There’s Always A Price Tag

Chapter Eleven

How long I stood staring down at her, I shall never know. It was only when I heard a car coming up the dirt road and saw the reflection of its headlights through the window that I was galvanized into action. I lurched to the window and looked out.

The car was coming through the gateway. The red glow on the hood told me it was a police car.

For perhaps three or four seconds I stood rooted, staring out of the window, staring at the approaching car, and when finally it sank into my paralysed mind that in a moment they would be in here and would catch me red-handed, it was too late to escape by the front entrance.

Feverishly I tried to raise the window, but it had jammed and my efforts made no impression on it. I heard the entrance door open. I was now trapped in this room. In seconds they would come in and find me.

I looked wildly around for a hiding place. Right by me were the four big, wooden crates. Dropping down on hands and knees I eased one of them from the wall. I was lucky. This one was empty and without a lid. I turned it on its side with the open end towards the wall and I slid into it. There was just room for me to squat down. It wasn’t much of a hiding place, but there was just the chance they wouldn’t expect anyone to be hiding here and wouldn’t search the room.

I heard a man’s voice say, ‘Stay with the car, Jackson. Come on, let’s have a look at this joint.’

My heart contracted as I recognized Bromwich’s voice.

I heard him walk into the passage, turn a door handle and walk into the office I had entered when I had first come here.

Lewis’s voice said sharply, ‘See that, the window’s broken.’

‘Doesn’t mean anything,’ Bromwich said curtly. ‘This place has been up for sale now for a month. The news gets around. Probably some bum broke in to see what he could pick up.’

‘There was someone out here last night,’ Lewis said. ‘Car lights were seen from the highway. This could be where they were brought after they were snatched, Lieutenant. They were heading this way when MacTavish passed them.’

Bromwich grunted. ‘Nothing in here.’

I heard them come out and cross the passage into the room on the right. I was suspended in a cold, terrified vacuum. If they found me here, they would think I had killed her and they’d send me to the gas chamber.

‘I guess we’re wasting our time,’ Bromwich said from the other room. ‘I still think they’ve skipped. Ditching the car could be his idea of throwing us off his trail. While we’re working on this kidnapping idea, he’s probably on a ship for Europe.’

‘The Chief doesn’t think so,’ Lewis said.

‘He looks for trouble,’ Bromwich said sourly, ‘but he doesn’t have to run himself ragged like I do. I’d think it was a snatch myself if all I had to do was to sit behind a desk and hand out cockeyed orders.’

‘We may as well check this last room,’ Lewis said.

I held my breath as I heard the door push open. The beam of a powerful flashlight swung into the room. I closed my eyes, squeezing myself against the wall of the crate.

‘For sweet Pete’s sake!’ Bromwich exclaimed.

I heard him move forward.

‘It’s the Dester woman!’ Lewis said. His voice sounded excited. ‘The description fits her. Is she cold?’

‘Been dead thirty hours at least,’ Bromwich said. ‘My stars! This is going to start something.’

‘So they were snatched,’ Lewis said. ‘Think Dester’s body is anywhere around?’

‘How the hell should I know?’ Bromwich snapped. ‘I’ve got to get the boys up here. Let’s see if the telephone in the other room’s still connected. You stay here.’

I heard him run down the passage while Lewis lit a cigarette and began to prowl around the room. He paused beside the wooden crates and gave one of them a tentative kick. I remained motionless, sweating, my breath held, my heart hammering.

I could hear Bromwich bawling on the telephone. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. In about an hour, probably less, the whole forestry station would be crawling with police. If I were going to get away I had to do it before they arrived.

Lewis must have tried the light switch for the room suddenly sprang alight.

‘Well, at least the light’s not disconnected, Lieutenant,’ he called.

About five minutes later, Bromwich came back into the room.

‘They’re on their way. Tell Jackson to take a look at the other two huts. Dester may be in one of them.’

Lewis went away. I could hear Bromwich moving about the room. He hummed under his breath. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but every time he passed close to the crates, I held my breath.

‘He’s taking a look,’ Lewis said, coming back into the room. I heard him move over to where Helen lay. ‘She’s certainly been knocked about. Think she was suffocated by that gag?’

