I dialed a number and then I pushed the receiver hook down with my elbow so that the call didn’t register and then I let the hook up again. I was turning my body to watch Boehme when I clicked the hook — she didn’t see it. She was standing by the table in the middle of the room, staring at me and looking pretty scared.
When I’d waited long enough for somebody to have answered I said: “Hello, Chief. This is Red. I’m out at the Steinlen house — I’ve got Boehme and it all happened the way we’d figured... Mrs Steinlen flew back from Phoenix last night. She’d had some kind of steer that Steinlen was cheating so she didn’t let him know she was coming — she thought she might walk in on something. She did — she walked in on the telephone call from Mae Jackman and listened in on the phone downstairs. She got Mae’s address from that and sneaked back out and jumped in her car and went over there... Sure — she killed Mae...”
I was guessing, watching Boehme. She’d turned a very nice shade of Nile green; she was leaning against the table and her eyes looked like the eyes of a blind woman.
I went on, into the phone: “Steinlen didn’t know anything about it — he went over and waited for Mae on the corner of Rosewood and Larchmont and she didn’t show so he came home about four. Mrs Steinlen hid out someplace — probably with a friend or at a trick hotel where she wouldn’t be recognized — Steinlen didn’t even know she was back from location till this afternoon. Then she went to the studio and either scared Steinlen into his number or killed him herself and made it look like suicide — and I’ll lay six, two, and even she did it herself... Uh-huh — a nice quiet girl...”
Boehme straightened up and turned slowly and started for the door.
I raised my head from the phone and said: “Wait a minute, baby.” I took Tony’s gun out of my pocket and held it on my lap.
Boehme stopped and turned and stared at the gun a minute without expression. Then she swayed a little and sank down to her knees, leaned forward and put her hands on the floor. I put the phone down and stood up and took two or three steps towards Boehme.
A woman’s voice said: “You’re a very smart man, aren’t you?” The voice was very soft, with a faint metallic quality underneath, like thin silk tearing.
Boehme toppled over sidewise and lay still.
I turned my head slowly and looked at the doorway on my left. There was a woman there in the semidarkness of the hallway. As I looked at her she came forward into a little light; she was a very beautiful woman with soft golden hair caught into a big knot at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were large, heavily shadowed; her mouth was very red, very sharply cut. She wore a close-fitting light blue negligee and she held a heavy nickel-plated revolver very steadily in her right hand, its muzzle focused squarely on my stomach.
I was holding Tony’s automatic down at my side and I didn’t know whether Mrs Steinlen had seen it or not until she said, still in that gentle, unexcited voice: “Put the gun on the table.”
She still moved towards me slowly; she was no more than six or seven feet from me. I looked at her without turning my body towards her or moving; I didn’t know whether to make a stab at using the gun or to put it on the table. She was in the full light of one of the floor lamps now and there was an expression in her eyes — the hard glitter of ice — that made me figure I’d lose either way.
I took two steps forward so that I could reach the table, but I didn’t put the gun down. I held it down stiff at my side and looked at her and tried to calculate my chances.
She said: “It is too bad so smart a man must die.”
She circled slowly until she was on the other side of the table; we were facing each other squarely across the table.
Then a shadow came silently out of the dark hallway behind her — the hallway that led to the kitchen. Tony moved towards her slowly; he walked like a somnambulist with his arms outstretched; his eyes were glazed, fixed in a blank, meaningless stare on the back of her head.
She raised the revolver slowly and I saw the muscles of her hand tense a little. I think she felt there was someone behind her but she did not trust her feeling enough; she raised the revolver and stared at me with cold, glittering eyes.
Then one of Tony’s arms went around her white throat and his other arm went smoothly, swiftly out along her arm, his hand grasped her hand and the revolver. They moved like one thing. It was like watching the complex, terribly efficient working of a deadly machine; Tony twisted her arm back slowly, steadily, his arm tightened around her throat slowly, Her eyes widened, the white transparent skin of her face grew dark.
Then suddenly the muzzle of the revolver stopped at her temple and I saw Tony’s finger tighten on the trigger. I moved towards them as swiftly as I could around the table and there was a sharp choked roar and I stopped suddenly. Tony released her slowly and she fell forward with the upper half of her body on the table, slid slowly off the table down on to the floor; the revolver with her fingers tightened spasmodically around its butt banged against one of the table legs.
I did not move for several seconds; I stood staring at Tony. He was standing with his legs widespread, looking into space, looking at some place a million miles away. Then, slowly, expression came into his eyes — a curious, almost tender expression. He glanced down at the woman at his feet and smiled a little. She was lying on her back and the small black spot on her temple grew slowly larger.
Tony smiled again and said very softly: “That is for Mae, my beautiful lady.”
I went to him very swiftly. I said: “How the hell did you get out here?”
He did not answer; he stood smiling a little, looking down at the dead woman. I shook his shoulder. He raised his smile to me, said: “I have been following you all day. I saw you from the window, from that girl’s room when you went to the Derby. I went down and got in my car and waited until you came out and followed you to the studio. I have been following you all afternoon — I knew finally you would take me to the one who killed Mae...”
I jerked my head towards the kitchen, asked: “Did the Negro girl see you come in?”
He shook his head. He said: “A woman came out and went upstairs above the garage right after you came in. Maybe that was her — maybe she lives there.” I shoved his gun into his hands. I said: “Get out of here — quick.” He shook his head, shrugged, gestured with one hand towards the woman on the floor.
I repeated: “Get out — quick.” I put my hands on his shoulders and shoved him towards the hallway.
He turned his head and stared at me in a puzzled sort of way with his lips pursed. Then he shrugged again and went slowly to the hallway and disappeared into its darkness.
I sat down and called the Post; after a minute or so I got Scheyer. I said: “Here’s your scoop. Sheila Dale murdered Mae Jackman. I think she murdered Steinlen, too, or at least she bullied him into killing himself — we can check on that. She shot herself about two minutes ago — very dead. I saw her do it but I couldn’t stop her. Tell your boss to hold the presses for an extra and grab a load of law and get out here to Steinlen’s. I’ll give you the details when you get here.”
I hung up and went over and looked Mrs Steinlen over pretty carefully to be sure there weren’t any marks on her throat or any chance of Tony’s prints being on the revolver. Then I went out to the kitchen and got a glass of water to see what I could do about snapping Boehme out of the swoon.
The Negress came in from outside while I was getting the water. Her eyes were big as banjos. She said: “Didn’t ah heah a shot, Mistah?”
I told her she had, that Mrs Steinlen had shot herself. Her eyes got bigger.
“Daid?” I said: “Daid.”