“By that time,” said Chuck, “Mimi was really scared of him. She didn’t want to marry him. She loathed him, and she didn’t want to be mixed up in a murder. She was tough but not that tough. She promised she’d stick by him. She promised everything he made her promise, but she had another plan. The moment she got a chance, she got away from him and came sneaking over to my room.”
I remembered how, on that first night, Iris and I had seen Mimi gliding furtively into Chuck’s room.
“Yeah,” he said, “Lover had her where he wanted her. But she was smart enough to realize she still had me where she wanted me. She was quick at thinking and she had her plan all set. She came to me just as I was ready to go downstairs and join the others. She told me that Lover had found out my marriage to Lorraine was bigamous and that he was planning to murder Lorraine before we could make the marriage legal. She said she was prepared to tell me what the plan was and help me save Lorraine’s life on two conditions. First that I raised my ante to two hundred grand, and second that I promised, whatever happened, never to tell the truth to the police because, if I did, she’d be exposed as a blackmailer even if Lover didn’t try to drag her down with him as his accomplice. She knew she was safe. She knew I loved Lorraine, that I’d do anything to save her life. She figured, too, that with a bigamy charge hanging over my head I’d never dare go to the police in any case. This way, she stood to get two hundred thousand dollars without getting mixed up in murder. She could thumb her nose at Lover into the bargain.”
He was speaking jerkily now. “I was sweating blood worrying about Lorraine. Since my only chance to save her rested with Mimi, I agreed. I’d have agreed to anything. She told me Lover’s plan then. She said it would be simple to outwit him, but that we’d have to be very careful because if he guessed she’d double-crossed him, he’d turn on her. She knew he had the compact in his right-hand coat pocket. All she had to do was to snitch it. That way we’d not only save Lorraine, we’d always have the chip as evidence—something to threaten him with if ever he tried any other funny business.”
Once again his eyes moved to Lorraine’s white face. “I was too het-up to use my head. All I could think of was getting that chip before he killed you. We rushed downstairs only to find you’d all started without us. We jumped into my car. I drove like a fiend to get ahead of you, to get to the Club first, before anything could happen.” He shrugged. “As you know, we got a flat. It was nightmare changing that tire. First you all came by. We waved to Lorraine but she wouldn’t stop. Then Lover shot by in the other car. Finally I got the thing fixed and we raced into Reno.”
His eyes showed a memory of what he must have gone through that evening. “When we got to the Club, you were all already at the roulette table. We hadn’t expected to be that late. Our plans were all shot. Then I saw that South American gigolo. I’d been talking to him the day before and he’d put on a big act of wanting to meet Lorraine. He seemed like a gift from God. I rushed over to the roulette table. I practically died of relief when I saw Lorraine hadn’t started to play. My one thought was to get her away from danger. So I grabbed her. I grabbed Lover, too. I dragged them both back to Mimi and the South American. While I got Lorraine and the dancer together, I handed Lover over to Mimi. It was her job to get the compact. She started pawing him, pretending to be affectionate. After a few seconds, she nodded. I knew that meant she had the compact.” He gave a wintry smile. “I thought everything was all right. I thought we’d saved the day.”
From the beginning of that incredible story, Iris had been watching his face intently. Now she said, “You saved the day for Lorraine all right. But you didn’t realize that Lover had already sneaked the poisoned chip into the pile and when you dragged him away from the table he had no chance to pick it up. He must have been on tenterhooks. He knew Dorothy would get killed if he didn’t get back to the table and lift the chip. But you wouldn’t let him get away. Then I hit the jackpot on the fifty-cent machine. Everyone rushed over to me. That gave Lover his opportunity. He ran back to the roulette table but, to his horror, the chip wasn’t there. Dorothy had sneaked it into her pocketbook along with the others. From then on, the thing was out of his control. He didn’t know where the chip was. He’d started the juggernaut and he couldn’t stop it.”
“I guess so.” Chuck’s fingers were twisting each other. “You see, Mimi didn’t have a chance to look in the compact and find it was empty. Before either of us knew there was any danger for anyone, Dorothy was already dead.”
