There’s Always A Price Tag

Chapter Thirteen

The clock in the hall chimed the quarter after one o’clock. For the past two hours I had been lying on the bed, sweating it out and listening to the violent rain storm that lashed against the bedroom windows: a storm that had blanketed every other sound in the house. It had lasted half an hour and as quickly had died out. I swung my legs off the bed and sat up. I remained motionless, listening. Only the busy ticking of the bedside clock and the violent thumping of my heart came to me as I sat in the darkness.

I reached out and turned on the bedside lamp. Then I stood up, slid my feet into slippers and moved to my bedroom door to look out into the darkness of the passage. No light showed from Lewis’s door. I listened for another long minute, then, satisfied he was asleep, I went over to the chest of drawers and picked up my flashlight. I turned it on and then put out the bedside light.

Moving silently I reached the hall and moved down the passage and into Dester’s study. I closed the door, turned on the light and picked up the gloves that were lying on the desk. I put them on. My hands were shaking so badly that I had trouble in getting the confession note from under the pile of typing paper. I nearly stripped off the gloves as I fiddled to pick up the sheet, but stopped myself in time. I fed the sheet of paper into the machine, being careful to line up the last word with the guide line of the machine.

I went over to the window, unlatched it and opened it a few inches.

Turning off the light, I opened the door and stood listening. There was no sound to alarm me, and bracing myself I went silently along the passage, lighting my way with my flashlight, into the kitchen. I shut and locked the door, then I turned on the light and looked across at the deep-freeze cabinet.

I was in a pretty bad state of nerves by then. My heart was beating so violently that I felt suffocated and my gloved hands were shaking. I started to remove the three dozen bottles of whisky that were piled on top of the cabinet. I was careful not to let the bottles clash together and I stood them in neat rows to one side of the cabinet. It was when I was taking the last of the bottles off that I very nearly ran into disaster. As I picked up two of the bottles, the remaining bottle toppled over and began to roll towards the edge of the cabinet top. I hurriedly set down the two bottles as the third bottle reached the edge, toppled over and fell. Somehow I got my hand under it when it was inches from the floor and held it. I stood for a long moment, sweat on my face and my body trembling, then I set down the bottle and straightened up. It had been a close call.

I crossed over to the door, turned the key and opened the door a few inches and listened.

This was the moment. Once I got him out of the cabinet I would have to hurry. If Lewis came down before I could get Dester into the study and before I could fire the shot, all this agony of nerves, my careful planning, the risk I was taking would be for nothing.

I went back into the kitchen, closed and locked the door again, and then walked over to the cabinet. As I put my hands on the lid to lift it, my nerve failed. I stepped back, wiping the sweat off my face with the sleeve of my dressing gown. I crossed to a cupboard, opened it and took out a drinking glass. I just couldn’t open the cabinet without a shot of whisky. I opened one of the bottles, fumbling at it with my gloved fingers, but I got it open, splashed three inches of whisky into the glass and shot it down my throat. I felt the whisky hit my stomach and felt my nerves tighten under the impact. It did the trick. Although I was tempted to repeat the dose, I resisted the temptation. I put the glass down and, leaving the opened bottle of whisky on the table, I turned back to the cabinet. As I was lifting the lid, I suddenly stiffened. My heart jumped, then raced. Had I heard something? Had the stairs creaked as if stealthy feet were moving down them? I lowered the lid hurriedly, walked swiftly to the door, turned off the light, unlocked the door and opened it an inch or so. I listened, holding my breath, trying to hear any sound above the thudding of my heartbeats. I stood there for what must have been five agonizing minutes, but I heard nothing, and finally, convinced my imagination had been playing me tricks, I closed and locked the door again, turned on the light and leaned against the door, trying to control my shaking limbs.

I went back to the cabinet, lifted the lid, and with my breath whistling between my clenched teeth, I looked down at him.

He lay on his side, the wound in his head away from me. He looked quite natural, as if he were asleep. I bent down and touched the side of his neck. He was scarcely cold. There was less moisture in the cabinet than I had thought: most of it had been absorbed by his clothes which felt wet to the touch. This didn’t worry me as it had rained heavily and I thought it would be a fair risk to assume the police wouldn’t be suspicious since Dester had no top coat with him.

