Jealous Woman

12

Taking over, that day anyway, consisted of sitting in Jane’s living room and answering police questions over the telephone, mostly about who would claim the body, stuff like that. He’d been found in a gully after his horse, that he’d rented from the Los Amigos stables just south of town, had come in without him. For some of the stuff they wanted we had to call the family in the east, and Jane did the talking on that, and on breaking the news to this girl he’d been engaged to marry, Faith Converse. Jane called her Penny, but I think that was some moniker they’d given her, on account of her being so small. It took us until five, and they said as neither one of us was with him there’d be no need for us to attend the inquest, which would be held at another undertaking parlor that night. I suggested we drive over to Carson for dinner, and she seemed to like the idea. She had taken it a little hard for a couple of minutes, more from shock than anything else, I think, and then she had snapped out of it and done what she had to do in a quiet way I fell for pretty hard. But on a chance to get away from the hotel and the phone calls, she jumped at it pretty quick.

We had dinner in the Arlington, which was where we generally went over there, and we didn’t talk about it, or ourselves, or anything of that kind. I got off on a long educational pep talk about Kit Carson, that the town was named after, and what a terrific help he’d been to all those old grizzlies that were building the West a hundred years ago. But on the way back we got to what was on our mind, and it was she that brought it up. “Ed, you know what this means, don’t you?”

“That you don’t need a divorce?”

“I’ve no further business in Reno.”

“None at all?”

“...That’s for you to say.”

“Then — O.K., you’ve got business.”

“You want me to stay on?”

“Of course I do.”

“We can’t be married right away.”

“You mean it wouldn’t look right?”

“It’s out of the question.”

“Then you stay on, Jane, and we’ll ride around and see each other and little by little two or three months will go by and a ceremony will be O.K.”

“I’d say about six.”

“Then six.”

“Shall I write my family?”

“Go right ahead.”

“...Or perhaps I’ll wait.”

“Why wait, Jane? Write ’em.”

“What’s not announced doesn’t have to be openly admitted. And what is announced can’t be taken back. Just to avoid complications, I think I’m staying on for the climate. Or the scenery. Or something like that. You’ve got to admit it’s pretty wonderful.”

“Anything you say.”

I tossed it off like a big shot that had it all under control, but inside me was something moving, like in the shark that swallowed the oyster borer. I had to tell her about that policy, and it would mean she’d know I’d lied to her, and big as the policy was, somehow I hated to get to it. But pretty soon I knew I had to, so I kept right on the big shot line and tossed it out like it was the big surprise good news I had been saving for her all the time. “And by the way, speaking of what’s pretty wonderful, there’s a wedding present due to drop in your lap, or a dowry, or whatever you call it, that’s just about as wonderful as anything I can think of, anyway for a night in late fall.”

“Dowry? What do you mean?”

“$100,000.”

“...For me?”

“For cute little you.”

“From where?”

“That — policy.”

“...Tom’s?”

“You didn’t think I really knocked it in the head, did you?”

“But Ed, I haven’t it.”

“I have.”

We rode quite some ways and she didn’t say anything. Then: Ed, I wish you hadn’t done this to me.”

“Made you $100,000, you mean?”

“Behind my back. Why did you?”

“Insurance is my life. I believe in it.”

“I wish I could believe that was the only reason.”

“That’s one thing about dough, Jane. It’ll do just as much for you whether you work for it or you don’t work for it or whether you believe or you don’t believe. It’s strictly open shop. I’m not ashamed of it that I saw something good, something good for you I mean, and took it even when you told me not to.”

“And you told me an untruth about it.”

“Hell, I lied. But you’ll get the money.”

“And you’ll get the cup.”

“...What cup?”

“Please, Ed.”

“Can’t a guy have two reasons for doing something?”

“Not if one of them’s me.”

We went along for a while trying to talk about what a pretty night it was, and how nothing ever looked as bright as lights in the clear Nevada air. Than she began to cry. “Ed, I’ve been trying to make myself say thank you for what you did. I suppose you had no bad motive. I can’t do it. I... just can’t.”

“I can. I thank myself a lot.”

“Then, all right.”

“And not only for the money.”

“I hope you enjoy the cup.”

“And my wife.”

“I... don’t understand you.”

“O.K., Jane, now you get it. I’ve never been quite sure, if you want to know the truth, about how Sperry got it. O.K., so the dog went over the wall. O.K., so you don’t know a thing about the phone call. O.K., but there’s the big Sperry policy, and unless they can prove suicide, there’s the money. Now I know I lied to you about this Delavan policy. You couldn’t have had anything to do with it. That clears up a lot of things. Maybe one’s not got anything to do with the other, but it’s got a lot to do with how I feel about it.”

“Ed, you suspected me?”

“No, but it’s nice being sure.”

“Then you did suspect me?”

“I’d have loved you, anyhow.”

“You could love me, suspecting—”

“I didn’t care.”

Brother, if I could leave it out about the next three hours I’d do it, and if that would be lying, I’d got to the point where one lie more or less didn’t seem to matter a whole lot, one way or the other. But there’s two or three people that could call it on me, so here goes, but don’t get too excited about it if I kind of go easy and not take extra billboard space to advertise what a heel I felt like for a while. It’ll be the truth but kind of on the quiet side, if you get what I mean — in good taste, but not any production job, with lights. We rode along, and she kept staring in front of her, and I kept trying to think of something like the Nevada air we could use for talk. We got to the hotel and started through the lobby and Lindstrom got up out of a chair and came over to us. Then he introduced a kid named Kubic that he said was assistant state’s attorney. Then he asked Jane to sit down. She did and we all did and he asked if she was holding a policy on Delavan’s life. “I don’t, but I understand one was taken out for me.”

