A. Fair - Bedrooms Have Windows

“What did she do?”

“She tried the vamp act. I can’t tell, it may have been sincere. Then she told me to go in the other room and sit down and wait for her. I did.”

“And the other room was the sister’s bedroom?”

“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t you wait for the police to come?”

“Because then I’d have gone to jail and wouldn’t have had any chance to clear the thing up.”

“Couldn’t the police have cleared it up?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You understand that running away puts you in a position where you don’t stand any chance.”

“I don’t stand any chance, anyway,” I told her. “I either have to clear the thing up or I’ll get the death penalty as a sex murderer. What’s more, they’ll bring up every unsolved sex murder they’ve had in the last five years and pin them on me as well. They’ll try to write a solution to the whole smear of stuff by making me out a fiend.”

“And you think you can clear it up if you have a chance?”

“There’s a good gambling chance that I can. It’s the chance I have to take. It’s the only one I have.”

“How can you clear it up, Donald?”

I walked over to a chair and sat down. She hesitated a moment, then came over to sit down opposite me. “I like you,” she said. “I’m going to take a chance. That is, I think I’m going to take a chance, but I want you to start talking. I want the facts.”

I said, “I started out with Tom Durham. You wanted me to find out about him. You came to the office with a nice story about the reason you wanted him shadowed. That wasn’t the real story. You wanted him shadowed because Minerva Carlton wanted to find out about him.”

“I told you that.”

“How did Minerva know Durham was seeing your aunt?”

“I don’t know.”

I said, “I don’t think Tom Durham intended to marry your aunt.”

“He’d be foolish if he did.”

“And I don’t think he was trying to sell her any stock.”

“Well, he certainly wanted something.”

I nodded. “I think Tom Durham is a blackmailer. I think Tom Durham is blackmailing your aunt. Now put your mind on that and tell me how he could blackmail her. What he could possibly have on her.”

She frowned and said, “Blackmailing? Aunt Amelia?”

“That’s right.”

She shook her head and said, “Amelia wouldn’t blackmail.”

“Then he was trying to blackmail her.”

“She’d have called the officers.”

“I don’t think so. I think the evidence indicates he must have had something on her, or thought he did.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what it could have been.”

“Is your aunt at all vulnerable?”

“I don’t see why. She’s not accountable to anyone for her actions.”

“There’s nothing in her past?”

She shook her head.

“How about her dead husband?”

“Nothing there. His memory is nothing to her. He bored her.”

“She got some money from her last husband?”

“To tell the truth, Donald, I don’t know. She’s always been exceptionally secretive about finances. I think there was some money, but I don’t know how much. If there was money, it was mostly insurance.”

“And how did you uncle die?”

“He died very suddenly. Some sort of food poisoning, I think.”

I said, “That may be it.”

“Donald, what are you saying?”

I said, “I’m thinking out loud. I’m exploring the possibilities. How long ago did he die?”

“Three or four years.”

I said, “I think your aunt’s being blackmailed. How long has she had that maid with her?”

“Susie?”

“Yes.”

“Years.”

“Susie was with her when her husband was alive?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And did Susie like the husband?”

“Susie has always been very, very devoted to Aunt Amelia. There’s some sort of strange bond between them.”

“And your Aunt Amelia’s married life wasn’t particularly happy?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t tell you, Donald. I didn’t see too much of her. She irritated me and — well, that’s the way it is. I do know that Aunt Amelia always wanted to be free. She was looking for romance.”

I got up and moved over to look out of the window, lit a cigarette, paced the floor for a few minutes, then went back and sat down.

“Why do you think my aunt was being blackmailed?”

“Because I think Tom Durham was a blackmailer.”

Claire Bushnell said, “Well, I don’t know as there’s any way that we can find out anything about it. Of course... Well, come to think of it, there was something rather peculiar about my uncle’s death; that is, it was sudden, and Aunt Amelia didn’t seem to have any of the symptoms that he had. I remember she said she had been a little ill, but, to tell you the truth, I didn’t think too much about it.”

I said, “Minerva Carlton was being blackmailed. That is, someone was putting a bite on her. I think it was Tom Durham. I think she also found out that Tom was trying to blackmail your aunt. I think she wanted to find out all she could about Tom, and, because Tom was trying to bleed your aunt white, it gave Minerva a good opening to get a private detective agency to work on the job through you.”

“What makes you think Minerva was being blackmailed?”

I said, “Everything points to it. I…”

The bell rang.

I said, “Let it ring for a while. Try not answering it.”

Whoever was downstairs kept playing a persistent, steady tune on the door-bell.

After a while I said, “Okay, find out who it is. If it’s the police you’ll have to let them in. Can you lie about my being here?”

“Like a trooper,” she said, picking up the cigarette ends I had left in the ash-tray and with the tip of her finger putting little smears of lipstick on the ends.

I laughed, and said, “You must have been caught in that trap before.”

“What trap?”

“Having cigarette ends in an ash-tray that didn’t have lipstick on them.”

“Is that nice?” she asked, pouting.

“No,” I said.

She went over to the speaking tube and whistled down. “Who is it?” she asked.

Bertha Cool’s voice came booming up the speaking tube. “This is Bertha Cool. I want to see you right away!”

Claire Bushnell looked at me questioningly.

I said, “Wait a minute. Tell her you’re... No, that’s all right. Tell her to come up.”

Claire pushed the electric door release. “Now what do you do?” she asked. “Hide?”

I nodded. “I’ll be in the cupboard back of the wall-bed. Tell Bertha you haven’t seen me.”

“Okay,” she said.

I moved over to the door which concealed the wall-bed, pushed it open, stepped inside, and Claire Bushnell pushed the door to. I heard the latch click into place.

A few moments later I heard Bertha Cool’s voice. “Hello, Miss Bushnell.”

“Hello, Mrs. Cool. What brings you here?”

“We’re working on a case for you. Remember?”

“Yes indeed. Do come in and sit down.”

I heard the floor creak with Bertha’s weight moving across it, then she settled herself in a chair with a plunk and said, “Your cheque bounced, dearie.”

“What do you mean?”

“The cheque that you gave us for two hundred dollars. It wasn’t any good. Damn it, I told Donald to tell you. I thought I’d find him here.”

“Why, it must have been good. I had money in the bank.”

“The bank says you didn’t. The bank says a cheque that you had thought was deposited was taken for collection. It was a cheque on an out-of-the-state bank. It was no good, so they debited your account.”