I caught hold of him under his armpits and heaved upwards. He was much heavier than I thought. He came out slowly, and I saw then a small pool of blood on the floor of the cabinet. The wound was beginning to bleed again now that the freezing process had worn off.

It took me three or four hellish minutes to get him from the cabinet on to the kitchen floor, and by the time I had done it, I was completely bushed. I had to lean against the cabinet while I fought for my breath. I didn’t dare wait too long. He had to bleed in the study: that was essential, otherwise they would know he hadn’t shot himself there.

I crossed over to the kitchen door, unlocked it, opened it and listened, but I heard nothing. I went swiftly along to the study, pushed the door wide open and turned on the light. I didn’t dare attempt to carry Dester along the passage in the dark. I might knock against the wall or make some sound that would alert Lewis.

I returned to the kitchen, lifted Dester across my shoulder and set off down the passage to the study. My knees sagged under his dead weight, my breath came in soft, strangled gasps, my heart pounded, sweat blinded me. But I got him into the study without making any noise, and very carefully I slid him off my shoulder on to the floor by the desk chair. Blood ran from his wound on to the carpet.

I snatched up the flashlight, and slowly retracing my steps to the kitchen, I examined the carpet carefully to make sure there were no blood stains to give me away. I found a small one halfway down the passage. I knew I was lucky there weren’t more. I got a wet cloth from the kitchen and rubbed out the stain. Unless the police examined the carpet minutely they wouldn’t find it. Then I returned to the kitchen and, working feverishly, I cleaned out the cabinet, making sure that I got rid of every trace of blood. Then I cleaned the kitchen floor, washed out the cloth and hid it in a saucepan. I would get rid of it in the morning, I told myself. Then I closed the lid of the cabinet and began to put the bottles back into position. I was feeling better now. I had more control over my nerves. Three-quarters of the job was done. I now had to fire the gun out of the window, close the window and get out of the room before Lewis came from his room. I felt I could do it. Then as I put the last bottle in place I heard a sound that turned me into a rigid, terrified statue.

This time there was no mistake in the sound. A board had creaked loudly. The banister rail also creaked. Moving like an automaton, I stepped to the light switch and turned it off. I opened the kitchen door and peered out into the darkness: more frightened than I had ever been before in my life.

I saw a sudden gleam of light on the stairs as if someone had turned on a flashlight for a brief second to see where he was going. I knew then that Lewis was creeping down into the hall.

My hand closed over the gun butt and I took the gun out of my dressing gown pocket. Cold and shaking, I reached out and turned on the kitchen light.

I knew the light from the kitchen would be shining into the passage and Lewis must see it. What would he do? Come in and investigate? Or would he act cagey and go out the front door to see if he could look through the kitchen window?

The silence outside pretty nearly cracked my nerve. My heart was hammering.

A board creaked on the stairs.

That told me he was coming down, and had still some distance to come before he reached me. I realized then that he wasn’t likely to be caught by me standing behind the door. He would be wise to that kind of trap.

I crept across the kitchen, picking up one of the bottles of whisky on my way to the pantry. I opened the pantry door a few inches. Near the door was a curtained recess that housed the brooms and other cleaning material. I stepped behind this curtain, holding the bottle in my left hand and the gun in my right. I stood motionless, listening and waiting. Then I heard a slight sound of a footfall that told me he was outside the kitchen door. Looking through a chink in the curtain I saw the kitchen door swing open. I could see him now. He was fully dressed and that shook me. In his hand was a .38 police special.

I watched him. He was in no hurry to come in. He leaned forward and gave the door a hard push so it swung violently against the wall. I was glad I thought of moving. The door would have pinned me against the wall had I stayed behind it. He looked around the room, his eyes rested for a moment on the pantry door, then went to the door leading out into the yard. He moved cautiously into the kitchen and crossed over to the exit door, turned the handle and found the door still locked.

He turned swiftly and faced the pantry door.

‘Okay, Dester,’ he said in a low, snarling voice. ‘Come on out with your hands in the air!’

I didn’t move, feeling sweat running down my face.

‘Come on! I know you’re in there!’

He waited for a few seconds, then suddenly, moving fast, he crossed to the pantry door and kicked it open.

