Netta crawled to her feet, then flopped limply on the chaise-
longue, buried her face in her hands.
I turned to Corridan who was still staring at the heap of jewel ery
as if hypnotized.
“Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” I said. “I promised myself I’d crack
the Allenby case because you acted so damn high-hat. I’ve done it.”
Corridan’s face was a study. He looked at Netta, at me. “But how
did you know she had the stuff on her?” he demanded.
“You’ll be surprised how much I do know,” I said. “She and Jack
Bradley were behind the Allenby robbery. I’ll give you all the facts,
and then you can manufacture the evidence. Do you want to hear?”
“Of course, I want to hear,” he said, knelt down, scooped up the
jewelery, dropped it back into the belt. “How did you get on to this?”
He put the belt on the table.
“I got on to it because I never believed Netta committed suicide,”
I said, lighting a cigarette and perching myself on the table. “I was
sure she hadn’t killed herself after I had searched the flat. Most of her
clothes and all her silk stockings had vanished. I’ve known Netta for
some time, and have a good idea of her character. She wasn’t the
type to commit suicide, and she had a passion for clothes. It seemed
to me, after the body had been kidnapped, that some other girl had
died in her flat, and Netta, taking fright, had run off with as many of
her clothes as she could carry.”
Corridan leaned against the wall, eyed me.
“You told me all that before,” he said, “and I worked that out for
myself anyway.”
“Sure,” I said. “But there was plenty still to puzzle me. For one
thing, who was the dead girl? Then another thing foxed me. Why
should Netta, although she’d taken time to pack her clothes, have left
sixteen five-pound notes in the flat and that bunch of bonds worth
five thousand pounds? That got me for some time until Madge
Kennitt told me a girl and a man had been with Netta that night. The
girl was obviously the one who’d died. The man either killed her or
was Netta’s accomplice. It seemed to me the reason why Netta had
left the money in the flat was because she didn’t trust her companion,
and he didn’t give her a chance to get the money from its hiding-place
without him seeing her do it. So she had to leave it there, but hoped
to collect it later, but I found it first.” I glanced over at Netta, but she
didn’t look up. She sat with her head in her hands, motionless.
“Go on,” Corridan said quietly.
“Who was the mysterious man, and why didn’t she want him to
know about the money?” I went on. “I’ve talked to Netta, and she has
told me he was Peter French, who was Anne’s lover. That’s another
way of saying he was Netta’s lover. You see,
But we’ll come back to Peter French in a moment.
“Nine months ago, Netta married Jack Bradley. For some reason
they kept the marriage a secret, and they didn’t live together except
at week-ends which they spent in a cottage at Lakeham, bought by
Bradley as a hide-out for them both. Netta cal ed herself Anne Scott
when she was at Lakeham. She tells me that French killed her sister
because she knew he had killed George Jacobi. Since she never had a
sister, that was obviously a lie. Who then was the girl who had died in
Netta’s flat, and was later found in the cottage? I want you to get this
clear, Corridan. The girl who was kidnapped from the mortuary and
the girl we found in the cottage were one and the same.”
Corridan pursed his lips. “But one was a red-head and the other
was a blonde,” he said. “How do you account for that?”
“Netta explained it to me,” I said. “She tells me that French dyed
the girl’s hair and bleached it back to its normal colour after he had
removed the body to the cottage.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Corridan muttered.
I nodded. “It wants a little believing,” I said, “but after thinking it
over, it seems to me that’s what happened. If the girl wasn’t Netta’s
sister, and I’ve proved beyond doubt that Netta never had a sister,
then who was she and why was she murdered, and why was the
murderer so anxious to prevent her being identified?”
“Have you found that out?” Corridan asked eagerly.
“I think so,” I returned. “Not only have I found it out, but
Littlejohns found it out, too. That’s why he died.”
“Who was it then?”
“Selma Jacobi, the wife of George Jacobi who was murdered by
Jack Bradley,” I said.
Netta sat up, glared across at me.
“It’s a lie!” she screamed. “Jack didn’t kill him. It was Peter
French.”
I shook my head. “Oh, no, it wasn’t,” I said gently. “Let’s go back a
bit.” I slid off the table, began to pace up and down. Let’s go back to
the time when the American soldiers were being repatriated. Before
then, Bradley had been content to make a big profit by selling bad
hooch and fleecing the boys in any other way he could think up. But
when they began to leave, his profits shrank. He had to think up some
other way of making money. Apart from running gaming-tables, he
also decided to go in for large-scale robbery. George Jacobi was an
expert in this line. Bradley hooked up with him, and the Allenby
robbery was planned. About this time Netta was married to Bradley
and Jacobi married Selma. Allenby’s place was near Lakeham, and
Bradley killed two birds with one stone by buying the cottage at
Lakeham. The robbery was organized from the cottage, and he also
had a love nest for Netta and himself. Mrs. Brambee, Jacobi’s sister,
undertook to run the cottage for them. The robbery was successful,
and the next move was to find some way to sell the loot. The stuff was
too hot; neither Bradley nor Jacobi had the nerve to put it on the
market. They sat on it, hoping that it would cool off. While waiting,
they quarrel ed over the split, and one night Bradley killed Jacobi in
the Club, and dumped him in a Soho street.”
“Is this guess-work or have you proof?” Corridan asked.
“It’s guess-work,” I admitted, “but she’ll talk before long. They
always do.”
Corridan glanced at Netta, grunted. “Go on,” he said.
