“Sounds like you’ve got troubles, Danny,” she said casually when I’d finished. “Are you going to give the client her money back?”
“Give Martha Hazelton back that two thousand?” I yelped. “Why the hell should I do that?”
“She hired you because she thought her brother had been murdered, and she didn’t want it to happen to her sister,” Fran said mildly. “Well—it happened, didn’t it?” “If I ever earned a fee, I’ve earned this one!” I said coldly. “You realize I’ve still got this hit-and-run rap hanging over my head?”
“Danny,” she said patiendy. “Did you call me from Rhode Island just to have a fight?”
“No!” I shouted. “I want you to get hold of Jimmy Regan and tell him about the hit-and-run. If they do hit me with it, I want him to come up here and start some action.”
“Jimmy Regan,” she repeated. “Who’s he—one of your gangster friends?”
“He’s an attorney,” I said in a strangled voice. “One of the best in New York.”
“I’ll find him,” she said. “Anything else?”
“I guess not. . . . How’s the Midwestern investment project coming along?”
“His wife wondered what was keeping him so long in New York,” she said. “So she arrived last night to take a look—now she’s taken over the investment project as well.”
“Tough,” I sympathized. “Have we got any new clients?”
“No—but the same old one came around again this morning for the office rent. Something I meant to tell 89
you. Danny, you didn’t need that complicated alibi about playing poker with the boys last Sunday night. Any time you need an alibi, just say you spent the night at my apartment. I’ll always back it up."
“Fran,” I said wonderingly, “that’s damned nice of you.”
“It’s nothing,” she said calmly. “I think I should reciprocate in these things. Any time I want to stand up a date I always use the same excuse—I’m spending the night in your apartment. So it’s only fair to give you the same rights, don’t you think?”
I was still gurgling helplessly when she hung up. There was an antidote I remembered finally, and room service could provide it.
Half an hour later I’d finished the “Clean-up-Boyd-Week” effort and felt a lot better in clean clothes, the Magnum’s weight resting coihfortably in its harness under my coat. Room service had provided a bottle of cognac and some ice, and life would have been pleasant if I didn’t keep on remembering a guy called Lieutenant Greer.
Then there was this catalyst jazz—I made another drink and sat down with it to try and think what the hell I was going to do. Fifteen minutes later I had a brilliant and detailed plan of operation. I’d drive out to the farm, knock on the door, walk right in and see what the hell happened. Thinking it over, I couldn’t see much wrong with the plan—there wasn’t much right with it either but I was stuck with it.
There was a gentle knock on the door so I walked across and opened it. Sylvia West stood there, with an uncertain smile on her face.
“Danny,” her voice was hesitant. “The police told me you were free, isn’t that wonderful news!”
“Sure,” I said. “How’s your memory coming along, honey-chile—still getting those blank spots here and there?”
‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Danny,” she said in a low voice. “Please, may I come in?”
She wore a black cashmere sweater over a white sharkskin skirt, and if she didn’t have straw in her hair, the memory was still with me all right.
“Sure,” I said. “I’m glad you remembered my name, anyway.”
When she was sitting in one of the armchairs, I asked her if she drank cognac and she did, so I made her a drink and freshened up my own, then sat down opposite her.
“I know I lied to the police when I told that Lieutenant I didn’t remember anything about us taking a look at the pigpens, Danny,” she said. “Believe me, I'm sorry, but I didn’t dare tell him the truth.”
“Why not?”
“I was too scared.”
“What of—the truth?”
Sylvia shook her head slowly. “Of what might happen if I told the truth.”
“I don’t get it,” I said truthfully.
“You don’t know what it’s been like in that house the f last twenty-four hours,” she said in a tense voice. “It’s a house of fear!”
‘Tune in next week for another gripping installment,” I sneered. “What is this, the big blue eyes and hold me | close I’m scared routine? You must have a better reason why you didn’t tell Greer the truth?”
She shrugged her shoulders listlessly. “All right, Danny, then don’t believe me. I’m sorry I bothered coming here at all.” She got up from the chair and walked toward the door slowly.
“O.K.,” I said. “Relax. I guess I can listen to your story, anyway.”
“Don’t bother!” she said frostily. “I’d hate to bore you with it.”
I caught up with her at the door the moment before 91
she reached for the knob, put my hands on her shoulders, and spun her around to face me.
“You still wear those cute fancy garters?” I asked her solemnly.
She tried not to giggle and didn’t make it. I walked her back to her chair, picked up her empty glass and made her another drink.
“So tell me about the house,” I said when we were , both sitting down again.
Her face looked sober again. “You know why Mr. Hazelton hired me in the first place?”
“Sure—to look after Clemmie.”
“I mean, why he thought she needed a nurse?” “Oh, sure!” I said. “You told me the story yourself, j and so did he. The streak of insanity—comes through his wife’s side of the family—and he was worried about , his daughters.”
“That’s it,” she nodded. “You never knew Clemmie j very well, Danny, there wasn’t time before . . . but didn’t you notice it?”
“Notice what?”
“Her violent alternation of mood—one moment she’d be deliriously happy, bubbling over with all kinds of lighthearted energy, and the next moment she’d be sullen and morose, not saying a word to anyone.”
“Maybe,” I said cautiously. “But not as bad as it sounds the way you put it.”
“I was with her all the time, the last two months,” she said mildly. “And I had to watch her professionally, Danny. My guess, if she’d lived, is she’d have been committed within the next two years. I’ve seen too many of them, not to know the sure signs.”
“So I bow to your professional judgment,” I said. “But if it was Clemmie—what’s scaring you now—her ghost?” “Clemmie never scared me, Danny,” she said softly. “I knew her too well, we were friends, she trusted me. Even if she had gotten suddenly violent, I was sure she’d never try to hurt me.”
I “Then who are you scared of?”
! She bit her lip gently. “I know you’ll laugh when I tell you.”
I “Honey-chile, T never laugh at frightened people— Jike biting the hand that feeds me!”
I “It’s Martha.”
“Martha!”
Sylvia gestured helplessly with her hands. “You didn’t (laugh, you just didn’t believe me and that’s even worse.” “Martha scares you?”
“Not only me,” she said stonily. “The others, too.” “Like Pete?”
“I don’t know about Pete, I’ve never known about Pete—except the way he looks at me sometimes, but Greg is scared of her and—”
“Greg?”
“Sorry, Mr. Houston.”
“I never figured that electronic computor would have a Christian name,” I said, “just a machine number.” “Martha’s a paranoiac,” Sylvia said dully, “an advanced paranoiac with all the cunning and deadly viciousness they sometimes have. They don’t have any normal standards, you understand. If they think the easiest way to get rid of somebody who’s become a nuisance is by murder, then they do just that.”
“Are you trying to say Martha killed Clemmie?” I asked the obvious question.