“Who has this policy?”

“This gentleman here.”

“What’s he got to do with it?”

I said: “I’m the agent.”

“And what are you doing with it?”

“Holding it for her benefit.”

“Why you and not her?”

“I’m going to marry her.”

It wasn’t until the flicker came in his eye that I realized how that sounded, and how it could even tie me in without in any way including her out. “I see. I get it now, pal. And how much was this life insurance?”

“$100,000.”

“You putting a claim in, Miss?”

“I don’t know.”

“You bet she’s putting a claim in.”

“O.K.”

They left and we went on upstairs. When we got to her suite I said: “Well, it’s easy to see whose fine Italian hand that is. Mr. Keyes has got into it again, as there’s nobody here that knows about that policy.”

But she started to tremble, and then she began to cry, awful quivering sobs that nothing I did could stop. And she acted like I wasn’t even there. There didn’t seem much for me to do but go, so I did. But my three hours wasn’t up yet.

It was after eleven when I got to the apartment house, but the operator goes off and the door locks at ten, so when I saw a woman sitting over by the lobby fireplace it meant she’d been waiting some little while. It wasn’t till I heard my name called that I saw it was Mrs. Sperry. I said: “Well — this is an honor. To say nothing of a surprise.”

“Mr. Horner, I have to talk to you.”

We sat down and I helped her out of her coat. She had on house pajamas, some dark color, blue, I think, and I got a load of the figure. Then she began to talk. “I had a chat with Mr. Keyes today.”

“I thought he was in Los Angeles.”

“He called me from there. He’s flying here.”

“Tonight?”

“Tomorrow some time.”

“I had supposed he would.”

“On this Delavan case.”

“He’s hipped on the subject that Mrs. Delavan murdered your husband, Mrs. Sperry, and he’s probably hipped that she killed Delavan. If she ever murdered anybody, then we’re all Chinamen.”

“As I’ve tried to tell him.”

“Oh, you’ve discussed it with him?”

“And I think annoyed him.”

“He seemed to like you.”

“Until recently.”

“He gave you the air?”

“I haven’t heard from him at all.”

She looked at the fire some more, and said: “Mr. Horner, it would be a great deal better, for everybody concerned, if Mr. Keyes could be persuaded to let this thing rest. I don’t know Mrs. Delavan, but she was briefly a part of my husband’s life, and I don’t relish even the sideswipe of scandal. Is it in your power to have Mr. Keyes taken off this case?”

“It is not.”

“Can’t you suggest it?”

“I can and I will.”

“It won’t help?”

“Not if he really tears in.”

“What is his interest in it?”

“A $100,000 insurance risk that my company is on.”

“And that’s all?”

“How do you mean, that’s all?”

“If that were paid, would his interest cease?”

“...Are you willing to pay it?”

“Possibly you don’t know. I have some means.”

“I heard you were rich.”

“I... have some means.”

I told her it was the kind of stuff that insurance companies don’t like and have to watch close any time they have to fool with it, or think they have. I explained how it was all tied up with concealment of evidence of a crime, and while often a go-between is used on the recovery of stolen jewels, the company is pretty safe as it can always say the stuff they paid a reward for was represented to them as found, not stolen. “On a case like this, it would have to be done through the beneficiary. If she would accept indemnity from somebody else, I think you would have to leave the company out of the deal and she would have to renounce claim by admission of some misrepresentations in connection with the application, or something of that sort, and even that would be pretty hard because she wasn’t the one that applied.”

“But it could be worked out?”

“I’m not sure.”

“But it might be?”

“I don’t say it couldn’t.”

“Mr. Horner.”

“Yes?”

“Will you be my go-between?”

Now, believe it or not, what was running through my mind, even after all that Jane had figured out on her, was that it didn’t seem possible she could be guilty of anything, and so far as being willing to pay $100,000 to hush it up went, that might look funny in somebody else, but for a woman that had $20,000,000 how funny was it? But by now, she was leaning toward me, where I was sitting beside her on the sofa, in a queer, please-please way, and then I felt something shoot through me. Because, from the look in her eye, I knew if I wanted to take her upstairs, there was nothing she’d stop at to get me to be her go-between. Then, for the first time I knew, without there being any question about it, she was guilty, not only of Sperry’s death, but of Delavan’s.

I took her hand and gave it a little pat, and she took mine and gave it a squeeze, and smiled again. I said: “I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t touch it, or anything connected with it, with a ten-foot pole.”

Her face almost seemed to fall apart, and after a while she licked her lips on the inside, the way people do to keep them from twitching. She said: “But... but... what am I going to do?”

“Get ready to take it, I guess.”

“Take it!... What do you mean?”

“Scandal. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Oh... Yes, that’s what I said.”

“Unless you’ve forgotten.”

She got up, went clumping over to the door like she had lost the use of her legs. I let her out. Then I phoned Jane. I phoned her three times, and each time she hung up on me. The fourth time the hotel operator said the orders were she was not to be disturbed.

13

The wire from Keyes was waiting for me at the office next morning, and around eleven I drove over and met him at the airport. With him was Norton. Not much was said going over to the office, but as soon as we got there, Keyes said: “Mr. Norton, I think you’d better tell Ed what we agreed on coming up.”

“Ed, I have bad news for you.”

“O.K., so I’m fired.”

“Wait now, not so fast.”

“My heart’s not broke as I told you before.”

“Temporarily relieved, if you’ll let me talk.”

