George Axelrod: Blackmailer

“Jean Dahl,” I said. “I’m talking about Jean Dahl, the girl who fell down the flight of stairs in the dark. Only she was jet-propelled. Because she landed on the far side of the hall. Over by the door. Look, Walter, I happen to know that Jean Dahl was murdered.”

“Oh, no,” Walter said. “You must be mistaken. It was a tragic thing. A terrible thing. But it was an accident. As I told the police, last night, I feel that it was my fault. I was supposed to have been guarding the stairs. To prevent just such a thing.”

“Look, Walter,” I said. “I saw her as the lights went on. She was lying across the hall by the door.”

“Impossible,” Walter said. “Utterly impossible. I found her myself a moment or two after the lights went on. She was lying at the foot of the stairs.” Then Walter turned sternly toward me. “If you had any information you should have given it to the police last night. Where were you last night?”

“I did a very foolish thing,” I said. “I saw the body. I got panicky and I left without saying anything to anyone.”

“That was a foolish thing to do. But I assure you that in your panic you were entirely mistaken. The body was at the foot of the stairs.”

I got up and walked over to Walter’s chair.

“You’re lying,” I said. “I wasn’t the only one who saw the body. Someone was with me. She saw the body too. She’ll tell you it was by the door.”

“Who was with you?”

“Janis Whitney.”

Walter sighed. “Now, really, Richard,” he said. “This is very awkward. You see, in a manner of speaking I did exaggerate just a teeny bit to the police. I told them that Max Shriber and I had discovered the body jointly, as it were. With the two of us together it sounded so much more convincing.”

“What?”

“Actually,” Walter said, “Max Shriber found the poor child’s body. Then he called to me. I came as quickly as I could. When I got downstairs the body was lying exactly where I said it was. At the foot of the stairs. I assure you, Richard, I never dreamed that it could have been moved there.”

“But it could have been. This character Shriber could have dragged her to the foot of the stairs and then called you, couldn’t he?”

“He could have, I suppose,” Walter said, “but I never dreamed that…” His voice petered out in a nervous giggle.

“Who is he, anyway?” I asked.

“An agent,” Walter said. “He handles some very top people.”

“How well do you know him?”

“I know him only slightly,” Walter said. “At the moment we are associated in a business way. He is more or less a partner of mine in a small transaction.”

Walter stood up and lit a cigarette. “Richard, there is something I want to talk to you about very seriously. But first I simply must shower and dress.”

I started to protest, but Walter interrupted me.

“I won’t be ten minutes,” he said. “And I promise you that what I have to say to you will be well worth your time. I had intended to talk to you about this in any case. Your coming here this morning of your own accord was practically telepathy.”

“What did you want to talk to me about, Walter? What’s on your mind?”

Walter stood up. “I wanted to talk to you about a book.”

“You’ve written a book?” I said.

“No, I have a book. I thought perhaps you might be interested in publishing it.”

I felt as if I had heard this conversation before.

“What is the book?” I asked.

I stood tensely, waiting for him to answer, knowing what he was going to say.

“A novel,” Walter said, “that was completed by Charles Anstruther, just before his death.”

Suddenly my head began to ache.

“Listen, Walter,” I said weakly. “Have you got a drink around this place?”

Walter opened a cabinet and took out a bottle of brandy. He poured several inches into a glass and handed it to me.

I sank into the armchair. I felt tired. My hangover had returned with full force. I did not seem to be able to follow what was going on.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Walter said. “If you look around you’ll find all sorts of amusing things. Books, magazines, pictures. Or, if you like, there’s the radio or records. Or the television. The switches are right there by your arm. If you press the red switch at the end you might provide yourself with some live entertainment. I’ll be out of the shower in less than ten minutes. Cigarettes in the box. Liquor in the cabinet.”

He turned and disappeared into the bedroom. In a moment or two I could hear the faint sound of a shower.

I sank back in the chair and sipped the brandy. I didn’t think. I didn’t move. I sat there and let the warmth of the brandy spread through my body.

Then, for the first time, I looked around the room, taking notice of my surroundings.

Walter’s sitting room was dominated by a gigantic picture on the wall opposite the bedroom door. Walter claimed it was a Titian and worth a quarter of a million dollars. I guess it was.

The room also included a small piano, an entire wall of bookshelves, and a fireplace. Inside a glass cabinet was Walter’s famous collection of antique dueling pistols, all very deadly-looking.

I slumped in the chair, admiring the Titian and listening to the sound of Walter’s shower.

Beside the arm of the chair was the amplifier for Walter’s record player and radio. On top of it was a complex row of buttons and gadgets. It looked like the instrument panel on a B-29.

Even if I wanted to play records, I thought, it would take me a week to figure out how.

Experimentally, I pushed a button. Just at random, to see what would happen.

I waited.

Across the room, at eye level, a section of bookcase slid noiselessly to one side, revealing the largest television screen I’d ever seen outside a saloon.

Very neat. Very mechanical.

I pushed the button again and the bookshelves slid back into place.

Then I noticed the red button at the end.

The brandy, on top of an empty stomach on top of half a bottle of bourbon from the night before, was beginning to have a strange effect.

I felt light-headed.

I felt cool and detached and whimsical.

I drained the rest of the brandy in my glass.

Then, for the second time, I noticed the red button on the end. I leaned over and pushed it.

I sat expectantly, waiting to see what would happen.

I half expected the floor to open up and half a dozen dancing girls to appear.

Or a symphony orchestra to slide out from under the couch.

Even so, I was caught off guard.

Silently, moving on oiled hinges or ball bearings or whatever they were, the enormous two hundred and fifty thousand dollar Titian began to slide along the wall.

I watched it, fascinated.

Behind the picture was a glass window about eight feet high and five feet wide.

On the other side of the window, about six feet from the tip of my nose, was Janis Whitney.

She was wearing only the bottom half of what I think they call a bikini bathing suit. She was looking straight at me, brushing her hair.

I waited for a startled expression to appear on her face, but her expression did not change. She continued to stare directly at me. Her lips moved as she counted strokes.

I am not very quick about things like this.

It took me about that long to figure out why her expression did not change. As far as she was concerned she was all alone in the next room, brushing her hair before a large, conveniently placed mirror.

I’d read about one-way glass.

They use it at places like the Yale Nursery when they want to study the behavior of the infant and child in the culture of today without the infant and child tumbling to the fact that the culture is watching him.