“He had to know I had the record. And the only way he could have known would have been for him to be in Marjorie’s room when she sailed it over here. And the person who was in that room killed Marjorie Fair.”
Sam blinked once or twice, then exclaimed. “Why, sure, Johnny. The guy killed her because she threw it over here.”
“Well, maybe not quite. Maybe he had to kill her because he revealed himself to her — or his intentions. They had a fight and she managed to throw the record over here. Then he had to go through with it, and kill her.”
Sam nodded. But there was a cloud in his eyes. “Yeah, Johnny, only there’s something that bothers me...”
“What?”
“Georgie and that other guy — Sherman. They worked you over to make you give them the record. They were working you over when they made you telephone me. And then — then the record was already gone.”
Johnny smiled wanly. “That is what’s been driving me crazy, since yesterday evening. The murderer hired those lads to dig up the record, but somebody else got it... Or, was it the murderer himself?”
“What’d be the point in that?”
“To cover up. To throw me — or the police — off the track.” Johnny picked up a piece of cold toast from the breakfast tray and nibbled at it. “There’s one other thing keeps annoying me.”
“All of it annoys me,” declared Sam.
“Last night,” Johnny mused, “Orville Seebright and Susan Fair together at the Club Mague.”
He suddenly nodded, as if coming to a decision and headed for the door. “Wait here, Sam.”
“Where you going?”
“Upstairs. I want to ask the fair Susie a personal question.” He left the room and climbing the stairs, knocked on Susan Fair’s door.
She called from inside: “Yes?”
“Johnny Fletcher,” Johnny said. “Like to talk to you a minute.”
Susan’s voice was quite cool. “I’m sorry, but I can’t see you right now.”
“It’s important.”
“I’ll see you down in the lobby, in about an hour.”
“You’d better see me now,” Johnny said, meaningly.
Chapter Twenty-two
There was a pause, then Susan opened the door. She was fully dressed and wearing a hat, ready to go out. She held the door open a few inches and blocked ingress to the room.
“Well, what’s so important?” she demanded.
“It’s about your fingerprints,” Johnny said softly. “You left them in my room.”
Her eyes widened in shock. For a moment she stared at Johnny, then she opened the door. Johnny went into the room and Susan closed the door.
“You got the record from my room yesterday,” Johnny accused.
“What record?”
Johnny smiled. “It’s a little late in the day for that, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then why’d you let me into the room?”
“All right,” she said, “I was in your room yesterday. I had a right, after the way you’ve been prying into my sister’s affairs...”
“Then why didn’t you wear gloves?”
“I don’t believe you found my fingerprints, at all.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then, why...?”
“Why were you with Orville Seebright last night?” Johnny asked quickly.
“I don’t see that that’s any of your business.”
“Maybe it isn’t, but I kept asking myself that question and suddenly I had the answer. You were with him last night because you were discussing a deal with him.”
A slow flush started to spread across Susan’s face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Fletcher, and I don’t think I care for the tone nor the trend of your conversation.”
“I’m getting too close?”
“Too close to what?” Susan exclaimed scornfully.
“The truth.”
“You want the truth?” Susan cried. “I’ll tell you. You killed my sister and I can prove it.”
“I thought you might think that,” said Johnny. “Because of the record.”
“If you hadn’t killed Marjorie you wouldn’t have had the record. You couldn’t have had it.”
“Then, if you believed that, why didn’t you go to the police with your story... and your proof?”
“Because you’d have told them you merely found the record.”
“That’s right. That’s just what I’d have told them. And the jury, too. And I’d have told them about my alibi — which Lieutenant Rook verified a half hour after your sister’s death.”
“I heard about that alibi,” Susan said grimly. “But I didn’t hear one for that strong-arm pal of yours...”
“So you searched my room.”
“Yes! And I satisfied myself!”
“At the time you were searching my room,” Johnny said, “a couple of hirelings of the real murderer were giving me this” — indicating his battered face — “to make me tell them where I’d hid the record.” He paused. Susan’s expression told him that she didn’t believe a word he was saying. Nevertheless, he went on. “The record was thrown into my room by your sister; thrown through her window, across the air shaft and into my room... to keep it out of the hands of the man who killed her a moment later.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Whether you do or not, it’s the truth. I never talked to your sister. I had no reason to kill her. I wasn’t in love with her, I wasn’t jealous. She had no money, so there was no reason for me to kill her for profit. I didn’t know her.”
“Suppose for the sake of argument that you didn’t kill Marjorie,” Susan said. “And suppose she did throw the record through your window. Why... why did you keep it; why didn’t you turn it over to the police?”
“That was my mistake. Your sister was dead. It was obvious that the record was important. Important enough for someone to want it badly enough to commit murder. And I... well you said yesterday that I was a picaresque character. I live by my wits... and I thought I could make some money—”
“By selling the record to the murderer?”
“Not by selling the record — no. Orville Seebright offered me five thousand dollars. And I didn’t sell it to him, did I?”
“Because you wanted more?”
“If he’d offered ten times five thousand I wouldn’t have sold it. But for finding the man who committed the murder, for that I would take money.”
“You’re not a detective.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I am a detective — yes, an amateur detective. But a good one. There was a man killed in this hotel once, right in my own room. I got the man who killed him, after the police had failed... You can check up on that. Ask Eddie Miller. Or Peabody, the manager.”
Doubt began to come into Susan’s eyes. “Doug paid you some money yesterday to work for him — investigating. Then he discharged you later in the day.”
“Because of the blacklisting of a private detective who hates me. And because... look, you lied to me about this Doug, yourself. You told me you telephoned him in Iowa to tell him about your sister. He was here in New York, all the time... Why did you tell me — and the police — otherwise?”
Susan frowned. “Because Doug asked me to do it. He... he telephoned me from Iowa. That’s why I came to New York. He’d tried to see Marjorie and she’d refused to talk to him. She told him she never wanted to see him again, so he... he telephoned me. I... I came here and found...” She broke off.
“She was down on her luck,” Johnny said, quietly. “She didn’t want to admit to Esbenshade that she had failed. People are that way; when everything goes wrong they crawl into their holes. Sometimes they pull the hole in after them. I can understand that, but I can’t see why Esbenshade should lie about his having been here in New York...”