Jonathan Craig - The Case of the Petticoat Murder

I waited a moment or so. “Go on, Hutchins,” I said.

“I guess you probably figured out the rest,” he said “She'd started taking off her clothes while she was talking, and when she got to the part about Campbell she was standing there mother-naked with this petticoat in her hand, and all at once she kind of slapped at me with it and I slugged her in the belly.” He shrugged. “I guess it must've been that slap she took at me that did it. I was goddam mad about Campbell, and that slap just pushed me the rest of the way. Anyhow, she's down there, out cold, and I figure, what the hell, I might as well kill her.”

“Just like that, Hutchins?” I said.

“Yeah. I figured, why not, she's fouled me up plenty, and she'll only foul me up some more. So I took this petticoat she'd been holding and choked her with it a couple of minutes, and then I got the clothesline out of the bathroom and hung her up so it would look like suicide.”

“And then what, Hutchins?” Stan asked.

“From there on it was just like you guys said. I planted the stuff in Miller's desk, and hit back to the hotel and crawled back in bed with Elaine Walton. I knew damn well she was too drunk to know the difference.”

“Just one point, Hutchins,” I said. “What made Nadine think she could cut you out of your blackmail?”

“On that little bit I was chipping off of Susan?”

“Yes.”

“Nadine knew I wasn't married to Susan any more. She knew I'd got a divorce when I wanted to marry a rich widow woman, while I was down in Florida a couple years ago. Hell, I was bluffing Susan all the time.”

“In other words,” I said, “Susan hadn't committed bigamy at all. You just made her think she had.”

“That's right. I got my divorce from her a whole year before she married Campbell.” He shook his head. “The hell of it is, I got skunk-drunk one night and told Nadine.”

I glanced at Stan. “Give Barney Fells a ring and ask him to tell the Campbells they can stop worrying,” I said.

While Stan called the squad commander, Marty Hutchins and I stood and looked at each other. And slowly, very slowly, I saw the beginnings of comprehension in his eyes. He would understand any moment now that there were things far worse than a beating in some station house washroom.

“Barney was glad to hear the news,” Stan said as he put down the phone. “He had a little for us, too, Pete. It seems Nadine's husband Burt made another of those phone calls to Headquarters. But this time he stayed on the line long enough for the call to be traced. They got him in the Greyhound station on West Thirty-fourth.”

I looked at Hutchins a moment longer; then I opened the hall door and nodded to him. “All right, Marty,” I said.

Hutchins said nothing more until I had handcuffed him to the bar in the back seat of the Plymouth and Stan had started the motor. Then he turned slowly to look at me with eyes that at last understood. “Selby,” he said.

I didn't say anything.

“Selby,” he said again, reaching out hesitantly to touch my sleeve, “Selby, what'll happen to me?”

But he didn't really expect me to tell him.

He already knew.

Nothing else could have filled his eyes so full of fear.