1953 - The Sucker Punch (21 page)

"So what? Vestal told me. She left Miss Dolan fifty thousand dollars. It's a nice sum, but not big enough to make her commit murder. You know that as well as I do!"

"Who said it was fifty thousand?" Leggit asked, his bleak eyes searching my face. "Your wife left her thirty million bucks. She's got this house too. You weren't so smart, Winters. All you get out of your murder is three million dollars. That's all your wife left you. Because her secretary is plain and dowdy, she gets the rest. Didn't you know?"

I felt a cold chill run on my spine.

"You're lying!" I said, my fists clenching.

He smiled at me.

"That's hit you where you live, hasn't it? I've seen the will. You get three million. Eve Dolan gets all your wife's property, this house and thirty million; the rest of the money goes to charities and legacies. Your wife states in the will you never liked taking money from her, and she apologizes for leaving you any at all. Rather overplayed your hand, haven't you?"

Somehow I kept control of myself, but only just. Had I been Eve's cat's-paw? Had she and Larry between them lured me into murdering Vestal? That could explain her sudden change of attitude towards me. I wouldn't marry you now if you were the last man on earth. Wasn't that proof enough she didn't love me; never had loved me? She had admitted reading the will. She must have known she would come into all that money. She was still in love with Larry. Being heiress to thirty million dollars would give her the power to beckon to him, knowing he would come a running.

A cold, ferocious knot of rage began to form inside me. I knew Leggit was watching me, and I forced my eyes to meet his.

"If it is true then Miss Dolan's a very lucky woman," I said, shrugging. "Three million is enough for me. Make what you like out of it, Leggit, but you can't prove anything."

"Did she help you?" he asked, staring fixedly at me. "Was that the way you worked it? You two somehow managed to hoodwink Hargis and Blakestone into believing they saw you in this room while all the time you were out there on the cliff head murdering your wife!"

I felt a trickle of sweat run down my face. He was getting too damn near the truth for comfort.

"Go ahead and dream your pipe dreams. I didn't kill Vestal. I was working here all the evening, and I have witnesses to prove it!"

He got slowly out of his chair.

"I'm going to get you for this, Winters. I'll break that alibi of yours if it's the last thing I do. It's going to give me a lot of satisfaction when I come here to collect you. It won't be long. When a killer tries to be as smart as you have been, he usually forgets something, and don't forget— a jury hates a smart killer!"

"Go on talking," I said, glaring up at him. "It won't get you anywhere!"

"Wait and see! I'm going to check that alibi until it falls to pieces. Somewhere along the line there's a hole in it, and I'll find it!"

He walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

I moved unsteadily across to the window and watched him drive away.

Later, I took the car and drove out to Eden End where I could be alone. I pulled up near the sand dunes, lit a cigarette and did some solid thinking. I was badly shaken. I knew now everything depended on my alibi. I knew it was cast-iron so far, otherwise Leggit would have taken a risk and arrested me.

I sat in the sunshine and went over that alibi with a toothcomb, trying to find one flaw in it, and the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that it was unbreakable.

There was no way to break it. No jury would convict me on Hargis's evidence. They'd quickly find out that he hated me, and it would be obvious to them that he must be speaking the truth if he told them he not only heard me dictating letters, but he had seen me as well.

My fears receded.

Leggit was bluffing. His only hope was to act mysteriously in the hope my nerves would crack. Well, he wasn't going to get far with those tactics. Once I had reassured myself that I was safe, I turned my mind to Eve.

I was sure now she had double-crossed me. She had fooled me into believing she loved me. She had subtly encouraged me to kill Vestal, promising to marry me if I did so. She knew all the time she was coming into Vestal's money, and she was gambling on the fact I wouldn't dare give her away and give myself away too. In that she was right. She might get off with a life sentence, but I had no doubts what would happen to me.

I suddenly wanted to get my fingers around her lovely white throat.

