“And you ran away?” he asked.
“Now don’t be like that, Owl! I got out of my car and ran back. I wanted to do everything I could to help the man. The car that had stopped behind me was a sedan. A man had been driving it, and he was lifting someone into his car when I came up. I said, ‘Oh, is he badly hurt? I didn’t see him. He jumped out right in front of my headlights.’ And, Owl, that man turned round and started to abuse me. He said I was drunk; that I’d been driving too fast and had been driving all over the street. He said he was going to report me to the police for drunken driving. I was furious, but I was too concerned about whether the man was badly hurt to let myself go and get mad. The man who was handling him said he was a doctor himself and that he was going to go directly to his surgery, which was half a dozen blocks back down the road. He gave me a card with his name and address on it, a Dr. Sedler.”
“Do you still have the card?” Terry asked.
“Not the card, but his name’s in the telephone directory. I looked it up later.”
“Well, go on, what happened?”
“This Dr. Sedler climbed into his car and told me to follow him down to his office; that he was going to have me arrested. He spun the car in the middle of the block and started back.
“Now, remember, Owl, he hadn’t asked for my name. He hadn’t been driving close enough behind me to see the number on my car, and he hadn’t asked to see my driving licence or anything. He was a doctor. He was taking the man back to his office, and was going to see that he had immediate medical attention. And he was one of those fanatics who think just because a woman takes a cocktail she’s a dissolute character. He’d smelled liquor on my breath, and that was enough for him. He’d have sworn I’d been racing down the street like mad and was dead drunk.
“I walked back to my car and looked it over. There wasn’t so much as a dent on it. I didn’t think the man could possibly be seriously hurt, and I didn’t see any reason why I should go back there and be browbeaten and blackmailed. I was fully covered by insurance, and I decided to wait until I saw how badly the man was hurt before I did one single thing. So I got in my car and drove up to my apartment. I realize now, of course, what I should have done. I should have telephoned my own doctor and had him go right out to Dr. Sedler’s place and make an independent examination, and I should have had him put me through a sobriety test. But I was just too rattled. You know, Owl, I was frightened and mad and worried, all at the same time.”
“So what did you do?” he asked.
“I rang up the traffic department and asked them if they had any report of injuries sustained by a man knocked down by a car, and gave them the address where the accident took place. I told them I’d been driving past and thought I’d seen a man knocked down, and of course I gave them a false name and address over the telephone. They looked up their records and said they didn’t have any accident reported from that vicinity. So that I felt certain the man had just been stunned, or more probably drunk. So I decided to keep in touch with the traffic department and if the accident was ever reported, I’d go to see the man.”
“Then what happened?” Terry asked.
“For a day or two nothing happened. And then Mandra telephoned.”
“What did he want?”
“Wanted me to call and see him.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him to go roll his hoop down some other alley. And then he told me he was a bail-bond broker and that I was implicated in a hit-and-run case.”
“What did you do?” he asked.
“Hung on to the telephone receiver until I thought I’d squeeze my finger marks into it. But I managed to laugh into the transmitter and tell him he was crazy.”
“But you went to see him.”
“Yes.”
“Did you pay him money?”
“Not then.”
“Did he ask for any?”
“Not directly. He said the man had suffered a spinal injury and any moment a warrant might be issued for my arrest; that I’d better have things all fixed up so I could get bail just as soon as I was arrested. Otherwise, he said, I’d be thrown in with a lot of disreputable women. I told him I thought that would be swell, that I thought disreputable women were a lot more interesting than reputable ones. So he changed his tune and started telling me about how awful jails were: cold, clammy cells, inadequate sanitary facilities, filthy washbowls. That was what got me, Owl — the dirty washbowls. The man was clever, I tell you, horribly clever!”
“Did he tell you how he knew you’d been driving the car?”
“Not in so many words. I gathered some of the police officers stood in with him on those cases where there was a chance to make money on bail bonds. He said the police were making a secret investigation. A witness I hadn’t seen had got my licence number. But he’d got one figure wrong. He’d read the last figure as a seven instead of a one. Mandra had done some fast checking on licence numbers and picked me.”
“Did he tell you the case might be fixed up?”
“No, I asked him to try and fix it up, and I told him I wanted to see the man and see that he had the best possible medical attention.”
“Then what?”
“He told me I’d better let him handle that end of it, that I’d better keep in the background until after he’d seen the witnesses. Then he sent for me again. He thought the case could be squared. I’d given him a couple of thousand to get the best doctors money could buy.”
“How about your insurance? Didn’t you make a claim?”
“No. Mandra said that I could collect from the insurance company for what I’d paid out after the criminal responsibility business had been fixed up. He said the victim had no heirs and that if he died I was never to disclose my connexion with the case. While he lived, I was to get the best doctors money could buy for him. Then after the criminal end had been disposed of, I could have my insurance company make a settlement of damages. But if the man should die, the police would go after me for manslaughter — if they could be sure I was the one who had been driving the car. But Mandra was handling that end of it. You know how those things go — officers give bail brokers tips, and the brokers give them money. Oh, Owl, it was such a mess! If I could have helped the man I’d struck by going to jail, I’d have gone in a minute. But, my gosh, it was his fault. He’d jumped right into my car. If it hadn’t been for that fanatical doctor there’d have been nothing to it.”
“Did Mandra give you the name of the man who had been hit?”
“Not then. He did later — a William Shield, who lived on Howard Street.”
“Did you ever see this man Shield?”
“Yes. Mandra took me out to see him. He seemed to be suffering a lot. Mandra took me in as a welfare worker. Shield didn’t know who I was.”
“That was on Howard Street?”
“Yes, it was somewhere in the eighteen-hundred block on the left-hand side of the street.”
“Did you realize this was till a blackmailing scheme?”
“Not then. Last night I suddenly saw the whole thing. I was furious. I threatened to tell the police and have Mandra arrested.”
Terry shook his head slowly. “The police must never know about this,” he said.