At that moment his back was turned to me. I pulled aside the curtain and tossed the whisky bottle over his head and towards the opposite wall. The bottle fell with a crash on the floor and smashed like a miniature bomb, sending a spray of splinters and whisky over the wall and floor.

Lewis stiffened, staring at the smashed bottle. I was already moving as I threw the bottle. Holding the gun by its barrel, I hit him on the top of his head, driving him down on to his knees. His gun fell out of his hand. He gave a stifled groan, tried to push himself off his knees, but I hit him again. This time I hit him much harder. The jar as the butt slammed down on his head ran up my arm. He stretched out, face down with a sighing groan.

I stepped back. I was shaking, and it was as much as I could do not to flop on the floor at his side.

He hadn’t seen me. I was positive of that. How long would he remain out? I caught hold of him under the armpits and dragged him into the pantry, dumped him on the floor, closed and locked the door. Then I went back into Dester’s study, moving at a staggering run.

From the bottom of a cupboard near the desk, I took out a small electric fire. I plugged it in and stood the fire near Dester’s body. I knew it was vital to accelerate the final thawing-out process, and also to take some of the wet out of his clothes.

I paused to check my dressing gown and pyjamas, and it was as well that I did. There was a long smear of blood on my pyjama trousers and a big stain on the dressing gown.

Leaving the study I bolted upstairs, tore off my things and put on a clean pair of pyjamas. I hid the soiled articles between the mattress and the box spring.

I went downstairs again and into the study. Bracing myself, I examined Dester’s body closely. The blood from his wound had made by now an impressive little halo around his head. I touched his face. It felt warm. His muscles were relaxed. There was nothing more I could do now. He should have bled more, but with any luck the medical examiner wouldn’t notice this. I picked up Dester’s gun that I had put on the desk, crossed to the window, pointed the gun upwards and out of the window and pulled the trigger. The crash of gunfire and the blinding flash jarred me and I very nearly dropped the gun. I didn’t have a great deal of time now. I laid the gun by Dester’s side, shut and latched the window, then ran into the passage and along to the cloakroom. I raised the window and left it half open.

Then I peeled off my gloves, chased upstairs and hid them with my soiled pyjamas and dressing gown.

As I started down the stairs I heard the telephone bell ringing. That would be Marian, I thought. I went into the study and lifted the receiver.

‘Glyn! What’s happened?’ Her voice was high-pitched and anxious. ‘Was that a shot?’

‘Yes. Stay right where you are. It’s Dester. He’s shot himself. Now, don’t talk. I’ve got to call the police. Lewis has vanished.’

‘But, Glyn.’

‘Get off the line now. I want to phone,’ and I hung up.

I crossed over to the electric stove, turned it off, disconnected it and put it back in the cupboard. In only a few minutes the police would arrive. This was my last free time to make sure I hadn’t left a clue nor made a mistake. I looked around the room carefully. I looked at Dester’s body. I checked the confession note. I pushed the gun a little closer to his body with my foot.

I sat in the lounge, a cigarette burning between my fingers, listening absently to the sound of the rain against the windows. Marian was curled up on the settee, dozing. A bullneck policeman was standing in the doorway, his back to us. The time by the clock on the overmantel was twenty-eight minutes to four.

The rest of the house was swarming with activity. I caught a glimpse of detectives as they crossed the hall either going towards Dester’s study or away from it. Two newspaper men were arguing with a police sergeant. They wanted to talk to me, but the police sergeant wouldn’t let them into the lounge.

It had been barely four minutes after I had telephoned that a prowl car had pulled up outside the house. Ten minutes later, Bromwich had arrived with a squad of homicide men. In less than five minutes, they had found Lewis.

Bromwich had asked me what had happened. I told him I had heard a shot, come down, found Dester in the study and Lewis missing. That was all I could tell him.

‘Okay, sit in the lounge. I’ll talk to you later,’ he said.

First, I went upstairs and put on a coat and a pair of trousers over my pyjamas, then I had come down into the lounge. By that time Marian had been brought over from the garage apartment After Bromwich had found out she had nothing to tell him except that she had heard the shot, he sent her into the lounge with me.

We hadn’t said much to each other. There was nothing we could say with the policeman in the doorway. She had curled up on the settee and closed her eyes.

It was a long wait, and my nerves were crawling. I saw a tall, bony man cross the hall and heard the policeman say, ‘Straight down the passage on your left, doc.’

