James Chase - No Business Of Mine

Bradley killed two birds with one stone by buying the cottage at

Lakeham. The robbery was organized from the cottage, and he also

had a love nest for Netta and himself. Mrs. Brambee, Jacobi’s sister,

undertook to run the cottage for them. The robbery was successful,

and the next move was to find some way to sell the loot. The stuff was

too hot; neither Bradley nor Jacobi had the nerve to put it on the

market. They sat on it, hoping that it would cool off. While waiting,

they quarrel ed over the split, and one night Bradley killed Jacobi in

the Club, and dumped him in a Soho street.”

“Is this guess-work or have you proof?” Corridan asked.

“It’s guess-work,” I admitted, “but she’ll talk before long. They

always do.”

Corridan glanced at Netta, grunted. “Go on,” he said.

“We’ll leave Jacobi’s death for a moment and talk about

Littlejohns,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “It’s important because it

decided me that Netta wasn’t the Netta I used to know, and that I

couldn’t let her get away with murder. I liked Littlejohns. He had guts,

and besides, he was working for me. I had told him all I knew about

the case, and he had spotted something I missed. He realized that

Selma Jacobi figured somewhere in the case, and that she could very

well be the dead girl in Netta’s flat as well as the dead girl in the

cottage at Lakeham. He hadn’t seen Selma, but I had seen the dead

girl. He wanted to surprise me, poor little guy. He found out where

Selma used to live and went there in the hope of finding a photograph

of her. He had planned to present me with the photograph, and when

I had identified it as the dead girl, he was going to spring his surprise.

He found the photograph. A scrap of it remained in his fingers when I

found him. But Netta caught him. She realized that he was on to her,

and to save her skin, she killed him. That’s something I can’t forgive,

so I trapped her into thinking I was going to get her out of the

country, knowing she’d try to smuggle Allenby’s loot out with her.”

“That still doesn’t explain how you knew she had the loot,”

Corridan said, frowning. “You say this Peter French killed Selma

Jacobi?”

I shook my head. “No, I didn’t say that. Netta told me Peter

French killed Selma. But that’s a lie. Peter French knows nothing

about this business at all. He was a stooge, put up to lead me away

from the real killer.”

Netta got slowly to her feet, her face ghastly. Corridan took a step

forward.

“Then who killed Selma Jacobi?” he demanded.

“The same person who killed Madge Kennitt,” I said, moving

across to the kitchen door. “Let me introduce you.” I jerked open the

door, stood aside. “Come on out,” I said. “You’ve been in there long

enough.”

Detective-Inspector O’Malley and three plain-clothes dicks moved

into the room. They looked at me, at Corridan, at Netta.

“That’s the guy who killed Selma Jacobi and Madge Kennitt,” I

said, jerking my thumb at Corridan.

Chapter XXV

“I EXPECT you to exercise tact and control with Harry Bix,” I told

Crystal as I piloted her across the Savoy lobby to where Fred Ullman

and Bix were examining the latest novels on the bookstall. “He’s the

kind of wolf who knows al the ankles. Don’t encourage him, and if

you don’t stray away from me you should be safe enough.”

Crystal said, “Shouldn’t you have brought your poke bonnet and

tambourine? Who wants to be safe, anyway?”

By this time Harry Bix had seen us, and nudging Ullman, he

fingered his tie, giving us a loud hello.

“Well, well,” he said, advancing to meet us. “Bluebeard does it

again. How you collect these juicy dames beats me. You must have a

fatal attraction or something.”

I sighed. “Crystal, this is Harry Bix. Don’t trust him. Even the wool

he’ll try to pull over your eyes is half cotton. Harry, this is Miss

Godwin. I’ll trouble you to keep your hands in your pockets while you

talk to her, and just to keep the record straight, she is my property.

The gentleman with the bags under his eyes, lurking in the

background, is Fred Ullman. Fred, Miss Godwin.”

Ullman said how do you do, looked a little bored, but Bix elbowed

him farther into the background, beamed at Crystal.

“This is the most exciting moment in my life,” he said, taking her

hand. “You’re not real y his property, are you? A dish as lovely as you

wouldn’t waste herself on a half-dead numskull like him, surely?”

I unfastened their hands, took Crystal firmly by her elbow.

“Paws off,” I said. “This is the one blonde I intend to keep for

myself. Away to your own hunting-ground.” I convoyed Crystal across

the lobby into the grill-room. “Come on, let’s eat,” I continued. “And,

Fred, keep that woman-snatcher out of range.”

“Why you fellows make such a fuss about women defeats me,”

Ullman said sourily. “All my life I’ve kept away from women, and look

at me.”

“You look; I’ve seen you,” Crystal said tartly.

When we had all settled down at a corner table and had ordered a

meal, Harry Bix said, “We are gathered together here to-night, not to

be fed from any charitable reasons, but because Arsene Lupin here,”

he waved in my direction, “wishes to shoot off his mouth on the

subject of his own cleverness, and has naturally to bribe us to listen.”

Crystal tugged at my sleeve, asked me in a whisper why Bix called

me Arsene Lupin, and wasn’t Lupin French for rabbit?

I whispered back that the French for rabbit was lapin, and that

Arsene Lupin was one of the world’s greatest detectives.

She then wanted to know what that had to do with me.

“Shush, woman,” I said, annoyed. “You’re showing your

ignorance.”

“As a newspaper man I have to make sacrifices,” Ullman said

wearily. “I am prepared to eat his food and to suffer the sound of his

voice so long as he’ll explain in detail the story behind Corridan’s

arrest. That is something the great British public wish to know, and it’s

my painful duty to tell them.”

“Not in detail,” Bix pleaded. “There’re so many more interesting

things to do than to listen to details,” and he leered suggestively at

Crystal, who leered back.

I tapped him on the shoulder. “That blonde is my property,” I

reminded him. “If it wasn’t in such an inaccessible spot I’d show you

where I’ve branded her with my personal seal, so paws off and I’ll

trouble you to keep your dirty looks to yourself.”

Crystal said she liked his dirty looks, and could she have a few

more please?

“Can’t you control these two?” Ullman demanded. “I want the

story if they don’t. Why you bring a blonde to a meeting like this beats

me. Blondes are a menace to society.”

“That’s not very polite,” Crystal said, a little hurt.

Ullman eyed her coldly. “The only woman I’ve ever been polite to

was my mother,” he told her.

Crystal said she was surprised to hear he ever had a mother, and

did the old lady die of a broken heart?

“Quiet,” I said hurriedly as Ul man began to grow hot.

Bix said would it be an idea if Crystal and he went for a walk along

the hotel corridor while Ullman and I bored each other to death?

“Will you please pipe down,” I growled, thumping the table.

“Well, come on,” Ullman said impatiently. “You’ve run me ragged