‘I dunno. The M.O. will tell us.’ Bromwich sat on the crate in which I was hiding. ‘It beats me why she was left tied up like that. She must have been alive. They wouldn’t tie up a dead woman, would they? But why did they leave her here? This isn’t like a snatch job to leave her here. There’s something wrong in this setup, Lewis.’

‘Yeah,’ Lewis said. ‘It looks to me it’s the work of an amateur. You know that guy Nash bothers me. There’s something too smooth about him. Think he’s hooked up in this?’

‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out. You’re right; there is something about him. One time he worked for Jack Solly. We had Solly in a couple of times and we couldn’t pin anything on him: remember? Birds of a feather—’

‘That’s what I was thinking. He was too glib about how sick Dester was. It’s my bet Dester never was sick.’

I was listening to all this and I was pretty scared.

‘She may have had something to do with it too,’ Bromwich went on. ‘That cord around her wrists and ankles doesn’t fit. It looks like a plant to me.’

‘All the same, you don’t fake that bruise she’s got there.’

‘That’s right.’

Footsteps sounded in the passage, then a new voice said, ‘I’ve checked the other two huts. No one’s in there and no one’s been in there for some time, Lieutenant.’

‘Okay, Jackson. Stick around outside and let me know when the others come.’

There was a long silence, then Bromwich said, ‘I’ve got another idea: one I like a lot. Suppose Dester killed her and tied her this way to make it look like a kidnapping? He could have skipped, hoping we would think he’s in the hands of kidnappers. How do you like that?’

‘Why should he kill her?’ Lewis asked doubtfully.

‘They didn’t hit it off. From what I hear she treated him like a dog. They may have quarrelled on the way to the sanatorium. It was her idea he should go there. Maybe he felt she was railroading him into the joint and he wouldn’t be able to get out once he was in. Maybe he got her to stop the car and then slugged her, brought her out here, found he had killed her and rigged it to look like she had been kidnapped. That could be it, Lewis.’

‘Then he drove back to Hollywood, ditched the car and took a train or a bus somewhere,’ Lewis said. ‘I think you’ve got something there, Lieutenant.’

‘I’m damned sure I have.’ Bromwich slid off the crate. ‘I’ll have a word with the Chief now. You might take a look at those other two huts in case Jackson has missed anything. He’s not as bright as he could be.’

I heard the two men walk down the passage. A moment later I heard the telephone bell tinkle as Bromwich started to dial.

It was now or never. I crawled out of the crate, stepped silently to the half-open door and peered into the passage.

The office door from which Bromwich was telephoning stood half open. I should have to pass it to get to the front entrance. Was the policeman outside or had he gone with Lewis? I heard Bromwich say, ‘We’ve found Mrs. Dester, Chief. Yeah: she’s out at Newmark’s forestry station. She’s dead. Yeah, it looks like murder.’

I crept down the passage, my heart pounding. If Lewis came back now he would walk right into me. I paused outside the office door, holding my breath.

Bromwich was saying, ‘The boys are on their way here. I’ll know more after the M.O.‘s seen her. Yeah, she’s been dead at least thirty hours.’

I inched forward and peered into the office. Bromwich was leaning across the desk, his hat back half turned to me. I didn’t hesitate. Two quick steps took me past the door to the front entrance. Again I paused while I looked out into the dark night. I could see the police car; its headlights cutting a path in the darkness, but I couldn’t see Jackson or Lewis. I heard the telephone bell tinkle as Bromwich hung up. I hadn’t a moment. Drawing in a deep breath, I slid out into the darkness. Pressing my back against the wall of the hut I began to move cautiously away from the police car.

I heard a sound, and looking to my right, I saw Bromwich come to the door and stare across the open space in front of the hut, down towards the highway.

I kept moving until I reached the end of the wall. Looking around it, I could see nothing except darkness. I felt the cool breeze on my face. I could hear Lewis talking somewhere away from me.

I left the shelter of the hut and, crouching low, I began to move in a wide circle towards the barbed-wire gate. I couldn’t see where I was going and I had to test each step as I made it to be sure I shouldn’t blunder into a tree or step on a dry stick or make some sound that would give me away. But as I got further away from the hut, I took more chances and moved faster. Even at that it took me ten minutes to reach the gate.

