you know?”
“Rimley told me.”
“How did he know?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you think Rimley thought Mrs. Crail was implicated in the murder?”
“I think he thought it would be a good thing to have enough evidence... oh, Donald, I don’t know what Rimley thought. He’s a deep one.”
“All right, let’s get back to the murder. You drugged Stan-berry’s drink. Where did you get the drug?”
“Rimley gave it to me.”
“Had you ever drugged a drink before?”
“No.”
“Now then, when you went out leaving Stanberry in your apartment, exactly what did you do? You locked your door, of course?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I was instructed not to.”
“By whom?”
“Rimley.”
“What was the idea?”
She said, “I was to leave a note in Stanberry’s hand where he’d be sure to see it when he woke up, saying: ‘You’ve had a spell with your heart. I’m dashing down to the drugstore to get some medicine.’ In that way in case Stanberry recovered consciousness before I returned, I could account for my absence.”
“That’s all right, but why did you leave the door of the apartment unlocked?”
“Unlocked and slightly ajar so that Stanberry would think I’d dashed out in a hurry.”
“Whose idea was that?”
“Rimley’s.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Why not?”
I said, “If your story is true, it looks as though Rimley had played you all the way through for a fall guy. It’s all just too convenient — a perfect setting for murder. The man passes out in your apartment. You are instructed to leave the door open. You’re sent out on an errand that... No wait a minute!”
“What is it, Donald?”
I said, “Rimley’s too smart for that. If he had wanted to frame you, he wouldn’t have hit the man over the head with a hand ax. He could have put a pillow over his head and smothered him, and then it would have appeared that the drug had affected his heart. No, that tapping him over the head with a hatchet is just too crude. And it doesn’t fit in with Rimley’s scheme. Now I see Rimley’s interest in Mrs. Crail. The note was still in Stanberry’s hand when you returned?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do with it?”
“Destroyed it.”
I said, “Well, so far it checks. It was a nice scheme. Stanberry would have kept his appointment with you. Naturally it would never have occurred to him that his watch had been set ahead an hour and then turned back an hour. He might well have been suspicious that the drink was drugged, but would hardly have thought you’d have had time to get his keys and — his keys were important?”
“I’ll say they were important. He had a lock on his door that no passkey would open. There was a very fine lock on the inner steel door of his safe and another lock on the steel door of the compartment where the incriminating papers were kept.”
I said musingly, “It could have worked out just that way. On the other hand, it could have been a perfect setup for the murder only...”
She flung herself on me. Her arm went around my neck. Her face pressed up close to mine.
Startled, I tried to pull away.
She crushed me to her, said in my ear, “Get hot! A prowl car just swung around the corner. We’ve got to be necking. If they catch you and me parked out here...”
She didn’t need to say any more. I kissed her.
She mumbled, “Don’t be so damned platonic.”
I hugged her a little tighter.
Her full red lips half parted, clung to mine. Her body pushed itself up against mine.
I heard a car stop.
“You’re not in Sunday School,” Billy Prue muttered.
I warmed up to my job. A flashlight beat on my face. A hard-boiled gruff voice said, “What the hell’s coming off here?”
I released Billy Prue and blinked into the flashlight.
“What the hell’s the idea?” the man said. “This is a business street.”
Billy Prue gave him one look, then covered her face with her hands and started to sob.
The flashlight darted around through the car. “Let’s have a look at you,” the cop said.
I held my face up to the beating rays of the flashlight. He took in the smeared lipstick, the rumpled hair, the necktie that was pulled to one side, said, “Okay, get the hell out of here and try an auto camp next time.”