He was staring at me. “When I helped you carry Dorothy off the dance floor, I knew that she’d been killed by Lover’s poison trap. I realized what a terrible spot I was in. I had promised Mimi not to tell the truth to the police. Even if I broke that promise, the bigamy business would come out. Not only that. I had had foreknowledge of the murder plot and yet I hadn’t done anything about it. I would be considered an accessory before the fact, too. I’d be in as deep as Mimi, almost as deep as Lover. I was suffering the torments of the damned. And then, out of the blue, Wyckoff diagnosed the death as heart failure. I hadn’t any idea why he was doing it, but it was water in the desert to me. After all, Lorraine was safe. I didn’t care much about Dorothy.”
I said, “So that’s why you kept quiet and used your influence with the police to have Wyckoff sign the death certificate?”
He nodded. “At least it gave me time. I had to talk to Mimi, but I got tied up with Wyckoff taking Dorothy to the funeral parlour and I got back here too late. I had to be terribly careful in contacting her, anyway, so as not to get Lover suspicious. It wasn’t until the evening of the next day, after we’d come back from the trip on Tahoe, that the chance came. Mimi was waiting for me on the dock. Remember?”
“Of course,” said Iris.
“The first thing she said was that Lover didn’t suspect she’d double-crossed him. He thought my dragging him and Lorraine away from the roulette table had just been an accident. He didn’t seem particularly worried that his plan had failed, either. Dorothy’s death helped things rather than hindered them, he said. So many people had wanted to kill Dorothy that the police, even if they did suspect murder eventually, were bound to go haring off on the wrong scent. Then she dropped her bombshell. Lover was so sure of himself that he had planned another attempt on Lorraine.”
He ran a hand across his cropped blond hair. “She said she’d tell me the plan and help me save Lorraine again provided I stick by my bargain. I was beginning to realize then how hopelessly entangled I had become. I couldn’t have gone to the police by that time, anyway. I accepted Mimi’s terms, and she told me Lover’s plan. He was going to fuse the lights at the swimming party and drown Lorraine. He was banking everything on her silver swimming suit because, although he was short-sighted, he knew he’d be able to see it glimmering in the darkness. He had some ether, though he didn’t want to use it unless it was absolutely necessary. As it happened, when the time came, he didn’t need it.”
He went on. “I saw immediately that I couldn’t possibly have Lorraine call the swimming party off without arousing her suspicion and Lover’s. But I knew she’d always been sensitive about the things she wore. I figured out that idea of kidding her about the suit, making her think she looked silly so that she’d give up wearing it. We had to do it when Lover wasn’t around, of course. We did. It worked. After dinner Mimi and I kept close to Lover. Later, when he fused the lights, I dove right into the pool, located Lorraine and stuck by her. I knew Lover’d never be able to see her in that black suit, but I was taking no chances.”
He smiled a pale smile. “Once again we’d managed to save Lorraine, but we didn’t stop a murder. What none of us knew was that Janet had brought no suit and Lorraine had given her the silver one. When Lover and Mimi and I reached the pool, both Lorraine and Janet were in the women’s dressing-rooms. None of us knew Janet was wearing the suit, or Mimi and I would have done something about it. In the darkness Lover saw the suit gleaming. He murdered Janet—thinkin
g he was murdering Lorraine.”
He shrugged his shoulders wearily. “By then I was about at the end of my rope. It looked as if the thing would never stop. Lover would go on with his shortsighted slaughter until he finally got Lorraine. He didn’t care that innocent women were being killed. In fact, each time there was another corpse, things would be better for him because his own motive would get buried deeper and deeper under a crazy surface that could only look like the work of a homicidal maniac.”
Iris put in quietly, “Which, of course, is exactly what happened.”
Chuck nodded. “I was ready to go to the police and confess everything then even though I knew it meant putting a noose around my own neck as surely as around Lover’s. Then something occurred to me, something I’d never thought of before. There was a way of stopping the murders without going to the police. Lorraine’s death was only profitable to Lover so long as her marriage to me wasn’t legal. Mimi had gone through all the preliminaries of the divorce. She was a Nevada resident If she went back to Vegas, she could get the divorce in a day. All I had to do was to marry Lorraine again legally, and Lover’s motive for murdering was gone forever.”
