‘I don’t like being woken up suddenly like this. I think you’re taking too much for granted.’
I sampled the Scotch. It was very good.
‘Yeah, maybe I am,’ I said and set the glass on the table with a little sigh. ‘But this isn’t a social call. I’m here on business: business that can’t wait until tomorrow.’
She sat on the arm of the settee, crossed one slim leg over the other and looked at me inquiringly.
‘What business?’
I took a drag on my cigarette, blew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling.
‘Lee Thayler was shot about an hour ago’ I said ‘Two bullets in the middle of his chest, and the third cut open an artery.’
There was a long, long pause. The silence was broken only by the occasional whirring grunt of the refrigerator in the kitchenette next door.
I looked at her. She was still; her arms folded across her breasts, her eyes expressionless, her mouth set She wasn’t a good card-player for nothing. She didn’t give anything away.
‘Who shot him?’ she asked, after the silence had gone on a little too long.
‘The same killer who wiped out Dana, Leadbetter and Anita,’ I said. ‘You’ve been a little secretive, haven’t you? I didn’t know you and Anita were old pals, nor that you and Thayler were bedfellows.’
‘That’s ancient history,’ she said with a casual shrug. ‘How did you find out?’
‘I ran into a character named Nick Nedick. He showed me a picture of Thayler. You were in it.’
‘You know, I think I’ll make some coffee,’ she said, and got off the arm of the settee. ‘I supposed you’re going to ask a lot of questions now?’
‘Go ahead and make it’ I leaned forward and flicked on the electric fire. ‘We may as well talk now as later’. You don’t seem to care much that Thayler’s dead.’
‘Why should I? We were washed up, and I’ve forgotten he ever existed.’
I heard her go into the kitchenette and I leaned back in the chair. The .45 dug into my hip so I pulled it out and looked at it the telescopic sight intrigued me. I aimed the gun at a blue vase on the overmantel and peered through the sight. I couldn’t see anything. I examined the sight more closely, wondering what it was. Although it looked like a telescopic sight it didn’t function as one. It was something I had never seen before on a gun. But right now I was a little tired, and I had other things on my mind, so I laid the gun on the table beside me and put my hat on it. I’d get Clegg to look at it: G egg knew all about guns and poisons and bloodstains. He was a pretty good man to know.
I heard a sudden, stifled sound that brought my head around and I stared towards the kitchenette door: the stifled sound of a woman crying.
I slid out of the chair and crossed the room without making any noise and peered around the half-open door.
Miss Bolus was standing by the electric percolator; her face in her hands.
‘You go and sit by the fire,’ I said. ‘I’ll make the coffee.’
She started, dashed the tears away with the back of her hand and turned away from me.
‘I’ll make it,’ she said in a muffled voice. ‘For God’s sake leave me alone.’
I took hold of her arm and pushed her into the sitting room.
‘Sit by the fire.’
It took me about a couple of minutes to make the coffee, and when I re-entered the room, she had lit a cigarette and was standing before the fire, her face half-turned from me. I set down the tray.
‘Will you have it black?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
I poured a cup, laced it with whisky and put it on the overmantel near her. Then I sat down and poured myself a cup.
‘Let’s put the cards on the table,’ I said. ‘It’ll mean nothing, but it’ll be a satisfactory way of clearing the mess up. You know a lot about this business — far more than I do. You’ve been working hand-in-glove with Thayler, haven’t you?’
‘What do you mean — it’ll mean nothing?’ she asked, her voice sharp.
‘Well, how can it? Whatever happens I have to keep Cerf covered. I’ve explained that to you. If I put my hand on the killer I’ll have to call Brandon in, and he’ll chop me for not calling him in before. It’s stalemate. Thayler killed Benny. All right, Thayler’s dead. Well, that’s something. But Thayler didn’t kill Dana. Even if I can’t touch the killer I still want to know who did it, and I think you can tell me who it is.’
‘Can’t you guess?’ she said a little scornfully.
I shook my head.
‘I could, but guessing is not the same as knowing. Thayler knew who the killer was — that’s why he was knocked off. Leadbetter also knew who the killer was — he was knocked off too. I think you know who the killer is. Suppose you tell me before you get knocked off too?’
She sat down, her coffee cup in her hand, opposite me, the table between us.
‘What makes you think I know?’ she asked.
‘A hunch. I think you and Thayler teamed up again after Anita was shot. I think he told you what I’m certain Anita told him.’
‘Well, all right. Now he’s dead, it doesn’t matter,’ she said, and dropped back against the chair. ‘I lied just now when I said he and I were washed up and I’d forgotten he ever existed. I loved him. I was crazy about him, and we were happy until that bitch came into our lives. No other girl except me would have had the nerve to go through that act of ours, and if I hadn’t loved him, and wanted him to get on and make a name for himself, I wouldn’t have done it. But I did it, and he got on, and he got talked about, and people came to see him. And then she had to come on the scene and spoiled it.’ She reached for a cigarette and lit it with an unsteady hand. ‘But as soon as she got him away from me she left him and married Cerf. I happened to be in Orchid City when Cerf brought her to live at his estate. I saw her one day. I made inquiries. I found out she had married him, and hadn’t divorced Lee. She bitched up my happiness, so I bitched up hers. I wrote an anonymous letter to Cerf and told him she was already married.’
I poured out more coffee, stirred whisky into it, lit another cigarette.
‘It’s a funny thing,’ I said, ‘but I wouldn’t have thought you were the type to write anonymous letters.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’ she said, a little breathlessly. ‘After what she had done to me? Well, I did, and I told Lee too, and he came to see Anita. By that time she had got tired of Cerf, and was playing around with Barclay. She was scared when she heard Lee was coming to see her, and she persuaded Bannister to hide her in the night club. Lee told me what had happened. He heard it from Anita before she died. The shooting of your girl, Dana Lewis, was a mistake.
‘Cerf confronted Anita with my letter. She tried to lie her way out of it, but he didn’t believe her. She thought he was going to kill her there and then, and she bolted out of the room and out of the house. That night she came to you, to find out if Cerf knew about Barclay. When she left you, she saw Cerf following her. She got scared and appealed to Dana for protection. Dana took her to her apartment. Cerf followed them and waited outside. Anita offered Dana her necklace if she would change clothes with her and draw Cerf away from the house so Anita could reach L’Etoile in safety. Dana agreed to do this. The two women changed clothes. Before leaving the apartment Dana hid the necklace under her mattress in case Anita changed her mind and took it when she left. Cerf shot Dana out on the dunes, thinking she was Anita. You’ve guessed that by now, haven’t you? It was Cerf who shot Leadbetter, who saw him taking Anita’s clothes off Dana’s body, and later tried to blackmail him.’
‘How the hell do you know all this?’ I said, sitting forward to stare at her.
‘Anita wrote Lee a letter when she was at the L’Etoile and told him; he told me. It was her idea for Lee to blackmail Cerf. She said the two of them could get all Cerf’s money if they played it right.’