“About the same, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not. Keyes has insisted on it, not because he thinks you made a mistake in insisting on this policy, and in fact making an issue of it, as you recall you did, for he thinks anybody has the right to make a mistake, and everybody ought to make an issue of what he regards as a matter of principle. It’s not that. But he does feel that you’re bound up with too close a personal tie to the person most involved in this to be a disinterested and helpful agent. But if our investigation shows the person most involved is not involved at all, believe me, Ed, you’ll be reinstated, and I’m sure Keyes joins me in the wish that that’s the way it’s going to turn out.”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, the same to you, Keyes, and many of them.”

“Thanks, Ed, thanks.”

“What for?”

“Well — it sounded friendly.”

“Not if you were listening it wasn’t. And especially if you were listening to J.P. here, and what he said about the person most involved. You stupid jerk, don’t you know who did this?”

“I think so.”

“I don’t think. I know. It was La Sperry.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“She was around last night.”

“...Around where?”

“To see me. To get you called off.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“To buy you off.”

“Now Ed, I know it’s a lie.”

“To buy General Pan Pacific off. To pay that claim.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“Keyes, how would I know you called her last night from Los Angeles if she didn’t tell me? You called her and told her you were coming. All of a sudden you thought this proved that all that stuff about the dog didn’t mean anything in connection with the death of Sperry, and you couldn’t wait to call her up to say ‘here I come.’ You did, didn’t you? And it was the first call you’ve made in some time, wasn’t it? O.K., she’s scared worse of you than you ever were of her, or anything. So the same to you and many of them, but just how disinterested and helpful you’re going to be I wouldn’t like to say — not in the presence of witnesses.”

“Ed, on this subject you’re getting unbalanced.”

Norton kept looking at me, like he was trying to dope the thing out, and then he reached for the telephone. I had forgotten he knew Mrs. Sperry, but in a few seconds he was talking to her like they used to be pals and then he banged her right between the eyes with it, the offer she had made me the night before. She held him on the line I guess twenty minutes and he talked pleasant and friendly the one or two things he said, but mostly it was “I see,” “I see,” and some more “I see.” When he hung up he said: “It sounds awfully funny that a woman would be willing to kick in $100,000 to hush something up, until you recall how much money Constance Sperry has, and what an awful mess it’s going to mean if we do go ahead on this, especially as the papers will unquestionably do everything they can to drag her in, even if it’s only indirectly, as that would blow the story up big.”

“Then why don’t you take her up?”

“Ed, first let’s let Keyes do his stuff.”

“Yeah, but will he?”

“Well, Keyes, what about it?”

“Put somebody else on it if you want.”

I said: “If you’ve got any sense you will put somebody else on it, and put us both on suspension. I’m telling you, La Sperry killed Delavan, as she killed her husband. She killed her husband so she could marry some X guy not identified yet, and I don’t think it’s Keyes. She killed her husband after an annulment idea fell through and as he wouldn’t give her a divorce she had to use a little direct action, or thought she did. What she killed Delavan for I don’t know, and how she killed him I don’t know, but if you’d only hold everything a day or two until I locate an English maid that seems to know more than she’s told, I think I can fill in whatever it is we don’t know. I’ve got detectives trying to find her, and I don’t think they’ll be so long.”

Keyes had listened to this with a face like it was cut out of stone, and what he felt about it he didn’t say. But he had Norton over a barrel, because back of it all was the fact that Keyes had been trying to block this policy, and there wasn’t much Norton could do now but let him have his way. He thought quite a while, and went out in the ante-room and sat in the spare chair and in a minute Linda came in with me and Keyes to leave him alone. Then after a while he was back. “All right, Keyes, take over. Ed, I’ll walk home with you.”

We went out and started down the street and in a different tone of voice asked me for the lowdown on Mrs. Sperry, and why I was so sure she had done it. I said: “There’s no low-down, nothing I could prove in court, just something she pulled when she was talking to me last night, kind of a pass she made at me, that only a desperate woman would make, and I’ll be damned if I believe people get that desperate over something like scandal. If that was all, couldn’t she leave town? She’s got the dough to go to Siam, if she wants to. Keyes, he’s awfully proud of himself that he knows, most of the time, without knowing how he knows. O.K., that’s how I know now.”

“That, I confess, shakes me.”

“However, we’ve got other things to talk about. I still have that policy.”

“Our policy? On Delavan?”

“That’s it.”

We walked on, as far as my apartment, and went up there, and I talked and kept on talking. I told him what had happened on the policy, just as I’ve told it here, but on certain points I told them over two or three times so there couldn’t be any question I was trying to make myself look good. I told it like it was, and he didn’t often interrupt. Then I said: “But that’s not all. I mailed it to myself, but I won’t tell you to what address, and I won’t tell you where it is now. Until this thing happened, Delavan’s death, I mean, it was a question of something I wanted, the company cup; something I thought was good for her, the protection that I meant to get for her even if she was acting silly about it; and Reyes’s nonsense, that got under my skin, and plenty. But it’s moved past any of that. It’s a question of her — Jane Delavan, I mean, and cops and charges and things I can’t even anticipate. It just so happens she prefers not to see me at the moment, and maybe never will again. But on how I feel about it, if it costs me my job, if it costs you $100,000 or $1,000,000, or it costs Keyes his mind, if he’s got one — I put her ahead of any of that and all of that. And you might as well know it. I think if anything is done about that policy now, it could boomerang on her — I mean if I took it somewhere, if I turned it in to you, if I sent it to her, if I joggled it in any way. I’m sorry. The company’s been swell to me and you have and allowing I don’t think he’s all there in the head, Keyes has. But on this, I’m rock.”