He paused. “I went to Mimi. I put it up to her. She was scared herself by then but not scared enough to forget her own interests. She said okay. She’d go to Vegas the next day if I’d sell the Club and give her every red cent I owned in the world. I didn’t even try to bargain with her. Fetter had been after the Club for months. I knew it would be easy to make a quick sale. This afternoon I stayed in Reno after Dorothy’s funeral. I made the sale. All the time I was in a blue funk that Lover would try to murder Lorraine again while I was not there to protect her.”
“And that’s just what happened,” put in Iris. “Lover must have been on the desperate side himself then because Mr. Throckmorton was due to arrive and Lorraine had announced the evening before that she was going to ask him to draw up a will. A will would have stymied Lover as effectively as a legal marriage ceremony. When Lorraine said she was taking the station wagon to the airport, he realized he had to kill her before Mr. Throckmorton arrived. He didn’t tell Mimi that time. He slipped into the garage and sabotaged the brake cable on the station wagon. We all know Fleur fell into that trap. Lover was coming up the drive at the time. When he saw Fleur instead of Lorraine in the car, he made that so-called gallant attempt to save her. It was a good opportunity to make himself seem heroic and he had nothing to lose.”
Chuck nodded. “When I came back from Reno, I had the money for Mimi with me in cash. She met me on the steps. She told me about Fleur and the station wagon. That only made me more urgent. I handed the money over to her. She was going to leave right away for Vegas. But, unfortunately for us, she chose that moment of all moments to get sentimental with an almost ex-husband. I guess it was the money that did it. She said, ‘I’m going to kiss you for old time’s sake.’” He shrugged. “While she was giving me that last tender embrace, you all came out through the front door.”
He continued. “Mimi and I had been careful to keep Lover from knowing we’d been meeting but we hadn’t thought much about Lorraine. Through the days she’d begun to suspect we were having an affair and when she saw us kissing she was sure of it. She ordered Mimi out of the house. So far as Mimi was concerned that was fine. It gave her a reasonable excuse for leaving. But”—he grimaced—“that was one thing more for me to cope with. I’d been hoping to go to Lorraine tonight and make up some story about our Mexican marriage not being watertight. I was going to suggest we get married again secretly here before Mr. Throckmorton came. You see, I was still hoping crazily that I’d be able to keep her from knowing the truth. But Lorraine was so mad at me about Mimi that she locked herself in her room and wouldn’t let me in.” He paused. “I never seemed to get a break—not a single break in all those ghastly days.”
His tired gaze moved from Iris to Lorraine. “I realized there was still terrible danger for Lorraine but at least she was safe in her room with the door locked. I thought things might still be all right. Tomorrow Mimi would call me from Vegas to say the divorce was okay. Maybe tomorrow I could calm Lorraine down and persuade her to marry me—legally this time. Lieutenant Duluth here had insisted on my calling the police. But that didn’t worry me. I realized the murders were so hopelessly confused by then that there was practically no chance of anyone’s tumbling on the truth. I went to my room and, after a little while, Lover came in.”
A look of embittered hatred passed across Chuck’s face. “He sat down and lit a cigarette. He was perfectly at ease. Quietly, as if he was telling me some trivial thing, he said that he’d just murdered Mimi. When he saw us kissing, he’d suspected she’d been double-crossing him and playing along with me to frustrate his plans. When Lorraine let it slip that Mimi and I had kidded her out of wearing the silver swimming suit, he had been sure. Just as calmly, he said that he had searched Mimi’s suitcase, found the money I’d given her and pocketed it himself.”
