“Besides,” Barney reminded her; “Ross Craigthorn is dead. If there ever was a hundred thousand, it’s not there anymore. Let’s talk sensibly.”
“Fifty thousand?” she asked, uncertainly. “I came all the way to New York from June.”
“No fifty thousand.”
Susan could almost imagine him calculating the amount of money in the MWA treasury. From what she knew of the organisation, it couldn’t be much. Maybe a few thousand dollars, at best.
“I could maybe give you five hundred,” Barney said.
“Don’t even talk to me. Go away. I’ll find the other one and get the hundred thousand out of him. Ross said he was famous too. I’ll find him.”
“Famous doesn’t mean rich. Take the five hundred and be happy you’ve got it.”
“Go back and talk to your friends. You can do better than that,” she said. “A lot better than five hundred dollars after I came halfway across the country.”
“What you were doing was blackmailing Ross Craigthorn. That’s a crime. I could have you arrested right now for it.”
“No blackmailing. You’d have to prove that.”
“You wrote to him? Contacted him in some way?”
“That’s for me to know,” the woman said. “I have to go out now. You just see your people and find out how much money you can raise, and then you come back and see me—tonight. If the money is enough, I talk.”
Susan saw Barney shrug his shoulders. “All right,” he said. “I guess there’s nothing else I can do. We’ll be back later.”
They left the apartment, and heard her bolt the door behind them. Barney did not talk until they reached the street, and then he said, “I don’t know. Maybe she’s got something, and maybe she hasn’t.”
“Do you think she killed Craigthorn?”
“I don’t see why. She wouldn’t kill her meal ticket. Not if she thought he was going to cough up a hundred thousand. She said there were two of them. The other is the one we have to find. The partner in Craigthorn’s past.”
“And where do we look for him?”
“She’s our only link to any of it We have to work through her, and I guess that means I’ve got to find some money, or at least the promise of some money. Let’s get a cab uptown.”
13 Victor Jones
HE SAW THEM LEAVING the apartment building just, as he arrived across the street—Barney Hamet and Susan Veldt. They’d already seen her, then, and who knows what she might have told them?
It was just after one o’clock, and even down there in the Village there was a certain amount of noontime traffic. He waited until the light changed—then came out of his doorway and walked quickly across the street, into the apartment building the two had just left.
She hadn’t even bothered to register under an assumed name, and it was easy to find her place, especially when he stepped onto the landing and saw her just coming out her door. “Mrs. Black! Mrs. Black! Wait a moment!” he said.
She turned and looked, not recognising him. “Who … I was just going out.”
“Can I have just a word with you for a moment? It’s very important.”
“I was just going out,” she repeated.
“It’s about money,” he said.
“Well…”
“A great deal of money. One hundred thousand dollars.”
“Who are you?” But the talk of money had persuaded her. She stepped aside and let him enter, then closed and bolted the door behind them. “Who are you?” she asked again.
“I’m a man who’s come to talk to you about money, Mrs. Black.”
“Are you a friend of Ross Craigthorn’s? That was the money he was going to give me. A hundred thousand dollars.”
“Was he going to give it to you? Was he, Irma?”
Then she recognised him. Her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes seemed to bore through his head. “You!” she said. “Victor Jones! After all these years … you!”
“How are you Irma?”
“How am I? I’m the same as you. The same as Ross. We’re three of a kind, I guess. God! That was a long time ago! How many years? Twenty-two? I never thought I’d see you again. Ross was easy to find because he was on television every night. I saw him and I remembered that face. Remembered how he bent over me that night. You were the one, though. You, Victor. I never thought I’d see you again to my dying day.”
“So now we’re here—the two of us. Just like old times.”
“Not like old times. Ross was around in the old times. There were three of us … three kids.”
“We were in our twenties. We weren’t kids.”
“We were kids. Remember how it was? That week? Remember, we went back over the state line to June? Just the three of us. You and Ross and me. That was a time!”
“It surely was, Irma. What brings you east?”
“Well, I saw Ross on television. I’m a poor woman. I’m almost fifty now. What was I to do? I needed money. I was married for a while, but it didn’t work out, and then my husband died. I came east because I needed money. I was never one to live off welfare. I came to New York and contacted Ross. I told him what I needed. I didn’t think there’d be any problem. He was a little reluctant, though. Called it blackmail. Blackmail! An awful word! Things aren’t black or white in this world any more, are they, Victor? You know that better than anyone else.”
“I know it, Irma.”
“Oh, if only I could be back there again! We have to grow old, and that’s the awful part of it—the awful part of everything. We grow old, and the old friends change. All we have are our memories. The present is never quite as good as the past, is it? And nobody even thinks about the future.”
“Some people think about it, Irma. Ross thought about it. That’s why he didn’t give you the money.”
“Oh, he would have given it to me. He talked a lot, but he didn’t want to ruin his career. He had some wild idea about going to his public, telling them all that happened. He said the statute of limitations had run out and they couldn’t arrest him for anything. But arrest isn’t the point, is it? Victor? He was someone in the public eye. If this ever came out, he would be ruined.”
