“We’ll leave Jacobi’s death for a moment and talk about
Littlejohns,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “It’s important because it
decided me that Netta wasn’t the Netta I used to know, and that I
couldn’t let her get away with murder. I liked Littlejohns. He had guts,
and besides, he was working for me. I had told him all I knew about
the case, and he had spotted something I missed. He realized that
Selma Jacobi figured somewhere in the case, and that she could very
well be the dead girl in Netta’s flat as well as the dead girl in the
cottage at Lakeham. He hadn’t seen Selma, but I had seen the dead
girl. He wanted to surprise me, poor little guy. He found out where
Selma used to live and went there in the hope of finding a photograph
of her. He had planned to present me with the photograph, and when
I had identified it as the dead girl, he was going to spring his surprise.
He found the photograph. A scrap of it remained in his fingers when I
found him. But Netta caught him. She realized that he was on to her,
and to save her skin, she killed him. That’s something I can’t forgive,
so I trapped her into thinking I was going to get her out of the
country, knowing she’d try to smuggle Allenby’s loot out with her.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you knew she had the loot,”
Corridan said, frowning. “You say this Peter French killed Selma
Jacobi?”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t say that. Netta told me Peter
French killed Selma. But that’s a lie. Peter French knows nothing
about this business at all. He was a stooge, put up to lead me away
from the real killer.”
Netta got slowly to her feet, her face ghastly. Corridan took a step
forward.
“Then who killed Selma Jacobi?” he demanded.
“The same person who killed Madge Kennitt,” I said, moving
across to the kitchen door. “Let me introduce you.” I jerked open the
door, stood aside. “Come on out,” I said. “You’ve been in there long
enough.”
Detective-Inspector O’Malley and three plain-clothes dicks moved
into the room. They looked at me, at Corridan, at Netta.
“That’s the guy who killed Selma Jacobi and Madge Kennitt,” I
said, jerking my thumb at Corridan.
Chapter XXV
“I EXPECT you to exercise tact and control with Harry Bix,” I told
Crystal as I piloted her across the Savoy lobby to where Fred Ullman
and Bix were examining the latest novels on the bookstall. “He’s the
kind of wolf who knows al the ankles. Don’t encourage him, and if
you don’t stray away from me you should be safe enough.”
Crystal said, “Shouldn’t you have brought your poke bonnet and
tambourine? Who wants to be safe, anyway?”
By this time Harry Bix had seen us, and nudging Ullman, he
fingered his tie, giving us a loud hello.
“Well, well,” he said, advancing to meet us. “Bluebeard does it
again. How you collect these juicy dames beats me. You must have a
fatal attraction or something.”
I sighed. “Crystal, this is Harry Bix. Don’t trust him. Even the wool
he’ll try to pull over your eyes is half cotton. Harry, this is Miss
Godwin. I’ll trouble you to keep your hands in your pockets while you
talk to her, and just to keep the record straight, she is my property.
The gentleman with the bags under his eyes, lurking in the
background, is Fred Ullman. Fred, Miss Godwin.”
Ullman said how do you do, looked a little bored, but Bix elbowed
him farther into the background, beamed at Crystal.
“This is the most exciting moment in my life,” he said, taking her
hand. “You’re not real y his property, are you? A dish as lovely as you
wouldn’t waste herself on a half-dead numskull like him, surely?”
I unfastened their hands, took Crystal firmly by her elbow.
“Paws off,” I said. “This is the one blonde I intend to keep for
myself. Away to your own hunting-ground.” I convoyed Crystal across
the lobby into the grill-room. “Come on, let’s eat,” I continued. “And,
Fred, keep that woman-snatcher out of range.”
“Why you fellows make such a fuss about women defeats me,”
Ullman said sourily. “All my life I’ve kept away from women, and look
at me.”
“You look; I’ve seen you,” Crystal said tartly.
When we had all settled down at a corner table and had ordered a
meal, Harry Bix said, “We are gathered together here to-night, not to
be fed from any charitable reasons, but because Arsene Lupin here,”
he waved in my direction, “wishes to shoot off his mouth on the
subject of his own cleverness, and has naturally to bribe us to listen.”
Crystal tugged at my sleeve, asked me in a whisper why Bix called
me Arsene Lupin, and wasn’t Lupin French for rabbit?
I whispered back that the French for rabbit was lapin, and that
Arsene Lupin was one of the world’s greatest detectives.
She then wanted to know what that had to do with me.
“Shush, woman,” I said, annoyed. “You’re showing your
ignorance.”
“As a newspaper man I have to make sacrifices,” Ullman said
wearily. “I am prepared to eat his food and to suffer the sound of his
voice so long as he’ll explain in detail the story behind Corridan’s
arrest. That is something the great British public wish to know, and it’s
my painful duty to tell them.”
“Not in detail,” Bix pleaded. “There’re so many more interesting
things to do than to listen to details,” and he leered suggestively at
Crystal, who leered back.
I tapped him on the shoulder. “That blonde is my property,” I
reminded him. “If it wasn’t in such an inaccessible spot I’d show you
where I’ve branded her with my personal seal, so paws off and I’ll
trouble you to keep your dirty looks to yourself.”
Crystal said she liked his dirty looks, and could she have a few
more please?
“Can’t you control these two?” Ullman demanded. “I want the
story if they don’t. Why you bring a blonde to a meeting like this beats