I paused to look back.

There was no sign of either Bromwich or Lewis, but I caught sight of Jackson as he lolled against the doorway leading into the hut.

I turned and started down the dirt road, moving cautiously at first, then as I got further away, I broke into a run. I was reaching the end of the road when I heard the approaching sirens. Without hesitation I plunged into a clump of bushes and spread out flat on my face.

Two or three minutes later, three police cars swung on to the dirt road and went tearing up the hill towards the forestry station. I let them get on well ahead, then, scrambling to my feet, I ran as hard as I could back to the Buick.

It wasn’t until I was back in Dester’s big, silent house and in the room that Marian had used before moving over to my apartment that the full impact of what Helen’s death meant hit me.

Too much had happened immediately after finding her to give my mind a chance to do more than accept the stunning fact that she was dead, but now, as I sat in a lounging chair, dry-mouthed, my heart still pounding, I realized that in some way I had caused her death.

I remembered in my panic I had hit her far harder than I intended to, but surely a blow on the jaw couldn’t have killed her? It worried me that there had been no congestion of her face to point that she had been suffocated. The police couldn’t charge me with murder if I had left her alive and she had died later because of the gag. The best they could do would be to try to pin a manslaughter rap on me, but if I had killed her with my fist, then they could charge me with murder.

I cursed myself for ever starting this thing. There was now no question of ever getting hold of the three-quarters of a million. I was in a hell of a jam. Below, in the kitchen, was Dester’s body. Very soon the house and its contents would be valued to meet the creditors’ demands, and then the deep-freeze cabinet was certain to be inspected. I had to move his body somewhere before that happened.

If I could plant his body somewhere without being seen, was I safe? I asked myself. From what I had heard, Bromwich was already suspicious of me, but could he prove anything? Had I left any clue in the hut that would give me away? The greatest thing in my favour was that I had no motive for killing Dester or Helen.

What would happen if the police found Dester’s body if I were lucky enough to be able to dump it somewhere? Would they think the kidnappers had lost their nerve, and after accidentally killing Helen, had shot Dester?

Bromwich had seemed to think that Dester had murdered Helen. Suddenly I saw how I could save myself, providing I had a little luck.

If I could get Dester out of the deep-freeze cabinet and take his body somewhere, get his gun that I had lodged in the safe deposit and put it in his hand, wouldn’t it be possible that Bromwich would think that after killing Helen, Dester had had a fit of remorse and had killed himself?

After all Dester had actually shot himself. I had only to put the gun in his hand to turn the clock back. I got to my feet and began to pace up and down while I thought about this idea. The police couldn’t prove that Dester had died more than a week ago. They would think he died when I got him out of the freezer. That part of the original scheme still stood.

The advantage of this new scheme was that I need not take Dester’s body out of the grounds. I could carry his body into a quiet part of the garden and dump him there with his gun in his hand. When he was found the police would think he had returned to the house to get the gun. I could tell them that I knew he kept a gun in his desk drawer. I could even leave a half-finished confession note in the typewriter.

The more I thought about this idea the more I was convinced that it would let me out. Marian wasn’t in the house any longer. I would be free to get him out of the cabinet whenever I was ready.

But she would have to hear the sound of the shot when he was supposed to kill himself. That was essential. I wanted the police to find him quickly. If he had any spare cartridges the hearing of the shot would present no difficulties. When I had set the stage, all I had to do was to fire a shot into the air, take out the shell case, put a new cartridge into the gun and the gun into his hand, then run back to the house. By the time Marian called me up to know what the shot meant I should be back.

I went at once to Dester’s room to hunt for a box of cartridges. After a five-minute feverish search, I found the box tucked under a pile of shirts. I took a cartridge from the box and put it in my pocket.

There was nothing I could do this night. First I had to get the gun from the safe deposit. I would get it in the morning, then I would stage the suicide the same night. That meant I would have to turn off the motor of the deep-freeze cabinet some time during the morning. By midnight, Dester’s body would be almost back to normal and I would be able to handle him. The thought of taking him out and carrying him into the garden scared me, but I had to do it. I couldn’t risk letting the police investigate me. I had to lead them away from myself and fix their attention on Dester.

