“I talked with Annette LeBeau yesterday,” Nancy replied. “She told me that you offered to sell her some of your family’s jewelry. She also told me why.”
Lake gasped, her fingers tightening in the fur of the angora cat.
Giving her a direct look, Nancy explained, “I was asked to come to Montreal to break up a blackmailing scheme that appears to be centered at Cherbourg Industries. We know of four victims already. The same person could be blackmailing you. We’ll have an even better chance of finding out who it is if you’ll help us.”
Lake looked at Nancy for a minute, her mouth tight. Then her lips began to tremble and tears gathered in her eyes, and her cat ran and hid under the sofa.
“It’s not just the blackmail that’s been tearing me apart,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “It’s knowing what I did to that poor little girl. Every night I dream about it—about the awful crash and the blood.” She buried her face in her hands and began to sob.
“The girl you hit with your car—your yellow Mercedes?” Nancy asked softly.
Lake nodded. She looked up, her eyes filled with tears. “It was dark and rainy, and I was driving very fast. The child ran out in front of me and I hit her.”
“You didn’t stop, did you?” Nancy said.
Wordlessly Lake shook her head. After a moment she said in a shaky voice, “The next day I called the hospital, pretending to be a friend. I found out who she was. Then I promised her parents I would pay all of the hospital bills and find her the best plastic surgeon in the city, if only they wouldn’t tell the police who had done it. It cost a fortune, but I had to do it.”
“But why?” Ned asked. “If she ran out in front of you, it wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe not.” Lake bit her lip so savagely that it started bleeding. “But I couldn’t take that chance. If my father ever found out what happened, he would have taken away my allowance, my car.” She turned to look at the room around them. “I would have lost this house, and all my beautiful things.”
“But now you’re about to lose everything to a blackmailer,” Nancy said.
Lake sighed and pointed to an empty spot on the wall. “The painting that was hanging there was my favorite. I sold it last month for nearly fifty thousand dollars. And every penny went to the blackmailer. I’ve sold nearly all the jewelry I inherited from my grandmother. There isn’t much left.” She shrugged sadly.
“How does the blackmailer contact you?” Nancy asked.
“Letters,” Lake said. “Then I put the money—usually ten thousand at a time—in a red plastic sack and drop it in the trash can beside Nelson’s Column.” She laughed shortly. “I suppose the blackmailer hangs around and watches, then picks it up after I’ve gone. Pretty expensive trash.”
Nancy flashed a look at Ned. It was the same modus operandi, or mode of operation. It must be the same blackmailer! Ned nodded. “Who could have found out about the accident?” he asked Lake.
She shrugged. “Somebody at the hospital, I guess. I went to visit the girl there once. I didn’t give my name, though, and I wore a scarf and an old coat so I couldn’t be recognized.
“You said something about plastic surgery,” Nancy observed, taking out her notebook. “Are you paying the bills for the girl’s surgery by check?”
Frowning, she said, “Of course. But Emile Dandridge is the best plastic surgeon in the city,” she tried to explain. “I mean, he does cosmetic surgery, and lots of his patients don’t want anybody to know about their tucks and lifts. His work is always very confidential. I can’t imagine that anybody in his office could be a blackmailer.”
“Well, somebody is,” Nancy said pointedly. She wrote down Emile Dandridge’s name and the address and phone number that Lake gave her. Then Lake went upstairs and brought down the blackmail letters, all carefully locked in a heavy metal box. Nancy scanned them quickly. She couldn’t be sure without a closer examination, but they looked exactly like the others.