This bony man was the one who could shatter my plan. I longed for a drink, but I didn’t dare take one. So I smoked and waited. Around four o’clock an ambulance arrived and I saw Lewis being carried out on a stretcher. It was then that I had a sudden terrified feeling that I might have killed him.

‘Is the sergeant all right?’ I asked the policeman at the door.

He turned and looked at me, his small, hard eyes aggressive.

‘Yeah, he’s fine. He’s only got a cracked skull, but there’s nothing else the matter with him.’

It was pretty obvious by the way he spoke he had no time for Lewis. I went on waiting.

At half past four another van arrived. Four men came in carrying a long, black, coffin-like box. I guessed they would be from the morgue. Around ten past five, they recrossed the hall, carrying the box on their shoulders, their knees sagging slightly under its weight.

After being in the freezer for nearly ten days, Dester was at last going to his grave. I turned my head away, feeling sick, and the dull thump of the coffin as it was shifted from the men’s shoulders to the floor of the van, turned me cold.

The first light of dawn was coming through the curtains when Bromwich came in. He walked with a little swagger, and there was a cocky expression in his hard eyes.

‘You two can go to bed. I’ll want you at the inquest. Should be in a couple of days. Sorry to have kept you up.’

I had hidden my clenched fists in my trousers pockets. At his words my fists relaxed once more into shaking hands. ‘Aren’t there any more questions?’ I said, trying to make my voice sound steady.

He grinned. ‘It’s all fixed. I told that cluck Maddux how it was, but he wouldn’t listen. It was as plain as the nose on my face. Dester didn’t want to go into the sanatorium. On the way they quarrelled. He hit her, killed her and planted her out at the forestry station. Then he realized he hadn’t the nerve to go through with the faked kidnapping. He decided to take the easy way out. Did you see his confession note?’

I nodded.

‘There you are. He came back for his gun, shot himself and that’s it.’

I couldn’t believe he meant what he said. Surely he must have had some suspicions that the setup wasn’t quite on the level? Surely the doctor had cast some doubts?

‘Then we can go to bed?’ I said to make sure I had heard him aright.

‘Sure, go to bed. I’ve got to talk to the Press. Maybe they’ll want a word with you before you go. Just stick around for another five minutes.’

‘Is Sergeant Lewis all right?’

‘He’s another cluck. I had an idea Dester would come back. I told Lewis to watch out, but the mug had to walk into a cracked skull. He’ll be all right. He has a head like stone.’

He went out into the hall and started to talk to the newspaper men. Marian and I looked at each other. I managed to smile at her.

‘Well, that seems to be that,’ I said. ‘I guess you’ll want to leave tomorrow, or rather today. I’ll help you find a room.’

She started to say something when the Press moved in. For the next half-hour we answered the questions that were fired at us. They wanted to know about Dester’s private life; if he had quarrelled with Helen, how she had reacted, what I thought of him and her: stuff like that. I was careful to say nothing that could be proved untrue, but I did hint that they quarrelled, and there had been times when he had thrown things around. You couldn’t call him violent, I told them; maybe hasty tempered. I gave them the idea that it didn’t surprise me to hear Helen had died from a blow from his fist.

We got rid of them at last. Bromwich had already gone. Only the policeman at the lounge door remained. He said Bromwich had told him to stay on for a few hours in case sightseers tried to get into the house.

Marian said she would go back to the garage apartment. We arranged to meet again at ten o’clock. I saw her to the apartment.

‘As soon as the inquest is over, Glyn, I’m going to Rome,’ she told me. ‘I want to get away from all this. You are coming with me, aren’t you?’

I still had most of the two thousand dollars that Dester had paid me. It wasn’t a great deal, but I wanted to get away from all this too. I didn’t hesitate.

‘You bet I’m coming.’

‘Will you be able to manage?’ She looked anxiously at me. ‘Will you get your legacy by then?’

I looked at her, not knowing what she meant. Then I remembered I had been crazy enough to have told her before the insurance plan had come unstuck that I was coming into a legacy.

‘Why, no. I don’t think that’s coming off now,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got some money put by. I’ll manage. Maybe I can get myself a job in Rome.’

