"They had found the dagger again, in the dressing-gown, where Aaronia had stuck it; and Joseph began suspecting that his wife was double-crossing him. When he caught her in the acting of turning on the dead-flower stuff so strong in Minnie's room that it knocked her completely out-put her so soundly asleep that a dozen ghosts couldn't have stirred her into action-he was sure of her treachery; and, up to his neck now, decided to kill _her_."
"His wife?" Fitzstephan asked.
"Yeah, but what difference does that make? It might as well have been anybody else for all the sense it makes. I hope you're not trying to keep this nonsense straight in your mind. You know damned well all this didn't happen."
"Then what," he asked, looking puzzled. "did happen?"
"I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. I'm telling you what I saw plus the part of what Aaronia Hahdorn told me which fits in with what I saw. To fit in with what I saw, most of it must have happened very nearly as I've told you. If you want to believe that it did, all right. I don't. I'd rather believe I saw things that weren't there."
"Not now," he pleaded. "Later, after you've finished the story, you can attach your ifs and buts to it, distorting and twisting it, making it as cloudy and confusing and generally hopeless as you like. But first please finish it, so I'll see it at least once in its original state before you start improving it."
"You actually believe what I've told you so far?" I asked.
He nodded, grinning, and said that he not only believed it but liked it.
"What a childish mind you've got," I said. "Let me tell you the story about the wolf that went to the little girl's grandmother's house and-"
"I always liked that one, too; but finish this one now. Joseph had decided to kill his wife."
"All right. There's not much more. While Minnie was being worked on, I popped into her room, intending to rouse her and send her for help. Before I did any rousing, I was needing some myself: I had a couple of lungfuls of the gas. The Finks must have turned the ghost loose on me, because Joseph was probably on his way downstairs with his wife at that time. He had faith enough in his divinity-shield, or he was nutty enough, to take her down and tie her on the altar before he carved her. Or maybe he had a way of fitting that stunt into his scheme, or maybe he simply had a liking for bloody theatricals. Anyway, he probably took her down there while I was up in Minnie's room going around and around with the ghost.
"The ghost had me sweating ink, and when I finally left him and tottered out into the corridor, the Finks jumped me. I say they did, and know it; but it was too dark for me to see them. I beat them off, got a gun, and went downstairs. Collinson and Gabrielle were gone from where I had left them. I found Collinson: Gabrielle had put him outside and shut the door on him. The Haldorns' son-a kid of thirteen or so-came to us with the news that Papa was about to kill Mama, and that Gabrielle was with them. I killed Hahdorn, but I almost didn't. I put seven bullets in him. Hard-coated .32's go in clean, without much of a thump, true enough; but I put seven of them in him-in his face and body-standing close and firing pointblank-and he didn't even know it. That's how completely he had himself hypnotized. I finally got him down by driving the dagger through his neck."
I stopped. Fitzstephan asked: "Well?"
"Well what?"
"What happened after that?"
"Nothing," I said. "That's the kind of a story it is. I warned you there was no sense to it."
"But what was Gabrielle doing there?"
"Crouching beside the altar, looking up at the pretty spotlight."
"But why was she there? What was her reason for being there? Had she been called there again? Or was she there of her own free will? How did she come to be there? What was she there for?"
"I don't know. She didn't know. I asked her. She didn't know she was there."
"But surely you could learn something from the others?"
"Yeah," I said; "what I've told you, chiefly from Aaronia Haldorn. She and her husband ran a cult, and he went crazy and began murdering people, and how could she help it? Fink won't talk. He's a mechanic, yes; and he put in his trick-machinery for the Haldorns and operated it; but he doesn't know what happened last night. He heard a lot of noises, but it was none of his business to go poking his nose out to see what it was: the first he knew anything was wrong was when some police came and started giving him hell. Mrs. Fink's gone. The other employes probably don't really know anything, though it's a gut they could make some good guesses. Manuel, the little boy, is too frightened to talk-and will be sure to know nothing when he gets over his fright. What we're up against is this: if Joseph went crazy and committed some murders on his own hook, the others, even though they unknowingly helped him, are in the clear. The worst any of them can draw is a light sentence for taking part in the cult swindle. But if any of them admits knowing anything, then he lets himself in for trouble as an accomplice in the murder. Nobody's likely to do that."
"I see," Fitzstephan said slowly. "Joseph is dead, so Joseph did everything. How will you get around that?"
"I won't," I said; "though the police will at least try to. My end's done, so Madison Andrews told me a couple of hours ago."
"But if, as you say, you aren't satisfied that you've learned the whole truth of the affair, I should think you-"
"It's not me," I said. "There's a lot I'd like to do yet, but I was hired, this time, by Andrews, to guard her while she was in the Temple. She isn't there now, and Andrews doesn't think there's anything further to be learned about what happened there. And, as far as guarding her is necessary, her husband ought to be able to do that."
"Her what?"
"Husband."
Fitzstephan thumped his stein down on the table so that beer sloshed over the sides.
"Now there you are," he said accusingly. "You didn't tell me anything about that. God only knows how much else there is that you've not told me."
"Collinson took advantage of the confusion to carry her off to Reno, where they won't have to wait the Californian three days for their license. I didn't know they'd gone till Andrews jumped on my neck three or four hours later. He was kind of unpleasant about it, which is one of the ways we came to stop being client and operative."
"I didn't know he was opposed to Collinson as a husband for her."
"I don't know that he is, but he didn't think this the time, nor that the way, for their wedding."
"I can understand that," he said as we got up from the table. "Andrews likes to have his way in most things."
Part Three: Quesada
XIII.The Cliff Road
Eric Collinson wired me from Quesada:
COME IMMEDIATELY STOP NEED YOU STOP TROUBLE DANGER STOP
MEET ME AT SUNSET HOTEL STOP DO NOT COMMUNICATE STOP
GABRIELLE MUST NOT KNOW STOP HURRY
ERIC CARTER
The telegram came to the agency on Friday morning.
I wasn't in San Francisco that morning. I was up in Martinez dickering with a divorced wife of Phil Leach, alias a lot of names. We wanted him for spreading reams of orphan paper through the Northwest, and we wanted him badly. This ex-wife-a sweet-looking little blonde telephone operator-had a fairly recent photograph of Phil, and was willing to sell it.
"He never thought enough of me to risk passing any bum checks so I could have things," she complained. "I had to bring in my own share of the nut. So why shouldn't I make something out of him now, when I guess some tramp's getting plenty? Now how much will you give for it?"