He took a minute or two after I stopped, and I’m proud to set it down here, word for word as well as I remember it, and I think it’s engraved in my mind pretty good, what he said, which was: “I can see, Ed, why you attach importance to this, and in fact seem to be pretty well rung up about it. However, there are two questions in connection with it, and I think you’ve got them pretty thoroughly confused. The first one is: What should you have done, after you and Keyes came in from the mountains and he had given you his dress rehearsal of the moving finger’s drama — when you heard what the cop said about the death at the hotel, and were faced with a decision as to what should be done, about the policy and Delavan’s check. I don’t in any way follow you as to the horrendous nature of your decision. If you had got Delavan’s check back from the post office certainly you would have held onto the policy pending more details on the death, and just as certainly when you found out it was not Delavan who was killed, as Keyes thought, but Sperry, you would have sent the check on again, without Delavan’s being any the wiser, and the result wouldn’t have been in any way different. For my part, when I was trying to work the thing out I think if there was any doubt in my mind I would have held things up. But on the basis of things as they stood then, I’m not at all sure that I wouldn’t have done just what you did, considering I had given you a green light, as I did, and considering how little importance was to be attached to Keyes at the moment, moving-finger previews or not, on account of his imbecile infatuation with Constance Sperry, and the silly monkeyshines he was indulging in on account of it. That, I think, takes care of the first question.

“The next question is what you should do about the policy now. You seem to have some idea I expect you to turn it over to me, apparently under the impression that now Delavan’s dead, and the beneficiary has never had the policy, I can escape liability, or that no claim can be made, or whatever it is that’s in your mind. In the first place, when we took Delavan’s money, the policy’s in force, and we’re liable. In the second place, if I attempted to avoid liability, it would cost me more than I could possibly gain. It would cost me you, for one thing. Let me do that and you can’t sell for General Pan, that I’ll promise you. You’re an idealist, a fanatic, on insurance in general and this company in particular. But let this happen and you’ll have to move to another company, as you’ve once or twice told me you might do — simply because as a fanatical idealist you wouldn’t believe in this company any more. In the third place, you can rest quite assured that if any fact disclosed by the investigation relieves me of liability, on a suicide clause, complicity of the beneficiary in homicide, as Keyes insists may be the case, or anything else, I am going to deny liability and refuse to pay until a court compels me. I may wish I didn’t have to, but I have stockholders to think of, and don’t you get the idea I’ll be soft-hearted in any way. I’ll be tough, down to the last comma of the bond. In the final place, however, which is the main place, so far as I’m concerned — are you listening, Ed?”

“I am, J. P.”

“I pay what I owe, period, new paragraph.”

His face tightened, as he said that, and I knew that maybe paying what he owed had cost him something now and then, but as I say, I felt proud of him. I didn’t feel much better about most of it, because we were talking about terrible things, at least as far as Jane was concerned. But at least I knew I could still call my friend one man that meant something to me. We sat there a few minutes, and he said:

“I’d like you to know, Ed, I had to humor Keyes after his efforts to block that policy, which of course would have saved us the rap, if we’d listened to him. But I came here prepared to pay on the nail, as I’ve told you I make a practice of doing. He doesn’t know it, but there’s a cashier’s check for $100,000 in my pocket right now, made out to Jane Delavan. I have it with me.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“I wanted you to know.”

“That pleases me.”

I ate lunch somewhere, maybe the Bonanza. It seemed funny not to be with Jane, and pretty soon I called her. A woman answered. She said Jane wasn’t in. I asked who she was and she said she was taking all Mrs. Delavan’s calls. It turned out later she was a nurse that had been called in on account of a crack-up Jane had had, but it hit me in the stomach to be given a brush-off. I left word I had called and went on out to the Scout Ranch, changed into riding clothes, and went on back for the Count. At least I could exercise him, now the situation had changed but there was no way to tell him so. I found him out back, tied up to a-post, with Jackie wiping him off. She said hello and to get Red, one of their trail horses, out of the first stable, or she’d do it for me if I could wait a minute. I said: “Well, thanks, he’s O.K., but I’ve got one of my own or have I?”

“You mean — him?”

“I do — unless we’ve all gone crazy.”

“Well maybe we have — or one of us, anyway.”

She stared at me, and certainly looked like she thought I was slightly off my nut at least. Then she said: “He’s had his workout — all he wants for one day.”

“You mean you worked him?”

“Who do you think worked him?”

My heart gave a jump. There was no reason why Jackie should know about the mess things were in, or what was in the envelope she had, or anything that would cause her to fit two and two together. It did something for me, to know Jane had been there, and really was out when I called, and had worked the Count, even if she was busted up with me. But after a while, riding Red up in the hills, I slipped down again, my morale, I mean. She wouldn’t let the Count down, whatever happened, or any animal that needed her, so what it proved about me was practically nothing.

When I got in Jackie propositioned me about buying Red and using him. I asked why. “Well, that horse of yours is coming around so pretty, on manners and all, he’s practically a sure bet for five gaits in any show from San Diego on up the coast, and it sure seems a shame for you to begin all over again, and ruin him. Red’s a nice horse. You could do with him.”

“I’ll think about it.”

It left me kind of wilted. As property, the Count was mine whenever I claimed him. As horse, he had passed over, and didn’t belong to me any more.

Around 9:30 the outside phone rang in my apartment and it was Norton, wanting to know if he could come over. I said come on and put out highball makings but when he got there he didn’t want a drink. He said: “Keyes has found that maid.”

“Just for curiosity, how? I couldn’t.”

“Gas turn-on.”

“Gas—?”