In a day or so she would be leaving Cliffside. She might disappear and I'd never find her again. That wouldn't do. I had to take action before she vanished.

I must have her watched. There was a little guy I knew who did confidential work for the bank. He might be right for the job. I drove back to Little Eden and went to his office.

His name was Joshua Morgan. His dusty office was on the top floor of a block down a side street off Roosevelt Boulevard.

He was pint size, fiftyish, with a straggly moustache, a mortician's manner and a huge forehead that made him look like a gnome.

He seemed pleased to see me.

"I have a job for you," I said, sitting down by his desk. "I want a woman watched. I don't care how many men you use. Watch her day and night—understand? I want to know where she is every hour of the twenty-four hours. Can you do it?"

"Certainly, Mr. Winters." The pink-rimmed, grey eyes stared inquisitively at me. "Who is the lady?"

"Her name's Eve Dolan. At the moment she is living at my house, Cliffside, but I expect her to leave within the next twenty-four hours. She's dark and wears glasses and isn't much to look at. Your men can't miss her. She's the only woman, apart from the servants, staying at the house."

He nodded and scribbled on a pad of paper.

"You want me to cover this immediately?"

"That's the idea. If you lose her, Morgan, you've seen the last of me. Do your job well, and it's worth a thousand bucks. Okay?"

"Leave it to me, Mr. Winters. We won't lose her."

"And make certain she doesn't suspect she's being watched. That's important."

I drove back to Cliffside.

Hargis was in the hall.

I wasn't giving him the chance to walk out on me.

"I'm making other arrangements," I said to him. "You can quit whenever you like: the sooner the better."

"I intend to leave tonight," he said, drawing himself up.

I grinned at him.

"Fine. Any of the other staff leaving?"

"All of them," he said curtly and began to move away.

I hadn't bargained for that. I felt a spurt of fury run through me.

"See they leave their addresses and you leave yours. Lieutenant Leggit may still want you. Miss Dolan will settle your wages. Is she in?"

"No, sir. She said she would be returning some time after six."

I had a sudden vision of cornering Eve in this great house without anyone to come to her aid. A cold, vicious rage took hold of me when I thought what I would do to her.

"Then I'll pay you now. I want you and the rest of the staff out of here in an hour."

He looked fixedly at me.

"Very well."

"Have everyone come to my study in a quarter of an hour."

It wasn't until they had paraded before my desk that I realized how many servants Vestal had employed. There were thirty of them, including five Chinese gardeners.

It was an embarrassing little ceremony. I had found Eve's wages book in her desk, and I gave each of them two weeks' wages. They filed past my desk, collected their money and went out. None of them met my eyes; none of them spoke.

Hargis was the last.

As he picked up the money I shoved across the desk at him, he said in a low voice, "I believe and hope you will suffer for what you did to Miss Vestal, sir. I am quite sure if she had never set eyes on you, she would be alive today."

I looked at him.

It would be his testimony that would save me from the chair. The situation suddenly struck me as comic. I grinned.

"Get out, you silly old fool, before I throw you out!"

He crossed the room with the dignity of an archbishop. He even remembered to shut the door quietly behind him.

I looked at my desk clock. The time was twenty minutes to five. At half past five the staff left in a body.

Five of them had cars. They all managed to squeeze into the cars, and by five-thirty they had gone.

The great, rambling house seemed suddenly to have died. The only sounds I could hear was the busy ticking of the desk clock, and the steady thump of my heart.

I sat motionless, concealed behind the window curtain. I looked! down the long, neat drive and waited for Eve.

chapter eighteen

D
usk was falling when I saw Eve's little coupe coming up the drive. I had sat by the window for three hours waiting for her, and as each minute of those hours dragged away, so my rage against her mounted.

I realized now that it was she who had dropped the seed of murder into my mind. I remembered saying to her when we had spent our first night together in this house that we might be too old to enjoy Vestal's money when we did get it, and her reply.

She had said: "There's Providence."

