Sinful Woman

by James M. Cain

  “I’ll do it.”

  It was the voice of one of the girl dealers, and at once there was the sound of her heels clicking off to a corner, and then out. At once came her scream, and then another, and then another. “It’s on fire, the whole storeroom is burning,” she called, as soon as she could run back into the casino. At once came the Sheriff’s voice: “Out, everybody. Take it easy, but get outside.” The front door opened, making a big rectangular patch of light from outside, and Mr. Flynn’s voice said: “This way.” Several photographers, carrying cameras and evidently concerned for their pictures, hurried out. But hardly had Mr. Flynn spoken when Tony, frantically, yelled: “The cash! Girls, the cash! Girls, don’t let me down without getting the cash out!” For the cash, amounting to several thousand dollars, had been rung up on the registers, but it had not been put in the safe, and Tony’s voice betrayed only too well what he stood to lose if the place went up and took this precious paper with it.

  Within a few seconds there was a frightful din, as the girls groped their way to the registers to retrieve the cash, the officers groped their way to the girls and tried to get them out, and the photographers groped their way inside again to take pictures of the scene by flash-bulb, all yelling at the top of their lungs. But a dull, flickering glow took command at last, accompanied by the smell of smoke, and by the light of that, the girls ran out, handing their money to Tony at the door. After them stamped the irate officers. When the fire apparatus arrived, in answer to Mr. Britten’s call, some of the crowd was out front, but most of it was at the side, watching Tony, Jake, and one or two others throwing water into the storeroom window with buckets.

  Dmitri, being already out, took no part in any of these proceedings, but stood apart, some little distance off, apparently studying how best to take advantage of the diversion he had created. When the firemen piled off their trucks and began coupling their hose to the plugs along the main highway, he spotted the Sheriff, standing with the first chief near the ladder truck. Going over and speaking in a large, confident way, he said: “Can I bother you one minute, Sharf?”

  “What about?”

  “Plizze, is confidential.”

  Wonderingly the Sheriff followed him a few steps off, until they were on the banks of the little mountain stream. Dmitri cleared his throat, said mysteriously and importantly: “Sharf, there was one thing. One thing I didn’t tell when Excellenz ask me. Sharf, I feel sure this Vicki, this my friend, he killed himself.”

  “What you got to go on?”

  “Last night he wrote a letter.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He took my pen. My pen with green ink. He wrote a letter to Sylvia, put a special on, drove out and mailed it. Sharf, when he finish this letter, Vicki cried. He cried like a baby. In my arms, he cried. Sharf, I know this man took his own life.”

  “Well, you could be right.”

  “What did she say when she read this letter, ha?”

  “That the letter you gave me?”

  “Sure, it was the same one.

  “She never saw it.”

  “She—What did you say?”

  “I burned it up. She got kind of upset when I handed it to her. Broke her up. I didn’t see any reason for making her feel worse. I pitched it on the fire. It’s gone.”

  Dmitri made a noise like a very small pig. The Sheriff watched an emergency truck of the electric light company turn in at the gate, then turned a reflective eye on the wretched little figure in front of him. “You seem kind of upset yourself.”

  “Yes, Sharf. He was my friend.”

  “We’ll never know.”

  He started to rejoin the fire chief, but Dmitri caught his arm. “No, Sharf, plizze don’t go. I must talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “Money.”

  “In what way would you want to talk to me about money?”

  “Man to man.”

  “You sure you don’t mean crook to cop?”

  “Why, that’s ridiculous.”

  “Then say what it is.”

  “Now, Sharf, don’t get sore, because I don’t know how goes with you. Sometimes a guy needs money, sometimes not.”

  “He generally does.”

  “O. K., then if twanny five-fifty will help out, say the word, here I am. Cesh, or any way you want it.”

  “You think I could be bought for fifty bucks?”

  “Bucks? Don’t make me laugh. Grand.”

