"The others must have been in a hell of a sweat when they learned of the stabbing," I said.
"They were. They couldn't figure why Paige had been killed or who had killed him; there had been no trouble among themselves, so they knew none of them had done it. And when Paige and Sarkelian met where you saw them in the park, to discuss final preparations and a time schedule, Paige didn't seem to be worried about anything. Sarkelian and the others talked it over and decided it was tough for Paige, but a four-way split was fatter than a five-way split and they didn't see any reason for not going through with the holdup as planned."
"And then I began asking questions about The Dead and the Dying, and about Sarkelian."
"Uh-huh. Beverly Winestock told her brother about your visit to her yesterday, and he told Sarkelian, and the cheese really began to get binding. If you or I read that book, the whole thing was blown. But they knew we hadn't read it yet; you wouldn't have been asking the questions you were asking. And when you and I went to see Winestock last night, they knew we still hadn't read it or we wouldn't have still been fishing; but they also knew, from Winestock's phone call to Sarkelian after we left, that we were dangerously close to the truth. Sarkelian ordered Winestock to meet him later at his motel in Monterey, and then went to the Beachwood-he knew you were staying there from the radio reports-on the gamble you'd have the book in your cottage rather than on your person, or that you hadn't already given it back to me. He won that hand, even though it set him up to lose the gamble. Then he drove down to Dancer's, threw Paige's copy of the book into the sea, and set fire to the shack after picking the porch-door lock. If Dancer had been there, he would have died in the blaze, all right."
"How come they went through with the robbery with Dancer still alive?"
"Paige had told Sarkelian a little about Dancer, how he'd turned out millions of words in his career and how he didn't think Dancer would remember the book after twenty years. And they figured, since the book was that old, we wouldn't be able to dig up another copy in time to prevent the robbery. Like I said, Paige was the brains behind this whole thing, and Sarkelian and the other two nothing but strong-arms. All they could think about was the money. Like moths to a flame."
"How much was in the valise? How much would they have gotten away with if it had worked out the way they planned?"
"A little better than seventy thousand."
"Not much for all the trouble they went to," I said. "And for murder besides."
"Not much at all."
"Why did Sarkelian kill Winestock?"
"Winestock was scared, ready to crack from the pressure we put on him last night at his house; he'd been nervous as hell from the time he talked to Sarkelian in the afternoon, when you saw them together, and the liquor he'd drunk hadn't helped any. He wanted out, all the way out; he was planning to skip town, like a damned fool, and he tried to threaten some money out of Sarkelian. Sarkelian wrapped his gun in bathroom towels to muffle the noise and shot him. It was the only thing he could do, Sarkelian said. If he'd let Winestock try to make a run for it, we'd have picked him up in a matter of hours-and in his condition we'd have gotten the truth out of him sure as hell.
"After he shot Winestock, he drove the body out to Spanish Bay, with Androvitch following in their car, and left the Studebaker where it was found this morning. Spanish Bay is only about two miles from Sarkelian's motel, but even so they were damned lucky not to have been spotted in Winestock's car and stopped; if they had, it would have been finished right there."
"Except for whoever killed Paige," I said.
"Except for that."
"It's got to be the woman, Ned. Or someone connected with the woman."
"That's how it adds up," Quartermain agreed. "The same simple equation we had in the beginning."
"I take it Sarkelian doesn't know who she is."
"No. He knew Paige was bedding some local female, but he never saw the two of them together and Paige wasn't talking, characteristically. He doesn't know her name, or what she looks like. He also thinks she's the one who killed Paige."
I drank more coffee, and then asked, "Did you talk to Robin Lomax? She was waiting for you when I came in at three o'clock."
His bloodshot eyes turned grave. "Yeah, I talked to her."
"What did she have to say?"
"Some confidential information that I shouldn't discuss at all." He sighed. "But I think you've got a right to know, as long as it doesn't go any further than this office."
"You know it won't."
"All right. She'd been wrestling with her conscience and her pride all day, and she finally made up her mind to tell the real story of her relationship with Paige. Her husband doesn't know she came here today; he wouldn't like it if he did-but he's not going to know about it."
"Then that story he told us this morning was a lie?"
"Half lie and half truth. Robin had a fight with Jason six years ago and she had too much to drink brooding about it and she let Paige get her alone. Only he didn't try to attack her, and she didn't fight him off."
"Oh," I said, "I see."
"There's more to it than that," Quartermain said. His voice contained the kind of sadness a sensitive and moral man feels when he's given knowledge of the dark transgressions of people he's always liked and respected. "Jason Lomax is sterile; he's been sterile all his life."
I winced a little, involuntarily, and I thought: So Tommy Lomax is Walter Paige's son. But I did not say it. There was no point in saying it.
Quartermain sighed again. "That's why they immediately became nervous and frightened when you went to see them yesterday and mentioned Paige and told them you were a private investigator. They've both subconsciously accepted that phony fictional image of a private detective as a potential blackmailer; they thought you'd found out their secret, perhaps from Paige, and had come to shake them down. Then you confused hell out of them by telling them Paige was dead and bringing me into it, and your association with me; and that also gave them a brand-new apprehension: the threat of a scandal as a result of a police investigation. That's why they left in such a hurry last night; they wanted the opportunity to concoct a lie to cover up-expecting me to show up immediately after you left, you see. Lomax convinced Robin this was their only choice, and manufactured the attempted-rape business. I guess I don't blame him, in a way; he was only trying to protect his wife's reputation, and his own. He may be something of a fool, but he's also enough of a man to have married Robin when she told him she was pregnant, and to give the boy his name."
I agreed with that-thinking: Maybe I was a little hard on him after all; he's got his faults, but haven't we all? And my cop's mind added: But if he's that fiercely loyal to her, and if he hated Paige enough, and if they weren't playing tennis together Saturday afternoon as they claim, wouldn't he perhaps commit murder to maintain both his reputation and his wife's?
Quartermain said, "From the tone of the questions I asked this morning, Robin was afraid we suspected her or her husband of killing Paige-perhaps even of murdering Brad Winestock, for some unknown reason. And if we uncovered the truth about her relationship with Paige, Jason's lie would look far more incriminating than it was. She decided to tell the truth, no matter how painful it would be, to save later embarrassment and misconceptions."
"That was the right thing to do," I said, "assuming that the confession wasn't a last-ditch effort to cover up. She's got a better motive than ever to have killed Paige, Ned."
"But not to have slept with him again, remember that."
"Unless she'd been carrying the torch all these years, in spite of the boy, and gave herself to him as a result, and then something happened to kindle a murderous hatred."