Authors: James M. Cain
“You want me to stay on?”
“Of course I do.”
“We can’t be married right away.”
“You mean it wouldn’t look right?”
“It’s out of the question.”
“Then you stay on, Jane, and we’ll ride around and see each other and little by little two or three months will go by and a ceremony will be O.K.”
“I’d say about six.”
“Then six.”
“Shall I write my family?”
“Go right ahead.”
“... Or perhaps I’ll wait.”
“Why wait, Jane? Write ’em.”
“What’s not announced doesn’t have to be openly admitted. And what
is
announced can’t be taken back. Just to avoid complications, I think I’m staying on for the climate. Or the scenery. Or something like that. You’ve got to admit it’s pretty wonderful.”
“Anything you say.”
I tossed it off like a big shot that had it all under control, but inside me was something moving, like in the shark that swallowed the oyster borer. I had to tell her about that policy, and it would mean she’d know I’d lied to her, and big as the policy was, somehow I hated to get to it. But pretty soon I knew I had to, so I kept right on the big shot line and tossed it out like it was the big surprise good news I had been saving for her all the time. “And by the way, speaking of what’s pretty wonderful, there’s a wedding present due to drop in your lap, or a dowry, or whatever you call it, that’s just about as wonderful as anything I can think of, anyway for a night in late fall.”
“Dowry? What do you mean?”
“$100,000.”
“... For me?”
“For cute little you.”
“From where?”
“That—policy.”
“... Tom’s?”
“You didn’t think I really knocked it in the head, did you?”
“But Ed, I haven’t it.”
“I have.”
We rode quite some ways and she didn’t say anything. Then: Ed, I wish you hadn’t done this to me.”
“Made you $100,000, you mean?”
“Behind my back. Why
did
you?”
“Insurance is my life. I believe in it.”
“I wish I could believe that was the only reason.”
“That’s one thing about dough, Jane. It’ll do just as much for you whether you work for it or you don’t work for it or whether you believe or you don’t believe. It’s strictly open shop. I’m not ashamed of it that I saw something good, something good for you I mean, and took it even when you told me not to.”
“And you told me an untruth about it.”
“Hell, I lied. But you’ll get the money.”
“And you’ll get the cup.”
“... What cup?”
“Please, Ed.”
“Can’t a guy have
two
reasons for doing something?”
“Not if one of them’s me.”
We went along for a while trying to talk about what a pretty night it was, and how nothing ever looked as bright as lights in the clear Nevada air. Than she began to cry. “Ed, I’ve been trying to make myself say thank you for what you did. I suppose you had no bad motive. I can’t do it. I—just can’t.”
“I can. I thank myself a lot.”
“Then, all right.”
“And not only for the money.”
“I hope you enjoy the cup.”
“And my wife.”
“I—don’t understand you.”
“O.K., Jane, now you get it. I’ve never been quite sure, if you want to know the truth, about how Sperry got it. O.K., so the dog went over the wall. O.K., so you don’t know a thing about the phone call. O.K., but there’s the big Sperry policy, and unless they can prove suicide, there’s the money. Now I
know
I lied to you about this Delavan policy. You couldn’t have had anything to do with it. That clears up a lot of things. Maybe one’s not got anything to do with the other, but it’s got a lot to do with how I feel about it.”
“Ed,
you
suspected me?”
“No, but it’s nice being sure.”
“Then you did suspect me?”
“I’d have loved you, anyhow.”
“You could love me, suspecting—”
“I didn’t care.”
Brother, if I could leave it out about the next three hours I’d do it, and if that would be lying, I’d got to the point where one lie more or less didn’t seem to matter a whole lot, one way or the other. But there’s two or three people that could call it on me, so here goes, but don’t get too excited about it if I kind of go easy and not take extra billboard space to advertise what a heel I felt like for a while. It’ll be the truth but kind of on the quiet side, if you get what I mean—in good taste, but not any production job, with lights. We rode along, and she kept staring in front of her, and I kept trying to think of something like the Nevada air we could use for talk. We got to the hotel and started through the lobby and Lindstrom got up out of a chair and came over to us. Then he introduced a kid named Kubic that he said was assistant state’s attorney. Then he asked Jane to sit down. She did and we all did and he asked if she was holding a policy on Delavan’s life. “I don’t, but I understand one was taken out for me.”
