She tried to keep up conversation, but there was no spontaneity to her words. The radiant personality which emanated from her so powerfully it could be caught by the camera and transferred to the screen had vanished.
At length, when the dessert had been finished and the butler served a liqueur, she raised her eyes to Selby and said with lips which seemed to be on the verge of trembling, “Go ahead.”
“What perfume did you use on Monday, the old or the new?”
“The old,” she said.
“Precisely what,” he asked her, shooting one question at her when she expected another, “is your hold on George Cushing?”
She remained smiling, but her nostrils slightly dilated. She was breathing heavily. “I didn’t know that I had any hold on him,” she said.
“Yes, you did,” Selby told her. “You have a hold on him and you use it. You go to Madison City and he protects your incognito.”
“Wouldn’t any wise hotel manager do that same thing?”
“I know Cushing,” Selby said. “I know there’s some reason for what he does.”
“All right,” she said wearily, “I have a hold on him. And the perfume which you smelled on the five thousand dollars was the perfume which I used. And Cushing telephoned to me in Los Angeles to warn me that you were suspicious; that you’d found out I’d been at the hotel; that you thought the five thousand-dollar bills had been given to Larrabie by me. So what?”
For a moment Selby thought she was going to faint. She swayed in her chair. Her head drooped forward.
“Shirley!” he exclaimed, unconscious that he was using her first name.
His hand had just touched her shoulder when a pane of glass in the French window shattered. A voice called, “Selby! Look here!”
He looked up to see a vague shadowy figure standing outside the door. He caught a glimpse of something which glittered, and then, a blinding flash dazzled his eyes. Involuntarily, he blinked and, when he opened his eyes, it seemed that the illumination in the room was merely a half darkness; The twin spots of rose-colored light marking the rose-shaded table lamps was the only illumination which could register on the seared retina of his eyes.
He closed his eyes, rubbed them. Gradually, the details of the room swam back into his field of vision. He saw Shirley Arden, her arms on the table, her head drooped forward on her arm. He saw the shattered glass of the windowpane, the dark outline of the French doors.
Selby ran to the French door, jerked it open. His eyes, rapidly regaining their ability to see, strained themselves into the half darkness.
He saw the outlines of the huge house, stretching in the form of an open “U” around the patio, the swimming pool with its colored lights, the fountain which splashed water down into a basin filled with water lilies, porch swings, tables shaded by umbrellas, reclining chairs — but he saw no sign of motion.
From the street, Selby heard the quick rasp of a starting motor, the roar of an automobile engine, and then the snarling sound of tires as the car shot away into the night.
Selby turned back toward the room. Shirley Arden was as he had left her. He went toward her, placed a hand on her shoulder. Her flesh quivered beneath his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “it’s just one of those things. But you’ll have to go through with it now.”
He heard the pound of heavy, masculine steps, heard the excited voice of the butler, then the door of the den burst open and Ben Trask, his face twisting with emotion, stood glaring on the threshold.
“You cheap shyster!” he said. “You damned publicity-courting, double-crossing...”
Selby straightened, came toward him.
“Who the devil are you talking to?” he asked.
“You!”
Shirley Arden was on her feet with a quick, panther-like motion. She dashed between the two men, pushed against Trash’s chest with her hands. “No, no, Ben!” she exclaimed. “Stop it! You don’t understand. Can’t you see...?”
“The devil I don’t understand,” he said. “I understand everything.”
“I told him,” she said. “I had to tell him.”
“Told him what?”
“Told him about Cushing, about...”
“Shut up, you little fool.”
Selby, stepping ominously forward, said, “Just a minute, Trask. While you may not realize it, this visit is in my official capacity and...”
“You and your official capacity both be damned!” Trask told him. “You deliberately engineered a cheap publicity stunt. You wanted to drag Shirley Arden into that hick town murder inquiry of yours so you’d get plenty of publicity. You deliberately imposed on her to set the stage, and then you arranged to have one of your local news-hounds come on down to take a flashlight.
“Can’t you see it, Shirley?” Trask pleaded. “He’s double-crossed you. He’s...”
Selby heard his voice with cold fury, “You, Trask, are a damned liar.”
Trask pushed Shirley Arden away from, him with no more effort than if she had been some gossamer figure without weight or substance.
He was a big, powerful man, yet he moved with the swiftness of a heavyweight pugilist and, despite his rage, his advance was technically correct — left foot forward, right foot behind, fists doubled, right arm across his stomach, left elbow close to the body.
Something in the very nature of the man’s posture warned Selby what to expect. He was dealing with a trained fighter.
Trask’s fist lashed out in a swift, piston-like blow for Selby’s jaw.
Selby remembered the days when he had won the conference boxing championship for his college. Automatically his rage chilled until it became a cold, deadly, driving purpose. He moved with swift machine-like efficiency, pivoting his body away from the blow, and, at the same time, pushing out with his left hand just enough to catch Trask’s arm, throw Trask off balance and send the fist sliding over his shoulder.
Trask’s face twisted with surprise. He swung his right up in a vicious uppercut, but Selby, with the added advantage of being perfectly balanced, his weight shifted so that his powerful body muscles could be brought into play, smashed over a terrific right.
His primitive instincts were to slam his fist for Trask’s face, just as a person yielding to a blind rage wants to throw caution to the winds, neglect to guard, concentrate only on battering the face of his opponent. But Selby’s boxing training was controlling his mind. His right shot out straight for Trask’s solar-plexus.
He felt his fist strike the soft, yielding torso, saw Trask bend forward and groan.
From the corner of his eye, Selby was conscious of Shirley Arden, her rigid forefinger pressed against the electric pushbutton which would summon the butler.
Trask staggered to one side, lashed out with a right which grazed the point of Selby’s jaw, throwing him momentarily off balance.
He heard Shirley Arden’s voice screaming, “Stop it, stop it! Both of you! Stop it! Do you hear?”
Selby sidestepped another blow, saw that Trask’s face was gray with pain, saw a rush of motion as the broad-shouldered butler came running into the room, saw Shirley Arden’s outstretched forefinger pointing at Trask. “Take him, Jarvis,” she said.
The big butler hardly changed his stride. He went forward into a football tackle.
Trask, swinging a terrific left, was caught around the waist and went down like a tenpin. A chair crashed into splintered kindling beneath the impact of the two men.
Selby was conscious of Shirley Arden’s blazing eyes.
“Go!” she commanded.
The butler scrambled to his feet. Trask dropped to the floor, his hands pressed against his stomach, his face utterly void of color.
“Just a minute,” Selby said to the actress, conscious that he was breathing heavily, “You have some questions to answer.”