  Even the Sheriff, no stranger to matters cinematic, blinked at this gay riposte. “You mean you’d pay me fifty thousand dollars to cover up something in this case?”

  “Cover up? Who said cover up?”

  “Then for what?”

  “That I can sleep my nights, Sharf. That I can go back to Hollywood and hold up my head. That I can look people in the eye. That they don’t say, he let his friend be killed. That they don’t say, there goes the dirty heel that didn’t think any more of his friend than to let him use a loaded gun. That they don’t say—”

  “I got the idea.”

  “Sharf, I know this note says Vicki will take his own life if Sylwia gets a divorce. All I ask, Sharf, is that you tell you read note first. Before you burned it up. You burned it up, that’s O. K. Who wouldn’t? My God, to save a girl from feeling so bad, anybody would burn it up. You do this for me, so all know Dimmy Spiro is no heel, that all know Vicki himself did this, that’s all I esk. No cover up. The truth, Sharf! The truth!”

  The Sheriff cogitated over this some moments, staring at Dmitri, or at that spot a few inches behind Dmitri’s head that seemed to be his focal point at certain moments. Then he said: “Here’s where you get the surprise of your life. I’m taking your money.”

  “Sharf! Sharf! I die! From happy!”

  “I want your check.”

  “Anything.”

  “Make it to Parker Lucas, Treasurer.”

  “Treasurer what?”

  “Just at large.”

  “O. K., do like you say.”

  “I won’t testify that you read the letter, but I’ll testify there was a letter, and that I burned it. If you want to testify that you lent him the pen to write the letter, and that he cried and made remarks that led you to think it was a suicide letter, then O. K., that’s up to you. But I’ll agree if the inquest turns out in a way that interferes with your sleep, to return your money.”

  “O. K., Sharf, it’s wonderful!”

  The Sheriff led the way to his car and got in, beckoning Dmitri to follow. Then he turned on the top light, and Dmitri got out a single blank check. Then, using the brim of the Sheriff’s hat for a writing table, he wrote a check, handed it over. After examining it carefully, the Sheriff put it in his pocket.

  “O. K., Mr. Spiro, thanks.”

  “Ah, Sharf, you don’t know what you do for me.”

  “You set that fire?”

  “ ... What you say, Sharf?”

  “I asked you if you set this place on fire.”

  “O. K., Sharf, I did.”

  “You’re paying for that too. Every cent it takes to repair that damage, so Tony doesn’t even put in a claim.”

  “Sharf, you know I will.”

  Chapter Twelve

  THE INQUEST, WHEN IT assembled in a quite battered casino, showed every indication of frayed nerves. It was, and had been even before the fire, in the last few minutes of its life, and the jury, to say nothing of officers, witnesses, and newspaper men, wanted to get away. The Coroner rapped for order, and instructed the jury that they were to certify the fact of death, the cause of death, the manner of death, if they had been able to ascertain it, and any consequences of death they thought proper to include, particularly whether they knew of any persons who should be held for the grand jury. He was interrupted by the Sheriff, who asked permission to add to his testimony. He then said what he had promised Dmitri he would say. Dmitri was then permitted to testify about the letter, and especially the way his head would hang in shame if it were fas
tened upon him that he had been careless enough to let his friend be killed by accident, whereas in truth the affair had been a deliberate, if cunningly concealed suicide. The Coroner said: “You are to disregard the last two pieces of evidence, since conjecture, regard for personal feelings, or other irrelevant things don’t concern you.”

  The jury whispered for two or three minutes, then one of the middle-aged men got up and said: “We find the said Victor Alexis Olaf Hermann Adlerkreutz came to his death by bullet through the heart fired from a gun in his own hands and the hands of Dmitri Spiro in an accidental and unintentional manner.”

  “So entered.”

  There was a stir as the newspaper people stood up, and the Coroner opened his mouth to declare the inquest at an end.

