“I don’t mean that,” he corrected. “I mean why would anybody want to do it, and who was it?”
“I was hoping you could help a little there. Did the police admit to you they had it pegged as murder?”
“Not in so many words, but that was the way their enquiries were directed. Of course, I could tell them little.”
“Of course. But I’m a different proposition.”
“Really?” he raised his eyebrows. “Why?”
“Because I know things the police don’t know. I know she was more than just a casual visitor around here. They’d like to know that. I know you were waiting for somebody last night. Waiting with a gun. Not the kind of thing Randall would ignore.”
“Randall? Was he the big, sleepy looking one?”
“Yes.”
“I got the impression he was a lot more clever than he wanted me to think.”
“You got the right impression. And he’d make a whole lot of bricks out of those little things I could tell him.”
Somerset seemed to be trying to make up his mind about something.
“Then, my dear fellow, why don’t you go and see him?”
“Because I’m not especially interested in making trouble for you. I’m getting paid to find out who knocked off your poet friend. It’s not my job to run a one-man crime-busting syndicate.”
“H’m.”
He reached beneath him and came up with a tall glass which tinkled with ice cubes. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as I watched him pour the amber liquid down his throat.
“Brookman was neither a poet nor my friend, but these are merely words. I gather you have something to say, to come out here on a hot day like this?”
“Right. I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’re running a blackmail business on the side, and Brookman was your collector. That could explain why he was killed.”
The rolls of fat heaved as he chuckled richly.
“Blackmail? That’s a very unkind thing to say. I imagine you didn’t just pluck the word out of thin air?”
“No. What you mean is, can I prove it? Frankly, at the moment, no. But I’m heading in the right direction. It shouldn’t be too long before I can.”
“You really are a very interesting character. And as poor dear Flower put it herself, no ordinary flatfoot. Might I ask what leads you to this drastic conclusion?”
Hugo Somerset had been using words all his life. Mixing with phonies and assorted hangers-on had developed in him a kind of shell, and the real man seldom peeped through. It wouldn’t be enough to say he was taking the situation calmly. It was rather as though we were talking about other people. He wasn’t going to be bluffed into anything.
“I’m in touch with one of the people you’ve been bleeding. It’s an old routine, the one she fell for. A few drinks at a party, some guy starts putting the pressure on, and along comes a creep with a camera. I like the switch in your system, though.”
“Please tell me about it.”
“In your case you come along and make like big Uncle Hugo. You save the unfortunate woman, she thinks you’re some kind of a shining knight. Then you put the screw on through somebody else. It’s neat. But it doesn’t make me like you one little bit.”
He nodded, didn’t seem disturbed in the least.
“Interesting. And you’re really in touch with one of my—um—victims? Could I ask who it is?”
I laughed outright at the nerve of the man.
“You’re wonderful,” I admitted. “And of course you don’t seriously expect me to tell you. But she paid Brook-man regularly. Brookman was killed. Flower promised to tell me things about him, things you didn’t volunteer. But Flower was killed too. The man who hired me to dig into the Brookman thing was shot and nearly killed last night. Now, do you suppose there could just be some little connection between all those things?”
“Could be,” he agreed. “In fact, the neat and consecutive way in which you describe these things, one could hardly come to any other conclusion.”
“And?”
“And the only little fault I can put my finger on,” he explained, “Is that you’re one hundred per cent wrong from start to finish.”
I tossed my butt into his pool, and watched it float untidily on the still blue water.
“O.K. Hugo, if that’s all you have to say. I was kind of hoping we could do some kind of a deal. I don’t think I’m really after you. But if you won’t trade, I’ll have to tell the cops what I know. We’ll see what kind of thing they make of it.”
“Wait a moment.”
He rolled ponderously off the chair and fell thunderously into the pool. After one or two elephantine splashings he climbed out with difficulty, pouring water in cascades all over the grass and shaking his great head.
“That’s better. Clear the head. Come into the house. Perhaps it is time we had a serious talk.”
He waddled past me, shaking off spray like an artificial fountain. I got up and followed, easing the .38 in its holster in case he should decide to get rid of me. Inside, he patted ineffectually at himself with a striped towel then went across to the bar, leaving damp patches everywhere.
“Beer all right?”
“Fine.”
He tossed over a can and we stood looking at one another.
“Preston, you seem to be digging up little things around and about, and of course facts are facts. Supposition however, is something else again. How far can I trust you?”
“It depends,” I returned. “If I find you had anything to do with those murders, you can trust me about as far as the nearest telephone.”
He nodded, as though that was the expected reply.
“Fair enough. And the blackmail theory?”
“That too. In my book blackmail is as bad as murder. Worse, in some cases. So don’t let’s waste any time talking deal about that.”
He peeled the metal strip from the top of the can, and tipped some of the ice-cold beer down. I did the same, and it was good.
“Sit down, Preston,