His gaze faltered. “It was awful to realize that I’d let myself get so horribly involved that I had to sit there and listen without even being able to sock him. As smug as you please, he said he’d come to make a deal with me. He pointed out a dozen good reasons, reasons I already knew only too well, why it was against my interest to turn him over to the police. He ended up by saying that if those arguments weren’t sufficient and if I was still crazy enough to try and expose him, he was prepared to deny everything and throw the whole blame back onto me. If I stopped to think, he said, what with Mimi being my wife and everything, there was a much better case against me than against him. He was right, of course. I had absolutely no evidence against him now Mimi was dead. It would be my word against his. He was a respectable citizen. I was at best a charlatan who’d tricked Lorraine into a bigamous marriage. He told me his deal then.
“He’d got the money I had given to Mimi. He said he was perfectly satisfied with that. It was enough to keep him for the rest of his days. If I behaved sensibly, he would give me his word that he would make no other attempt on Lorraine’s life. The police would come. They would try to solve the mystery. They were bound to fail. In time the whole business would become just a series of unsolved maniac crimes. He’d have Mimi’s money. I’d have Lorraine. I could marry her again at my leisure. Everything would be swell for me.”
His tongue came out again, wetting his dry lips. “He knew he had me just where he wanted me. I knew it, too. Under the circumstances I even thought he was giving me a break. I guess I didn’t have much spirit left. Now Mimi was dead, there was nothing to stop me marrying Lorraine again, anyway. I said okay. I wouldn’t go to the police.”
He looked up, his face suddenly fierce. “Now I see he double-crossed me after all. All that about leaving Lorraine alone was just talk to lull me into a false sense of security. He knew he had me paralysed. He also knew he’d built up the perfect smoke screen of a homicidal maniac. He did try to murder Lorraine again tonight.” His gaze moved uncertainly to Iris. “I don’t know anything about it, just what you’ve told me. I guess he finally decided to use the ether. But, thank heavens, somehow you managed to save Lorraine.” He paused. “I guess that’s about all except that—in a way I’m almost as bad as Lover and I’m ready to take the consequences.”
He took a step towards Lorraine. “Honey, I just want to say one thing. You may not be able to believe it, but, through it all, I was always figuring how it would be best for you. I was a dope. Everything I did just made it worse. But—well—” His voice broke huskily. “Try not to hate me too much.”
Lorraine was standing very still. She was staring straight at him. I was watching him, too. He looked completely spent, like a swimmer who had battled for hours against an undertow and had no more strength to battle on. As I reviewed that terrible story with its intricate pattern woven from conspiracy, counter-conspiracy, desperation, and fraud, I tried to think what I would have done if I had been in Chuck’s shoes and Lorraine had been Iris.
> Would I have shown up as a braver or more noble character?
Softly Lorraine said, “And you’re ready to tell the police everything you’ve told us, Chuck?”
Chuck nodded.
“Whatever happens?”
He nodded again.
Lorraine’s lips were quivering. Impulsively she went to him, putting her small hands on his big arms. “If they send you to prison, I’ll wait for you.”
He stared at her, his face incredulous. “Lorraine, you—you mean—”
“You fool.” Lorraine’s eyes were shining. “Haven’t you any sense? Can’t you see that I love you?”
For a moment Chuck just stood there holding her in his arms. He was transfigured, a man who didn’t believe in miracles and was seeing one taking place. Then slowly his face clouded.
“It mayn’t just be prison, honey,” he said. “I don’t have any evidence against him. He’s much smarter than me, and it’s my word against his. Maybe the police will believe him.”
Iris got up from the bed then. My wife was looking glamorous and competent at the same time, a Hollywood conception of the executive woman.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that, Chuck,” she said. “You see, there’s all the evidence in the world against Lover now. In fact, Inspector Craig has already arrested him.”
XXII
That startling statement brought the spotlight back to Iris. It made us conscious once again of the fact that it had been my wife who had precipitated the showdown. Uncannily she seemed to have spirited the complex solution out of thin air.
“Lover arrested!” Chuck stammered. “I can’t believe it. I—I can’t understand you, anyway, Iris. I thought the whole ghastly thing was so mixed up that no one would ever figure it out. And yet you seem to have—”
“Exactly,” I broke in. I turned to my wife, trying unsuccessfully not to sound impressed. “In the first place, where in heaven’s name did you find the poisoned chip?”
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