“Who has this policy?”
“This gentleman here.”
“What’s he got to do with it?”
I said: “I’m the agent.”
“And what are you doing with it?”
“Holding it for her benefit.”
“Why you and not her?”
“I’m going to marry her.”
It wasn’t until the flicker came in his eye that I realized how that sounded, and how it could even tie me in without in any way including her out. “I see. I get it now, pal. And how much was this life insurance?”
“$100,000.”
“You putting a claim in, Miss?”
“I don’t know.”
“You bet she’s putting a claim in.”
“O.K.”
They left and we went on upstairs. When we got to her suite I said: “Well, it’s easy to see whose fine Italian hand that is. Mr. Keyes has got into it again, as there’s nobody here that knows about that policy.”
But she started to tremble, and then she began to cry, awful quivering sobs that nothing I did could stop. And she acted like I wasn’t even there. There didn’t seem much for me to do but go, so I did. But my three hours wasn’t up yet.
It was after eleven when I got to the apartment house, but the operator goes off and the door locks at ten, so when I saw a woman sitting over by the lobby fireplace it meant she’d been waiting some little while. It wasn’t till I heard my name called that I saw it was Mrs. Sperry. I said: “Well—this is an honor. To say nothing of a surprise.”
“Mr. Horner, I have to talk to you.”
We sat down and I helped her out of her coat. She had on house pajamas, some dark color, blue, I think, and I got a load of the figure. Then she began to talk. “I had a chat with Mr. Keyes today.”
“I thought he was in Los Angeles.”
“He called me from there. He’s flying here.”
“Tonight?”
“Tomorrow some time.”
“I had supposed he would.”
“On this Delavan case.”
“He’s hipped on the subject that Mrs. Delavan murdered your husband, Mrs. Sperry, and he’s probably hipped that she killed Delavan. If she ever murdered anybody, then we’re all Chinamen.”
“As I’ve tried to tell him.”
“Oh, you’ve discussed it with him?”
“And I think annoyed him.”
“He seemed to like you.”
“Until recently.”
“He gave you the air?”
“I haven’t heard from him at all.”
She looked at the fire some more, and said: “Mr. Horner, it would be a great deal better, for everybody concerned, if Mr. Keyes could be persuaded to let this thing rest. I don’t know Mrs. Delavan, but she was briefly a part of my husband’s life, and I don’t relish even the sideswipe of scandal. Is it in your power to have Mr. Keyes taken off this case?”
“It is not.”
“Can’t you suggest it?”
“I can and I will.”
“It won’t help?”
“Not if he really tears in.”
“What is his interest in it?”
“A $100,000 insurance risk that my company is on.”
“And that’s all?”
“How do you mean, that’s all?”
“If that were paid, would his interest cease?”
“... Are you willing to pay it?”
“Possibly you don’t know. I have some means.”
“I heard you were rich.”
“I—have some means.”
I told her it was the kind of stuff that insurance companies don’t like and have to watch close any time they have to fool with it, or think they have. I explained how it was all tied up with concealment of evidence of a crime, and while often a go
-
between is used on the recovery of stolen jewels, the company is pretty safe as it can always say the stuff they paid a reward for was represented to them as found, not stolen. “On a case like this, it would have to be done through the beneficiary. If she would accept indemnity from somebody else, I think you would have to leave the company out of the deal and she would have to renounce claim by admission of some misrepresentations in connection with the application, or something of that sort, and even that would be pretty hard because she wasn’t the one that applied.”
“But it could be worked out?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But it might be?”
“I don’t say it couldn’t.”
“Mr. Horner.”
“Yes?”
“Will you be my go-between?”
