No Business of Mine

Chapter Twenty-Four

Netta’s thin scream cut the air with the sharpness of a pencil grating on a slate.

“Hello, Corridan,” I said, soberly, stepping back, “so you’re in at the finish after all.”

He entered the room, closed the door. His pale eyes looked inquisitively at Netta. She shrank away from him, her hand to her face.

“I don’t know what you two are doing in here,” he said coldly, “but that can wait. I have a warrant for your arrest, Harmas. I’m sorry. I’ve warned you enough times. Bradley has charged you with stealing four rings and with assault. You’ll have to come along with me.”

I laughed mirthlessly. “That’s too bad,” I said. “Right now, Corridan, there’s more important things for you to worry about. Take a look at this young woman here. Don’t you want to be introduced?” I smiled at Netta who stared back at me, tense, her eyes glittering in a white face.

Corridan gave me a sharp glance. “Who is she?”

“Can’t you guess?” I said. “Look at her red hair. Can’t you smell the lilac perfume? Come on, Corridan, what the hell kind of detective are you?”

His face showed his astonishment.

“You mean it’s...?” he began.

I shook my head at Netta. “I’m sorry about this, kid,” I said. “But you can’t beat the rap now.” I turned back to Corridan. “Of course. Meet Netta Anne Scott Bradley.”

Netta recoiled. “Oh,” she gasped furiously, then: “You — you bastard!”

“Soft-pedal the language, honey,” I said. “Corridan blushes easily.”

Corridan stared at Netta, then at me.

“You mean this woman’s Netta Scott?” he demanded.

“Of course she is,” I said. “Or Mrs. Jack Bradley, known as Anne Scott, if you like that better. I told you all along she hadn’t committed suicide. Well, here she is as large as life, and I’ll show you something else that’ll interest you.”

I grabbed hold of Netta as she backed away.

Her face was grey-white like putty; her eyes burned with rage and fear. She struck at me, her fingers like claws. I grabbed her wrists, twisted her arms behind her, held her against me.

“Take it easy, kid,” I said, keeping clear of her vicious kicks. “Show the Inspector your nice line in underwear.” I caught hold of her sweater, peeled it over her head. Then tucking her, screaming and kicking, under my arm, I yanked down the zipper on her trousers, pulled in two directions.

Corridan gave an angry snort, stepped forward. “Stop it!” he exclaimed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing.”

“Skinning a rabbit,” I said, carrying Netta over to the chaise-longue and forcing her face down on it. I had a job to hold her, but I at last got my knee in her back and pinned her.

Corridan grabbed my arm, but I shook him off.

“Take a look at that belt,” I said, pointing to the heavy money belt that was strapped around Netta’s waist.

Corridan paused, muttered to himself, stood away.

I undid the buckle, jerked off the belt, stood back.

Netta lay on the chaise-longue, her fists clenched, her breath coming in great sobbing gasps.

With a quick shake I emptied the contents of the belt on the carpet at Corridan’s feet.

“There you are, brother,” I said dramatically. “Fifty thousand pounds’ worth of jewellery! Take a look. Allenby’s loot.”

Corridan gaped down at the heap of assorted rings, necklaces, bracelets on the carpet. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds gleamed like fireflies in the electric light.

“I’ll kill you for this!” Netta screamed, suddenly sitting up. She sprang to her feet, flung herself at me.

I shoved her off so roughly that she sprawled on the floor.

“You’re through, Netta,” I said, standing over her. “Get that into your thick little skull. If you hadn’t killed Littlejohns I might have played with you, but you killed him to save your rotten skin, and that let me out. What the hell do you think I am? A sucker? I wouldn’t cover up anyone who did what you did to Littlejohns.”

Netta crawled to her feet, then flopped limply on the chaise-longue, buried her face in her hands.

I turned to Corridan who was still staring at the heap of jewellery as if hypnotized.

“Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” I said. “I promised myself I’d crack the Allenby case because you acted so damn high-hat. I’ve done it.”

Corridan’s face was a study. He looked at Netta, at me. “But how did you know she had the stuff on her?” he demanded.

“You’ll be surprised how much I do know,” I said. “She and Jack Bradley were behind the Allenby robbery. I’ll give you all the facts, and then you can manufacture the evidence. Do you want to hear?”

“Of course, I want to hear,” he said, knelt down, scooped up the jewellery, dropped it back into the belt. “How did you get on to this?”

He put the belt on the table.