“Irma …”
“I bet you never expected to see me again, did you?”
“No. I guess I never did.”
“You were the leader of the whole thing. Ross was the follower in those days. I was sort of surprised that he got where he did. You were the leader.”
“I suppose I was,” Victor Jones said. “Will you be going back to June now?”
“Of course. As soon as you give me the hundred thousand dollars that Ross promised. He’s dead now, you know. Somebody killed him.”
“Why would anyone do that?”
“I can’t imagine. Communists, I suppose. Now you’ll just have to give me the money.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. Besides,” Victor said, with a slight smile, “you don’t even know who I am. I can walk out of this apartment and vanish into seven or eight million people out there in the street. I’m nobody to you. I’m not on television every night.”
Irma Black sighed. “Ross said you were famous—or rich—I forget which he said now. But you’re well known, anyway.”
“New York is full of well-known people. I sometimes think everyone in New York is well known, in his own special way.” Victor Jones took out another cigarette. “So that proves nothing, you see?”
“Ah … but you’re forgetting I know what you look like now. And you don’t really look that much different from the old days, now that I see you in better light. There might even be some pictures around that I could dig up—pictures that Ross’s uncle took. He was always talking about his uncle taking pictures. I could find a reporter on one of these tabloid scandal sheets. He’d probably give me some money for my story. And I’d tell it, and I’d say that somewhere in New York this famous man …”
“Not famous, Irma. Hardly famous.”
“Well—this rich man, then, or wh
atever. You’re dressed well. I can see you’re not poor. Anyway, I’d tell him, and he’d print the story and the pictures, and the police would be interested, of course, wouldn’t they? Because the statute of limitations might have applied in Ross’s case, but certainly not in yours. In that state, the statute of limitations doesn’t apply to kidnapping, Victor. And that’s what you did—you kidnapped me, all alone by yourself. Besides, the police might even think you killed poor Ross.”
“Why would they get that idea?”
“I don’t know. They’d be looking into all his old friends and connections. They’d find out what happened back there twenty-two years ago.”
“What do you want, Irma?”
“I told you. Money enough so that I can live for the rest of my days without ever having to worry. Without having to marry a guy I didn’t love. That’s what I’ve always wanted. I’d like to travel—maybe down to Mexico, or over to Europe. I’m getting old Victor. It’s so important to me to have security in my old age. And if there’s anybody who owes it to me, it’s you and Ross. The two of you. And’s he’s dead.”
“I can give you a little money, Irma,” Victor said, reaching into his pocket. He took out a wallet and pulled some bills from it. “Enough for your plane fare back to June.”
“Not a little money. Big money! The man that was here before—he’s going to come back tonight.”
“What man is that?”
“A man. I don’t know. He was on the radio last night. I heard him, and I sent him a telegram. I’ll sell my information to the highest bidder, Victor. I have no great loyalties to you anymore.”
He stood up and walked to her chair. “Irma, you couldn’t blackmail me.”
She looked into his eyes, and perhaps that was when she saw it, when she realised there was something just a bit frightening about the expression on his face. “You killed Ross Craigthorn, didn’t you?”
Victor Jones did not answer.
“Didn’t you? Didn’t you?” Her small fists were beating at his chest, reminding him. It might have been twenty-two years ago, and there she was in his arms once more.
“Ah … Irma … Irma,” he said, and slipped his hands up to her throat.
“No!” She broke away, squirming, agile now as a tiger—trying for the telephone.
But he was on her in an instant, grabbing the instrument from her hand. She opened her mouth to scream. He jumped on her, wrapping the telephone cord, in two quick motions, around her throat, choking off the scream before it could grow in volume.
“Victor…”
But it was a sigh rather than a scream. A sigh that died to a whisper.
He pulled the cord tight, looping it one more time, and kept on tugging. She may have said his name again, but he was not certain. It could have been in his memory. His memory of twenty-two years ago, when he’d held her in his arms for the first time.
14 Barney Hamet
BARNEY SPENT MUCH OF the late afternoon in Harry Fox’s office, relating the events of the day. He trusted Harry, and so he told him about the visit to Irma Black and her demand for money.
Harry shrugged his shoulders and tapped his fingertips together. “I sure don’t think MWA is going to come up with a big chunk of money, Barney. They just don’t have it. You know better than I how much money’s in the till, but anything more than a few hundred would pretty much exhaust the treasury, I’d think. Why don’t you just take the police down there and scare her a bit?”
“I might have to do that,” Barney agreed.
“Do you think she’s really got something?”
“I don’t know,” he replied.
Harry Fox scratched his balding head, rummaged around his desk until he found a cigarette in a half-empty pack. “All right,” he said. “So maybe she has something. I suppose it’s worth your while talking to her again. Find out how much she needs. If you want, I’ll go down and talk to her with you.”
Barney thought about that “We’ll never be able to meet her price. I think it might be wiser to call that detective fellow—George. He might just be able to throw a scare into her. Let me use your phone to call police headquarters. I want to see if I can catch him.”