  “Just a minute.”

  The sound of feet moving toward the door stopped, and Dmitri caught the Sheriff’s arm, whimpering, whispering, pleading. But the Sheriff paid no attention, being evidently interested in Mr. Layton, who was striding with masterful mien toward the Coroner’s table. Then Dmitri did what was perhaps the first stupid thing he had done in a long and terrible day. As he hung to the Sheriff’s arm, he saw a letter in the Sheriff’s pocket. With Mr. Layton just a few feet away, and Ethel slithering her way forward in his wake, he evidently thought it no time to hesitate. Taking the letter between a roguish thumb and forefinger he flipped it out of the pocket and said: “Sharf, Sharf, you kid me! You didn’t burn this note at all! You—”

  But when he saw the envelope he stopped, and his face froze in horror. The Coroner, who had been whispering in puzzlement to Mr. Flynn, stopped too, he being no more than three feet away. For there, in the Sheriff’s handwriting, were the words: “Shoreham Confession.” Reaching out, he took the letter from Dmitri. Then, taking a knife from his pocket, and acting with grave, slow deliberation, he slit it open, took out the slip of paper that it contained, read it. Then, taking off his glasses and looking frighteningly solemn, he said: “Sheriff Lucas, Sylvia Shoreham, Tony Rico, Dmitri Spiro, and Gerland La Bouche, it is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest, that you must submit yourselves at once to search, and that anything you say here may be used against you.”

  No matrons were present to search Sylvia, but the Coroner swore in the Domino’s phone girl, and instructed her what she was to take, what to leave on the prisoner. The two women then went off to the ladies’ room. Police, expert on their job, made quick work of the men prisoners, while the reporters, still in the dark as to this unexpected twist, tried to break through the Coroner’s silence for their deadlines. It wasn’t until Sylvia and the phone girl returned, and a little memo book taken from her handbag had been placed on the table, that the Coroner resumed. Looking at the book, he handed it back to Sylvia; then, in a slow measured voice, read the confession. It emptied it, as no fire could have done. The newspaper people stampeded for their deadlines in a noisy, shouting throng, and for a full minute after their departure the air outside was full of the noise of their taxis and cars. The Coroner, who had rapped angrily for order, waited until things quieted down. Then he turned to the prisoners and said: “Is there any statement any of you people wish to make?”

  Heads went together and in a moment Mr. Daly said: “I came here, Doctor, to represent Miss Shoreham, but Mr. Rico, Mr. Spiro, and Mr. La Bouche have asked me to take charge for them too. On behalf of them, I inform you that I have advised them to stand on their constitutional rights.”

  Mr. Flynn said: “How shall I charge them?”

  The Coroner said: “Murder, accessory after murder, suppression of evidence of murder, obstruction of justice, and perjury.”

  “Miss Shoreham didn’t testify.”

  “Disjoin her from the perjury charge.”

  “What murder?”

  The Coroner looked at the Sheriff in some annoyance. “Sheriff Lucas, are you in your right mind?”

  “I am.”

  “The murder of Victor Adlerkreutz as confessed by Sylvia Shoreham in a statement that has just been taken from your pocket.”

  “That statement is not evidence.”

  “That’s for the grand jury to determine.”

  “That statement was given me by Miss Shoreham on my threat to prosecute her sister for killing Victor Adlerkreutz.”

  “Why didn’t you present it?”

  “It’s false.”

  “Or might this be the reason?” Mr. Flynn handed over, and the Coroner grimly accepted, a slip of paper.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a check. A check taken from your person when you were searched just now, signed by Dmitri Spiro, and made out to you.”

  “To me, as Treasurer.”

  “Of what? The Parker Lucas Benevolent Association?”

  This got a laugh, but Sylvia suddenly looked up, as though it meant something to her. The Sheriff said: “Whatever I’m Treasurer of, the check’s not evidence and don’t concern this inquest.”

