“Lomax didn’t steal it. Don’t forget that he was willing to pay the insurance money himself. And again, that’s why I couldn’t see anyone else killing Trueman to get it back after Trueman tried to pull a double-cross by turning it back to me.”
Turning slowly to Neal, Shayne went on, “But I think I’ve got an answer that fits both those facts. A synthetic stone chips much more easily than the genuine. The only reason you and Mrs. Lomax could have preferred an insurance swindle to a legitimate sale was because the Ghorshki emerald had been damaged. Wasn’t that it?”
Jordan smiled and said quietly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The hell you don’t. Why else did you have to get it back from Trueman after you’d passed it to him?”
“Did I?” Jordan’s deliberate manner bordered on insolence.
Shayne turned to Quinlan and explained, “In a necklace like this, built around one large faultless stone, the value depends largely on that stone. A tiny chip marring it would cut the value in half. Mrs. Lomax and Neal Jordan knew that. They knew the insurance company wouldn’t pay off in full if the damage became known. That’s why Neal had to kill Trueman to prevent him from selling it to me.”
“If you take Mr. Lomax’s story at face value,” said Jordan, “it busts that theory all to hell. If he had planned to buy it back from Trueman-”
“That,” Shayne cut in harshly, “was just as bad from your angle. You’d still be stuck with a damaged necklace and Katrin’s murder would have been for nothing.”
“Fairy tales,” Jordan scoffed.
Shayne snorted and picked up a sheaf of papers from Quinlan’s desk. “Two witnesses saw you there between two and three o’clock this morning. But you and Lomax both agree he was there between twelve and one.” To Lomax, he said, “What did you think when you heard Neal drive out again after you got home from the Laurel Club?”
“Nuts,” said Jordan loudly. “I didn’t-”
Shayne said, “Shut up. Didn’t he, Lomax?”
The aged manufacturer nodded slowly.
“I heard the car go out the drive. When I read about Trueman’s death this morning, I wondered-I didn’t know what to do.”
“I know it was tough on you with your wife mixed up in it,” Shayne said in a kindly tone. “You knew all the time it was she who stole the necklace, didn’t you?”
“No,” Lomax cried out.
“The hell you didn’t,” Shayne said angrily. “Why else did you think Katrin Moe was murdered?”
“She wasn’t. That is, I didn’t know-”
“You must have suspected the truth. You knew your wife was having an affair with Jordan-that the trip to Baton Rouge was a phony and they went somewhere else to spend the night together.”
Lomax came out of the chair with a smothered oath, his hands doubled into fists.
Quinlan said, “Sit down, Lomax,” in a cold voice that sent him back to his seat.
“Sure, he knew about that,” Jordan sneered. “He had detectives on us months ago. But I don’t know what all this stuff is about the necklace-and Katrin being murdered.”
“You know more about it than anybody,” Shayne told him. “You planned it all when you and Mrs. Lomax got back from Baton Rouge and heard about the burglary in your absence. That burglary was made to order if you could make it appear the necklace had been left out of the safe Tuesday night. The only one who could disprove that was Katrin. So she had to die before the loss of the necklace was announced.”
“I suppose you think I persuaded her to go to bed and turn on the gas?” Neal Jordan sneered.
“No,” Shayne said. “It was the new insulation on the hot-air pipes that put me wise. That, and the flexible tube you used when you demonstrated how to relight the pilot light in the furnace.”
Neal Jordan’s expression changed. He darted one glance around the room, then lunged forward toward the door. Shayne laughed harshly and tripped him. A policeman was on top of his sprawling body as he went flat, and when he got slowly to his feet he wore a pair of handcuffs.
His eyes were murderous as he turned on Shayne and snarled, “So you did catch on? I was afraid you were wise when you asked for that demonstration.”
“I don’t understand it,” said Lomax helplessly. “I don’t understand it at all. My wife may have been indiscreet but I can’t believe that she would-murder.” He covered his face with his thin white hands and rocked back and forth.
“I don’t believe she knew what Neal planned,” Shayne told him. “Although I don’t know how he got her to hold back on her announcement of the loss of the necklace until after Katrin’s death if she didn’t know.”
“I wouldn’t trust a woman with anything like that,” Neal said scornfully. He had regained his self-possession and faced them calmly with a sneer on his lips. “I made her think we were going to wait until Katrin had gone on her honeymoon before we sprung the loss. She’s still fool enough to think the girl just conveniently committed suicide and I certainly wasn’t going to tell her differently.”
“Wait a minute,” said Inspector Quinlan wearily. “What sort of demonstration were you talking about a while ago?”
Shayne laughed and told him. “Neal was good enough to show me how the murder was managed. Funny thing is, I was working on another theory altogether at the time. The one that went to hell when I learned Katrin couldn’t stand the smell of gas so couldn’t have gone to sleep with it burning.”
The inspector was savagely chewing on his cigar, trying to keep abreast of events. “Sure,” he said thickly. “That one.”
Shayne said, “I was a fool not to think of the hot-air pipe running up to her room sooner. A stream of gas sent into that pipe on a cold night while the furnace was running-” He shrugged his shoulders. “It was as nearly painless as death can be.”
“I don’t understand,” Lomax whimpered. “What had the new insulation to do with it? He didn’t start putting it on the pipes until after she died.”
“The insulation was to effectively cover up the hole in the hot-air pipe near the furnace in case anyone ever came snooping around,” Shayne explained. “You see, there’s a flexible tube on the front of the furnace used to light the pilot light. By inserting the end of that tube into the hot-air pipe leading to Katrin’s room, Neal was able to send a flow of hot gaseous air into her locked room on the third floor all night. He naturally didn’t start the flow until he was certain she was asleep, trusting it would enter so gradually and insidiously that she would never waken.”
“But how about the gas grate in her room?” Quinlan put in, unable to hold his curiosity any longer. “How did it get turned on?”
“It simply wasn’t,” Shayne told him. “The gas didn’t enter her room through the grate, but from the furnace pipe.”
“It was on when we broke into her room,” Lomax reminded him. “I saw Neal run over and shut it off.”
“The power of suggestion,” Shayne grunted. “The room was full of gas and you saw Neal heroically dash in and reach down and pretend to turn the valve on the grate. Actually, he didn’t turn anything. The valve was closed all the time. He’d pulled his tube out of the furnace pipe just before he came up, so the gas began to clear out of the room immediately after you saw him pretend to shut off the grate and you were convinced he had shut it off.”
“That’s right.” Neal Jordan laughed in the old man’s face. “You made a swell witness for me. I had it all planned that way-knowing her door would be locked in the morning and you’d have to call on me to break it down.”
Mr. Lomax shrank back from him in horror. “To think that you-that my wife could have-”
Neal laughed boastfully and sneered, “She was a push-over. Why do you think I stayed on at your house all these months, doing your odd jobs and being the model servant? For the lousy salary you paid me? An old man married to a wife with young ideas! You knew what was going on. I’ve just been waiting for her to get hold of a wad of dough. But you were so damned tight about doling out the cash. And after she dropped that damned necklace and chipped the center emerald I had to figure out this insurance stunt.”