was smart enough to fob me off and get on to Salzer, telling him I was offering five hundred bucks for information, and if he liked to raise the ante she would keep her mouth shut. Mrs. Salzer had an answer to that. She sent along an ex-gunman who was working at the sanatorium to reason with her. According to Mrs. S. he got rough and killed her.”
Willet drew in a long, slow breath. He took a drink like a man who needs a drink.
“The family butler, John Stevens, also knew something, or suspected something,” I went on. “I was persuading him to loosen up when he was kidnapped by six Wops who work for Sherrill. They got a little tough with him, and he died, but that still makes murder. Two murders. Now we get to the third. Are you liking this?”
He said in a gritty voice, “Go on.”
“You will remember Nurse Gurney? Mrs. Salzer admits kidnapping her, only, according to her, Nurse Gurney fell down the fire escape and broke her neck. Mrs. Salzer hid her somewhere in the desert. That’s murder, too.”
“This is fantastic.” Willet said. “It’s unbelievable.”
“It’s unbelievable only because of the motive. Here we have two people, Mrs. Salzer and Sherrill, committing three murders between them, to say nothing of kidnapping Anona Freedlander and myself, to protect a girl from newspaper publicity. That’s what makes it unbelievable. I think there’s a lot more to this business than we know about. It seems to me these two are desperately trying to keep a very lively cat from hopping out of the bag, and I want to find out what kind of cat it is.”
“It’s not newspaper publicity they’re worrying about,” Willet said. “Look at the money that’s involved.”
“Yeah, but I still think there’s a strange cat we haven’t found yet. I’m going to hunt for it. Anyway, I’ll get on. I haven’t finished yet. The punch line comes last. Maureen told me when she came into her money, Sherrill reverted to type. He turned blackmailer. He said he would circulate the rumour that because she stole him from Janet, Janet shot her father and killed herself. But if Maureen bought the Dream Ship for him, he would keep quiet. She bought the Dream Ship: that’s why she converted the insurance money into bearer bonds. She gave the bonds to Sherrill. Imagine how the newspapers would scream if it got out that Maureen Crosby was the backer of a gambling-ship. Wouldn’t that drop the whole of the Crosby money into the Research Centre’s lap?”
Willet managed to look green without actually turning green.
“She bought the Dream Ship,” he said in a stifled voice.
“That’s what she tells me. She also said she was frightened of Sherrill, and at that dramatic moment Mr. Sherrill made a personal appearance. He announced he was going to put Maureen where no one would find her and dispose of me in the same way. I was beginning to argue with him when someone from behind bent a sap over my head, and I woke up in Salzer’s sanatorium. We won’t waste time going into what happened there. It’s enough that my assistant kidded Lessways he was a well-known writer and got himself invited to the monthly visit to the asylum with the City’s councilmen. He spotted me, and got out and we took Anona Freedlandcr with us. What we have to find out is whether Sherrill has carried out his threat to hide Maureen away. If she doesn’t show up tomorrow, my bet is she’s hidden away: probably on Sherrill’s ship. But if she does show up, then I’ll be inclined to think she’s in this business with the rest of them, and she took me to her house so Sherrill could get at me.”
Willet poured another drink with a hand that wasn’t too steady.
“I don’t believe that’s likely,” he said.
“We’ll see. If Sherrill is holding her, have you any power to stop her money?”
“I haven’t any power over her money at all. All I can do is to advise the other trustees that she has broken the terms of the will.”
“Who are the other trustees?”
“Mr. Glynn and Mr. Coppley, my chiefs, who are of course, in New York.”
“Should they be consulted?”
“Not at this stage,” he said, and rubbed his jaw. “I’ll be frank with you, Malloy. They would follow out the terms of the will without hesitation, and without taking into consideration the girl might be innocent. To my way of thinking the will is over-harsh. Crosby has stipulated that if Maureen figures in the newspapers the money goes to the Research Centre. I imagine he got a little tired of her pranks, but he didn’t realize he was giving an unscrupulous blackmailer a weapon to use against her. And that’s what has probably happened.”
“It’s occurred to you we are covering up three murders?” I said, helping myself to another drink. All this talk made me dry. “So far Brandon isn’t digging too deep because he’s scared of the Crosby’s money, but if the facts turn out that Maureen’s hooked up in these murders, he’ll have to forget about her money and take some action: then you and I will be out on a limb.”
“We’ve got to give her the benefit of the doubt,” Willet said uneasily. “I’d never forgive myself if by acting too previously we caused her to lose her money unfairly. How about this Freedlander woman? How long will it be before she can talk?”
“I don’t know. Some days from the look of her. She can’t even remember who she is.”
“Is she in hospital?”
I shook my head.
“My secretary. Miss Bensinger, is looking after her. I’ve called in a doctor, but there’s nothing much he can do. He says it’s a matter of time. I’m going to San Francisco to-day to see her father. He may help her memory.”
“We’ll pay any expenses involved,” Willet said. “Charge it up to us.” He lit another cigarette. “What’s the next move?”
“We’ll have to wait and see if Maureen turns up. If she doesn’t, I’ll go out to the Dream Ship and see if she’s on board. There are other angles I’m looking into. At the moment I have a lot of loose strings that need tidying up.”
There was a tap on the door and the platinum blonde came in and swayed her way to Willet’s desk.
“Mrs. Pollard is getting impatient,” she murmured. “And this message has just come in. I thought you should see it at once.”
She gave him a slip of paper. He read what was written on it and his eyebrows shot up.
“All right. Tell Mrs. Pollard I’ll see her in five minutes,” he said. He looked at me. “Miss Crosby won’t be coming tomorrow. Apparently she is going to Mexico for a trip”
“Who phoned?” I asked, sitting forward.
“He didn’t say who he was,” the platinum blonde told Willet. “He said he was speaking for Miss Crosby, and would I give you the message right away.”
Willet raised his eyebrows at me. I shook my head.
“All right, Miss Palmetter,” he said. “That’s all.”
I fished up my hat from under my chair and stood up.
“Looks like a visit to the Dream Ship,” I said.
Willet put the Scotch and the two glasses away.
“You’d better not tell me about that,” he said. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”
“You’ll be surprised how careful I will be.”
“She may have gone to Mexico,” he went on doubtfully.
I gave him a little grin, but he didn’t grin back.
“Be seeing you,” I said, and went into the outer office.
A fat, over-dressed woman, with pearls the size of pickled onions around her neck, sat breathing heavily in one of the lounging chairs. She gave me a stony glare as I picked my way past her to the door.
I looked back at the platinum blonde and tried my grin on her.
She opened her eyes very wide, stared emptily at me and then looked away.
I went out, my grin hanging in space, like an unwanted baby on a doorstep.
II
Jack Kerman was demonstrating to Trixy, my switchboard girl, how Gregory Peck kisses his leading ladies when I tramped in. They came apart a little slower than a flash of lightning, but not much. Trixy whipped to her