“The turn-on slip, on her gas. He figured your detective had probably covered rooming houses, filling stations, hotels, bus depots, and other places people leave tracks when they think they fade out. When there was no sign of her he concluded she was really dug in, in a hideout somewhere, so she wouldn’t run into people. That meant a house, an apartment, or something like that. But one thing she’d have to have would be gas. So, as they only get four or five new applications a day at this little company here, it was duck soup for him. She was using a phony name but the turn-on clerk remembered her right away by the Cockney accent.”

“Simple, but I never thought of it.”

“I never thought of it either, but if it was a needle in a haystack he’d have some simple magnet sent over and five minutes later Mr. Needle would be hanging to it. You heard of Faith Converse?”

“Delavan’s ex-fiancée?”

“She’s in it now.”

“How?”

“Possible murderess, accomplice, or both.”

“Boy, oh boy, J. P., is that one on Keyes?”

“It’s thrown Keyes back on his heels, but good, because of course if she did this Delavan job we pay. But I don’t mind telling you Keyes is under my skin a little just now, and any little thing that gave him his come-uppance would come under the head of good news, even if it did cost us $100,000.”

“Yeah, but say something. About this Converse.”

“Delavan gave her the air.”

“That’s what brought her here.”

“Keyes found out all about that as soon as he got Delavan’s family on the telephone, to see what they knew, or maybe thought. They knew a little and they thought plenty, and most of it centered on this girl—”

“Known also as Penny.”

“That’s it. So he’s been trying to get in touch with her. But after he called the gas company about the turn-on slips, and I helped out with some comsha so the little turn-on girl would forget the rules and let him have a look, he stepped over to the police department to see the reports on the sale of firearms. The stores turn them in, and he’s found that generally, on a real hideout, the party of the first part likes a gun around the house, just in case. So he didn’t find anything that looked like it might be Harriet Jenkins in blackface, but he did find Faith Converse.”

“She bought a gun?”

“A nice little .38 automatic.”

“What do you make out of it?”

“Nothing, but I wish I’d never heard of Thomas Delavan.”

“That I can understand.”

He began walking up and down my apartment, poured himself a spoonful of Scotch, walked up and down some more. The phone rang. I answered, and my heart skipped a beat when I heard the same old Cockney voice drop the H off my name. “Yes, Jenkins, what is it?”

“I’d call a doctor if I was you, sir, accant Mr. Keyes. ’E acts very ill. ’E acts seriously ill, sir.”

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing, sir, but ’e’s not ’imself.”

“Where are you?”

“At ’is office, sir.”

“You mean my office?”

“ ’E said ’is office.”

“I’ll be over.”

Norton was there beside me, close enough to hear all of it, I hung up and started to call a doctor, but he stopped me. “Let’s see what it is, first.” That made sense, and in about two seconds flat we had on our hats and coats and were on our way over there.

14

It was Jenkins, all right, but I don’t think her own mother would have known her. Instead of the bombazine uniform and run-over shoes she used to wear she had on a mink coat, a good-looking black dress, green shoes, green alligator bag, and green hat, and her face was washed and had nice make-up on it, and even her hands were clean. I’ve told you about the shape. Now, for the first time, she looked like a really pretty girl, and about five years younger than I had taken her for. She was in the ante-room, where Linda sits, when we got there, but she took us back in the private office, where Keyes was stretched out on the couch, with his coat off and only the desk light lit. But he said he didn’t want any doctor, and would be all right if we’d just let him alone a few minutes. We went out in the ante-room again and I closed the private office door and asked Jenkins what went on. “As I told you, sir, nothing.”

“What are you doing here?”

“ ’E brought me ’ere.”

“What for?”

“To tell what I knew about the death of Mr. Delavan.”

“So you do know something about it?”

“Indeed I do, sir.”

Norton began questioning her, and pretty soon she got pretty gabby. “It was around seven, I should say, when Mr. Keyes came to the little ’ouse I had rented on the edge of town, and I’d noticed ’im at the inquest over Mr. Richard, but ’adn’t known ’im and supposed ’im an officer. Then ’e said ’oo ’e was, and when ’e said ’e was interested to go into the exact manner of Mr. Delavan’s death, accant ’e was suspicious of it, I was quite willing to speak about it, as I’d about made up my mind already I was going to end my silence and tell what I knew. So ’e remained outside in a respectful and gentlemanly way while I dressed, brought me ’ere in the cab ’e had waiting, then took me to the room inside there and asked me a few questions, not many. Then in a most friendly and understanding way ’e said ’e never ’eckled a willing witness, and why didn’t I sit down to the recording machine and tell my story on the record while ’e went out and had some coffee. So I did, only taking five records to do it as I made it very brief and clear. Then ’e came back and put the records on the machine and listened to what I ’ad said. And then ’e began looking bad. I did what I could. I got ’im water and ’elped ’im to the couch so ’e could lie down and then I rang you. I think it ’ad something to do with what ’e was ’earing, if I may say what I think.”

“Please do.”

“Yes, feel perfectly free.”

She sat down in Linda’s chair and told it all over again, then noticed Norton doing some more marching around and offered him her place and he took it. He said afterwards he didn’t often accept a seat from a lady, but she seemed to have the kind of legs that made it advisable she got perpendicular for a while. Keyes came out and she asked if she’d be needed any more that night. He said she would. The four of us went in the private office and he switched on the dictation machine.

