She smiled wanly and blew her nose. “I’ve been holding it in so long,” she said in a husky whisper. “I couldn’t tell anyone, and it’s been absolute hell. Then I got her letter tonight. You don’t know Wanda Weatherby, do you?”
Shayne said, “No.” He dropped into a chair close to the couch and stretched his legs out.
“When you do meet her you won’t believe what I’m going to tell you,” she burst out angrily. “She’s vicious and depraved and evil. But you won’t see that. No man ever does. She’ll lie to you, and you’ll believe her, even though you will already know the truth from me. I wish to God I had killed her,” she went on violently, her face paling. “I should have done it right then when I threatened to. That’s why she thinks it’s I who tried to kill her, you see.”
“I don’t see much of anything,” Shayne told her in a mild tone. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
“I’ll have to, I suppose. But first you’d better read this letter. You’ll be getting a duplicate of it in the mail tomorrow morning, so you may as well read it now.”
She reached for her handbag, opened it, and took out a square white envelope similar in size and shape to the one Ralph Flannagan had showed him. She handed it to him, saying, “It came by special messenger. Read it, and you’ll understand why I’m so terribly upset.”
Shayne took out the single sheet of folded paper and glanced at it, already suspecting what he would find. His hunch was right, for insofar as he could determine without comparing the two of them word for word, it was a duplicate of the carbon copy Flannagan had received, except her name and address was substituted for Flannagan’s.
He frowned and pretended to read it carefully while he did some fast mental acrobatics. Was it possible that Jack Gurley had also received a duplicate by messenger, but with his name on it? That would explain a lot of things. If none of the three knew about the other letters—
He put speculation out of his mind as he refolded Sheila’s letter and returned it to the envelope. Looking up to meet her eyes again, he said quietly, “If you haven’t harmed her and don’t plan to, why did this letter frighten you so?”
“Because you’ll naturally want to see Wanda tomorrow as soon as you read the original of that, and she’ll tell you — well, I don’t know what she’ll tell you about me. The truth, perhaps. Though I doubt it. If she can think up anything worse than the truth, she’ll tell you that. And then you’ll start checking up, and everything will come out, and Henry will be sure to find out. So you can see why I wish I had killed her,” she ended defiantly.
Shayne leaned back and took a long drink of cognac. He indicated her glass and advised, “Take another sip and tell me why Wanda Weatherby suspects you want to murder her.”
“She doesn’t just suspect. She knows I do. I am going to tell you the truth, Mr. Shayne, even if I die of shame, because after you hear it maybe you’ll be willing to disregard her letter in the morning and think of some way to prevent her from absolutely ruining my life.”
Shayne said, “I never knew anyone to die of shame. How is she trying to ruin your life?”
“It goes back a long time. To nineteen thirty-five, in Detroit. I was eighteen and dewy-eyed from a farm in Iowa. My mother had just died, and I hated my stepfather, so I went away to the city to make my fortune.” Her mouth twisted over the recollection. “Remember nineteen thirty-five, Mr. Shayne?”
He nodded. “I know what you mean.”
“There weren’t any jobs. Long lines of girls answering one advertisement. So, what does a girl do under those circumstances when her money runs out and she can’t go back home?”
Shayne avoided her angry gaze, He frowned and suggested, “You tell me.”
“It looks easy to a man. I’ve had lots of them say, ‘My God, I wish I were a girl. You can bet I wouldn’t go hungry.’ But it isn’t easy. Not when you’re eighteen and fresh from the farm. You don’t know how to start, damn it. You just don’t know what to do. Not that girls don’t think about it if they get hungry enough. That’s when I met Wanda Weatherby. Just when I was down to my last penny and desperate enough to try anything.
“She was sitting beside me in a restaurant one day when I had ordered a bowl of soup, the first thing I’d eaten in twenty-four hours, and I guess it showed. She was a few years older and beautiful and poised and, well, I guess I thought of her as being sophisticated. Anyway, she insisted on ordering me a lunch.
“Afterward, I went up to her apartment. I was ready for anything that afternoon. I wasn’t so naïve that I thought she was just being generous. I’d heard about girls who like other girls, and I was all ready for even that. I didn’t know what it was going to be, but I just didn’t care.”
Sheila Martin paused and took a big sip of cognac and a drink of ice water, then continued.
“Then when she sprung what she really wanted of me it didn’t seem so bad after all. Because I was all keyed up for something worse, you see.” Her voice trembled with earnestness, as though it was terribly important that she make him understand.
He said, “What did she want with you?”
“Well — for me to make moving pictures. She built it up gradually — all about how I didn’t actually have to do anything. Just pose in the nude. And what did it matter? No one who knew me would ever see the picture. And she offered me a hundred dollars. A whole hundred dollars!” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, and tears glittered in her grayish eyes. She swallowed hard, then hurried on.
“Dear God! I can remember even now how magical that sounded. A hundred dollars just for a few afternoons’ work. So I said yes, and she gave me ten dollars in advance. And two days later I did it. You know. One of those awful pornographic pictures they rent out for stag parties and smokers at men’s clubs and conventions. Do you want to know exactly how awful it was?”
Shayne said moodily, “You don’t have to go into details. Take another drink and relax. That was seventeen years ago. I gather you didn’t continue — make a career of obscene movies.”
“No. I invested the money in a shorthand and typing course. I managed to get a job afterward, and everything went all right. Wanda Weatherby and everything about her gradually faded into the background like a bad dream that actually hadn’t happened. A year ago I met Henry and we were married.” She paused again and took another sip from her glass.
“Then I met Wanda again,” she continued, “here in Miami, and quite by accident. She hardly seemed to have changed at all. A little older, but you’d certainly never guess she must be at least forty. Henry was with me. She recognized me and began talking about old times in Detroit, just as though we’d been close friends. I had to introduce him, and the next day she came out to our house.”
She stopped talking and laced her fingers tightly. Spots of color again flamed in her unrouged cheeks, and she lowered her lids to cover the hatred in her eyes.
“And then?” Shayne prompted her.
“She wanted me to do it again,” Sheila told him in a listless voice. “I refused, of course, and begged her to leave me alone, but she just laughed and said it was so hard to find girls nowadays, with all the good jobs begging to be taken.
“She was hard as nails. She just sat back and laughed when I offered to pay her money to leave me alone. She didn’t want money. She wanted me. And when I flatly refused she threatened to show Henry the old film I made in Detroit.
“It would kill Henry if he saw it. And I’ll kill myself if he ever does.” Sheila Martin was leaning toward him, her body tense, and her face pale again. “That’s when I went out of my mind and told Wanda I’d kill her if she ever did that. But it didn’t frighten her at all. She just said it was up to me to decide. And I have until next week. She still has some of those old films, you see, and still rents them out. Next week there’s going to be a special party at the Sportsman’s Club where Henry works, and she’ll either give them the one of me — or a different one. I have until next Friday to make up my mind,” she ended, and sank back limply.