It was getting on for two o’clock by the time I went to bed. My mind was a lot easier. If I could only pull this off I was out in the open again, and I could get away from this house and put the whole nightmare business behind me.

It had taught me a lesson, I told myself. No more quick-rich schemes. I’d get back to my advertising work. I didn’t have to work for Solly. I could get a job with some other firm. I’d work at it this time. Then when Marian came back from Rome we’d get married.

I was so sold on the feeling that I was going to get myself out of this jam that I drifted off into a dreamless sleep, and it wasn’t until Marian disturbed me by moving about downstairs that I woke up around nine o’clock.

When I had shaved, showered and dressed I came downstairs. She had put a tray of coffee, soft-boiled eggs and toast on the terrace and we had breakfast together.

‘At eleven o’clock Burnett’s coming over,’ I said. ‘I’d be glad if you would help me. I’ve got to list Dester’s debts and put his papers in order.’

Up to now she hadn’t said anything about leaving. If I was to stage this scheme of mine tonight, it was essential that she should be here. I had to have a reliable and independent witness to the hearing of the shot.

After we had washed up the dishes, we went into Dester’s study and Marian and I started in to work. We ransacked all the desk drawers and piled the papers we found there on the desk. Then we went through them, Marian calling out the amounts of the bills while I noted them down. We had been doing this for over a half an hour when suddenly she stopped. I looked up to see she was staring at a long envelope with a heavy seal on the back of it.

‘What have you got there?’ I asked sharply.

‘It was among all these bills.’

She passed it to me.

I looked at it and read the inscription.

I stared at it for a long moment. For no reason at all that I could think of this slim envelope made me uneasy. I wanted to open it, but with Marian watching me, I knew I couldn’t do that.

I laid it down. ‘I’ll give it to him. From the look of things, Dester hadn’t much to leave.’

My voice sounded odd in my ears. It must have sounded odd to Marian for she looked quickly at me.

‘Let’s get on. These guys will be here in half an hour.’

We were still at it when Burnett’s car arrived. I had by then some idea of what Dester owed. As far as I could judge it was around twenty-seven thousand. His assets were two thousand in the bank, the house, the two cars and the contents of the house. With any luck and with a good auctioneer, it should be possible to raise the money to pay off his creditors.

As Burnett was getting out of his car, another car came up the drive: this time a police car.

Marian and I stood in the open doorway while Burnett turned to meet the occupants of the other car. From it got a big, beefy man with a purple complexion and close-set, hard eyes, Lieutenant Bromwich and Sergeant Lewis and another man who immediately held my attention.

This man had the shoulders of a prize fighter and the legs of a midget. He wasn’t more than five feet six in height. His thinning grey hair was unruly, and his face, that reminded me of one of those rubber dolls you can squeeze into all shapes and sizes, was as bleak and as hard as a Siberian winter. He wore his well-cut clothes carelessly. His shirt collar was rumpled, his tie hung askew, but I could see he was the important member of the party. Even the big, purple-faced man, who I guessed was Chief of Police Madvig, stood back to allow him to be the first to be greeted by Burnett.

The five men stood talking for a brief moment, then they came up the steps.

I watched them, aware that my heart was thumping and my hands were cold and clammy.

Burnett said to the short-legged man, ‘I don’t think you have met Glyn Nash. He is Dester’s secretary.’

I found myself looking into a pair of slate grey eyes. I felt my right hand squeezed in a grip that cracked my bones.

‘Nash, I want you to meet Mr. Maddux of the National Fidelity Insurance Company,’ Burnett said.

As I looked into those slate grey, wintery eyes I remembered what Dester had said about this man: He has a big reputation in the insurance world. He is smart, tough and extremely efficient. It is said of him that he knows instinctively when a claim is a fake or not. He has been with the National Fidelity for fifteen years, and during that time he has sent a large number of people to jail, and eighteen people to the death cell.

And that was what he looked like: a force to be reckoned with.

