Oh, hell. How crazy could a guy get? She'd been working in Doc's dirty racket for years, and it was an easy step from that to-But she might not have known what she was getting into. Doc would have pulled her into it a little at a time, until she was in over her head.
I cursed and sat up. Things didn't happen that way. They never had, so why should they begin now? My whole life had been fouled up. The best I could hope for now was to keep my parole. She was as rotten and crooked as the rest of them, and she'd have to suffer with the rest. But-
I wished I could stop thinking about her.
Almost twenty minutes had passed when Willie tapped on the door and came in with the telephone.
He plugged it into the wall by the bed, and handed it to me. He went out as quietly as he had come in, and I spoke into the mouthpiece. I spoke and listened.
'All right, Doc,' I said. 'I'll be right over.'
I hung up the phone and took a last long look around the room. Then, I got my car out of the garage and drove straight to Madeline's place.
I parked my car behind Doc's and went silently up the stairs. I listened at the door to the bedroom, and then I moved over to the other one.
'It doesn't make sense,' Hardesty was saying, angrily. 'Our end of the deal was worth twenty-five grand, and we could have wound it up in a couple weeks. I don't see why the hell-'
'All right,' Doc's voice cut in. 'We make that killing-the last one we could possibly make-and then I do my fade-out. How does that look?'
'The same way it looked in the beginning,' said Hardesty. 'That's the way we planned it. If you didn't like it, why didn't you say something then?'
'Things have changed since then,' said Doc. 'The police are looking for Pat or will be shortly. We had to wind up the deal tonight.'
'But you intended to wind it up tonight before they ever started looking for Cosgrove,' said Hardesty. 'Why didn't you tell Madeline and me?'
'I had reasons.'
'Oh, hell,' said Hardesty, disgustedly.
'I don't get you,' said Doc, slowly. 'I'd have had two or three weeks' overhead to pay; that's not peanuts. I'd have had to pay several grand in past due bills that I've been stalling. All that would have had to come out of our end. You wouldn't have had more than five or six g's for your cut. What's five or six grand to you, especially when you stand to pick up a clear five?'
'I just don't like it,' said Hardesty.
'I can see you don't. But I wonder why.'
'Forget it,' said Hardesty. 'Just forget the whole damned thing.'
There was silence then. I raised my fist and knocked.
'Pat?' It was Madeline.
'Yes,' I said.
'Come in.'
I went in and closed the door.
Hardesty and Madeline were seated on the lounge. She was wearing a nightgown under a blue woolly robe, and her hair had been hastily piled up and pinned on top of her head. She looked like a child, suddenly roused out of a deep sleep, and she gave me a child's questioning but trustful smile. I looked away from her to Doc.
He'd changed clothes, and he was taking more articles of clothing from a pile of bags and packages and putting them into a suitcase which stood on a chair in front of him. He smiled at me, narrow eyed, and jerked his head at Madeline.
'I don't believe you two have met formally,' he said. 'Mr. Cosgrove-Mrs. Luther.'
28
Madeline flirted a hand at me. ''Lo, Mr. Cosgrove,' she said in a weak voice.
I nodded to her, dropping into a chair. 'How do you do, Mrs. Luther,' I said.
'Well,' said Doc, with a note of reproof. 'You don't seem particularly surprised, Pat.'
'I'm not,' I said. 'I'm only surprised that I didn't see it a long time ago.'
'Oh?'
'Yes,' I said. 'You gave me a tip at the outset, that morning I bought my clothes. You'd been having an argument with Hardesty, and you told him to keep away from your wife. You wanted to be sure of what I'd overheard-whether you'd mentioned Madeline by name.'
'I remember,' said Doc, shooting an unpleasant glance at Hardesty. 'I remember very well, now that you mention it.'
'Then there was the matter of the baby,' I said. 'I didn't believe you'd invented the story. I was sure that your wife had had a baby. Well, I'd seen Lila at pretty close range, thanks to you, and I knew she couldn't have had a baby. So…'
I didn't tell him the rest; that I'd seen the striae-the marks made by giving birth-on Madeline's body. I wanted to talk about murder, to have him and Hardesty talk about it. With Myrtle Briscoe and her boys listening in.
Hardesty let out an impatient snort.
'For God's sake, Doc,' he said, 'are we going to sit around here talking all night?'
'There's no hurry,' said Doc. 'Pat's got a right to some answers. He's entitled to know where he stands… Pat, I believe you talked to Lila tonight?'
'Yes,' I said.
'And she told you the truth; she doesn't have enough sense to do anything else. Do you see the spot I was in? I was desperate for money, and she fell right into my lap, waiting to be used. And when I'd used her I didn't dare get rid of her. I couldn't separate from a woman I was supposed to be madly in love with. I knew she'd talk if she ever got out from under my thumb.'
'And do you see the spot I was in, Pat?' said Madeline, quietly.
'As a matter of fact,' I said, 'I'm not particularly interested.'
Doc grinned and then his expression changed, and he shook his head. 'Don't think too hard of her. She doesn't deserve it. We all make mistakes, and we all pay for them. You were only eighteen when you robbed a bank. Madeline was only eighteen when she came here to Capital City.'
'I know,' I said. 'She's a very loyal little woman.'
'Very, Pat. To herself, as well as me. We've been husband and wife in name only. She's worked for the money I've given her.'
'Would that work include murder?'
'Eggleston's, you mean?' He shook his head calmly. 'She had nothing to do with that. He found out about our marriage and demanded money from her, and I went to make the pay-off. She didn't know I was going to kill him. I didn't either. I didn't even know who'd hired him or whether he was working on his own. I didn't have to talk with him very long, however, to realize that he couldn't be trusted. That left me only one thing to do.'
I nodded. That took me off the hook for the murder. Now, to wrap up the rest of it.
Doc glanced at the hall door casually, then back at me. And there was that peculiar look in his eyes again: The one I'd seen back at the house, when Lila had left the room.
'There's one thing I don't understand, Doc,' I said. 'Why didn't you go through with this Fanning Arnholt deal? Why did you set it all up and then blow it to pieces?'
'That's what I'd like to know!' snapped Hardesty. 'I'm just lucky that there's nothing that can be pinned on me.'
'Well-' Doc hesitated, grinning faintly, 'why don't you make a guess, Pat?'
'I can think of a couple of reasons,' I said. 'One is that you were trying to get a few marks on the
