He raised the sheet.
Shayne thanked him and stood at the bedside for a moment thinking, while the interne wheeled the resuscitator out of the room. Hurlbut came in, looked at Shayne’s preoccupied face, and went out again with the doctor.
Alone with the dead girl, Shayne began to move about restlessly, trying to put together an impression of Ruth Di Palma from the scattered personal objects amid the impersonal hotel furniture. There was only one book in the room, a paperback by a Protestant clergyman, known for his advice to lonely and unhappy people who dreamed of improving their chances in life without going back to infancy to start over. The binding was badly sprung, and sections had been read more than once.
The objects on the bedside table had been returned to the girl’s bag. Shayne emptied the bag again and picked over the contents. He did a careful job, trying to force each object to disclose its secrets before putting it back in the bag. Presently he was left with a curiously-designed pill container. It was flat and circular. The pills were arranged around the circumference of a movable calendar wheel, in sockets numbered from one to twenty.
After studying this for a long moment he dropped it in his pocket and went back to the hall, where Hurlbut was conferring with the doctor. When they were through, Shayne arranged for the use of the room across the hall for the remainder of the night. He went in. Candida was smoking in one of the two chairs, one leg over the chair arm. She looked at Shayne without expression.
“What do they think?”
Shayne poured a drink from a cognac bottle supplied earlier by Room Service. Forbes was outside on the terrace, leaning over the railing looking out at the ocean. His back was stiff.
Without raising his voice Shayne said, “Come in now, Forbes. We have things to talk about.”
Forbes turned. His eyes were red and puffy.
“What things?”
“Come in and sit down.”
Forbes did as he was told, moving jerkily.
“Your father’s right about one thing,” Shayne told him. “It’s time for you to start taking a little responsibility. You don’t realize it yet, but this is your worst jam to date.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re feeling sorry for yourself because your girl’s dead. I’m sorry too, sorry she let herself get mixed up with you people. Candida, are you going to stick to your story that you never met Forbes before tonight?”
“It’s true.”
“Maybe you can convince me of that, but not without doing a certain amount of talking. Here’s how things stand at the moment. Ruth may have attempted suicide a few years ago. There are scars on her wrist.”
“She got those in a car accident,” Forbes put in.
“Forbes,” Shayne said patiently, “if you have any sense at all, you won’t say one more word until I’m finished. She could have been lying to explain the scars. What I’m trying to tell you is that the doctor assumes this was another suicide attempt, only this one succeeded. The autopsy will probably bear that out. But I’m ninety-nine-percent certain that when she went to sleep she expected to wake up again. Here’s why I think so.”
He held out the pill wheel to Candida. “Do you know what these are? They were in her purse.”
She glanced at them. “Birth-control pills. Druggists don’t ask to see a marriage license before they fill that prescription.”
“Take a closer look.”
She took the wheel and studied it. When she spoke there was an undercurrent of excitement in her voice.
“Last night’s pill is gone.”
“So?” Forbes demanded.
“The idea is with these things,” Shayne explained, “you have to be careful not to miss a day. You build up immunity over a period-five days, I think it is, five days running. So for girls like Ruth, who might forget, they’re packaged this way. You buy them by the month. When you take the first pill in a new cycle, you turn the wheel to that day’s date and lock it. As you work your way through the month, you always know where you are.”
“I still don’t see-” Forbes said.
“Use your head, damn it!” Shayne said sharply. “Ruth’s in bed. She’s decided to kill herself, so she won’t have to get up in the morning to face another long empty day. Would she try to remember what day it was, so she could take a birth-control pill first? Those are for people with a future. Don’t tell me she’d do it as a matter of habit. She wasn’t that kind of a girl.”
“You think it was an accident?”
“Accidents happen,” Shayne said. “But I don’t think this was one. She was tired, not drunk. Here’s a theory. Listen to the way it sounds. You were there while she was getting ready for bed. The moment she came in, she got herself a glass of water and took a couple of pills. You got rid of the water while she was in the shower. She came out. ‘Did I take my pills? I guess not-no water.’ Two more. She was finishing up a tense weekend and she couldn’t stop thinking about all the interesting things that happened. She went on talking after she was in bed and reached for the bottle. Two more pills. A long goodnight kiss. ‘See you in the morning, Ruthie. Don’t forget to take your pills.’”
Forbes came to his feet abruptly, then sat down again. Shayne held his eyes for a moment, and swung around on Candida.
“Then you came up. You told her Forbes was in trouble over that old poker debt, and she could help by leaving town for a few days. She agreed-anything to help her boy. You gave her five hundred dollars. There were ten fifties in her purse, separate from the rest of her money, which added up to nine and a half bucks. Then you got her a fresh glass of water so she could take a couple of pills and forget it. Make it three. No, she has to counteract all that benzedrine. Four.”
“That’s pure fantasy!” Candida snapped. “And you know it.”
“I don’t know a goddamn thing. All I’m doing is wrapping a couple of guesses around a theory. Maybe you didn’t pay Ruth to organize that poker game, but at this point it sure as hell looks like it. A statement from her to that effect would cost United States Chemical two million bucks and put Hal Begley in bankruptcy. You’re an ambitious girl, Candida, too ambitious. Success or failure, prestige or exposure-and the whole thing hinged on whether or not Ruth was alive in the morning. When she asked you if you’d seen her taking her sleeping pills, it would be so easy to say no.”
“It wouldn’t be easy, and it didn’t happen.”
Shayne laughed unpleasantly. “And what about you, Forbes? Your father has just about had it with you. If I can show that you sold Candida that folder, he’ll kick you out of the company and change his will.”
“I don’t care.”
“I don’t believe you.” The detective lit a cigarette deliberately. “Slavery was abolished years ago. If you don’t want the job, quit. You’ve got a terrible record on your own showing. Add it all up, and a hard-eyed district attorney would get a profile of a spoiled rich kid who wouldn’t hesitate a minute about slipping a couple of extra pills to a girl who was that much of a danger to him.”
Forbes looked at Shayne defiantly, but there was terror in his eyes.
“Which one of you did it?” Shayne said. “You both had the opportunity. You both have a motive.”
Candida looked at Forbes, whose eyes had narrowed. She said warningly, “Don’t let him rattle you, Forbes. If it’s that bad, we both need a lawyer.”
“You won’t have time to talk to a lawyer,” Shayne said. “Talk to me. I’m not a cop. Nothing’s going to be signed here. I can’t hurt you with a verbal admission.”
“I don’t think I’ll start trusting you this late in the game.”
“I’m setting a deadline-seven tomorrow morning. At five after seven I dump the whole thing in the D.A.’s lap. District attorneys can’t leave anything hanging. They have to come up with a solution. If what he comes up with is conspiracy to commit murder, I want you to realize that he can make it stick. The one basic thing to prove is that Forbes was the source of the T-239 folder. Everything follows from that. We can bring in Jake Fitch to testify about the locker-room time sheet. We establish the exact moment the transfer took place, and then we talk to Lou Johnson and find out when he was paid off. If the folder changed hands April twenty-third and Johnson got his money that evening or the next day, what else will a jury need?”