‘You think there’s another man?’ Harmas said, lifting his head and staring at Maddux. ‘You think Mrs. Dester had a lover?’
‘I’m damned sure she did. Between them I think they cooked up a smart idea to murder Dester and pick up some money. She didn’t think up the idea. The last time she tried to defraud an insurance company she nearly landed herself in jail. This is a much more calculated effort; much more clever. A man thought it up, and who else could he be but Mrs. Dester’s boyfriend?’
‘You really think Dester was murdered?’ Harmas said. ‘That’s not so hot for the company, is it? We’ll have to settle the claim if he was murdered.’
I looked quickly at Maddux. Everything depended on what he would say to this. He was smiling at Harmas, taking no notice of me.
‘Now look,’ he said, ‘we have never bilked on a claim yet and we never will. Dester gave us an out when he cancelled the suicide clause. Maybe a lot of smaller companies would have kept out of this and accepted the police’s findings that Dester had killed himself, but I take a broader view. This is murder. Okay, maybe it will cost us three-quarters of a million, but in the long run it will save us money. I have never let one fraud go unchallenged. I have put eighteen smart alecs in the death cell. Other smart alecs are beginning to learn that it isn’t safe to monkey with the National Fidelity. If I let this one pass I’ll be asking for trouble. I’m not going to let it pass. I’m going to prove this is murder. It’ll be a damn fine advertisement for us, and it will act as a warning.’ His grin widened. ‘But it doesn’t mean that we will have to pay up. It might not be in the interests of the public to settle such a claim. Remember that phrase — the interests of the public. It has stopped a lot of payments in the past, and it will go on stopping them in the future. Now I’ll tell you both something. I think these two — Mrs. Dester and her boyfriend — were smart enough to know that we would come after them with everything we’ve got if Dester was murdered and she put in a claim. So what do they do? I’ll tell you: they planned to murder Dester and fix it so it would look like suicide. By doing that they knew they were passing up all hopes of making a claim. They hoped that as they weren’t making a claim, we would stand back and let them get away with the murder. Now this is the pay off.’ He leaned forward, pointing the stem of his pipe at Harmas. ‘They were smart enough to know that if we didn’t settle the claim, we would return the premiums, and do you know how much Dester has paid in premiums over the past years? He’s paid one hundred and four thousand dollars. That’s what they were after: not the three-quarters of a million. That was too dangerous to grab at, but the returned premiums were something worth having and they were safe. Okay, Dester’s debts amount to fifty thousand dollars. By the time the house, furniture, cars and what have you are sold there will be enough to pay the debts. They would have been left with one hundred and four thousand dollars which is quite a nice piece of money.’
Harmas suppressed a yawn.
‘I think you’ve got something,’ he said. ‘I had forgotten the premiums would be returned. What happened to Mrs. Dester then? What went wrong?’
Maddux shrugged.
‘I don’t know and I don’t care. Maybe they quarrelled. Maybe the boyfriend killed her. Maybe Dester killed her. I don’t know. That’s for the police to find out. What I do know is that our client was murdered, and I’m going to take damn good care the killer doesn’t get away with it!’ He suddenly turned and looked at me. ‘Well, Mr. Nash, what do you think of all this? You haven’t said much up to now. Have you any ideas who Mrs. Dester’s boyfriend is?’
I knew now that I had a desperate fight on my hands. I could still get clear if I played my cards right, but if I made one slip, I was through.
‘I don’t know who he is,’ I said, forcing myself to meet his steady, inquiring stare, ‘but I did once see her with someone.’
Maddux smiled. He looked over at Harmas. ‘Do you see? Dig enough and something comes to the surface.’ He turned back to me. ‘When was this, Mr. Nash?’
‘Maybe a week ago. I’m not sure. I happened to be downtown. I saw Mrs. Dester and this man come out of the Brown Derby.’
‘Can you give me a description of him?’
‘Why, yes.’ The words seemed to come out of my mouth without any effort on my part. ‘He was tall, fair, with a blond moustache, around thirty-five or six, good-looking, well-dressed.’
Maddux looked over at Harmas. ‘Got that? At the Brown Derby. You’ve got to find this guy.’
‘Yeah,’ Harmas said. ‘There are only about twenty thousand tall, fair, good-looking guys in Hollywood, but never mind, I’ll find him.’
‘Did you get the impression, Mr. Nash, that they were more than friendly?’ Maddux asked.
‘I’m afraid I didn’t,’ I said. ‘I was driving past. I just caught a glimpse of them. She had her hand on his arm. I didn’t have much time to see if they were on good or bad terms. I just saw him.’
‘Well, okay, that’s something to work on,’ Maddux said and got to his feet. ‘You’d better get working on it,’ he went on to Harmas. ‘Go down to the Brown Derby and see if you can get a lead on this guy. I’m going to talk to Bromwich.’
Harmas unwound his long, lean frame and stood up.
‘I haven’t had any sleep for twenty-four hours. I don’t suppose that interests you, does it?’
Maddux waved this aside. He turned to me.
‘Thanks for the information, Mr. Nash. This is the lead I’ve been looking for.’
‘I only saw them together once,’ I said.
‘Once is enough.’ He caught hold of my hand in a knuckle-cracking grip, nodded and then started across the lounge towards the hall.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Don’t panic.’
I spoke the words aloud as I stood watching Maddux’s car disappear down the drive. The big lounge felt lonely and full of empty spaces.
Was Maddux playing with me? I wondered. Did he guess I had been Helen’s lover? Was he laying a trap for me or had he really accepted my story of the blond man at the Brown Derby?
For all I knew he was on his way down to police headquarters to get them to come out here and arrest me. I knew I dared not waste a moment of my freedom. I had to get rid of the pyjamas, dressing gown and gloves. I had to destroy the will. Sooner or later, if I were arrested, the police would find out that I had a safe deposit and they would get a search warrant. It would be fatal to me if they found the will.
I hurried into the kitchen and took from the saucepan the soiled, damp cloth with which I had cleaned out the deep-freeze cabinet, then I ran up the stairs to my bedroom. I put my pyjamas, dressing gown, gloves and the cloth into a suitcase, my old working suit and my few shirts and socks on top of them. I shut the case and, leaving it on the bed, I went to the window and looked down on to the terrace.
The policeman was strolling up and down, his hands behind his back, his cap pushed forward to shield his eyes from the sun. I decided to go out the back way, cross the garden to the garden gate that led on to a back street that would take me down to the bus stop on the lower end of Hillside Crescent.
I picked up the suitcase and went swiftly down the stairs, along the passage to the kitchen and out through the rear exit.
A four-minute fast walk brought me to the bus stop. A bus came along within a minute or so and I boarded it. I kept looking back out of the window to see if a car was following me, but the long, steep road was empty of all cars.
I got off at the junction of Figueroa Street and Firestone and, moving briskly, I mingled with the crowd of business men and shop girls going to work. I approached the all-night safe-deposit vaults as the street clock was striking half past eight.