money to help me. At the moment I had only a little over a hundred dollars. I couldn’t hope to
make a thorough investigation without a substantial sum of money. I was suddenly up against
a blank wall. Without money I was sunk. There could be no investigation. All I could do was
to sneak out of Miami as soon as my hundred dollars ran out and get somewhere where I
could lose myself.
I was still battering my brains out, trying to find a solution, when I heard Maddux coming
pounding down the passage. I just had time to slap on my hat to cover my shaven head when
he came in and dumped a big black pigskin suitcase on the bed.
“There you are, mister,” he said. “Jeepers! That weighs a ton.”
I was looking at the suitcase. As far as I knew I had never seen it before. There was a tie-on
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label hanging from the handle. It had my name on it, and it was written in my handwriting.
I tried the locks, but they didn’t budge. They were good, strong locks, and they’d need a lot
of breaking open.
“That’s a nice-looking case,” Maddux said, watching me closely.
“Yeah, but I’ve lost the key. Got a screw-driver handy?”
I saw his look of suspicion, but I ignored it.
“You don’t want to bust the locks,” he said. “I’ve got a hicky that’ll open it.”
“Get it,” I said.
He went off as if he were jet-propelled.
I stood looking at the suitcase, fighting down a feeling of fear and excitement. Would this
case contain the key to the missing forty-five days? Had I bought it or had I stolen it?
Maddux returned in six minutes. They seemed like six hours to me.
He bent over the case, screwed a bit of metal into the lock, twisted it and the lock flew up.
He did the same to the other lock, then stood back.
“Easy, once you know how,” he said.
I gave him the twenty I’d promised him.
“See you tomorrow,” I said, anxious to get rid of him.
He looked longingly at the case, backed to the door, then hesitated.
“Well, if that’s all, I guess I’ll get downstairs.”
“That’s all.”
The moment he closed the door I shot the bolt. Then I turned to the bed. I took hold of the
lid of the case and threw it open.
I don’t know what I expected to see, but certainly not what I did see. The case was
crammed with money: thousands and thousands of dollars; more money than I had ever seen
in my life.
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For a long moment of time I stood staring. Then very carefully and with shaking hands I
lifted the fat, neat packages on to the bed until the case was empty. There was nothing else in
the case - just the money. A quarter of a million in hundred-dollar bills!
I understood then why Ricca had been so anxious to find the money. A quarter of a million!
How did it get into the case? Where had it come from?
I suddenly felt horribly faint, and I put my hand on the bed-rail to steady myself. My knees
sagged, and I flopped down on the floor. But not for one moment did I take my eyes off that
money.
A quarter of a million dollars!
A motive for murder! Had I really murdered two men and a woman for this? Was that what
I had done?
VI
If I hadn’t been suspected of murder I wouldn’t have touched that money. I would have
taken the suitcase to Riskin and let him handle it, but what had I to lose? If I did hand over
the suitcase to Riskin I might be handing him the motive he was hunting for to pin the murder
rap on me. If I were caught with it, it wouldn’t make much difference, if any. I was wanted
for murder, nothing else mattered.
I wanted money to make an investigation. Well, I had a quarter of a million dollars and I
was going to use it.
Once I had made up my mind to use it, everything became simple. I bought Maddux, and I
bought the bald-headed reception clerk. Maddux cost me a hundred bucks. The clerk became
co-operative for a mere fifty. Both of them found out who I was when they read the morning
papers. The papers gave my name and an accurate description of me.
“This man is wanted for questioning concerning the murder of an unknown woman,” said
the account. “Anyone recognizing him from the description given above should communicate
immediately with Lieutenant Bill Riskin of the Homicide Bureau.”
But they didn’t offer a reward, so the clerk and Maddux weren’t interested. They were only
interested in my welfare and my dollars.
I remained in the hotel bedroom for two weeks: time for my hair to grow over the scar and
for me to raise a moustache. A moustache and a pair of horn spectacles changed my
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appearance considerably. Only a trained observer like Riskin could have spotted me. I was
sure I had nothing to fear from the man in the street who might have read the police
description.
I told Maddux I wanted a car and a gun. He got me a secondhand black Plymouth: just the
car for the job I had on hand. He produced also a .38 automatic and a .22 in case I wanted
something smaller, and a box of slugs to go with both guns. He made a big profit out of the
purchases, but I didn’t care. I had all the money in the world, and I was buying secrecy.
After sixteen days in the bedroom, I decided the heat had cooled off enough for me to
leave. I drove away from the hotel on a moonless night a little after ten o’clock. On the bench
seat beside me was the .38. I had the .22 in my hip pocket. I was ready for trouble. If anyone
shot at me, I was going to shoot at them. I was in that kind of mood.
I drove along Bay Shore Drive, up the long, crowded Biscayne Boulevard towards the State
Highway. I drove carefully, stopping at every red light, taking care no speed-cop could find
an excuse to bawl me out. I saw a number of prowl cars and a number of speed-cops, but
none of them took any notice of me.
After a six-hour drive I spotted the bright lights of Lincoln Beach. The town was laid out in
a semicircle, facing the sea and sheltered by rising ground. It seemed to be a blaze of lights
even at three o’clock in the morning. I had no intention of driving through the town. My first
call was to be the scene of the accident where the Bentley had crashed. I’d be coming back to
Lincoln Beach later on.
I remembered where the car had hit us. There was a hill and palmetto thickets on either
side. Fifty miles past Lincoln Beach I reduced speed. Somewhere here, I told myself. There
was a hill ahead of me, and I could see the shadowy outlines of the palmetto thickets. I
slowed to a crawl. By now it was close on five o’clock, and the sun was coming up
reluctantly above the skyline. In another ten minutes it would be daylight.
I switched off the headlights and cruised to a standstill, drawing to the side of the road. I lit
a cigarette, aware of the feeling of rising excitement, but I waited. I wanted plenty of light to
do what I had come to do.
After a while I decided it was light enough, and I drove on. A mile farther up the road I
came to the place. I knew it was the place by the uprooted tree, the torn grass and the skid
marks that even sixty days hadn’t yet blotted out.
I kept on driving until I was a quarter of a mile past the scene of the smash, then I ran the
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car off the road and into the shrubbery. I wasn’t taking any risks. A parked car at the actual
place of the smash might arouse the curiosity of any passing cop.
I walked back, my gun shoved down the waistband of my trousers, my eyes and ears alert
for trouble. I saw no one and heard nothing.
After examining the ground for half an hour, I gave up. Apart from the skid marks, the
churned»up grass and the uprooted tree, I found nothing. I knew the police had been here. If