‘Let’s talk about it at breakfast’

We left it like that. I went back to the house. The policeman was sitting on the terrace, basking in the early morning sun. He had made a pot of coffee, and he nodded at me as I went by and on to the house.

I stood in the hall for a minute or so, trying to realize that I was out of danger. There was the inquest, of course. An inquisitive coroner could ask some awkward questions, but it seemed to me that the main danger was over. It seemed incredible that the plan had succeeded so well. But I had still things to do. There was the soiled cloth in the saucepan I had to get rid of and my pyjamas and dressing gown. As soon as I had the house entirely to myself I would burn them, I told myself.

I felt I couldn’t live another minute without a shot of whisky. The tension and the acute anxiety of the past four hours had left me exhausted. I walked into the lounge and began to head towards the bar when I stopped short, my nerves jangling, my heart skipping a beat.

Lolling in one of the lounging chairs was a tall, dark man of about my own age who was nursing a glass of whisky, a cigarette hanging from his lips.

He looked up at me and gave me a slow, lazy grin. His darkly tanned, humorously ugly face lit up as he smiled and he waved the glass of whisky at me.

‘Rotten habit to drink at this hour,’ he said. ‘My wife would have a fit if she could see me, but I’ve been up all night and I can’t take it unless I have twelve hours sleep.’

I remained motionless, looking at him.

‘Are you from the Press?’ I managed to get out.

‘Me? Do I look like a pressman?’ His grin widened. ‘No. I’m Steve Harmas, special investigator for the National Fidelity Insurance Company. I’m waiting for old man Maddux. He’s due here any moment.’

I felt a cold chill creep over me. ‘Maddux?’

‘That’s right. No one could keep the old wolfs snout out of a setup like this for long.’ Again he grinned at me. ‘Have a drink. You look as if you need one.’

A few minutes to seven-fifteen, Maddux walked into the lounge. By then I had shaved, showered and dressed, moving like an automaton, my heart cold with fear. I kept telling myself that if the police were satisfied, there was no reason why Maddux shouldn’t be. I reminded myself again and again that it was in his company’s interest to accept the theory that Dester had killed his wife and then had shot himself. If the coroner found that Dester had committed suicide then Maddux’s company would not be liable for three-quarters of a million dollars. Surely he wouldn’t be such a fool as to try to prove Dester had been murdered? He would jump at the chance not to pay out the money.

For the past hour, Harmas had been talking in his slow, drawling voice about the political situation as he saw it. He seemed to take a great interest in the Russian attitude and America’s policy in Europe. I scarcely listened to what he was saying, but that didn’t stop him talking.

As soon as Maddux walked into the lounge, I noticed a sharp change come over Harmas. He no longer looked lazy. His face became alert, his eyes hardened and he uncoiled his tall frame from the chair and stood up as if he had released a spring inside him.

Maddux looked at us and walked over to the empty fireplace. He set his back to it, took out his pipe and began to fill it.

‘I guess I’m in the way,’ I said. ‘I’ll go up to my room.’

‘Stay right here, Mr. Nash,’ Maddux said. ‘There may be points where you can help us. Sit down. Sit down, Steve.’ He waited until we had sat down, then he lit his pipe and went on, ‘Well? What’s it look like?’

Harmas lit a cigarette.

‘You remember the business we had over that striptease dancer last year? When she tried to gyp us out of a million and a half bucks by a neat trick that we nearly fell for?’ he said. ‘Well, this setup seems to me to be along those lines.’

Something as cold as a dead man’s hand clutched my heart when he said that. Neither he nor Maddux was looking at me, and they didn’t see my convulsive start.

Maddux said: ‘What makes you think that?’

‘The things that have appeared to happen that couldn’t possibly have happened,’ Harmas returned, sinking further into his chair. ‘It’s so obviously a clever trick, but it beats me how it was worked. For instance, Dester was supposed to have entered the house by the cloakroom window. All the other windows in the house and all the doors were locked. The cloakroom window was open: so that was the way he was supposed to enter the house, but he didn’t because I was right outside the cloakroom window watching the house all the evening. Dester didn’t enter the house that way, so how did he get in?’

‘He could have been hiding in the house during the afternoon,’ Maddux suggested.

‘He wasn’t. Lewis told me he went over the house from top to bottom at six o’clock in the evening when I took up my position in the garden. Dester wasn’t in the house then, and he didn’t get into the house after that time, but for all that he was found dead in the study.’

