“I don’t mind contributing.”
His face was tortured, and his eyes full of tears. “I can’t take your money. If I did I’d have to tear up your confession, and I swear that stays with me till I die — or you do.”
He looked at the envelope, put it in his pocket. Then, a blank look on his face, he pulled out the other envelope, the one Dmitri had given him. Identifying it after a moment, he said: “This came for you. Spiro didn’t give it to you because — well, I guess you can guess why.”
He laid the envelope in her lap. It was Vicki’s Baltic handwriting that did what nothing else had yet done: it brought a torrent of tears. She said: “I can’t face it... I’ve had all I can stand today! I—”
He went over, picked up the letter, walked with it to the fireplace, dropped it on the flames. Then, his shoulders shaking, he stumbled out of the room.
Chapter Ten
At nine, Mr. Flynn closed the Domino down, and for the next hour quite an assortment of people assembled there. More and more officers showed up, until there were a dozen or more. Most of them brought evidential exhibits of one kind and another, which they left with Mr. Flynn in the office, so the desk was piled high with envelopes of various sizes, all neatly labeled. Then there were the correspondents. Some of them had arrived on the afternoon plane, some by train, some by car, but there were a score or more of them. They were reinforced by several local people who corresponded for picture publications, and who got about one item like this a year and made the most of it. Then there were reporters from the local papers, with their photographers. Then there was Mr. Britten, who sat apart and had little to say to his men. Then there was Mr. Pease, the county prosecutor, who did not as a rule attend inquests, believing that his presence embarrassed the coroner, but who had made an exception of tonight, possibly because of the opportunity that would be presented to shake hands with a prominent actress. Tony, with worried, abstracted politeness, found seats for alclass="underline" big crowds, after all, were not a new event in his life.
Dmitri arrived around a quarter to ten, with Mr. La Bouche, but not with Benny. Almost on his heels came Mr. Layton, with Mr. Gans and another man who looked like a lawyer. He was a new Mr. Layton, one who had expanded and put on fifty pounds of weight since the afternoon, a commanding, calm figure of a man who dominated his two companions as a general dominates his aides, and waived them to seats with that kindly thoughtfulness that does not owe courtesy but graciously bestows it. Then he went to a corner and beckoned Dmitri over. When Mr. La Bouche came too, he smilingly shook his head, and Mr. La Bouche retired. Dmitri, however, had changed since the afternoon himself. He had stiffened, and reverted to his usual lofty peevishness. He said: “What you want?” in a bellicose way, and then, without waiting for Mr. Layton to speak, added querulously: “Plizze, plizze, my time is waluable.”
Mr. Layton said: “What’s cooking?”
“What do you mean, cooking?”
“Was that a suicide note in that box today?”
“I don’t know. The Sharf took it. You’ll have to ask him.”
“You see Ethel?”
“What were you doing, trying to kid me? Hinting around that she knew something? She’s just a pretty girl that wants little job in pictures. So, I’ve given her a job. Tomorrow she goes to Hollywood, and tonight she won’t come here. So plizze, am busy man.”
“Getting tough, hey?”
“Not tough, only busy.”
“She didn’t like it, how you treated her.”
“What did you say?”
“She thought three grand wasn’t much for what she knew. She thought considering how much it’s worth to you, you didn’t take that liberal, friendly attitude she’d been hoping for. She thought you acted in quite a tightwad way, and she’s hurt.”
“How do you know what she thought?”
“That’s not her with Benny.”
“What? They went to the picture show. He called me—”
“That’s her girl friend. Right now, she’s having a ride in my car. She likes my car. She likes me. And she’ll be right where I want her when the time comes. However, since you’re busy—”
“What do you want, ha?”
“I asked you something.”
“You mean this note?”
“Yeah. Start talking.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a suicide note. The Sharf, he didn’t open the note, when I gave it to him. He took it to give Sylwia, but it should be suicide note.”
“Fellow, it better be a suicide note.”
“Plizze, plizze. It will be.”
“If you had your policies here, so accidentally on purpose they could get burned, it would end my interest in the case. But since you haven’t, and the verdict at tonight’s inquest is going to determine my liability, I don’t take chances. I’m telling: it better be a suicide note.”
“Plizze. Wait only.”
“Then O. K.”
Mr. Layton returned to Mr. Gans and the lawyer. Dmitri went over and stood looking unhappily into a juke-box. Mr. Pease, the prosecutor, drifted over to Mr. Britten. “Cy, did you notice something just now?”
“Not particularly.”
“An objectionable party by the name of Layton was in my office this afternoon, representing an insurance company. He wanted a special autopsy and all but demanded I charge Sylvia Shoreham with murder. Now he just went into a huddle with Dmitri Spiro. You know, these insurance companies go too far. I wouldn’t ask much to rap that bird over the knuckles for obstructing justice.”
“He was in to see me too.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I had him followed.”
“...What for?”
“Just a hunch. He had another talk with Spiro, before this one. Out here at the Domino, for a half hour this afternoon. But before that he met a girl that deals blackjack out here, and then later, after he met his boss at the plane and they got a lawyer over to the hotel, he met the girl again, and they went up to his apartment, and you’ll notice she’s not here.”
“What are you getting at, Cy?”
“Something funny about this case.”
“You don’t mean it’s my case?”
“You heard about the sister?”
“I didn’t attach much importance to her.”
“They found her. Dead.”
“What?”
“Couple of hours ago.”
“Say, I think I’ll stick around.”
Sylvia arrived on the stroke of ten, a fur coat over her black dress, a small black hat with veil giving her face a wan, pale look. With her was Mr. Daly, the lawyer who had obtained her divorce. The Sheriff, who had been in the office with Mr. Flynn, the undertaker, and a deputy now came out. It was the deputy’s question to the undertaker about shipment of the Shoreham body that informed the correspondents of the second fatality in the case, and at once they crowded around him, asking questions. He put up his hand: “I don’t know any more than you do. Shoreham’s been to the mortuary and made formal identification of both bodies. Now the Coroner’s bringing his jury out here for the inquest. Don’t get excited and soon you’ll know all that anybody knows.”
As he spoke the Coroner arrived, with another deputy shepherding the jury, six unhappy-looking wretches, four men and two women, all middle-aged except one of the men, who looked like a young law student. On their heels came the interne who had responded to the first call and the two orderlies who had come with him, all looking like members of the high school football team. A dozen other men arrived. The Coroner at once took the jury and a number of others into the office, where Mr. Flynn pointed to the spot where the body had been found. The Coroner was evidently hurrying, for he bowed once or twice, in an apologetic sort of way, to Sylvia, and kept saying to his jury: “Just so you get the picture, that’s all. We’ll put it all in evidence in the regular way, under oath when we examine witnesses, but it’ll save time if you look the place over and get it all clear in your minds.”