Madvig, Burnett and Bromwich drifted into the hall at the heels of Maddux. As usual Lewis stayed behind. They seemed uncertain what was going to happen whereas Maddux gave the impression that he knew exactly what he was about to do.

‘I haven’t a lot of time,’ he said. His voice matched his face. ‘Let’s get around a table and talk.’

I took them into the lounge. There wasn’t a table, but that didn’t seem to worry Maddux. He took up a position before the empty fireplace: a position that dominated the room while Burnett, Madvig, and Bromwich almost apologetically took lounging chairs that faced Maddux.

Marian and I stood in the doorway.

‘Come in, you two,’ Maddux said and waved us to two chairs slightly away from where the other three were sitting. ‘We’ll need your help.’

As soon as we had sat down, Maddux turned to Madvig.

‘I don’t know any facts except what I’ve read in the newspapers,’ he said. ‘Dester, as you know, is one of my clients. He is insured with us for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and that’s quite a piece of money. As far as my company is concerned, he is a highly valuable liability. I’d like to get the facts straight. Will one of you put me in the picture?’

Madvig nodded over to Bromwich who cleared his throat and sat forward on the edge of his chair.

‘We were notified by Mr. Nash on the night of June 25th that both Dester and his wife were missing. She was taking him to the Belle View sanatorium out at Santa Barbara. They didn’t arrive there. They were seen around half past eleven on Highway 101 by a State trooper, then they vanished.’

‘Why was he going to the sanatorium?’ Maddux asked.

‘He was a sick man: an alcoholic,’ Burnett said. ‘I talked with Mrs. Dester. She told me he was having hallucinations and was being violent. She persuaded him to go into the sanatorium. Mr. Nash here looked after him. They got on well together and he could handle him.’

Maddux looked at me. His eyes seemed to bore right through to the back of my head.

‘Was Dester violent?’

I hadn’t spent most of the night pacing the floor for nothing. If they were to be made to think Dester had killed Helen, I had to supply the motive.

‘No, he wasn’t violent,’ I said. ‘He seemed pretty ill to me: almost as if he were drugged.’

That got a reaction from Bromwich.

‘You didn’t tell me that,’ he said aggressively.

‘I told you he slept most of the time.’

‘That’s not the same thing.’

‘Did Dester want to go to the sanatorium?’ Maddux broke in impatiently.

‘Yes. Mrs. Dester said he was glad she had arranged for him to go,’ Burnett said.

‘I’m asking Nash. Never mind what Mrs. Dester said,’ Maddux snapped.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Whenever I went into his room, he was either asleep or in a kind of coma. I never mentioned the sanatorium to him.’

Maddux lifted his shoulders. He nodded at Bromwich.

‘Go on,’ he said, and took a pipe out of his pocket and began to fill it from a much-worn leather pouch.

‘I thought as Dester owed a whale of a lot of money,’ Bromwich began when Maddux interrupted.

‘How much money?’

Burnett looked at me.

‘I haven’t had time to complete a statement,’ I said, ‘but at a rough guess it would be around twenty-seven thousand, but it’s probably more than that.’

‘I thought at first he had skipped,’ Bromwich went on. ‘I notified the patrols to look out for the car: it was unmistakable: a blue-and-cream convertible Rolls. It was found abandoned on West 9th Street. We’ve checked the airport, the station and the bus depots, but no one has seen Dester. It looked at first that, after passing through Ventura, they had turned back to Hollywood, or at least Dester had. Either that or they were held up by kidnappers who later ditched the car. Anyway, the car was brought back to Hollywood after passing through Ventura.’

I knew sooner or later he would get around to Helen’s death, and I was in an agony of suspense to learn how she had died. It was as much as I could do to sit still.

‘We continued the search for Dester,’ Bromwich went on. ‘We concentrated our search between Ventura, Glendale and West 9th Street. We got no leads. No one had seen the Rolls on the return journey. A few motorists and the State trooper had seen it on the outward journey. The State trooper had come close enough to it to see there were only two people in it: Mrs. Dester; he identified her by her white hat, and Dester.’

‘How did he identify him?’ Maddux asked from behind a cloud of blue-white tobacco smoke.

