“I–I don’t believe it,” she said, but her voice lacked conviction.
Merlini followed through quietly. “You know who killed your father or, at the very least, something that is dangerous to the murderer. The only sort of life insurance that will do you a bit of good is to tell us now what you know. Mac had a guard on this trailer last night, and he’s going to post a better one now. But, if this murderer is the sort his performance to date indicates, a guard won’t bother him much — a bank vault wouldn’t be, any too safe. What was it you were going to tell the Sheriff last night?”
She shook her head. “Nothing, I tell you! I was wrong.” There was fear in her voice — but it was balanced by an equal amount of determination.
Merlini scowled and tried once more. He leaned forward as if putting his physical weight behind his words.
“Who is the Headless Lady?”
He failed. She shook her head again. “I don’t know.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?” Merlini asked. “You came and got the headless illusion for her. You gave me the same phony name she has been using. You know why the illusion was wanted in such a hurry, why you were willing to pay so—”
“I don’t know,” the girl insisted. “Dad hired her. He gave me the money and sent me to get the apparatus. That’s all I can tell you. I gave you her name because it was the first that occurred to me. If it’s not her name, I don’t know what it is.”
“And you don’t know why she disappeared this morning, nor where she is, I suppose?”
“No.”
Merlini looked at her for a moment and then gave up. “You’d better post a couple of guards, Mac — wide-awake ones. Though I doubt that it will do the slightest good. We do need troopers now. Lots of them. I’m going to—”
As the trailer door swung open, Merlini stopped and turned apprehensively. Irma King stepped through from outside and slammed the door behind her with a crash that made us all jump. She wore the red and gold uniform of her elephant act, and she carried a heavy elephant hook. She was obviously as mad as all hell — and enjoying it.
She looked at the girl on the bed and laughed, a queer thin sound as though she were just a bit high. She glanced once at the rest of us and then ignored us completely. “I’ve got a surprise for you, Pauline. Such a nice surprise.”
There was a full measure of concentrated venom in her voice. The surprise was, very obviously, going to be anything but nice.
“You thought you could fire me, did you, Pauline?” She laughed again. “That’s very funny. Only no one knows what a good joke it is but me. And I think it’s so much more amusing when everyone knows. It’s about time—”
“Mac!” Pauline’s voice cut in. “Get her out of here!”
Mac moved, but Miss King’s next words stopped him.
“Mac Wiley, if you want to keep your job you’ll stand where you are and listen. Pauline doesn’t own this show now that her father is dead. I do.”
She stopped dramatically. Pauline was unimpressed. “She’s tight, Mac. Do something about it.”
But Mac, for some reason, wasn’t so sure. He hesitated. Miss King drew a folded legal-looking document from her tunic and thrust it at Mac.
“You’re the lawyer,” she said. “Tell us what that is.”
Mac gave it a swift once-over. “Sure,” he said. “So what? You were the Major’s wife before he married Pauline’s mother. I know that; we were on the same show together.”
I had a hunch that this was news to Pauline. She was half-sitting up in bed now, the dark eyes in the bandaged face staring at Irma with horrified fascination.
“But that doesn’t get you anything,” Mac went on. “He divorced you.” He glanced at the document again. “In 1913. These are your papers. Rutherford Stark vs. Irma Stark. What—”
“Stark?” Merlini asked.
“Yeah. That was the Major’s name before he married into the Hannum family. He landed the owner’s daughter, and when her father died he managed the show. When she died, about ’25, she willed it to the Major. The show’s name was worth dough and he couldn’t change that, so he changed his own.” Mac scowled heavily at Irma. “What the hell makes you think you get a cut? A divorced wife hasn’t any claim — not unless—” Mac’s voice played out for a moment, and then he added suspiciously, “So that’s it! There is a will then, and you’re the one who swiped—”
But Irma was full of surprises. She did not, as I expected, make another grab at her tunic and produce the document there had been so much argument about. She grinned maliciously, watching Pauline.
“No,” she said confidently, “that’s just it. There isn’t any will. If there was I’d be out of luck. But there isn’t, and I collect! And it’s Pauline,” her voice rose higher, “who gets canned — starting now.”
“Dammit!” Mac demanded. “Talk sense, will you?”
Pauline shouted, “Mac, get that woman out of here! She’s drunk, I tell you!”
“No, Pauline.” Irma was enjoying herself hugely. “I’m afraid not. The name of the lawyer who got the Major that divorce was Leo J. Snyder.” She turned. “Perhaps you understand the joke now, Mac?”
Apparently Mac did, though he didn’t laugh at it. He appeared, instead, to have been hit on the head with something hard and heavy.
Merlini also seemed to be seeing the point. “Oh, Lord!” he said weakly. “Now we pick up the pieces and start all over again!”
“Leo Snyder,” Irma explained with relish, “was before your time, Pauline. A shyster lawyer with a lovely little racket. For a couple of years, until the postal authorities finally caught up with him, he did a land-office business in mail-order divorces. Very handy for circus people, who are always on the road and have no legal residences. His fees were very reasonable, but his divorces weren’t worth it. They were completely phony.” Irma laughed again. “Your mother’s and father’s marriage was quite illegal; your father was still married to me. He always has been! I’m his widow now, and I get the estate. And you’re an illegitimate—”
“Mac!” Pauline’s voice cut in like a whiplash. “Is this true?”
Mac didn’t answer that. His voice snapped at Irma incredulously. “You mean to tell me that the Major never heard about Snyder and had it straightened out? His conviction was in all the papers and in Billboard!”
“It was during the winter season, and the Major was touring a unit through Mexico. Luckily he missed it. I’d married again — Terry King, the animal trainer— and I was scared to death the Major would hear about it. I couldn’t let Terry know. He had religion bad, and he’d have raised hell if he ever found out I’d been married before, much less that I was a bigamist. Naturally I didn’t tell him.”
“So now that his lions have canceled him out, you blackmailed the Major into giving you a job on this show again, refusing to give him a divorce and—”
“Don’t be silly, Mac. I didn’t dare tell him I was still his wife. Divorce or not, he would have made a will then, cutting me out. And he could have adopted Pauline. Not to mention what he’d have done to me for not telling him before Pauline’s mother died so he could have married her properly and made his children legitimate.”