the ice cold nude

The silence was just a fraction too long before she answered, her voice elaborately casual. “Tamara always exaggerates wildly, darling. I bet she thought she was being a loyal friend, giving me all the credit!”

“I didn’t have that feeling about it—more like she was telling the simple truth,” I said indifferently.

“Oh—Tam was notorious for it, even at school, darling. I remember once when the seniors were—what are you doing, Danny?”

“Looking for some unique works of art, honey,” I told her truthfully. “You must have saved something from the work you did in those two months at the art academy?” “Are you out of your mind?” she laughed uneasily. “I never had an art lesson in my whole life! Louise did, you said so yourself last night when Estell was here.”

I turned around and looked at her as she sat on the couch. She was sitting in a bolt upright position, her spine like a ramrod, her clasped hands folded neatly in her lap. Her lips parted in a smile, but the dark eyes were cold and watchful.

“A couple of things about last night worried me,” I said. “When I got to Byers’ apartment and Marty Estell was there waiting for me—with a corpse on his hands— how could he be so damned sure I’d be there? How could he be sure I’d get out of those straps in the first place?—or that I wouldn’t have called the cops right away instead of going out there myself.”

She shook her head gently. “I’m sorry, darling, but I don’t understand what it is you’re trying to say.”

“I’ll make it real simple,” I said patiently. “The one big danger to you was Willie Byers, and you wanted him put out of the way. Marty Estell was looking to avenge Louise, and get his hands on the tiara, so you argued that it must have been Willie who killed her, but Marty still wasn’t convinced. So you came up with the bright idea of having me prove it to him, but how could you get me to it? You had a sudden inspiration and rigged that whole scene in here last night. I fell for it just fine. With Pete Ungar playing the heavy about to subject you to indescribable torture, I spilled the whole thing, like how I was convinced it was Byers.

“The only thing was the bathroom scene, honey, when you got out of those straps a little too damned easy. Then you talked me into leaving you here to get a cab to the hotel—and once I’d gone you called Byers’ number, figuring Marty would have done the job by now, and you could tefi him I was on my way alone, and he should try and fake Byers’ death to look like suicide.”

“Danny!” She looked at me, horror-stricken. “It’s not true!”

“You must have hated your sister a hell of a lot,” I said soberly, “to want to destroy her the way you did. It wasn’t the tiara or the hope of whatever money you’d make out of its theft, was it? The only thing that ever mattered was the total destruction of Louise.”

She lifted one hand in front of her face as if to ward off a blow. “I think you’re insane!” she said thickly.

“Louise trying to blackmail Myra Rutter made no sense at all,” I said. “Until I remembered it was only a voice on the phone that said it was Louise calling. So it was awful easy to break up Louise’s affair with Rutter and get her fired at the same time, wasn’t it?”

She turned her head away from me suddenly. “I’m not going to listen to any more of your madness!”

“You don’t have any choice,” I said. “Tamara would have told you all about Willie Byers—what kind of a man he was—lonely, sex-starved, desperately wanting company. A man who went to art classes once a week—and a man who was making a diamond tiara that would be worth a fortune.

“So you dreamed up a lulu. The idea of winning herself a beauty contest by simple blackmail—and a contest run by Poolside, at that—would be irresistible to Louise. Then you suddenly got interested in art and met Byers at the academy. To become his mistress would be no problem. Talking him into making a fake tiara could have been—but a threat of walking out on him I guess was enough. You even posed nude while he painted a life-size portrait.” I laughed shortly. “I remember you proudly telling me that both you and Louise had identical vital statistics!

“You sold the tiara promotional gimmick to Machin, and with Elmo in the financial doldrums, as Tamara had told you, you knew it wouldn’t be hard for Machin to sell him on the idea. Louise jumped at the idea of switching the fake tiara for the real one while she was posing for the publicity photos, along with the other girls—so everything was fine.”

I took time out to light a cigarette. Patty still had her head averted, but every taut line of her body said she was listening with complete attention.

“About then, the trouble started, maybe?” I continued. “Louise had gotten herself a new boy friend—Marty Estell—and she told him about the deal. How she’d give you the real tiara as soon as she could after she’d made the switch—you’d give it back to Willie and he’d break up the setting, reshape the stones, and sell them that way. Only Marty nearly died laughing—why give it back to you and split fifty-fifty on the sale of the stones? Why not let Marty get rid of it and keep all the profit?—the hell with Patty and her boy friend. When did Louise tell you that, honey? Right after you’d given her the fake tiara ready to use? So you couldn’t stop her by tipping off the police, because she’d involve you and Willie along with herself?”

She turned her head suddenly and stared at me with a baleful glitter in her eyes. “Aren’t you forgetting one very important thing in all this crazy nonsense, Danny?” Her voice was diamond hard and modulated in a flat monotone. “Louise was Byers’ girl friend—not me!”

“Louise never met Byers in her whole life,” I snarled. “You registered at the art class as Louise. You were

Louise to poor' little Willie the whole time—when he painted that nude portrait, you were still Louise.”

A faintly superior smile showed on her face. “I don’t know how you can make sense out of all that, Danny, because I certainly can’t.”

“It’s not real hard—it only needs one cheap little trick, really, when you come to think about it.” I said evenly. “Something like a blonde wig!”

“Don’t be so ridiculous, Danny!” She laughed too loudly, while her eyes hated me with maybe the same kind of black, implacable hate she’d had for her sister.

“A beautiful setup from your point of view, honey,” I went on in a tired voice. “You’d established a whole separate life for Louise that she never knew existed. She thought Byers was your boy friend—he knew Louise Lamont was his girl friend, and partner in crime. So then, after the tiara was stolen, you could murder your sister and feel pretty sure that Byers would be the guy who went to the gas chamber for it. When you pretended to be worried about your sister you pointed me in Byers’ direction—you’d seen him so many times in Louise’s apartment, you said. Sure, you mentioned Marty Estell, too, so you weren’t too obvious—-but Willie was the vulnerable guy once anybody looked at him real close. That portrait on the wall, for example—that looked like Louise for sure. Then the art academy would have Louise’s name on the register.”

“You’re crazy, Danny!” she hissed. “You’re sick! Why do you hate me like this? Because I let you make love to me last night?—is that it? Just because you possessed me, now you have to destroy me?”

“I was thinking about Marty Estell on my way over,” I said, grinning bleakly. “Marty still hasn’t got the real tiara—or avenged Louise’s death. I don’t think a guy like Marty would blow town and quit so easily—I think he’s still right here in town, holed up someplace. Then I got to thinking what would be the safest place to hide for a guy like him? Where’s the one sure place nobody would ever dream of looking?”