A. Fair - Owls Don't Blink

Edna said quickly, “He is trying to get you to say that I introduced you to him. You met him in a bar, didn’t you, Rob?”

Roberta didn’t say anything.

I grinned. “That’s another weak point in your story, Edna. I think you’ve already told Roberta too much.”

“I haven’t told her anything.”

I said to Roberta, “Skip that. You don’t have to lie, and if you’re afraid of offending Edna, you can simply keep quiet and let it go at that. Now, why did you avoid Nostrander?”

“What do you mean?”

I said, “You stayed on in the apartment. You hung around the French Quarter for almost a year. You ate at the Bourbon House. You were seen quite frequently in Jack O’Leary’s Bar. According to Edna’s own story, you were supposed to get an apartment and stay there until she came back to live in New Orleans. Then almost overnight, you moved out of the Quarter. You started living uptown. You studied stenography. You never went back to any of your old haunts. You carefully avoided meeting Nostrander. It wasn’t until Edna gave Archibald Smith a letter to you that you went back to your old haunts in the French Quarter. You thought you were safe by that time. You weren’t. Someone told Nostrander you’d been seen there. Nostrander started doing a little detective work. I don’t know just how he went about it, but he may have done the same thing I did. In any event, he found you. He’d been looking for you for two years.”

“Now why did you suddenly leave the French Quarter?”

Edna said, “You don’t have to answer that question, Rob.”

“You don’t either one of you have to answer anything,” I said, “not now. But when the police ask those questions, you’re going to have to answer them.”

“Why will the police ask them?” Edna asked.

“Don’t you see?”

“No.”

“Where were you about half-past two on Thursday morning?” I asked.

“To whom are you talking?” Edna demanded. “You’re looking at me. You mean Roberta, don’t you?”

“No. I mean you .”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

I said, “The police haven’t put all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together yet, but when they do, this is the way the picture will look. You had a slick scheme to rob your husband of his triumph. Nostrander was mixed up in that scheme. So was Roberta Fenn. Roberta didn’t know the details. Nostrander did. He’s the one who thought the whole thing up.”

“It was a swell scheme. It worked like a charm. Your husband should have been thrown into such a panic that he’d start paying through the nose. But your husband happens to be made of a little sterner stuff. He came on to New Orleans to investigate. He got in touch with the process server who served the papers. He’ll probably get in touch with private detectives, if he hasn’t a staff of them in New Orleans already. He’d have found out about Nostrander. Nostrander would have been the key witness. If Nostrander was put on the carpet, on a charge of conspiracy, he might talk. If he talked, you’d lose a lot of money. If he didn’t talk, you stood to make a big shakedown. There was one way of insuring Nostrander’s silence. That was with a thirty-eight caliber bullet right in the middle of the heart. Better women than you have succumbed to less urgent temptations.”

She said, “You’re crazy.”

I said, “That’s the way the police are going to reason.”

She glanced almost helplessly at Roberta Fenn.

“Now then,” I said, “suppose you tell me just how you became acquainted with Archibald C. Smith, and why you happened to give him a letter to Roberta.”

There seemed to be genuine surprise on her face. “Smith! Good heavens, what’s that old fossil got to do with it?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“Now I know you’re crazy. He hasn’t anything to do with it.”

“Well, how did you happen to meet him? What’s—”

The doorbell rang sharply.

“See who it is,” I said to Edna.

She went to the telephone, pressed the button, said, “Who is it?”

Looking at her face, I knew from the expression of sheer terror what the answer was.

“Have you got any things here?” I asked Roberta. “A bag, clothes, anything?”

She shook her head. “I left the apartment without anything. I telegraphed Edna collect and she wired me money to come here. I haven’t had a chance to buy anything. I—”

“Grab everything you’ve got,” I said, “everything that would indicate you’d been here. Let’s get going.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

I said to Edna, “Press the buzzer that opens the downstairs door. Take all these extra cigarette butts from the ash tray, and throw them out of the window. Be putting on that housecoat when they come to the door.”

I saw Edna’s hand groping for the button which controlled the buzzer.

“Who is it?” Roberta asked.

Edna turned to her. Her quivering lips couldn’t answer.

“The police, of course,” I said, grabbed Roberta’s wrist, and rushed her to the door.

There was a bend in the corridor about twenty feet from Edna’s door. I kept my hand on Roberta’s wrist, guiding her down the corridor and around this bend.

“But what—” she said. “Why—”

“Hush,” I whispered. “Wait.”

There were steps on the stairs.

“If it’s one man,” I whispered, “we wait here. If it’s two men, we beat it.”

There were two men. They came walking down the corridor, the heavy tread of beefy men. We could hear knuckles on Edna’s door.

I peeked around the corner and saw two broad backs. I had a glimpse of Edna’s white face; then the two men pushed their way into the room. I waited until the door closed, turned to Roberta, and beckoned.

She followed me down the hall.

At the head of the stairs she asked, “Why would we have waited if there had only been one?”

“They hunt in couples. If one had gone up, it would have meant the other was sitting in the car, waiting. With both of them in Edna’s room, it should mean the coast is clear. At any rate, let’s hope.”

We went down the stairs. I pushed open the door and held it for Roberta. A police car was parked in front of the apartment. No one was in it.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We walked down the street.

“Not too fast.”

“I feel as though something were chasing me. I want to run.”

“Don’t do it. Look up at me and laugh. Slow down. Here, let’s stop and look in this window.”

We paused, looked casually in a store window, then started walking again. Slowly I guided her around the corner.

“Know anyone else here?” I asked.

“No.”

I said, “Okay, we go into a restaurant and eat. Had dinner?”

“No. We were just going out for dinner when you rang the bell. Edna was just out of the tub.”

We strolled along the street. Once or twice she tried to ask me questions. I told her to wait. We found a good-looking restaurant with booths, went in, and selected a quiet booth off in the comer away from the door. The waiter brought a menu, and I ordered two daiquiri cocktails.

The waiter withdrew.

I said, “Keep your voice down low. Tell me How much you know about Edna’s little scheme.”

“Nothing,” she said. “It happened just the way you doped it out, only I didn’t know she was expecting any papers to be served on her.”

“Why was Nostrander so anxious to see you?”

She said, “He fell for me. It was very annoying as far as I was concerned.”

I said, “You don’t mean that you moved out of the apartment, changed your whole style simply because some man whom you didn’t like was making passes at you.”