"You mean she might get ill, meet with an accident and die?" I had said.

"People do," she had replied.

She had been the one to mention death. She had planned to persuade me to murder Vestal, probably from the moment she learned I was going to marry Vestal.

I moved back from the window and watched her come out of the garage and walk briskly up the steps and along the terrace to the front door.

I moved silently across the room, across the lounge and slipped behind one of the big settees.

I heard her open the front door and cross the hall. She came into the lounge. She stood looking around for a moment, then turned and walked back into the hall and up the stairs.

I waited until she had rounded the bend in the broad stairway, then I moved silently into the hall, turned the key in the front door and dropped it into my pocket.

I stood, listening.

I could hear her mounting the stairs, and then walk along the passage to her room.

A moment or so passed, then somewhere in the servants' quarters a bell rang faintly.

This was her house now. She was entitled to ring for a servant. She was entitled to give orders.

I walked up the stairs, my hand on the banister rail, my feet making no sound on the thick carpet.

As I reached the head of the stairs, the bell rang again.

She was the mistress of this house now, and she was entitled to be impatient. No servant had ever kept Vestal waiting. No servant should keep Eve waiting.

I opened one of the spare bedroom doors and stepped into the room, leaving the door ajar.

The bell rang again: long and persistently. Then I heard a door open, and Eve came out of her room. I watched her walk along the passage and pause over the banisters.

There was a puzzled, angry expression on her face. She had taken off her glasses and was holding them in her hand. She was wearing a black, frumpy looking frock which made her look paler than she was.

She leaned over the banisters. She looked down into the vast ball and listened.

The only sound that came to both of us was the steady ticking of the grandfather's clock.

She stood motionless for some moments, then she went along the corridor to where a house telephone stood on a table.

I watched her dial impatiently. She held the receiver to her ear, and in the silence, I could hear the steady and unanswered burr-burr of the buzzer. After a long moment of listening, she replaced the receiver.

There was a sudden wary expression in her blue eyes.

She looked quickly up and down the corridor, then she walked hurriedly down the stairs.

I moved out into the corridor, crept to the banisters and looked into the hall.

She was standing in the middle of the hall, listening.

"Hargis!"

Her voice came sharply to me.

She waited, and then she abruptly walked over to Vestal's study door and opened it. She went in, leaving the door open, Again I heard the persistent ring of a bell in the servants' quarters.

I went to the head of the stairs.

I heard the whirring of the telephone dial. I went down the stairs swiftly and silently. As I reached the hall I heard the receiver slam back on its cradle. I stepped behind a suit of armour as she came out into the hall again.

Her movements were uneasy. I could almost hear the thud of her heart.

She looked about the dark, gloomy hall. She was listening now like someone who has heard a stealthy sound and is frightened.

I watched her, savouring her growing fear. I was in no hurry. The whole night was before me.

"Is there anyone here?" she said pitching her voice up. There was a little shake in it. "Hargis! Why don't you answer me?"

Only the steady ticking of the clock disturbed the heavy silence that followed.

She gave an angry shrug and turned to the stairs. Then she paused and looked back over her shoulder, and again she listened.

"They can't have all gone," she said, half to herself.

She turned around, and moving quickly, she crossed the hall to the front door. She took hold of the big iron latch and pulled at the door, but I had locked it, and it didn't move.

I came out silently from behind the suit of armour while she was tugging at the door, and took up my position in the middle of the hall.

"It's locked, Eve," I said softly.

She whirred around with a sharp little scream. She leaned against the massive door, staring at me, her blue eyes wide with fright, her hand covering her mouth.

"You look scared," I said. "Have you a guilty conscience, Eve?"

"Why are you staring at me like that?" she said hoarsely.

"Can't you guess? I've heard about the will."

She flinched.

"I don't know what you mean. Where's Hargis? I've been ringing for Marianne. Where is she?"

I smiled.

"They have all gone. I paid them off. There's no one here except you and I, Eve. We're alone together."