When she came, at twenty minutes past one, I started the attack in the hall. A chair and a bench are there, across from the rack, very handy, but she didn’t put her handbag down when I was taking her coat, and I didn’t like the way she was clutching it. Also I was still touchy about the bullets that had missed Julie through no fault of mine. So when, turning, she shifted the bag from her right hand to her left, I grabbed it. She tried to grab it back, but I stiff-armed her, perhaps a little rough, sidestepped, and opened the bag. She squeaked and came at me, and I pushed her again and got a hand in the bag, and it came out with something in it. She backed off and stood and panted, so I was able to look. It was a twenty-two Bristol automatic with a fancy carved butt, and it was loaded. I stuck it in my side pocket and held the bag out. “Sorry if I was rude,” I said. “We had an event here once, and I frisk everybody.”
She was trying hard to hold in, and I hoped she would make it. She had shrunk. Not only did she look even smaller than she had a week ago, but her face had positively shrunk. Her cheeks had been filled out, and now they weren’t. She took the bag and said, “Give me that gun.”
“It’s not a gun, it’s a toy. You’ll get it back. As I say, I frisk everybody, and right now I’m glad I do. There’s a woman here who is going to say things you won’t like, and you’re very impulsive. Her name is Julie Jaquette, and she was your sister’s best friend. I believe you have met her –”
“I was my sister’s best friend.”
“You ought to know. Let’s go in and sit down.” I gestured. “That open door on the left.”
I thought she was going to balk and she did too, but I had the gun and I could have carried her under one arm. She turned and clicked down the hall, and I followed. Two steps inside the office she stopped. I passed on by and went to Julie, who was standing by my desk. I took the pistol from my pocket and showed it to her. “This was in her bag,” I said and turned and asked Stella, “Where does your husband keep his rifle?”
I don’t think she heard me. I had moved up a couple of the yellow chairs, and she went to one and sat. Julie went and took the other one, and I returned the pistol to my pocket, sat at my desk, and told Julie, “You have met Mrs. Fleming.”
She nodded. “That was in her bag? How did you get it?”
“Took it. It didn’t fire those shots Saturday night.” I eyed Stella. “Your husband shot at Miss Jaquette Saturday night, but missed. That’s why I asked where he keeps his rifle.”
She gawked at me. “What? My husband what?”
“He tried to kill Miss Jaquette. That’s breaking it to you gently, Mrs. Fleming, there’s much worse to come. I told you on the phone that I have found the right man. The reason Miss Jaquette is here is that she helped me find him. I guess the best way is to show you a copy of a letter she sent to your husband last Friday.” I opened a drawer and got it. “She wrote it by hand; this is a typewritten copy. Shall I read it?”
She looked at Julie. “A letter you sent my husband?”
“Yes.”
She put a hand out. “Let me see it.”
I passed it over. She went through it fast and then read it again, slow. She looked at Julie. “What’s it about? Who is Milton Thales?”
Julie looked at me, and she shouldn’t have. She was supposed to be collaborating. I widened my eyes a little, and she went back to Stella. “Your husband,” she said. “He is Milton Thales. I said in that letter that Isabel told me everything, but the one thing she didn’t tell me was the name of the man who was paying her bills, so I have to call him X. You’re the only one she told his name to, and –”
“She didn’t tell me his name.”
“She told me she did tell you. Isabel wasn’t a liar.”
That was more like it. What a girl. She was going on. “So when X got a phone call from a man who knew all about it and told X to send him money, a thousand dollars a month, to mail it to Milton Thales, General Delivery, and X told Isabel, she knew Milton Thales must be your husband. Because no other man could know what Milton Thales knew. Isabel knew you must have told your husband, and he –”
“I didn’t tell my husband.”
“You must have, because if –”
I cut in. “It’s no good, Mrs. Fleming. That’s nailed down. Your husband got that letter Saturday morning. At one o’clock he phoned Miss Jaquette at her hotel. At half past two he came in person. I was there with Miss Jaquette. He told us he hadn’t brought the five thousand dollars he had screwed out of X because the bank wasn’t open. He said he would bring it Monday. Today. What time did he get home Saturday night?”
No answer. She was staring at me.
“I know he got home late, because at half past one he was behind the wall in Central Park with either a rifle or a revolver, shooting at Miss Jaquette across the street when we got out of a taxicab. I brought Miss Jaquette home with me, here, so we don’t know if he has tried to get in touch with her today, and we don’t care. The point is, you did tell him X’s name, and he did blackmail X, and Isabel knew it. That’s settled.”
She was clawing, but not at me. Her hands were resting on her knees, with the fingers curled, and she was scraping at her palms with her nails. “I can’t believe it,” she said, so low that I barely heard. She said louder, “I can’t believe it.”
“That’s hard,” I said, “but there’s harder. This isn’t nailed down, but it can be. As it stands now, it’s what Isabel told Miss Jaquette. She not only told her about the blackmailing, she also told her that she was going to tell your husband that she had decided to tell you about it. When I first heard that, from Miss Jaquette, I wondered why the police were holding Orrie Cather instead of your husband, but then Miss Jaquette told me she hadn’t told the police about the blackmailing at all. You can ask her why; I think it was because she didn’t realize what it might mean. The police would have realized it. If she had told them about the blackmailing, all that Isabel told her, your husband would now be in jail, either along with Orrie Cather or instead of him, as a murder suspect. And when we tell them about his coming to see Miss Jaquette Saturday afternoon, and his trying to kill her that night, that will settle that. They’ll get the evidence, for instance his movements the morning Isabel was killed, and he’ll be booked for murder, and tried, and probably convicted. I told you on the phone that I have found the right man, and I have. Barry Fleming.”
She had stopped the clawing and made fists, and had nodded three times as I talked – little involuntary nods, without knowing she was doing it, like the shake of her head when I told her that Orrie Cather might have been the one who was paying the rent. Now she whispered to herself, “That’s why.”
I didn’t ask her why what, because I wasn’t after evidence. You want evidence in order to prove something to the District Attorney or a judge or a jury, and that wasn’t the program. Her “why” was probably something, or things, he had said or done – for instance, where he had said he had been, but hadn’t, the morning Isabel was killed. Whatever it was, it made it a lot simpler than I had thought it would be. I had expected her to throw at least three fits, especially after finding the toy in her bag, and there she was whispering to herself.
Julie said, “You don’t have to club her.”
That was unnecessary, so I ignored it. What the hell, she had brought a gun, even if she had had no idea what for. Probably to mow me down if I called Isabel a doxy. “You may wonder,” I told Stella, “why we wanted to discuss it with you. Since it’s practically certain that he killed Isabel, why didn’t we just tell the police? Of course we’ll have to, but I haven’t forgotten what you told me that day, that your sister’s reputation was the most important thing in the world. I know nothing about your relations with your husband, but I thought it was possible you could do something. You might persuade him to go to the police and admit he killed her, and give an entirely different reason, some reason that would leave out the blackmailing and X and everything you don’t want to come out. I don’t know if that’s possible, but I thought you ought to have the chance. We can’t wait long, not more than a day or two. Say Wednesday morning.”