"Yes," I said.
"And she told you the truth; she doesn't have enough sense to do anything else. Do you see the spot I was in? I was desperate for money, and she fell right into my lap, waiting to be used. And when I'd used her I didn't dare get rid of her. I couldn't separate from a woman I was supposed to be madly in love with. I knew she'd talk if she ever got out from under my thumb."
"And do you see the spot I was in, Pat?" said Madeline, quietly.
"As a matter of fact," I said, "I'm not particularly interested."
Doc grinned and then his expression changed, and he shook his head. "Don't think too hard of her. She doesn't deserve it. We all make mistakes, and we all pay for them. You were only eighteen when you robbed a bank. Madeline was only eighteen when she came here to Capital City."
"I know," I said. "She's a very loyal little woman."
"Very, Pat. To herself, as well as me. We've been husband and wife in name only. She's worked for the money I've given her."
"Would that work include murder?"
"Eggleston's, you mean?" He shook his head calmly. "She had nothing to do with that. He found out about our marriage and demanded money from her, and I went to make the pay-off. She didn't know I was going to kill him. I didn't either. I didn't even know who'd hired him or whether he was working on his own. I didn't have to talk with him very long, however, to realize that he couldn't be trusted. That left me only one thing to do."
I nodded. That took me off the hook for the murder. Now, to wrap up the rest of it.
Doc glanced at the hall door casually, then back at me. And there was that peculiar look in his eyes again: The one I'd seen back at the house, when Lila had left the room.
"There's one thing I don't understand, Doc," I said. "Why didn't you go through with this Fanning Arnholt deal? Why did you set it all up and then blow it to pieces?"
"That's what I'd like to know!" snapped Hardesty. "I'm just lucky that there's nothing that can be pinned on me."
"Well-" Doc hesitated, grinning faintly, "why don't you make a guess, Pat?"
"I can think of a couple of reasons," I said. "One is that you were trying to get a few marks on the credit side of the ledger. After what happened tonight this state's going to be as clean as a whistle."
"Yes?"
"I think that's what you thought you were doing," I said. "What you persuaded yourself you were doing. Actually, I think you had another motive. You'd got all you could. You intended to make sure that nothing would be left for anyone else."
Doc's fingers tightened on the package he was unwrapping. He stared down at it, blindly, and then he went on picking at the string. He didn't say anything.
Hardesty scowled at him angrily.
"Well, by God!" he said. And then he raised his shoulders in a shrug of helplessness. "Pat, I'm sorry but-"
"I'm talking to Doc," I said. "Let's see if I've got things straight. You'd been wanting to break loose for a longtime, Doc. You knew that the next election was going to force you to. You needed to make one last big killing, and when you got my letter from Sandstone you saw a way of doing it with Madeline's and Hardesty's help. You insured yourself heavily in Madeline's-your wife's-favor, you got me out. To kill you, ostensibly, after a quarrel. Actually, of course, you won't get killed. It'll be made to look like! killed you and dumped you in the river where no one could find you. But it won't be that way. You'll clear out and go into hiding, and Hardesty will push the insurance claims through for Madeline. And after a year or so, when it's absolutely safe, she'll join you. Is that what you planned?"
"That," said Doc, "is what I'm going to do. Incidentally, Pat-"
"What about Lila?"
"Well, what about her? My wife wouldn't live with me, but she insisted on the protection of insurance. That's the story."
"It looks to me like the insurance companies will claim fraud. No company would knowingly insure a man with such potentially dangerous living arrangements."
"Correct," Doc nodded. "Too bad they didn't look into the matter more closely. As it is, they've accepted my premiums and Madeline's down as the beneficiary. It's a binding contract and they'll have to pay."
"I see," I said. "How much are you going to have to live on the rest of your life? How much insurance have you got?"
"Well"-he hesitated for a second-"I guess there's no reason why! shouldn't tell you. Ten policies for ten thousand each. It'll come to a hundred thousand, double indemnity."
"What's Hardesty's share?"
"Sixty-five thousand, roughly. A third."
I shook my head. I couldn't think of anything to say for a moment. It seemed to me that everything had been said that needed to be, and it was time for Myrtle to-
"By the way, Pat. As I started to mention a moment ago…"
"Yes?" I said.
"It was a nice try-but I'm afraid Myrtle isn't going to be with us. I checked on her whereabouts just before our little soiree at the house. She's out of town."
29
I swallowed, and my Adam's apple stuck in my throat. And I think I must have looked as sick as I felt.
Doc grinned sympathetically. "You weren't going to tell me that you tipped off the police? They'd grab you on that Eggleston rap, and before you could get clear of it-"
"No," I said, "I didn't go to the police. I was just going to say that-that-How can you do it, Doc? You're sentencing me to death! Doesn't that bother you?"
"I suppose it should," said Doc. "But, no, it doesn't. Not much, Pat. You'd have died in Sandstone if I hadn't got you out. This way, at least, you have had a little fling."
"That car Lila bought for me doesn't really mean anything?" I said. "I'm going to be allowed to get away?"
"I'm afraid not, Pat. Not finding my body is one thing. Not finding the man who is supposed to have killed me is another. It would be more than would be swallowed comfortably. You'll have to be caught, I'm afraid, somewhere near the spot of our nominally fatal quarrel."
"And you don't see any danger in my being caught?"
"You mean you'll talk?" He smiled faintly, shucking a pair of socks out of a paper bag. "Who's going to believe a fantastic story such as you'll have to tell when all the evidence points to murder?"
"It isn't going to work, Doc," I said.
"Oh, it'll work all right, Pat," he grinned. "It's just improbable enough to seem completely plausible. You're the best evidence of that yourself. You've had the puzzle in front of you for weeks yet you never arrived at the motive for my getting you out of Sandstone."
"That isn't what I meant," I said. "I'm talking about the insurance companies. They're not going to make settlement on those policies."
"They wouldn't, ordinarily," he nodded. "They wouldn't pay a death claim without positive proof of death-a body, in other words. But where the evidence is so clear cut-well…"
"What makes you so sure of that?" I said.
"Our friend, Hardesty, here." Doc perked his head. "One of our leading legal lights, regardless of what you may think of him on other grounds. Hardesty says they'll have to pay. If he says so, they will."