Now, believe it or not, what was running through my mind, even after all that Jane had figured out on her, was that it didn’t seem possible she could be guilty of anything, and so far as being willing to pay $100,000 to hush it up went, that might look funny in somebody else, but for a woman that had $20,000,000 how funny was it? But by now, she was leaning toward me, where I was sitting beside her on the sofa, in a queer, please-please way, and then I felt something shoot through me. Because, from the look in her eye, I knew if I wanted to take her upstairs, there was nothing she’d stop at to get me to be her go-between. Then, for the first time I knew, without there being any question about it, she was guilty, not only of Sperry’s death, but of Delavan’s.
I took her hand and gave it a little pat, and she took mine and gave it a squeeze, and smiled again. I said: “I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t touch it, or anything connected with it, with a ten-foot pole.”
Her face almost seemed to fall apart, and after a while she licked her lips on the inside, the way people do to keep them from twitching. She said: “But—but—what am I going to do?”
“Get ready to take it, I guess.”
“
Take it!
... What do you mean?”
“Scandal. Isn’t that what you said?”
“Oh. ... Yes, that’s what I said.”
“Unless you’ve forgotten.”
She got up, went clumping over to the door like she had lost the use of her legs. I let her out. Then I phoned Jane. I phoned her three times, and each time she hung up on me. The fourth time the hotel operator said the orders were she was not to be disturbed.
T
HE WIRE FROM KEYES
was waiting for me at the office next morning, and around eleven I drove over and met him at the airport. With him was Norton. Not much was said going over to the office, but as soon as we got there, Keyes said: “Mr. Norton, I think you’d better tell Ed what we agreed on coming up.”
“Ed, I have bad news for you.”
“O.K., so I’m fired.”
“Wait now, not so fast.”
“My heart’s not broke as I told you before.”
“Temporarily relieved, if you’ll let me talk.”
“About the same, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not. Keyes has insisted on it, not because he thinks you made a mistake in insisting on this policy, and in fact making an issue of it, as you recall you did, for he thinks anybody has the right to make a mistake, and everybody ought to make an issue of what he regards as a matter of principle. It’s not that. But he does feel that you’re bound up with too close a personal tie to the person most involved in this to be a disinterested and helpful agent. But if our investigation shows the person most involved is not involved at all, believe me, Ed, you’ll be reinstated, and I’m sure Keyes joins me in the wish that that’s the way it’s going to turn out.”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, the same to you, Keyes, and many of them.”
“Thanks, Ed, thanks.”
“What for?”
“Well—it sounded friendly.”
“Not if you were listening it wasn’t. And especially if you were listening to J.P. here, and what he said about the person most involved. You stupid jerk, don’t you know who did this?”
“I think so.”
“I don’t think. I know. It was La Sperry.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“She was around last night.”
“... Around where?”
“To see me. To get you called off.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“To buy you off.”
“Now Ed, I know it’s a lie.”
“To buy General Pan Pacific off. To pay that claim.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“Keyes, how would I know you called her last night from Los Angeles if she didn’t tell me? You called her and told her you were coming. All of a sudden you thought this proved that all that stuff about the dog didn’t mean anything in connection with the death of Sperry, and you couldn’t wait to call her up to say ‘here I come.’ You did, didn’t you? And it was the first call you’ve made in some time, wasn’t it? O.K., she’s scared worse of you than you ever were of her, or anything. So the same to you and many of them, but just how disinterested and helpful you’re going to be I wouldn’t like to say—not in the presence of witnesses.”
“Ed, on this subject you’re getting unbalanced.”
Norton kept looking at me, like he was trying to dope the thing out, and then he reached for the telephone. I had forgotten he knew Mrs. Sperry, but in a few seconds he was talking to her like they used to be pals and then he banged her right between the eyes with it, the offer she had made me the night before. She held him on the line I guess twenty minutes and he talked pleasant and friendly the one or two things he said, but mostly it was “I see,” “I see,” and some more “I see.” When he hung up he said: “It sounds awfully funny that a woman would be willing to kick in $100,000 to hush something up, until you recall how much money Constance Sperry has, and what an awful mess it’s going to mean if we do go ahead on this, especially as the papers will unquestionably do everything they can to drag her in, even if it’s only indirectly, as that would blow the story up big.”