“And,” I went on, “I think he’s a blackmailer.”
“A blackmailer!” she said scornfully.
“Has he been blackmailing you?” I asked.
She ignored the question.
“Has he?” Sellers asked, bluntly.
“I don’t see why I should answer a lot of questions about my personal affairs in front of a man who is the lowest type of murderer, a man who tried to insinuate himself into this household under the guise of being a writer who was going to help me get satisfaction from the insurance company. Good Heavens, it’s just the biggest wonder that I’m not lying there on the floor with a stocking around my neck!”
“Was Durham trying to blackmail you?” I interrupted. She ignored me.
“Was he?” Sellers asked.
“I don’t know what gave you that idea.”
I said, “If he wasn’t blackmailing you, what did he want? Come on, let’s not stall around. Give a straightforward answer. What was he doing here?”
She said, “We had some business that we were talking over.”
“What sort of business?” I asked.
“A mine,” she said.
“What kind of a mine?”
“A lead mine.”
“Located where?”
“Colorado.”
“Are you sure it was a lead mine?” I asked, and managed a triumphant smile.
That smile bothered her. She thought she’d walked into a trap. “Well,” she said, “there was lead in it, mixed with the gold.”
“Well, which did you intend to make the money out of, the lead or the gold?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t follow it that far. I didn’t go into it that deeply.”
“Then you weren’t interested in making an investment?”
“No.”
“Then, why did you see so much of Durham? Why had he been coming back here? Why...?”
“I’m not going to be cross-examined by you in my own home,” she said. “This is outrageous! Sergeant, I’m going to report you for this.”
Sellers squirmed uncomfortably.
She turned on me, “You’re a horrible beast!” Then she swung back to Sellers and shuddered. “A sweet little girl like that, and at the very moment she was putting her hands up to his cheeks to draw his head down so she could kiss him, and he—”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “How did you know she put her hands up to my cheeks to draw my face down to kiss her?”
“It said so on the radio.”
“No, it didn’t. How do you know? And it wasn’t in the papers either.”
I leaned forward in my chair to hold her eyes.
She became confused. “I don’t know,” she said. “I told you I’d taken so much dope, I…”
“I told you,” Susie Irwin said. “I heard it on the radio.”
“And how did you hear it on the radio?” I said. “Where was the announcer concealed? How did he know how I was kissed?”
“I guess the police made the announcement. I don’t know. Probably they had some witness.”
“That’s right,” Amelia Jasper said. “Susie told me.”
I settled back in the chair, and said, “That does it. I’ve been dumb.”
“What does what?” Sellers said, irritably. “And as far as being dumb is concerned, I’m the one that stuck my head into a noose.”
I said, “Don’t you get it now?”
“Get what?”
I said, “Durham was a blackmailer, all right, but he wasn’t the brains of the outfit, and he wasn’t blackmailing this woman. Get a doctor out here and take a look at that sciatic rheumatism of hers and you’ll find it’s caused by a .32-calibre bullet.”
Amelia Jasper screamed angrily. “Take that man out of here! I demand it.”
“Go on,” I said. “Get a doctor.”
Sellers hesitated a moment, then said, “You’re nuts, Lam. You can’t pull things like that. You’re talking in order to get yourself an out.”
“Don’t be a fool,” I told him. “You can see the whole play now. The sudden flare-up of sciatic rheumatism is due to the fact that the first shot that was fired in the KOZY DELL SLUMBER COURT went into her hip.”
“Sergeant,” Amelia Jasper said, her face a mask of fury, “I demand that you all leave my house immediately. I have stood all the insults I intend to take. Susie, will you go to the telephone and telephone police headquarters in the event…”
“I’m sorry,” Frank Sellers apologised.
He reached over, caught my coat collar and jerked me to my feet. “Come on, Lam. You’ve masterminded me into a helluva situation. On your way. This is what comes of trying to give you and Bertha a break.”
He slammed me around until I started to fall and I unconsciously flung out my hands to catch myself. The steel of the handcuffs bit into my wrist, made me numb with the pain.
Sellers said, “I hope you’ll excuse it, please, Mrs. Jasper. I was just trying to get the case cleared up. This fellow sold me a bill of goods.”
“Open the door for them, Susie,” Mrs. Jasper commanded.
The maid strode down the corridor.
I turned to Sellers, and said, “You damn fool. Can’t you see what happened? She…”
Sellers slapped me across the mouth. “Shut up!”
He started me down the corridor. Claire Bushnell was crying.
Bertha Cool came lumbering along in the rear. Susie stood triumphantly in the doorway, holding it open.
I turned my head and said, pleadingly, “Bertha.”
Sellers slapped the side of my head so hard he almost broke my neck.
But in that brief glimpse I had behind me, I had seen Bertha Cool turning back.
We were half-way to the front door when the scream came from the living-room. Then there was the sound of a chair overturning, the sound of struggle, another scream, and Amelia Jasper was crying for help.
Bertha Cool’s voice said, “That does it. You damn liar. Keep still or I’ll break your neck… Frank, come back here!”
Sellers hesitated for just a moment, then spun me around and pushed me down the corridor at a run.
The wheel-chair had skidded to one side of the room and tilted over to its side. A bloodstained bandage was unwound and lying on the floor. Bertha was calmly sitting on Amelia Jasper’s shoulders, holding one leg in the grip of iron.
Amelia Jasper was kicking with the other leg, screaming and shouting for help.
Sellers shouted, “You can’t do this, Bertha. You can’t do it.”
“The hell I can’t,” Bertha said grimly. “I’ve done it. Look at the bullet hole.”
Sellers grabbed Bertha’s shoulders. “Let her up, Bertha. You can’t do that.”
Bertha said, “I tell you, I’ve done it.”
Sellers grabbed Bertha’s shoulders and tried to move her.
She gave him a push that threw him off balance, and he swung around crazily for a minute, trying to regain it.
In the doorway, Susie Irwin, the maid, stood grimly efficient, holding a blue-steel revolver. “Put your hands up, everybody,” she said.
The grim, sinister purpose of her voice knifed through to everyone’s consciousness.
“That means you, too, Sergeant,” she said. “Get ’em up.”
Sellers turned too quickly, and Susie Irwin pulled the trigger. The room was filled with sound, and Sellers, as one dazed, looked at the blood streaming down from his shattered right hand.
The grim reality of the situation suddenly impressed itself on everyone. Susie Irwin meant business.
Amelia Jasper struggled to her feet.
“Come on Amelia,” Susie said.
Amelia ran, a hobbling, one-sided gait. Quite evidently every step was painful.
Sellers tried reaching for his gun with his left hand. He couldn’t make it. Bertha Cool lumbered to her feet and charged down the corridor like a tank going into battle.