The first of it was a lot of stuff about how lousy Mrs. Sperry had treated her in Bermuda, and she wasn’t quite as brief and clear as she seemed to think. Then there was some stuff about how Jane had taken pity on her and brought her here, ’aht of the goodness of ’er ’eart, and the trouble over the annulment. Then she told about how Delavan took her to court to put her under bail, and then here it began coming, the part that Jane and I could never figure out. It was all full of ahts and hins and hopens and shahts and ’earts and flahs, and Linda didn’t do anything about them, but anyway, here it is, the way it was transcribed with pothooks from the records early the next morning. Anyway, if it’s not what she said it’s what she thought she was saying:

“I was quite frightened in court, until I saw Mr. Delavan looking at me, and I knew he liked me, as I certainly did him. So a day or so later I thought I would see if I could play a little trick on him. So I went to a shop and called him by phone and asked him if I couldn’t pay him a visit and talk to him about it. And as I expected, he said: ‘Good God, girl, no. If this place is watched it Would ruin me. I’d be forever blocked from bringing suit myself, and she could have anything she asked in court.’

“‘Then,’ I said, ‘why not visit me?’

“‘That would be worse,’ he said.

“‘Perhaps not. If a young man came up on the Washoe-Truckee roof tonight, just to take the air, and he happened to find a young lady there with the same idea in mind, who could criticize him? It’s a fine, open, respectable place so far as the law is concerned, and it has the additional advantage that it’s quite deserted from ten o’clock on.’

“‘I couldn’t dare risk it.’

“‘Wouldn’t you like to risk it, though?’

“‘Shut up, limey, shut up.’

“‘Ah, come on.’

“‘No.’

“But I went up there, just the same, thinking he might change his mind. I waited a long time, in one of the big rocking seats with canvas sides and back, and he didn’t come. But as I had just come to the conclusion I would be disappointed, the iron door that leads below slowly opened, and there he was, at first paying no attention to me, but walking cautiously around to make sure nobody else was there. Then he came over beside me, and I told him if he compelled me to be his witness, I would of course tell the truth about Mr. Sperry, that there had been no infidelity on his part with me, but I would also tell the truth about this night on the roof, that there had been infidelity on his own part to his own wife with me. And he looked at me sharply and asked what I meant by inventing such a falsehood. And I looked at him just as sharply, as I hope, and asked him what he meant by inventing such a falsehood himself, for he perfectly well knew he had overpowered me and torn off my clothes and used the badminton shuttlecock for a gag and worked his wicked will on me. And as I spoke I tore my dress and scratched my arm with one fingernail and showed him the badminton shuttlecock which I had in the pocket of my apron and had wet some time before at the hose tap in the corner. ‘It is the truth, and you know it, my young and handsome friend,’ I told him, ‘and if you don’t admit it I shall go right over to the phone there and call the hotel staff and you won’t be able to get away before they nab you and my cuts and bruises will substantiate my tale. My very shocking tale, I may say.’

“‘But you’re not offended?’

“‘Not if you let off my bail.’

“‘Then perhaps you enjoyed this frightful outrage?’

“‘Aren’t you the roguish one.’

“‘And perhaps an encore is in order?’

“So he took me in his arms, and gave up the idea of annulment, though he didn’t tell Mrs. Delavan at once, and when he did tell her, pretended Mr. Sperry had frightened him, as she had told him would happen, for we didn’t want it known, the relationship that had sprung up between us. And repeatedly he said how happy he was, and how at last I had set him free from this frightful thing in his life, this woman in the east who he had married one girl to be free from, without success, but now, because he loved me, he felt the shackles had fallen from his heart. And I was happy too, and heard without sorrow the difficulty we would have over money, and how if he married against his family’s wishes he would lose even the small income that he now had. For I took that to be his way of saying he might not be able to be married, on account of our different stations in life, and I didn’t mind, because I loved him.

“And then one night as we sat there, the iron door opened and Mr. Sperry appeared with the little dog he loved so, and took with him wherever he went. I hadn’t seen him in some time, and didn’t know he was in Reno. Mr. Delavan and I kept perfectly still, and when Mr. Sperry went down after a few turns with the dog, we laughed with much enjoyment at how we had stayed hidden. Next night it was the same, except she was with him, Mrs. Sperry, and again we kept still, though wanting to laugh. Then, in a few minutes, she sat down on the wall, and he stood nearby smoking his pipe, several times warning her to be careful. Then she said oh damn, and told him her bracelet had fallen and was probably ruined, even if some passer-by happened to pick it up. Then soon she said: ‘No, it didn’t fall, either. Look, it’s caught on the brace.’

“Then he looked and said that was indeed remarkable and she leaned out and tried to reach it, he at once catching her and pulling her back. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘you hold the dog.’ He had the dog in his arms, as he often did, and gave it to her. Then he lay down on the wall, holding onto it with one hand and reaching down with the other toward the steel truss that runs over to the neon sign over the street. She still held the dog, but stepped over behind him. Then she stooped quickly, and lifted his foot. Then he wasn’t there any more. Then Mr. Delavan had his hand over my mouth to stifle my scream, and the little dog was moaning and she was standing there with her face raised to the sky. ‘Thank God,’ she said, ‘thank the merciful God! It was an accident, you barely touched him, you can sleep this night — but he’s gone. Get down to your room and wait for their call! If you go insane, wait for it!’

“And in a jiffy she was gone. ‘And we can thank the merciful God too,’ said Mr. Delavan,’ that we weren’t seen, and won’t be dragged in. It was a shocking thing, but there’s nothing we can do for him now. You get down, too. Get down there and turn down the bed in my wife’s bedroom, or something, whatever you do at this hour. And be sure you ring about something on the phone, so you can prove you were there.’

“‘And where will you go?’ I asked him.

“‘I’ll think of some place.’

“‘Use the stairs,’ I said.”