Maddux moved to a chair and sat down.

‘Yes: that’s quite a point. What else?’

‘I’ve seen ten suicides from shots in the head during my career,’ Harmas went on. ‘The mess was considerable, and yet Dester bled very little. If it wasn’t absolutely impossible, I would have said he had shot himself some other place and then moved himself to his study to finish his bleeding there.’

Maddux shifted impatiently.

‘What did the medical examiner say?’

Harmas lifted his shoulders.

‘He was surprised, but he didn’t seem to be put off his conviction that Dester shot himself. After all, here was a guy, a gun at his side, shot through the head, causing instantaneous death, who hadn’t been dead for more than fifteen minutes, who couldn’t have been brought into the house since I was watching outside and all the doors and windows, except for the small cloakroom window through which it would be difficult, not to say impossible, to push a dead body, were locked. So the doc just shrugged his shoulders and said odd things happen and he had no idea why Dester hadn’t bled more than he had. He accepted the situation because there was no other theory that would fit.’

Maddux showed his white teeth in a grin.

‘But we know better, huh?’ He looked over at me. ‘I think I mentioned to you that I have had some experience in fraud, Mr. Nash. It is unbelievable the tricks some guys get up to to earn themselves an easy buck. I’ve got to the point now when I don’t rely on my eyes and ears; I rely on hunches. You’d be surprised how my hunches pay off.’

‘You’ll have to have a pretty hot hunch to explain why Dester didn’t bleed as much as he should for all that,’ Harmas said.

Maddux waved this aside. ‘What else have you got?’

‘There were no fingerprints,’ Harmas said. ‘Not one. Dester left a confession note; no prints on the paper nor the typewriter. Apparently he took a drink and dropped a bottle of whisky, but there were no prints on either the glass nor on the broken bottle. There were no prints on the gun. It had been wiped clean. There were no prints on the cloakroom window, and yet he was supposed to have opened it.’

‘Maybe he wore gloves.’

‘Then where are they? I’ve looked for them and I can’t find them. Why should a guy write a confession note in gloves?’

I took out my handkerchief and wiped the sweat from my face. I was feeling so bad I was past caring if they saw me do it, but neither of them looked at me.

‘Then there’s another thing,’ Harmas went on. ‘When Dester left the house to go to the sanatorium with Mrs. Dester, he was wearing a dark brown hat, a camel-haired coat, dark grey trousers and reverse calf shoes. When he was found in his study, he had no top coat or hat, his trousers were blue and he was wearing black leather shoes.’

‘What did Bromwich think of that?’

‘He thought maybe Dester had soiled his clothes while he was at the forestry station and had changed into the clothes he had with him in the suitcase. He’s having a search made for the camel-haired coat. He’s checking all the left-luggage depots as a start. It may take time, but he’s working first on those near where the Rolls was ditched.’

Maddux scratched the side of his jaw with his pipe stem. He looked relaxed and there was a contented expression in his eyes.

‘It looks as if we have a nice little puzzle dropped in our laps,’ he said. ‘I knew this was an attempt at fraud. I smelt it. Someone has thought up a smart idea to get himself a packet of dough. I told Bromwich to look for the other man. Well, if he won’t we will.’

‘You think there’s another man?’ Harmas said, lifting his head and staring at Maddux. ‘You think Mrs. Dester had a lover?’

‘I’m damned sure she did. Between them I think they cooked up a smart idea to murder Dester and pick up some money. She didn’t think up the idea. The last time she tried to defraud an insurance company she nearly landed herself in jail. This is a much more calculated effort; much more clever. A man thought it up, and who else could he be but Mrs. Dester’s boyfriend?’

‘You really think Dester was murdered?’ Harmas said. ‘That’s not so hot for the company, is it? We’ll have to settle the claim if he was murdered.’

I looked quickly at Maddux. Everything depended on what he would say to this. He was smiling at Harmas, taking no notice of me.