George was in. He answered the phone almost immediately, in a bored voice that grew only slightly interested when Barney identified himself. After listening in silence to the purpose of the call, he said, “Don’t you think you’re about twelve hours late notifying me? Don’t you think you should have called me as soon as that telegram came in to your radio programme? The woman could be halfway back to Nebraska by now. Or she could be dead, for all you know.”
“Look, I called you, didn’t I? Now, do you want to meet me down there, or don’t you?”
“What’s the address?” George asked.
Barney gave it to him, then said goodbye to Harry Fox and headed out to get a cab. Inching downtown at ten miles an hour, he was not at all surprised to see a police car pulled up in front of the address when he arrived. He was a bit surprised, however, when a second car arrived on the scene almost at once, its siren blaring. He wondered what George was up to.
The detective was standing at the top of the stairs, waiting for him outside of Irma Black’s apartment. “You mystery writers, you really know how to handle things, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?” Barney asked, but he already could feel a chill on his spine. Something was wrong.
“I mean this Black woman is dead. You wanna come in and take a look?”
“Dead?”
“Strangled with a telephone cord.”
Barney stepped through the doorway, fighting down a growing nausea in the pit of his stomach. Yes, she was there, sprawled on the floor.
“This is the woman you talked to?” George asked.
“That’s her. Irma Black. From June, Nebraska.”
“Any idea who did it?”
“No idea, unless you want a wild guess. It could have been the same person who killed Ross Craigthorn. There were two of them connected with Irma Black somehow in her past, back in the midwest. She told me that much. Wouldn’t tell me more unless she got some money. Like I explained to you on the phone, I thought maybe we could throw a scare into her.”
“You threw a scare into somebody. You left her at what time, Mr. Hamet?”
Barney tried to think. “We were here from maybe a bit after twelve till around one. She said she had to go out then.”
“Did she go out?”
“I don’t know. Susan Veldt and I left. We didn’t see anyone lurking about.”
“Who else knew you were coming here?”
Barney explained again about the radio programme. “Everyone in the studio knew about it. When the telegram came in, we all looked at it. After the show, we debated about it a bit. Some of them wanted to come right down, but I figured I’d better wait till noon.”
“Sure, wait till noon! Give the murderer plenty of chance!” The detective turned away in disgust
“How did I know she’d get killed? There were five of us on the programme. Am I supposed to figure one of them did it?”
“It wouldn’t be a bad figure. They had the address. And it sounds to me as if they might have had a motive, if one of them killed Craigthorn. Give me their names.”
Barney sighed, feeling somehow on the brink of a great betrayal. “All right Harry Fox. You know him. You met him the other night. Max Winters, you know. You were questioning him at his hotel. Dick McMullen, the agent Frank Jesset. Jesset’s the one who was a friend of Craigthorn’s.”
“I know. Frank Jesset.”
But Barney noticed the flicker of interest in the detective’s eyes. “And myself. We were the five on the panel. There was the guy in the control room. I don’t know if you want to investigate him or not. And there was Susan Veldt. She was in the control room too. And a couple of other girls—Betty Rafferty from the office, and Miss Sweeney, Craigthorn’s secretary. She came with Jesset, but she didn’t stay long. She and Betty went home af
ter a couple of hours.”
“Who else?”
“No one at all. That’s it.”
“All right. Whose show was it?”
“Well, Skinny Simon’s. Of course he was there. Didn’t I mention him?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“All right, Skinny Simon. I thought you knew whose show it was.”
“So that makes a few more than five people. That makes … five panelists, and Skinny, and the engineer, and three women. How many of these people were at the dinner Friday night?”
“Well, all of us on the panel were, and all the women.”
“Was Skinny at the dinner?”
“Sure, he was there. We were talking about the show that night.”
“Okay,” the detective said. “Where were you this afternoon after you and Susan Veldt left here?”
“Where was I? Well, part of the time I was up at Harry Fox’s office, till I called you. Why? Are you suspecting me of this thing now?”
George gave a customary shrug. “Look, you called me to come down here with you, to find the body with you. It’s exactly the sort of thing a murderer would do. I know, because I read it in a detective story once.”
“All right. Call Harry Fox. He’ll tell you I was with him.”
“Were you with him all the time? All afternoon? Since you left this apartment?”
“Not all the time. I took Susan uptown and we had lunch. It was probably two-thirty or three before I went up to Harry’s. Then I was with him the rest of the afternoon, till now.”
“All right,” the detective said. “Stay available.”
“Can I go now?” Barney asked.
“Yeah, I guess there’s nothing much for you here. You can go. We’ll be in touch.”
He went downstairs, started up to MWA headquarters, and then paused at a pay phone to call Susan Veldt at her office. But it was after five, and they told him she had left for the day.
15 Susan Veldt
ON TUESDAY MORNING, AS she was leaving her daily rough draft of the article in Arthur Rowe’s file basket, Susan heard his secretary call to her. “Mr. Rowe wants to see you. He asked you to wait in his office until he’s free.”
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