bearer bonds and has been withdrawn from the account.”
“Did he say when?”
“Soon after probate.”
“And you have written to Miss Crosby asking her to call on you?”
“Yes. She’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”
“When did you write to her?”
“Tuesday: five days ago.”
“Did she answer by return?”
He nodded.
“Then I don’t think she’ll keep the appointment. Anyway, we’ll see.” I tapped the ash into his silver ashtray. “All right, that covers the points we made together. Now I’d better get on with my tale.”
I told him how MacGraw and Hartsell had called on me. He listened, sunk down in his chair, his eyes as anonymous as a pair of headlights. He neither laughed nor cried when I described how they had beaten me up. It hadn’t happened to him, so why should he care? But when I told him how Maureen had appeared on the scene, his brows came down in a frown, and he allowed himself the luxury of tapping on the edge of his desk with his fingernails.
That was probably the nearest he would ever get to a show of excitement.
‘“She took me to a house on the cliff road, east of San Diego Highway. She said it was hers: a nice place if you like places that cost a lot of money and are smart enough to house movie stars in. Did you know she had it?”
He shook his head.
“We sat around and talked,” I went on. “She wanted to know why I was interested in her, and I showed her her sister’s letter. For some reason or other she seemed scared. She wasn’t acting: she was genuinely frightened. I asked her if she was being blackmailed at that time, and she said she wasn’t, and that Janet was probably trying to make trouble for her. She said Janet hated her. Did she?”
Willet was playing with a paper-knife now; his face was set, and there was a worried look in his eyes.
“I understand they didn’t get on: nothing more than that. You know how it is with stepsisters.”
I said I knew how it was with stepsisters.
Time went by for a few minutes. The only sound in the room was the busy tick of Willet’s desk clock.
“Go on,” he said curtly. “What else did she say?”
“As you know, Janet and a guy named Douglas Sherrill were engaged to be married. What you probably don’t know is Sherrill is a dark horse; possibly a con man, certainly a crook. According to Maureen, she stole Sherrill from Janet.”
Willet didn’t say anything. He waited.
“The two girls had a showdown which developed into a fight,” I went on. “Janet grabbed a shot-gun. Old man Crosby appeared and tried to take the gun away from her. He got shot and killed.”
I thought for a moment Willet was going to jump right across his desk. But he controlled himself, and said in a voice that seemed to come from under the floor, “Did Maureen tell you this?”
“Oh. yes. She wanted to get it off her chest. Now here’s another bit you’ll like. The shooting had to be hushed up. I was wrong about Dr. Salzer signing Crosby’s certificate. He didn’t sign it. Mrs. Salzer signed it. According to her she is a qualified doctor, and a friend of the family. One of the girls called her and she came around and fixed things. Lessways, who isn’t the type to make things awkward for the wealthy, accepted the yarn that Crosby was cleaning his gun and shot himself accidentally. He took their word for it. So did Brandon.”
Willet lit a cigarette. He looked like a hungry man who’s been given a pie and finds nothing inside it.
“Go on,” he said, and sat back.
“For some reason or other, a nurse named Anona Freedlander was in the house at the time of the shooting, and she saw the accident. Mrs. Salzer wasn’t taking any chances. She locked the nurse up to make sure she wouldn’t talk. She’s been in a padded cell at Salzer’s sanatorium ever since.”
“You mean—against her will?”
“Not only against her will, but for two years they have been pumping drugs into her.”
“You’re not suggesting Maureen Crosby is aware of this?”
“I don’t know.”
Willet was breathing heavily now. The thought that a client as wealthy as Maureen Crosby might be charged with kidnapping seemed to shock him, although Anona Freedlander’s predicament hadn’t made him turn a hair.
“Incidentally, in case you’re working up some sympathy for her,” I said, “we got Anona out of the sanatorium last night.”
“Oh?” He looked disconcerted. “Is she likely to make trouble?”
I grinned unpleasantly.
“I should think it’s more than likely. Wouldn’t you want to start something after being kept locked up for two years just because some rich people are shy of appearing in the newspapers?”
He fingered his chin and did some heavy thinking.
“Perhaps we could give her a little compensation,” he said at last, but he didn’t look very happy. “I’d better see her.”
“No one sees her until she’s ready to see anyone. Right now, she doesn’t seem to know whether she’s coming or going.” I crushed out the cigarette and lit one of my own. “This kidnapping should be reported to the police. If it is, then the whole sordid story will hit the headlines. It will be your job then to hand over the Crosby millions to the Research Centre. They may or may not want you to handle the account: probably not.”
“All the more reason why I should have a talk with her,” he said. “These things can usually be arranged.”
“Don’t be too sure about that. Then there’s this little incident that happened to me,” I said mildly. “I was also kidnapped and held prisoner for five days, and also had a certain amount of drug pumped into me. That’s another little thing that should he reported to the police.”
“Why talk yourself out of a good job?” he returned, and for the first time since I had been in the room he allowed himself a slight grin. “I was about to suggest an extra retainer: say another five hundred dollars.”
That made my new hat a certainty.
“That tempts me. We might call it an insurance against risks,” I said. “But it would have to be over and above the fee you will pay for the work we are doing.”
“That’s all right.”
“Well, perhaps we might leave Anona Freedlander for the moment and go on with the story,” I said. “There’s quite a bit more; it gets better as it goes along.”
He pushed back his chair and got up. I watched him cross to a cellaret against the opposite wall and return with a bottle of Haigh & Haigh and two small glasses.
“Do you use this stuff?” he asked as he sat down again.
I said I used it whenever I could.
He poured two drinks, pushed one across the desk towards me, tossed the other down his throat and immediately refilled his glass. He put the bottle midway between us.
“Help yourself,” he said.
I drank a little of the Scotch. It was very good: quite the best liquor I had had in months. I thought it was wonderful how a big-shot lawyer could unbend when he sees trouble coming towards him with his name on it.
“According to Maureen, Crosby’s death preyed on Janet’s mind,” I told him. “Maybe it did, but she certainly had an odd way of showing it. I should have thought she wouldn’t have felt like playing tennis or running around at a time like that, but apparently she did. Anyway, also according to Maureen, Janet committed suicide about six or seven weeks after the shooting. She took arsenic.”
A tiny drop of Scotch wobbled out of Willet’s glass on to his blotter. He said, “Good God!” under his breath.
“That was hushed up, too. As it happened Mrs. Salzer was away at the time, so Maureen and Dr. Salzer called in Dr. Bewley, a harmless old goat, and told him Janet was suffering from malignant endocarditis, and he obligingly issued the death certificate. Janet had a personal maid, Eudora Drew, who possibly overheard Salzer and Maureen cooking up this yarn. She put on the bite, and they paid her. I got a line on her and went to see her. She