I felt my heart give a little kick, and to cover my tension, I took out my cigarette-case and lit a cigarette.

‘He saw Dester was wearing a camel-hair coat. We have a description from Miss Temple how Dester was dressed when he left the house.’

Maddux turned his eyes on Marian. He seemed to be noticing her for the first time. ‘You saw Dester leave?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know Dester by sight?’

‘No. It was the first time I saw him.’

‘He was supposed to be a sick man. Did he look sick to you?’

‘He was very unsteady. His eyes seemed to hurt him.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I heard him ask for the hall light to be turned out.’

Maddux scratched the side of his jaw with the stem of his pipe.

‘You mean he came down the stairs in the dark?’

My heart was banging so violently I was scared they would hear it.

‘It wasn’t really dark. There were four wall lights on, but the light was very dim.’

‘So you couldn’t see his face?’

‘No.’

‘Were you supposed to be watching him?’

‘Mrs. Dester asked me to be ready in case she needed help with him. She asked me to keep out of sight as Mr. Dester was sensitive.’

‘Did he need help?’

‘No.’

Maddux turned to Bromwich. ‘Go ahead.’

It was obvious that Bromwich didn’t like all these interruptions. His fiery face was taking on a deeper shade.

‘We had a report from a motorist that he had seen the lights of a car out at Newmark’s forestry station. It wasn’t until the motorist had read of Dester’s disappearance that he thought of reporting what he had seen. Newmark’s station has been up for sale these past five weeks and the motorist happened to know no one was working there. I went up there and found Mrs. Dester. She was dead.’

I leaned forward to tap off the ash of my cigarette, partly turning my face so they couldn’t see it. I felt I was losing colour.

‘A window of one of the huts had been broken; the lock on the door had been removed. She was in one of the rooms, tied hand and foot and gagged. She had been dead about twenty-six hours. I reckon she died within an hour after the State trooper had seen her on the highway.’

Maddux asked the question I had been waiting for.

‘Was she murdered?’

‘I guess so,’ Bromwich said. ‘She had received a very violent blow on the jaw and she had taken a heavy fall, landing on the back of her head. The spinal cord at the base of the skull was fractured by the blow and the fall completed the fatal injuries. The M.O. says she must have died soon after receiving the blow.’

I was ice cold now. Only by the frantic instinct for self-preservation did I manage to keep my face expressionless.

‘Whoever hit her obviously didn’t know he had killed her,’ Bromwich went on importantly, ‘or he wouldn’t have tied her up like that.’

‘If he were smart,’ Maddux said quietly, ‘that’s just what he would do so he could plead to a manslaughter rap if he were caught.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ Bromwich said uneasily. He looked across at Madvig, who gave him a cold stare from his close-set eyes. ‘I had thought of that too.’

‘Any clues?’ Maddux asked.

‘Not a thing. No fingerprints. The gag was a scarf that belonged to her. The ropes came from a crate in the room.’ Maddux began to pace up and down before the fireplace.

‘And no sign of Dester?’

‘We’re still hunting for him. He can’t get away.’

‘What makes you think he’s in a position to get away?’

Madvig spoke for the first time.

‘We’re working on the theory that Dester murdered his wife.’

Maddux paused. He looked at Madvig, then at Bromwich, then at me. It was as much as I could do to meet the hard, staring eyes. Then he looked at Burnett.

‘Do you think Dester would murder his wife?’

‘Dester was an alcoholic. He might do anything,’ Burnett said curtly.

‘We know Mrs. Dester and he didn’t get on together,’ Madvig put in. ‘Something went wrong early in their marriage. They had ceased to live together as man and wife for some time. It’s been said that Dester took to drink because of this. He was irresponsible. He ran up big debts. I can understand why she wanted him under control. We think Dester realized that once he was in the sanatorium he wouldn’t get out for some time. We think he lost his head, tried to persuade Mrs. Dester not to take him to the sanatorium and when she insisted, he hit and killed her. Then he took her to the forestry station, tied her so it looked as if she had been handled by kidnappers and has himself gone into hiding in the hope we’ll think he is in the hands of the kidnappers. I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t receive a ransom note from him.’

