running what might in another day have been called a salon, I am in a position to discover a great deal about what goes on in the world. In short, my guests supply me with inside information, and I in turn supply them with entertainment.
“I provide my guests with food, drink, and stimulating, intellectual companionship. With certain guests, it is sometimes necessary that I provide other kinds of companionship. Therefore it is sometimes necessary to have on tap a number of professional companions. Let us say Jean Dahl was a professional companion. Of the one- hundred-dollars-a-night variety.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Let me get this straight.”
“Now really, Richard, I don’t know how I can make it more plain. Jean Dahl was a call girl whom I frequently hired for the entertainment of one of my more special guests. As I was the source of a substantial portion of her income, she quite naturally regarded me as her benefactor. You may not believe this, but I thought of that girl as my daughter. Nevertheless, when she suggested that poor Max wanted to murder her, I could hardly credit such a thing. Poor Max wouldn’t harm a fly.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What made her think Max Shriber wanted to murder her? What motive could he have had?”
Walter looked thoughtful. “Well, for one thing,” he said, “she was blackmailing him.”
I walked slowly across the room to the bar and mixed myself a drink. “Jean Dahl was blackmailing Max Shriber?” I said. “How? With what?”
“It is a long, rather unpleasant story,” Walter said. “It goes back to poor Charles Anstruther’s accident. As you know, the poor soul blew his brains out with a gun. He was absolutely stinking at the time, of course.”
“So,” I said. “What does that have to do with Jean Dahl?”
“The night of the accident,” Walter said, “Anstruther was not alone. He had a young lady in his hotel room. Jean Dahl.”
My head was beginning to spin.
“You must try to see the whole picture,” Walter said. “If you want to understand this you must take the broad view. As I have told you, a small corporation with myself at the head had just purchased outright all title to Anstruther’s new book. Anstruther had been given a check for one hundred thousand dollars as payment in full.”
I was trying desperately to follow Walter’s story, but something jarred in my mind. “Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought you said you paid one hundred fifty thousand dollars. I thought you said the three of you each put up fifty thousand.”
Walter looked annoyed for a moment. “Anstruther was, in effect, paid one hundred fifty thousand dollars. It happens that my fifty thousand dollars was paid not in cash but in services.”
I laughed out loud.
“You mean you were getting a free ride,” I said. “Let me guess. Your two partners thought you were putting up an equal share of cash.” I could suddenly see this part of it clearly. “Let me ask you something, Walter. Did Anstruther know you told Max and Janis the price was one hundred fifty thousand? Or did you tell him that the three of you together were putting up one hundred thousand?”
“You have the mind of a certified public accountant,” Walter said in injured tones.
“O.K., Walter,” I said, “continue with the broad view. You were double crossing your partners and you were double crossing Anstruther. You told him you could only get one hundred thousand dollars for his book, and you told your partners they would have to pay one hundred fifty thousand. So Janis and Max between them put up one hundred thousand dollars-what they believed was their share-but what was really the whole price. So you were getting a third interest free. O.K. Go on. You gave Anstruther a check for one hundred thousand dollars. And he gave you the book?”
“Not so fast, Richard. Anstruther was a neurotic man with an ugly suspicious side to his nature. He refused to deliver the book to us till the check had cleared and he had the cash.”
“That was very wise of him,” I said.
“And the afternoon the check cleared, Anstruther disappeared with the one hundred thousand dollars in his pocket. He was found by the police three days later with a bullet through his head. The one hundred thousand dollars had vanished and, worst of all, we discovered that we had been duped by this unscrupulous man. There was no new book.”
I laughed. I laughed uproariously. I laughed till the tears ran down my face. “So he conned you,” I said. “So the three sharp crooks get taken. So he sold you the rights to nothing for one hundred thousand dollars and managed to spend it all before you found him. I think that’s wonderful.”
“It is not nearly so amusing as you imagine,” Walter said.
“So that’s why nobody can see the new book,” I said. “Because there isn’t any new book.”
Walter smiled. “Now, now, Richard, don’t be naive. Do you seriously imagine that we would allow an investment like that to go up in smoke? You must try to grasp for a moment the basic laws of supply and demand. People everywhere are clamoring for a new novel by Charles Anstruther. Motion picture companies are bidding. Magazines are begging for the rights to serialize. We should be very poor businessmen indeed if we did not at least try to meet that demand.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I ask you to examine the situation. Had we been able to perform a miracle and produce a new Anstruther novel it would be worth, conservatively, including motion pictures, book clubs, magazines, reprints, foreign rights, et cetera, a million dollars. Perhaps a good deal more. Naturally, there was only one course open to us. We performed a miracle.”
“You what?”
“We produced a new Anstruther.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. “What do you mean you produced a new Anstruther?” I said stupidly.
“My dear boy,” Walter said, “it was not hard at all. Anstruther’s style was widely imitated. It is, when you come right down to it, a matter of using short sentences and having your characters speak tersely about death and the exotic scenery. Oh, it takes a definite talent. It requires a complete understanding of the master’s style and the invention of a story which will appeal to the movies. But then, as I told you before, Jimmie is a very talented boy.”
“You mean to tell me that Jimmie wrote the new Anstruther?”
“With my assistance,” Walter said smugly. “With my assistance. Of course he had at his disposal three of Anstruther’s unpublished short stories, which he cleverly interpolated into the text. We had Charles’ notebooks, and then, of course, there were his published works. He cribbed discreetly, here and there, from his earlier books. After all, it is not uncommon for an author to steal from himself. Particularly an author whose powers were generally conceded to be on the wane. And, I must not let false modesty creep in. Jimmie had the benefit of my editorial genius. My ear is flawless. I was able to detect and remove a number of details-words, observations-which might conceivably have given us away. In the end, we produced a perfectly acceptable minor work with a story eminently suitable for the films. If it were possible I do believe we could go on producing spurious Anstruthers for years to come. It is a craft. We could hand it on from father to son.”
I was speechless.
“But this is all quite beside the point,” Walter said. “You were asking about the unfortunate Miss Dahl. I did not find out that Miss Dahl had been a witness to Anstruther’s accident until last night. She appeared at my cocktail party and insisted on speaking to me privately.”
Walter paused and sighed. It was a deep sigh, from the depths of his small heart.
“If what Jean Dahl told me was true,” Walter said, “and I have every reason to believe it was, I can only conclude that mankind is sick unto death with greed and dishonesty. It proves that a man can trust no one. I am shocked to say that her story cast aspersions on the good faith of my two partners.”
“Walter,” I said, “stop beating around the bush. What did she tell you?”
Walter grinned.
He reached to the panel beside him and pushed a button. There was a brief whirring sound from the loudspeaker.
“It will take just a moment to change the spools,” he said. “I naturally have to unwind this present
