“Better not tell him about Zimmerman. You know what your father is. If it doesn’t come off, he’ll get disagreeable again.”
“No, he won’t,” Val said quickly. “But I needn’t tell him if you don’t want me to.”
“Better not.” He looked at her, his eyes probing. “How are we off for money? I suppose we can afford this operation? This chap charges the earth.”
“We are quite all right for money.”
He hesitated, looking away from her, then he said, “But this blackmailer?”
Val hesitated, then aware of the tension from her husband, she decided to tell him the truth.
“I’m not paying him.”
Chris stiffened. His hands suddenly turned into fists. The twitch around his mouth became more pronounced.
“Is that wise? You said you were going to pay him.”
“Yes, but I changed my mind. I talked to him again and I decided he was bluffing.”
He moved uneasily.
“This could be serious. If I have this operation and I am cured, I don’t want to be arrested just when I’m starting a new life.”
“Why should you be arrested?”
He again hesitated, then said, “This blackmailer could turn spiteful. I think we should pay him.”
“But it doesn’t matter if he does turn spiteful. You haven’t done anything, Chris, so why should we worry?”
He put his hand to his face to hide the twitching.
“I can’t remember what happened on that night I could have done something.” He paused, frowning uneasily, then went on, “I get a vague idea sometimes that I did do something.”
Val drew in a deep breath. It was some moments before she could control the shake in her voice to ask, “You remember the woman and the elephants?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’ve been thinking about her. I wondered if she wore a bracelet with miniature elephants on it and that was why you associated elephants with her.”
He looked startled, then he slapped his knee.
“That’s clever of you. I remember now. Yes, she did wear a bracelet with elephants on it.”
“Did she remind you of a Pekinese dog?”
He stared at her, his eyes narrowing.
“Is she the one who is blackmailing us?”
“No. The other day I saw a girl in the hotel restaurant. She wore this bracelet. She was attractive. She had one of those squashed, attractive puggy faces.”
Chris rubbed his face with his hand. He thought for some moments, frowning.
Finally, he said, “Yes, so did this girl. I can see her plainly now.”
“You were sorry for her. You told me that,” Val said. “Why were you sorry for her?”
“I don’t know. Did I say that?” His face suddenly relaxed into blackness. It was as if a shutter had come down between his eyes and his brain, cutting her completely off from him. “I say lots of things I don’t mean.”
She realised she would only be wasting time trying to get any further information from him and she abruptly began to talk about her morning’s swim. He listened politely, but she could see he wasn’t interested. After a few minutes of further futile conversation, she got up to go.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Chris. Perhaps I’ll be able to talk to Zimmerman.”
“You still don’t think it would be safer to pay this man?” he asked, peering up at her.
“What man, Chris?”
He made an impatient movement.
“This blackmailer.”
“No. I don’t.”
His long lean fingers moved uneasily over his knees.
“We might be sorry if we don’t.”
“I still think it would be wrong and stupid to pay him. Why should we?”
The twitch at his mouth jumped like an aching nerve, “Who is he?”
“A private detective.”
Chris flinched.
“That type is always dangerous. We’d better pay him.”
“Don’t you want to know why he is trying to blackmail us?”
A shifty expression came into Chris’s eyes as he shook his head.
“No, I don’t want to know. I’m not well. You know that. I don’t want to be worried by things.” She realised he was now hiding himself behind a smoke screen of unreality. “People say so many disgusting things about other people. I don’t want to hear anything like that.”
On a sudden impulse, she opened her handbag and took out the gold cigarette lighter. She put it into his hand.
“I found this, Chris.”
He stared at the lighter, holding it for a brief second. Then he gave a shudder, and with a movement of revulsion, he threw the lighter from him the way a man who finds some loathsome insect on him, gets rid of it.
Then he looked up at her. The expression on his face terrified her. He wasn’t Chris any more. He wasn’t human any more. He began to move out of his chair as she began to back away from him. His breath came through his clenched teeth in a soft, hissing sound. His hands, his fingers hooked, moved upwards as he got to his feet.
“Chris!”
Her voice was sharp and terrified.
“I’ve had enough of you,” he said, his voice a soft, frightening whisper. “I’m going to kill you the way I killed her!”
Then the nurse was behind him. Her hands gripping his wrists, and with speed and strength, locking them behind him in a Judo grip. She held him powerless while he glared at Val, his mouth working and the awful twitch moving under his skin like the flickering of a snake’s tongue.
“Go!” the nurse said urgently. “Tell Dr. Gustave! Hurry! I can manage him!”
Val turned and ran blindly back towards the house. At the end of the path she met one of the male attendants who turned as he heard her quick footfalls.
She gasped out what was happening, then as he ran to the nurse’s help, she dropped on her knees on the grass and hid her face in her hands.
Chapter Twelve
At the time Val was burning her husband’s jacket, Terrell was finishing his favourite breakfast of eggs and grilled ham.
A few minutes before he had sat down, Jacobs had driven Mrs. Prescott, Angel and her Teddy Bear from Terrell’s bungalow, back to the Park Motel.
Both Terrell and his wife were relieved to see them go. The child had been too much even for Terrell’s patience.
As he ate, Terrell looked back on the previous day. Jacko and Moe were now accounted for. He thought with regret of the officer whom Moe had killed. Lee Hardy was dead. Terrell had no regrets about him. With Jacko and Moe out of the way, Henekey’s murder could be considered closed. There still remained Sue Parnell’s murder to be solved. So far there was not a single clue that might lead him to the killer. Then there was this odd business of Val Burnett paying Homer Hare twenty thousand dollars. Terrell was sure Hare was blackmailing Val Burnett, but there was nothing he could do about that, he told himself, unless she was willing to co-operate.
It was while he was finishing his second cup of coffee that he heard a car pull up outside the bungalow. Glancing through the open window, he saw Joe Beigler and Fred Hess get out of a police car and come striding up his garden path.
“More trouble,” he said to Carrie. “Now what do they want this time?”
He left the morning-room and opening the front door let Beigler and Hess in.
“What’s up now?” he asked as he led the way into the lounge.
“I took Hardy’s prints when they dumped him in the morgue,” Hess said. “I’ve been checking all the prints I found in the cabin where the Parnell woman was knocked off. Hardy’s prints are on the list. He was definitely in the cabin at some time. While I was at it, I checked Henekey’s office. Hardy’s prints are also on Henekey’s desk.”
Terrell moved around the room, puffing at his pipe. Finally, he said, “This could be the answer. That alibi the Lang girl gave Hardy never jelled with me. Could be Hardy did the job. Let’s go talk to her.”