Maddux moved slowly over to me and stood in front of me. ‘And you, Mr. Nash, do you think Dester would murder his wife?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said through stiff lips. ‘He could be pretty quick tempered when he was drinking. He might certainly have hit her if she refused to do what he wanted. It could have been an accident.’

Well, at least, I had got the accident theory into the setup. But Bromwich wouldn’t stand for it.

‘It was no accident,’ he said. ‘No guy hits a woman that hard unless he meant to finish her.’

I felt suddenly sick. If they ever got me, they would never believe I hadn’t meant to kill her.

Maddux moved away.

‘Did Mrs. Dester know Dester was insured?’ he asked.

‘Not until I told her,’ Burnett said. ‘Nash will bear that out. He was with us when she asked me if he was insured.’

‘She didn’t know then?’

‘She asked me.’

‘Did you tell her the amount of coverage?’

‘I didn’t know myself until you told me.’

‘What did she say when you told her he was insured?’

‘She hoped he would borrow on the policy to pay his debts. When I reminded her that if he died after borrowing on the policy, there might be nothing left for her, she said she couldn’t possibly take the insurance money if it would help him when he was alive. I thought it did her a great deal of credit.’

Maddux looked at him, then he laughed. The hard, barking sound of his laugh shocked us. Burnett flushed angrily.

‘I can’t see there is anything to laugh at.’

‘I can,’ Maddux said. He pointed the stem of his pipe at Burnett. ‘If you think Helen Dester didn’t know her husband was insured for seven hundred and fifty thousand you have another think coming. She knew, and I’ll tell you why. She had been already involved in an insurance fraud. I make a practice to keep tabs on anyone who has been mixed up in any shady insurance racket even if that someone hasn’t had anything to do with my company. I keep a record of everyone who has made a doubtful claim because you never know if that someone will try something smart with us. I’ve kept tabs on Helen Dester for a long time. I know her background, and I know what made her tick. Fourteen months ago, she was the mistress of a guy named Van Tomlin. He insured himself in her favour for twenty thousand dollars. Not long after, when he was in her apartment, he fell out of the window. The insurance company wasn’t much, but at least they did threaten to fight her claim, but in the end they compromised and she collected seven thousand instead of twenty thousand. I don’t have to tell you if her claim had been on the level she would have taken the company to court, but she didn’t because she pushed Van Tomlin out of the window and the insurance company knew it!’

There was a short, electric silence. I was thinking: thank God we weren’t able to go ahead with the crack-brained idea of mine. I could see now it would never have worked; not when we would have been up against this guy.

‘Are you telling me that Mrs. Dester was a murderess?’ Burnett asked in a stifled voice.

Maddux showed his small white teeth in a grin.

‘That’s what I’m telling you: and I’ll tell you something else. Three years ago when she was twenty-four, she was a companion to an old lady who was stupid enough to leave Mrs. Dester five thousand dollars in her will and even more stupid to tell her what she had done. Two months later, the old lady fell downstairs and broke her neck.’

Madvig turned on Bromwich and glowered at him.

‘Why the hell didn’t you find this out?’ he snarled.

‘I’m looking for Dester,’ Bromwich said, his usual red face now purple. ‘I haven’t got around to Mrs. Dester yet.’

Madvig snorted, then turned to Maddux.

‘Well, she didn’t kill Dester, did she?’

‘How do you know? Where is Dester? How do you know he isn’t dead? How do you know she didn’t plan to kill him, fake a kidnapping, and collect the insurance money?’

‘Are you telling me she tied herself up, punched herself in the jaw and broke her goddamn neck?’

Madvig exclaimed, sitting forward, his purple face congested.

Maddux fetched out a box of matches and relit his pipe. His movements were deliberate. I felt my heart suddenly slow down. An icy chill crept up my spine. Something was coming. I could see that. I found I was clenching my fists and sitting forward as Madvig was sitting forward.

‘No, she didn’t do that,’ Maddux said. There was a cold, hard expression on his face that made everyone in the room stare at him. ‘But before you pin her death on Dester, you’d better start digging around for the other man.’ He paused, looking at Madvig. ‘For you can bet your last buck there is another man.’