  “Bribery might interest the grand jury too.”

  “No bribery. Sorry, your honor. Bribery begins with the acceptance and retention of good and valuable things and it generally involves cash. A check proves an honest man. It’s been gone into many times. A check is not evidence until it’s cashed, and the cash is not evidence until it’s kept. What I’m treasurer of I don’t care to say at this time.”

  “If Miss Shoreham’s sister committed this murder, or you think she did, why didn’t you put that fact in evidence?”

  “There’s been no murder.”

  “Sheriff Lucas, will you stop trifling with me?”

  “I’m not trifling. Hazel Shoreham is dead.”

  The Sheriff related briefly the discovery of the girl’s body earlier in the evening. Then he went on: “A homicide is not a murder until a jury says it is, and with the murderer dead no charge growing out of murder could ever be brought. Just the same, it seemed to me these picture people, in their desire to keep the Shoreham name out of this, had trifled with me and trifled with this state. The question was, how to get something on them, and I deliberately waited until the end of this inquest, or nearly the end of it, when I was going to break in on you with the truth, and then at least we’d have them for perjury. All, that is, except Miss Shoreham, since she didn’t testify, but I didn’t mind about her, because her effort to deceive me was at least from a motive no worse than trying to save her sister. But these men were concerned with money, the film they couldn’t release if this scandal got out. So I was ready to shoot, but this man, this man Spiro here, crossed me up.”

  The Coroner’s face had changed quite a lot during this laconic recital, and the jury obviously believed it. The Coroner, in a different tone, said: “How do you mean he crossed you, Parker?”

  “By setting this fire.”

  “By—what?”

  Tony jumped up with an exclamation, but Mr. Flynn rapped for order. The Coroner said: “Well! It’s one thing we could get him for.”

  “If Tony prosecutes.”

  “You think I won’t?”

  “Yeah.”

  The Sheriff drawled this out with half-lowered eyelids, then added: “On account of you and Spiro being such good friends lately. You wouldn’t cross a pal, would you?”

  “I’d—have to think about it.”

  “I thought so.”

  The Sheriff turned to the Coroner, went on: “Friend Spiro set the fire to bust up the inquest until he could get me by the arm and try to buy me off. I couldn’t to save my neck figure what he was up to, because I hadn’t let out a peep yet, but when he said some more about suicide, and wanted me to say I’d read that note he talked bout here, I begun to smell insurance. And then I saw a way to get them all, and at the same time get our state what it’s needed so bad all this time, that tuberculosis hospital. I told Spiro to make out his check to me as Treasurer. And I had reason to think that whatever was paid for accident, that wouldn’t be paid for suicide, I could get that for our hospital too, and teach the insurance company
a lesson. And I didn’t have to be told how much I could tap Tony for and this La Bouche, and maybe some others of them that had been trying to make suckers out of us.”

  “Parker, you went too far.”

  “Who says I did? We got one of the funniest states in this Union. It’s a big state, and once it was a rich state. Now it’s not, and only a few people live in it, but we all know those mines are going to come back, and I speak for every man, woman, and child in it when I say we all made up our minds long ago that we weren’t going to let it go to pot while we were waiting for whatever is in store. We’ve kept our state clean and given our children schools and our motorists roads but we had to do it our own way. We couldn’t do it with taxes because we didn’t collect enough. We did it with divorce and gambling and other things you all know about but I won’t go into here. We give them the decentest divorce, the squarest gambling, and the best-regulated things of other kinds, that you can find anywhere. We went on the principle our state’s preservation was involved, and if it was in the public interest and nobody got hurt, it was all right. You mean to tell me it’s not the same way here?”

  Nobody answered. The Sheriff went on: “Now it’s been broke wide open, and a verdict of accident is out. Just the same, if this idiot hadn’t pulled this so-called confession out of my pocket, it would have given us our hospital, and everybody would have been taught all the lesson that was necessary.”