They didn't know, as I did, that Doc wasn't going to be around to face the music.
At last, only Hardesty and Doc remained, and Doc took Hardesty by the arm and urged him toward the door. Hardesty hung back.
"I think I'd better have a little talk with Pat. Let him know how things stand."
"Later," said Doc, not looking at me. "Not now."
"I really think-"
"I don't give a damn what you think," said Doc. "I'll do the explaining when the time comes for it. Right now I want to get away from here."
Hardesty suddenly remembered something.
"You blew this Arnholt deal, didn't you? What the hell was the idea?"
"I'll explain about that, too," said Doc. "Now, come on. We're liable to have some callers as soon as that crowd starts telephoning. We can't afford to get tied up here."
"What about him?"
"He'll keep," said Doc, and he literally dragged Hardesty through the door and slammed it.
I fixed myself a drink and sat down on the bed. Faintly, I heard the last of the cars pulling away from the front of the house. Clearly, a few minutes later, I heard the smooth purr of Doc's sedan as it rolled out the driveway.
I finished my drink and lay back on the bed. I felt very comfortable, relaxed, for the first time since I'd left Sandstone. I'd told Lila to beat it as soon as she made the telephone call. There was nothing to do now but take things easy.
I lay thinking, grinning a little when I thought of the surprise that Doc and Hardesty were in for. And then I thought of Madeline and my grin went away. Regardless of what she'd done, I couldn't take any pleasure in what was going to happen to her.
I let my mind wander, wish-thinking, wondering if I could be wrong about her… After all, she had suggested that I go to Myrtle Briscoe and lay my cards on the table. She hadn't insisted on it; but how could she when I, obviously, was as I was: ready to do anything that would keep me out of Sandstone. She could be working with Myrtle. She could be-and her actions with Hardesty didn't prove that she wasn't. She'd have had to lead him on. She couldn't let me beat the truth out of him, perhaps even kill him. She…
Oh, hell. How crazy could a guy get? She'd been working in Doc's dirty racket for years, and it was an easy step from that to-But she might not have known what she was getting into. Doc would have pulled her into it a little at a time, until she was in over her head.
I cursed and sat up. Things didn't happen that way. They never had, so why should they begin now? My whole life had been fouled up. The best I could hope for now was to keep my parole. She was as rotten and crooked as the rest of them, and she'd have to suffer with the rest. But-
I wished I could stop thinking about her.
Almost twenty minutes had passed when Willie tapped on the door and came in with the telephone.
He plugged it into the wall by the bed, and handed it to me. He went out as quietly as he had come in, and I spoke into the mouthpiece. I spoke and listened.
"All right, Doc," I said. "I'll be right over."
I hung up the phone and took a last long look around the room. Then, I got my car out of the garage and drove straight to Madeline's place.
I parked my car behind Doc's and went silently up the stairs. I listened at the door to the bedroom, and then I moved over to the other one.
"It doesn't make sense," Hardesty was saying, angrily. "Our end of the deal was worth twenty-five grand, and we could have wound it up in a couple weeks. I don't see why the hell-"
"All right," Doc's voice cut in. "We make that killing-the last one we could possibly make-and then I do my fade-out. How does that look?"
"The same way it looked in the beginning," said Hardesty. "That's the way we planned it. If you didn't like it, why didn't you say something then?"
"Things have changed since then," said Doc. "The police are looking for Pat or will be shortly. We had to wind up the deal tonight."
"But you intended to wind it up tonight before they ever started looking for Cosgrove," said Hardesty. "Why didn't you tell Madeline and me?"
"I had reasons."
"Oh, hell," said Hardesty, disgustedly.
"I don't get you," said Doc, slowly. "I'd have had two or three weeks' overhead to pay; that's not peanuts. I'd have had to pay several grand in past due bills that I've been stalling. All that would have had to come out of our end. You wouldn't have had more than five or six g's for your cut. What's five or six grand to you, especially when you stand to pick up a clear five?"
"I just don't like it," said Hardesty.
"I can see you don't. But I wonder why."
"Forget it," said Hardesty. "Just forget the whole damned thing."
There was silence then. I raised my fist and knocked.
"Pat?" It was Madeline.
"Yes," I said.
"Come in."
I went in and closed the door.
Hardesty and Madeline were seated on the lounge. She was wearing a nightgown under a blue woolly robe, and her hair had been hastily piled up and pinned on top of her head. She looked like a child, suddenly roused out of a deep sleep, and she gave me a child's questioning but trustful smile. I looked away from her to Doc.
He'd changed clothes, and he was taking more articles of clothing from a pile of bags and packages and putting them into a suitcase which stood on a chair in front of him. He smiled at me, narrow eyed, and jerked his head at Madeline.
"I don't believe you two have met formally," he said. "Mr. Cosgrove-Mrs. Luther."
28
Madeline flirted a hand at me. "'Lo, Mr. Cosgrove," she said in a weak voice.
I nodded to her, dropping into a chair. "How do you do, Mrs. Luther," I said.
"Well," said Doc, with a note of reproof. "You don't seem particularly surprised, Pat."
"I'm not," I said. "I'm only surprised that I didn't see it a long time ago."
"Oh?"
"Yes," I said. "You gave me a tip at the outset, that morning I bought my clothes. You'd been having an argument with Hardesty, and you told him to keep away from your wife. You wanted to be sure of what I'd overheard-whether you'd mentioned Madeline by name."
"I remember," said Doc, shooting an unpleasant glance at Hardesty. "I remember very well, now that you mention it."
"Then there was the matter of the baby," I said. "I didn't believe you'd invented the story. I was sure that your wife had had a baby. Well, I'd seen Lila at pretty close range, thanks to you, and I knew she couldn't have had a baby. So…"
I didn't tell him the rest; that I'd seen the striae-the marks made by giving birth-on Madeline's body. I wanted to talk about murder, to have him and Hardesty talk about it. With Myrtle Briscoe and her boys listening in.
Hardesty let out an impatient snort.
"For God's sake, Doc," he said, "are we going to sit around here talking all night?"
"There's no hurry," said Doc. "Pat's got a right to some answers. He's entitled to know where he stands… Pat, I believe you talked to Lila tonight?"