‘Now look,’ he said, ‘we have never bilked on a claim yet and we never will. Dester gave us an out when he cancelled the suicide clause. Maybe a lot of smaller companies would have kept out of this and accepted the police’s findings that Dester had killed himself, but I take a broader view. This is murder. Okay, maybe it will cost us three-quarters of a million, but in the long run it will save us money. I have never let one fraud go unchallenged. I have put eighteen smart alecs in the death cell. Other smart alecs are beginning to learn that it isn’t safe to monkey with the National Fidelity. If I let this one pass I’ll be asking for trouble. I’m not going to let it pass. I’m going to prove this is murder. It’ll be a damn fine advertisement for us, and it will act as a warning.’ His grin widened. ‘But it doesn’t mean that we will have to pay up. It might not be in the interests of the public to settle such a claim. Remember that phrase — the interests of the public. It has stopped a lot of payments in the past, and it will go on stopping them in the future. Now I’ll tell you both something. I think these two — Mrs. Dester and her boyfriend — were smart enough to know that we would come after them with everything we’ve got if Dester was murdered and she put in a claim. So what do they do? I’ll tell you: they planned to murder Dester and fix it so it would look like suicide. By doing that they knew they were passing up all hopes of making a claim. They hoped that as they weren’t making a claim, we would stand back and let them get away with the murder. Now this is the pay off.’ He leaned forward, pointing the stem of his pipe at Harmas. ‘They were smart enough to know that if we didn’t settle the claim, we would return the premiums, and do you know how much Dester has paid in premiums over the past years? He’s paid one hundred and four thousand dollars. That’s what they were after: not the three-quarters of a million. That was too dangerous to grab at, but the returned premiums were something worth having and they were safe. Okay, Dester’s debts amount to fifty thousand dollars. By the time the house, furniture, cars and what have you are sold there will be enough to pay the debts. They would have been left with one hundred and four thousand dollars which is quite a nice piece of money.’

Harmas suppressed a yawn.

‘I think you’ve got something,’ he said. ‘I had forgotten the premiums would be returned. What happened to Mrs. Dester then? What went wrong?’

Maddux shrugged.

‘I don’t know and I don’t care. Maybe they quarrelled. Maybe the boyfriend killed her. Maybe Dester killed her. I don’t know. That’s for the police to find out. What I do know is that our client was murdered, and I’m going to take damn good care the killer doesn’t get away with it!’ He suddenly turned and looked at me. ‘Well, Mr. Nash, what do you think of all this? You haven’t said much up to now. Have you any ideas who Mrs. Dester’s boyfriend is?’

I knew now that I had a desperate fight on my hands. I could still get clear if I played my cards right, but if I made one slip, I was through.

‘I don’t know who he is,’ I said, forcing myself to meet his steady, inquiring stare, ‘but I did once see her with someone.’

Maddux smiled. He looked over at Harmas. ‘Do you see? Dig enough and something comes to the surface.’ He turned back to me. ‘When was this, Mr. Nash?’

‘Maybe a week ago. I’m not sure. I happened to be downtown. I saw Mrs. Dester and this man come out of the Brown Derby.’

‘Can you give me a description of him?’

‘Why, yes.’ The words seemed to come out of my mouth without any effort on my part. ‘He was tall, fair, with a blond moustache, around thirty-five or six, good-looking, well-dressed.’

Maddux looked over at Harmas. ‘Got that? At the Brown Derby. You’ve got to find this guy.’

‘Yeah,’ Harmas said. ‘There are only about twenty thousand tall, fair, good-looking guys in Hollywood, but never mind, I’ll find him.’

‘Did you get the impression, Mr. Nash, that they were more than friendly?’ Maddux asked.

‘I’m afraid I didn’t,’ I said. ‘I was driving past. I just caught a glimpse of them. She had her hand on his arm. I didn’t have much time to see if they were on good or bad terms. I just saw him.’

‘Well, okay, that’s something to work on,’ Maddux said and got to his feet. ‘You’d better get working on it,’ he went on to Harmas. ‘Go down to the Brown Derby and see if you can get a lead on this guy. I’m going to talk to Bromwich.’

Harmas unwound his long, lean frame and stood up.

‘I haven’t had any sleep for twenty-four hours. I don’t suppose that interests you, does it?’

Maddux waved this aside. He turned to me.

‘Thanks for the information, Mr. Nash. This is the lead I’ve been looking for.’

‘I only saw them together once,’ I said.

‘Once is enough.’ He caught hold of my hand in a knuckle-cracking grip, nodded and then started across the lounge towards the hall.