“We might suppose that Mrs. Cornell was entertaining a friend,” Shayne went on slowly. “Someone who might stay in the background, unnoticed by Mr. Roche, when he asked about Brand. Would your husband have hinted to her the importance of his reason for wanting to find Brand?”
“You mean… tell her about the strike agreement? I’m sure he wouldn’t. He didn’t want anyone to know beforehand.”
“But he might have explained the queer hour of his visit by saying it was very important that he see Brand. To any one on the inside listening, it might sound very much as though he was negotiating with the strikers.”
“What are you getting at?” She caught his arm fiercely.
“Some one killed your husband,” he told her calmly. “After he left Brand’s house… or Mrs. Cornell’s… and was walking back to his parked car. Someone who had a reason to. Someone who wasn’t interested in the contents of his wallet.”
“With George’s gun?” she faltered. “They say it was found right there.”
“With Brand’s gun,” Shayne agreed. “His gun lying beside the body is one of the best arguments we have for Brand’s innocence. Certainly he wouldn’t have left it there… unless it was carefully premeditated and Brand realized that a smart lawyer would use it as proof of his innocence if it were found there.”
There was a short silence between them. The rush of the river and the crickets’ songs came faintly through the mist in the valley. Elsa’s hand was still gripping Shayne’s arm tightly. She asked, almost in a whisper, “Who do you think did it?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Someone who wanted the strike broken. Who knew that the one sure way of breaking it was to have Charles murdered and have Brand charged with the crime?”
Her hand fell away from his arm. “Mr. Persona wouldn’t have stopped at murder to break the strike. He hasn’t stopped at murder in trying to break it. Three miners have been killed in the past few weeks.”
“On Persona’s orders?”
“It was all made to look perfectly legal,” she said listlessly. “The law doesn’t call it murder if an officer shoots a man who’s resisting arrest.”
“I wondered who pays the salaries of all these special deputies,” Shayne muttered. “It seems a big outlay for one mine owner.” He paused a moment, then went on, “Another thing that troubles me is this: If Gerald controls the local police department, and AMOK hires the deputies… why wouldn’t it have been much simpler to have put George Brand out of the way long ago, just as they did the three miners. Wouldn’t the strike have fallen to pieces without strong leadership?”
“I don’t know,” she confessed. “It isn’t until lately that I began thinking about such things.”
“Let’s get back to the facts and see where we stand,” he said briskly. “When did you first tell Jimmy Roche and Seth Gerald about the signed agreement?”
“This afternoon. At first I thought I wouldn’t say anything. I thought it would turn up. Then I began brooding. Please try to understand. I’m not in love with George. I’m not really in sympathy with the miners, I’m afraid. I don’t understand anything about the mining business. But I’ve been thinking about Charles all day. He would feel terrible if he knew that his death had been the means of sending the miners back to work at the same old starvation wages. And I do admire George. He was strong and fearless. He believed in what he was doing. It seems terrible that he should pay for a thing I know he didn’t do.”
“You’re basing your belief entirely on the fact that you know Charles had agreed to settle the strike, and that therefore Brand is the one man in Centerville who had every reason to want him to stay alive until his thirtieth birthday at least?” Shayne asked gently.
“Isn’t that reason enough?”
“It is,” Shayne said slowly, “unless Brand happens to actually be in love with you… and has reason to think you feel the same about him.”
“He isn’t.” Her voice sounded smothered. “He knew I was just… bored with life. Besides, he isn’t the sort to… to…”
“To murder a woman’s husband,” said Shayne flatly, “so she would be free to come to him. Perhaps not. But sex does do the damndest things to certain types of people. It makes them forget morals and obligations and loyalty and they don’t give a damn about broken lives.”
“You’ll just have to believe me,” she broke in. “It wasn’t that way. I was a fool to ever speak to him, but I thought it was perfectly harmless.”
“Let’s go back to this afternoon again,” said Shayne patiently. “You told Gerald and Jimmy about the agreement, pointing out that Brand must be innocent. What then?”
Her hands were gripping the wheel again. “I’d been drinking a good deal,” she admitted, “and I guess they thought I was pretty drunk. First, they tried to make me admit I was mistaken. They said no one would believe me if I did tell about it, and that’s when Jimmy threatened to tell about the times I went out with George. They both said no one would believe me after that was made public, and I… decided maybe they were right.”
“And promised to keep your mouth shut?”
“What else could I do?” she exclaimed wildly. “You’re a stranger here. You don’t know how things are in Centerville. Whom could I go to? Chief Elwood?” She laughed derisively. “Or the district attorney? They’d go straight to Seth or Persona and say, ‘Please, what do you want me to do?’ Then you came, and I thought I could at least tell you so you’d know that George isn’t guilty, and maybe you’d look harder for evidence to free him.”
Shayne thought for a time before saying, “There’s one thing in your story that doesn’t add up. If your husband told you he had everything arranged with Brand… even to the extent of showing you this signed agreement, then why in the name of God were you so worried about that meeting last night? Why did you beg him not to go? Why the premonition of disaster? A premonition that kept you awake all night and drove you to telephone Seth Gerald and ask him to go and see if your husband was all right?”
Her body was shaking and she cried out hysterically, “But I didn’t! That reporter just put words in my mouth to make a good story. I wasn’t worried one bit about Charles meeting George.”
“Why did you telephone Gerald?”
“I didn’t! I’m trying to tell you. I went straight to bed after Charles left and went to sleep.”
11
Michael Shayne was silent for two full minutes digesting this startling bit of information. “I noticed that discrepancy in the newspaper story this morning,” he said finally, “but I thought it was bad reporting. Or, that you were so upset over the news of your husband’s death that you forgot to mention the phone call and Gerald’s visit.”
“I didn’t know. I hadn’t decided then what I was going to say. You see, I didn’t promise Seth. I was all mixed up at first. All I could think of was that Charles was dead and Seth was… somehow… responsible.”
“You haven’t told this to anyone else?” Shayne asked harshly.
“No. I read Seth’s statement in the paper before I’d decided what I was going to do. Then it seemed too late. Would anyone believe me? Like my story about the strike agreement… it sounds like something I might make up to help George, and if talk got around about me going out with him, don’t you see how it would look?”
“What did happen last night?”
“I went to sleep, as I said. The doorbell wakened me about four-thirty, I guess. I didn’t look at the time. I’d been sound asleep and it startled me. First, I thought Charles must have forgotten his key, and I put on a robe to let him in. But it was Seth. He looked worried and talked fast, and said I had to do something for him and it was terribly important. He said if anyone asked me, I was to say that I’d got worried about Charles meeting Brand and called him at four o’clock. Just as he told the reporters. I asked him what had happened and whether he knew where Charles was, but he insisted that Charles was all right and for me to go back to bed and not worry, but not to forget that I had phoned him.
“He tried to make me promise, but I wouldn’t. I was sleepy and I hardly understood what he was talking about. All I could think was that Seth had got mixed up with some married woman or something and wanted me to make up a story to help him out. Then he went away, and I went back to bed, but I couldn’t sleep after that. I did begin to worry about Charles. Not because he’d gone to see George, but an accident… or something like that. Then