She told how they raced down the stairs to the eleventh floor, she going to Jane’s suite to see if Jane was still out, he to the stairs to slip on down and out through the basement without being seen. When she got to the suite she checked that Jane was still out, then called the operator to ask the time and tell her a little joke, she didn’t say what, so the girl would remember the call. He went to some club, she didn’t say which, and pledged his watch for some gambling dough, so the slip would show the date and the cashier would remember the time. Then he came to call on Jane. It was three o’clock in the morning, and Jenkins was in her own bed almost asleep when the grand scheme occurred to her. She got out of bed at once, went to a gambling hall, and called Delavan. There was no answer, and she went and threw gravel against the window of his room to wake him. Mrs. Sperry, she told him, when he let her in, could pay. At first he was against it, but the more she talked to him about how rich Mrs. Sperry was, and how they could hit her first for $100,000, then keep it up and keep it up, the more he weakened. They went in another gambling joint, rang her awake, and told her they were coming up. So they did, he going into the hotel the way he left it, she going up, in her uniform, in the regular elevator, as though she’d had a late call. She went on:

“She was quite nasty, but changed her melody when she saw we meant what we said. But she said it was out of the question the police should discover he had fallen from the roof. If they ever guessed she was up there, she felt they might guess the truth, so it was agreed that since Mrs. Delavan was out at the time, I could safely place Mr. Sperry in the suite. Little did I know, at that time, that she had contrived the whole thing, the exact spot on the wall and all, and if I may express my own opinion, had placed the bracelet where it seemed to have fallen, since later it turned out to be Mrs. Delavan’s bracelet, all in the way it occurred, with a telephone call and all the rest of it, to implicate Mrs. Delavan and save herself. This we learned much later, when Mrs. Delavan phoned Mr. Delavan about the bracelet and told him of the other things the police were pressing her about. This was when Mr. Delavan and I knew we had to tell what we knew at last, whether it meant losing our advantage or not.”

There was a lot in there about getting the little house, and her keeping under cover in Reno, but going to Tonopah and Carson and Truckee in the new clothes Delavan bought her with the first money Mrs. Sperry let them have. The big dough she had to get from New York, by selling securities there, but she kicked in with $10,000 quick. Then at the inquest, Lynch spotted the insurance investigators, and she got scared to death. She thought the cops were the only ones she had to fool, but with an insurance company in, trying to hang it on the very one, Jane, that she had done her best to frame, she could see it coming they might find out the truth. That was when she got up at the inquest and told of seeing him jump. Then, Jenkins said:

“She pleaded with us, when we told her we were clearing up the suspicion she had created against Mrs. Delavan. We were not to be shaken, but we agreed at last, if she paid the $100,000, to say Mr. Sperry was on the roof alone with the dog, that he jumped, so it would correspond with her story, except she could say she had seen it in the dark and thought it was a window, and we could say we had withheld our evidence to keep out of trouble and to save his name from disgrace, as we regarded suicide as a scandalous thing. But then she said she would pay the $100,000 in cash, but as naturally so large a withdrawal would arouse interest at the bank, she didn’t want to be seen talking with Mr. Delavan. Would he get a horse from one of the stables and ride over to the spot she described and meet her there? She was most insistent about it, and as the amount was so large and we needed it so badly, he finally agreed and I, fool that I was, let him go.”

Her voice got a rasp to it then, and I saw Keyes brace himself. She went on: “And I swear as I sit here that she enticed him to this lonely spot to kill him, and that she did kill him, for with him out of the way it would be my word against hers, and I had already compromised my reputation for honesty by withholding my true story and telling a false one, at the inquest. I have been in hiding since Mrs. Delavan discharged me, but she had her very good reason and always treated me well, and I cannot remain silent, now I know how the affair stands.”

That seemed to be all, and I switched off the machine and for a while we sat there, nobody looking at anybody else. Then Keyes held up one finger for us to hold everything, got up, and reached way over, to the doorknob, and jerked it open. Mrs. Sperry was there in the ante-room, leaning close to the door jamb to hear what went on inside. She came in and looked us over and then went over and held her face up to Keyes with tears running down it. “You wouldn’t believe anything this cheap little slut might say about me, would you?”

“Yes. I would and I do.”

15

She sat down at my desk, and began to hook it up big on the weep stuff. Then she began begging Norton to pay no attention to anything Jenkins had told us, and kept saying to forget the insurance claim, that she’d pay it herself, that she was really thinking of Jane, because of course Jenkins had only cooked up this tale to shield her and eventually the truth would come out. Norton didn’t even look at her, and it was when she went over and dropped on her knees beside him, and took his face in her hands to turn it toward her that we all jumped. Norton said later he knew at last how a man feels when he’s out in a cemetery at night and a ghost comes floating up to him. How she got in we never found out, because while the street door was unlocked it seemed impossible we wouldn’t have noticed somebody open it, and when she got in we never found out either, but stalking into the room, one step at a time, her eyes focused on Mrs. Sperry like somebody in a trance, and a horrible little grin on her face, was a tiny, pale, queer-looking woman, maybe thirty-five or so, in a black suit with black stockings, black shoes and a black hat. When she began to talk it was in a little high, squeaky, sing-song voice that sounded like some kid reciting stuff in Sunday School. She kept going closer to Mrs. Sperry, one step at a time, and as she moved she talked:

“It may help with him, going down on your knees, but it’ll do you no good with me. You got away from me yesterday, but not this time, not tonight. Oh, I knew it was another woman, in spite of the lies he told me, but he wouldn’t say who it was, and it wasn’t till I followed him yesterday, in the car I rented, and saw him get on the bus, then get off at the riding stable, and come out in boots, and keep looking at his watch before they brought him the horse, that I knew he was meeting somebody. And I got out, and walked over the hill where I could see the whole bridle path, and there you were, with the golf bag over your shoulder, waiting, and at last I knew what you looked like. Then here he came, and you ducked behind the piñon tree until he had passed and turned off the path into the wash. Then you went after him, running. And I went after you. And when I reached the place you both turned off, where I could see, you were down on your knees to him too, and I was glad, whatever it was he had done to you, that you were paid in suffering for the suffering you had brought to me. Then you both started back, and he mounted. Then you dropped the scarf and he dismounted again to climb down into the gully and pick it up for you. Then you swung the golf driver on his head and ran, and I was cheated, for I was waiting to kill you both, and all that came my way was the horse you slapped and started for home before you went running off toward the golf links. You escaped me then, and it wasn’t until tonight, when you went hurrying out of the hotel that I got on your trail again, and could finally track you down. You’ll not escape me now—”

Keyes grabbed her handbag and Norton grabbed her. She screamed but Norton held onto her while Keyes took the gun out of the bag and dropped it in a desk drawer. I called the cops.

In a couple of minutes a patrol car stopped outside and a couple of uniformed men came in. They began working on the little woman, who was Faith Converse, to make her stop screaming and kicking, and the way they did it was take off her shoes. After a couple of stomps in her stockinged feet she quit and began to cry. Then Lindstrom came in and began taking names. Then he listened to the records and while the uniformed cops were still working on Faith to get her in some kind of shape, he listened while I gave it to him what had happened in the gully. He nodded, pretty friendly. “We had it doped out something like that. We didn’t know who yet, but we had a 100 per cent check on the wife all that afternoon. It wasn’t her, we knew that. But we’d have had it.”

All this time Keyes was sprawled on the sofa, staring at Mrs. Sperry like somebody sitting up with a corpse. Then he jumped, but he was too late. The report went off like a cannon shot in that enclosed space, but I’m afraid La Sperry didn’t hear it. The .38 that Keyes had dropped in the desk drawer was right under her hand, where she was sitting, and she made an A-l clean job of it.

By the time the police photographers got through, and Linda got there, and transcribed the Jenkins stuff for the reporters, and they took the body out, and a few other little things had been cleaned up, it was well after daylight, and I was out on my feet, and didn’t get up until around four that afternoon. Around five, when I was dressed, there came a couple on the buzzer, and my heart jumped. I opened the door and it was Jane, in her gambling pants, with the mink coat on and the red ribbon around her hair. I was so happy I couldn’t talk for a minute, even after she was in my arms. “Mr. Horner, I hear you’ve a check for me.”

“Somebody tell you that?”

“A certain Mr. Norton.”

“Yes, the agent likes to deliver it in person. He gave it to me. However, I must say I’m surprised he looked you up.”

“He wanted to meet the future Mrs. Horner.”

“Shows he’s got manners.”

She cut out the gagging, then, looked me in the eye, and said: “Ed, when I got it all straight, from what he told me, that at last I’ve come to the end of it, these things that have dogged me the last three years, I could have kissed him. But I thought I’d come over and kiss you.”

“Then let’s begin.”

“I looked after your horse, by the way.”

“I know.”

After a while we got around to the newspapers that she had with her, and looked at all our pictures, even my picture, that were smeared all over them, and read the story, and then we thought we better go over to the hotel and see how Keyes was making out. He was sitting not far from the porter’s desk, where Norton was getting their transportation back to Los Angeles, and if he wasn’t exactly what you’d call cheery and chipper, he was anyway quite a lot better. And while he started a long explanation to Jane of why he had pulled what he did, I drifted over to Norton and he gave me the recent developments. It seems there was a bill-fold, an alligator bill-fold, with a coronet burned on it, and initials, that had been turned in at the desk and that he’d been asked about, and it pretty well proved there was a lord or an earl or something who had been staying in San Francisco and visiting La Sperry week-ends. But instead of making Keyes sore, when he got it through his head at last what she’d been up to all the time, it relieved his mind. “Because,” he told Norton, “if she’d rather choose the deep end than come to him with a stain on her escutcheon, that proves what I knew all the time, that she was a thoroughbred.”

“Kind of a five-gaited job,” I said to Norton.

“Or anyway five-faced, we could safely say.”

So while we were snickering at that, they came over, Keyes looking very noble, Jane patting his hand in a forgiving kind of way. And then Norton snapped his fingers and cocked his eye across the lobby and we all looked. And headed for the dining room, a $40 plumed hat on her head, $40 suede shoes on her feet, a $150 black crepe dress giving the works to her shape, and the mink coat hanging carelessly off her shoulders, was Jenkins, and a little bit behind her, but not too much behind her, a carnation in his buttonhole and a Swede grin on his face, was Lindstrom, the detective. We all wondered the same thing, whether this was some more police stuff that would mean we could begin to worry all over again, and it didn’t take any high sign from Norton to start us all over to the dining room door. But by the time we got there we knew we could quit worrying. The captain was seating them, and he couldn’t see it, but we could: Lindstrom was playing footie with her, and she was giving it the old Limehouse leer.

So that’s how Jenkins came to live in Reno too, and how Jane, whenever she’s got a big party coming on, has just about the slickest personal maid service anybody ever had. We throw quite a few parties, it seems. Maybe that’s because we’ve got a collection of five cups in our trophy room, to say nothing of the Count’s first, that I kind of like people to look at. Maybe it’s because Jane is a swell girl that likes people, I don’t know. Anyway, we’re happy, she, I, and the little lady that was waiting upstairs, and that’s a wonderful thing.