She turned her head away from me suddenly. “I’m not going to listen to any more of your madness!”
“You don’t have any choice,” I said. “Tamara would have told you all about Willie Byers—what kind of a man he was—lonely, sex-starved, desperately wanting company. A man who went to art classes once a week—and a man who was making a diamond tiara that would be worth a fortune.
“So you dreamed up a lulu. The idea of winning herself a beauty contest by simple blackmail—and a contest run by Poolside, at that—would be irresistible to Louise. Then you suddenly got interested in art and met Byers at the academy. To become his mistress would be no problem. Talking him into making a fake tiara could have been—but a threat of walking out on him I guess was enough. You even posed nude while he painted a life-size portrait.” I laughed shortly. “I remember you proudly telling me that both you and Louise had identical vital statistics!
“You sold the tiara promotional gimmick to Machin, and with Elmo in the financial doldrums, as Tamara had told you, you knew it wouldn’t be hard for Machin to sell him on the idea. Louise jumped at the idea of switching the fake tiara for the real one while she was posing for the publicity photos, along with the other girls—so everything was fine.”
I took time out to light a cigarette. Patty still had her head averted, but every taut line of her body said she was listening with complete attention.
“About then, the trouble started, maybe?” I continued. “Louise had gotten herself a new boy friend—Marty Estell—and she told him about the deal. How she’d give you the real tiara as soon as she could after she’d made the switch—you’d give it back to Willie and he’d break up the setting, reshape the stones, and sell them that way. Only Marty nearly died laughing—why give it back to you and split fifty-fifty on the sale of the stones? Why not let Marty get rid of it and keep all the profit?—the hell with Patty and her boy friend. When did Louise tell you that, honey? Right after you’d given her the fake tiara ready to use? So you couldn’t stop her by tipping off the police, because she’d involve you and Willie along with herself?”
She turned her head suddenly and stared at me with a baleful glitter in her eyes. “Aren’t you forgetting one very important thing in all this crazy nonsense, Danny?” Her voice was diamond hard and modulated in a flat monotone. “Louise was Byers’ girl friend—not me!”
“Louise never met Byers in her whole life,” I snarled. “You registered at the art class as Louise. You were
Louise to poor' little Willie the whole time—when he painted that nude portrait, you were still Louise.”
A faintly superior smile showed on her face. “I don’t know how you can make sense out of all that, Danny, because I certainly can’t.”
“It’s not real hard—it only needs one cheap little trick, really, when you come to think about it.” I said evenly. “Something like a blonde wig!”
“Don’t be so ridiculous, Danny!” She laughed too loudly, while her eyes hated me with maybe the same kind of black, implacable hate she’d had for her sister.
“A beautiful setup from your point of view, honey,” I went on in a tired voice. “You’d established a whole separate life for Louise that she never knew existed. She thought Byers was your boy friend—he knew Louise Lamont was his girl friend, and partner in crime. So then, after the tiara was stolen, you could murder your sister and feel pretty sure that Byers would be the guy who went to the gas chamber for it. When you pretended to be worried about your sister you pointed me in Byers’ direction—you’d seen him so many times in Louise’s apartment, you said. Sure, you mentioned Marty Estell, too, so you weren’t too obvious—-but Willie was the vulnerable guy once anybody looked at him real close. That portrait on the wall, for example—that looked like Louise for sure. Then the art academy would have Louise’s name on the register.”
“You’re crazy, Danny!” she hissed. “You’re sick! Why do you hate me like this? Because I let you make love to me last night?—is that it? Just because you possessed me, now you have to destroy me?”
“I was thinking about Marty Estell on my way over,” I said, grinning bleakly. “Marty still hasn’t got the real tiara—or avenged Louise’s death. I don’t think a guy like Marty would blow town and quit so easily—I think he’s still right here in town, holed up someplace. Then I got to thinking what would be the safest place to hide for a guy like him? Where’s the one sure place nobody would ever dream of looking?”
“I’m not interested in Marty Estell right now,” she said quickly. “It’s all those lies you—”
“Honey,” I said softly. “I’d be real nervous if I were
you—about the chances of Marty finding out you not only killed Louise but conned him into killing Byers for you—and conned him out of that tiara at the same time!” “1 didn’t!” Her voice was suddenly shrill with fear. “1 didn’t do any of those things and you can’t—”
There was no sound, no rustling or even a murmur— only the voice, very close and almost talking directly into my ear.
“You wouldn’t do anything stupid, pal, like grabbing for your gun?” he said in a conversational tone.
I lifted my hands slowly in front of me until they were chest-high. “Not me, Marty,” I told him. “I wouldn’t be that stupid!”
“Yeah,” he said without any inflection.
He moved around in a slow semicircle to a spot about midway between where I was standing and Patty was sitting on the couch. The gaunt face looked as if it had somehow achieved the impossible in the last twenty-four hours and shrunk even more. The caved-in cheeks were a sickly gray color, and the flaming thatch of red hair looked obscenely alive in contrast, as if it were feeding on the body’s vitality and slowly but surely starving it to death.
“Marty!” Patty looked at him with glowing eyes. “I thought you were never coming out of the bedroom!” “What need?” The side of his face twitched violently. “Boyd’s been busy talking to me all the time and I could hear him real well in there.”
“He’s crazy!” she said contemptuously. “Just because I went to bed with him last night, he’s gone berserk!” “You live in a real dream world, baby,” he said slowly. “You really figure that’s a big deal with a guy like Boyd? —or me, even? With a dame like Louise now, maybe that was different—she could do things to a guy’s feelings somehow. She could set you on fire. One look from that baby and it was like somebody lit the fuse and the bomb went up. But—you?” He shook his head slowly. “You just don’t have it, baby, you never did. The body’s the same like Louise’s was.” He studied her dispassionately for a long moment. “Real good—nice and round, firm in the right places—but it’s what you’ve got inside that makes the difference. Right, Boyd?”
“Sure,” I agreed with him. “Last night I figured she could turn it on and off like a light switch, and when it was on, it was for real—but it wasn’t.”
Patty nearly choked with fury. “How dare you!” she whispered blindly. “How dare you talk about me like this! As if I was-—a—an animal!”
“It’s important, baby,” Marty said in the same flat voice. “Real important. That was the difference between you and Louise. She could get any guy she wanted, and real important guys, too—like this big wheel, Rutter. Even me—I’m quite a catch in my own way. But you had to settle for the leftovers, doll. The squeezed-out, tired old guys who’d take anything they could get and be grateful—guys like Byers, huh?”
She put her hands to her ears and pressed them tight against the sides of her head. “I won’t listen to any more,” she said in a stifled voice. “I don’t hear a word you’re saying!”