Ferguson and O’Hara were there by now. One of them picked up his gun and the other snapped on the handcuffs. I got to my feet and turned to Michaels and Beverly Benson. They began to say things both at once about what a swell thing I’d done and then I keeled over.
When I came to I was on a couch in a little dark room. I learned later it was the dressing room where the necklace had been stolen. Somebody was bathing my arm and sobbing.
I sort of half sat up and said, “Where am I?” I always thought it was just in stories people said that, but it was the first thing popped into my mind.
“You’re all right,” a cool voice told me. “It’s only a flesh wound.”
“And I didn’t feel a thing... You mean he winged me?”
“I guess that’s what you call it. When I told the Lieutenant I was a nurse he said I could fix you up and they wouldn’t need the ambulance. You’re all right now.” Her voice was shaky in the dark, but I knew it was Snow White.
“Well, anyways, that broke the case pretty quick.”
“But it didn’t.” And she explained: Donald had been up to his old tricks, all right; but what he had hidden in his bill was the diamonds and the sapphire and the pearl earrings, only no emerald and ruby necklace. Beverly Benson was wild, and Michaels and our men were combing the house from top to bottom to see where he’d stashed it.
“There,” she said. She finished the story and the bandaging at the same time. “Can you stand up all right now?”
I was still kind of punchy. Nothing else could excuse me for what I said next. But she was so sweet and tender and good I wanted to say something nice, so like a dumb jerk I up and said, “You’d make some man a grand wife.”
That was what got her. She just went to pieces — dissolved, you might say. I’m not used to tears on the shoulder of my uniform, but what could I do? I didn’t try to say anything — just patted her back and let her talk. And I learned all about it.
How she’d married Philip Newton back in ’29 when he was a promising young architect and she was an heiress just out of finishing school. How the fortune she was heiress to went fooey like all the others and her father took the quick way out. How the architect business went all to hell with no building going on and just when things were worst she had a baby. And then how Philip started drinking, and finally — Well, anyways, there it was.
They’d both pulled themselves together now. She was making enough as a nurse to keep the kid (she was too proud to take alimony), and Philip was doing fine in this arty photographic line he’d taken up. A Newton photograph was The Thing to Have in the smart Hollywood set. But they couldn’t come together again, not while he was such a success. If she went to him, he’d think she was begging; if he came to her, she’d think he was being noble. And Beverly Benson had set her cap for him.
Then this agent Harvey Madison (that’s Dopey), who had known them both when, decided to try and fix things. He brought Snow White to this party; neither of them knew the other would be here. And it was a party and it was Christmas, and some of their happiest memories were Christmases together. I guess that’s pretty much true of everybody. So she felt everything all over again, only—
“You don’t know what it’s done for me to tell you this. Please don’t feel hurt; but in that uniform and everything you don’t seem quite like a person. I can talk and feel free. And this has been hurting me all night and I had to say it.”
I wanted to take the two of them and knock their heads together; only first off I had to find that emerald and ruby necklace. It isn’t my job to heal broken hearts. I was feeling O.K. now, so we went back to the others.
Only they weren’t there. There wasn’t anybody in the room but only the drunk. I guessed where Mickey and Dopey were: stripped and being searched.
“Who’s that?” I asked Snow White.
She looked at the Little Pig. “Poor fellow. He’s been going through torture tonight too. That’s Bela Strauss.”
“Bella’s a woman’s name.”
“He’s part Hungarian.” (I guess that might explain anything.) “He comes from Vienna. They brought him out here to write music for pictures because his name is Strauss. But he’s a very serious composer — you know, like...” and she said some tongue twisters that didn’t mean anything to me. “They think because his name is Strauss he can write all sorts of pretty dance tunes, and they won’t let him write anything else. It’s made him all twisted and unhappy, and he drinks too much.”
“I can see that.” I walked over and shook him. The sailor cap fell off. He stirred and looked up at me. I think it was the uniform that got him. He sat up sharp and said something in I guess German. Then he thought around a while and found some words in English.
“Why are you here? Why the police?” It came out in little one-syllable lumps, like he had to hunt hard for each sound.
I told him. I tried to make it simple, but that wasn’t easy. Snow White knew a little German, so she helped.
“Ach!” he sighed. “And I through it all slept!”
“That’s one word for it,” I said.
“But this thief of jewels — him I have seen.”
It was a sweet job to get it out of him, but it boiled down to this: Where he passed out was on that same couch where they took me — right in the dressing-room. He came to once when he heard somebody in there, and he saw the person take something out of a box. Something red and green.
“Who was it?”
“The face, you understand, I do not see it. But the costume, yes. I see that clear. It was Mikki Mails.” It sounded funny to hear something as American as Mickey Mouse in an accent like that.
It took Snow White a couple of seconds to realize who wore the Mickey Mouse outfit. Then she said “Philip” and fainted.
Officer Tom Smith laid down his manuscript. “That’s all, Mr. Quilter.”
“All, sir?”
“When Michaels came in, I told him. He figured Newton must’ve got away with the necklace and then the English crook made his try later and got the other stuff. They didn’t find the necklace anywhere; but he must’ve pulled a fast one and stashed it away some place. With direct evidence like that, what can you do? They’re holding him.”
“And you chose, sir, not to end your story on that note of finality?”
“I couldn’t, Mr. Quilter. I... I like that girl who was Snow White. I want to see the two of them together again and I’d sooner he was innocent. And besides, when we were leaving, Beverly Benson caught me alone. She said, I can’t talk to your Lieutenant. He is not sympathetic. But you...’” Tom Smith almost blushed. “So she went on about how certain she was that Newton was innocent and begged me to help her prove it. So I promised.”
“Hm,” said Mr. Quilter. “Your problem, sir, is simple. You have good human values there in your story. Now we must round them out properly. And the solution is simple. We have two women in love with the hero, one highly sympathetic and the other less so; for the spectacle of a passée actress pursuing a new celebrity is not a pleasant one. This less sympathetic woman, to please the audience, must redeem herself with a gesture of self-immolation to secure the hero’s happiness with the heroine. Therefore, sir, let her confess to the robbery.”
“Confess to the... But Mr. Quilter, that makes a different story out of it. I’m trying to write as close as I can to what happened. And I promised—”
“Damme, sir, it’s obvious. She did steal the necklace herself. She hasn’t worked for years. She must need money. You mentioned insurance. The necklace was probably pawned long ago, and now she is trying to collect.”