“I got on to it because I never believed Netta committed suicide,” I said, lighting a cigarette and perching myself on the table. “I was sure she hadn’t killed herself after I had searched the flat. Most of her clothes and all her silk stockings had vanished. I’ve known Netta for some time, and have a good idea of her character. She wasn’t the type to commit suicide, and she had a passion for clothes. It seemed to me, after the body had been kidnapped, that some other girl had died in her flat, and Netta, taking fright, had run off with as many of her clothes as she could carry.”

Corridan leaned against the wall, eyed me.

“You told me all that before,” he said, “and I worked that out for myself anyway.”

“Sure,” I said. “But there was plenty still to puzzle me. For one thing, who was the dead girl? Then another thing foxed me. Why should Netta, although she’d taken time to pack her clothes, have left sixteen five-pound notes in the flat and that bunch of bonds worth five thousand pounds? That got me for some time until Madge Kennitt told me a girl and a man had been with Netta that night. The girl was obviously the one who’d died. The man either killed her or was Netta’s accomplice. It seemed to me the reason why Netta had left the money in the flat was because she didn’t trust her companion, and he didn’t give her a chance to get the money from its hiding-place without him seeing her do it. So she had to leave it there, but hoped to collect it later, but I found it first.” I glanced over at Netta, but she didn’t look up. She sat with her head in her hands, motionless.

“Go on,” Corridan said quietly.

“Who was the mysterious man, and why didn’t she want him to know about the money?” I went on. “I’ve talked to Netta, and she has told me he was Peter French, who was Anne’s lover. That’s another way of saying he was Netta’s lover. You see, Netta never had a sister. But we’ll come back to Peter French in a moment.

“Nine months ago, Netta married Jack Bradley. For some reason they kept the marriage a secret, and they didn’t live together except at weekends which they spent in a cottage at Lakeham, bought by Bradley as a hide-out for them both. Netta called herself Anne Scott when she was at Lakeham. She tells me that French killed her sister because she knew he had killed George Jacobi. Since she never had a sister, that was obviously a lie. Who then was the girl who had died in Netta’s flat, and was later found in the cottage? I want you to get this clear, Corridan. The girl who was kidnapped from the mortuary and the girl we found in the cottage were one and the same.”

Corridan pursed his lips. “But one was a redhead and the other was a blonde,” he said. “How do you account for that?”

“Netta explained it to me,” I said. “She tells me that French dyed the girl’s hair and bleached it back to its normal colour after he had removed the body to the cottage.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Corridan muttered.

I nodded. “It wants a little believing,” I said, “but after thinking it over, it seems to me that’s what happened. If the girl wasn’t Netta’s sister, and I’ve proved beyond doubt that Netta never had a sister, then who was she and why was she murdered, and why was the murderer so anxious to prevent her being identified?”

“Have you found that out?” Corridan asked eagerly.

“I think so,” I returned. “Not only have I found it out, but Littlejohns found it out, too. That’s why he died.”

“Who was it then?”

“Selma Jacobi, the wife of George Jacobi who was murdered by Jack Bradley,” I said.

Netta sat up, glared across at me.

“It’s a lie!” she screamed. “Jack didn’t kill him. It was Peter French.”

I shook my head. “Oh, no, it wasn’t,” I said gently. “Let’s go back a bit.” I slid off the table, began to pace up and down. “Let’s go back to the time when the American soldiers were being repatriated. Before then, Bradley had been content to make a big profit by selling bad hooch and fleecing the boys in any other way he could think up. But when they began to leave, his profits shrank. He had to think up some other way of making money. Apart from running gaming-tables, he also decided to go in for large-scale robbery. George Jacobi was an expert in this line. Bradley hooked up with him, and the Allenby robbery was planned. About this time Netta was married to Bradley and Jacobi married Selma. Allenby’s place was near Lakeham, and Bradley killed two birds with one stone by buying the cottage at Lakeham. The robbery was organized from the cottage, and he also had a love nest for Netta and himself. Mrs. Brambee, Jacobi’s sister, undertook to run the cottage for them. The robbery was successful, and the next move was to find some way to sell the loot. The stuff was too hot; neither Bradley nor Jacobi had the nerve to put it on the market. They sat on it, hoping that it would cool off. While waiting, they quarrelled over the split, and one night Bradley killed Jacobi in the Club, and dumped him in a Soho street.”

“Is this guesswork or have you proof?” Corridan asked.

“It’s guesswork,” I admitted, “but she’ll talk before long. They always do.”

Corridan glanced at Netta, grunted. “Go on,” he said.

“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 plainclothes 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.