Say Yes to Murder - Todhunter Ballard (book club recommendations .TXT) 📗

“Now, as I said before, I think that the professor followed Delia West, thinking that she was really the granddaughter. He went up to her apartment and found Heyworth struggling with a girl. He threw the knife, killing Leon, then he realized that the girl wasn’t the one he had been following but Tina Kingstone. He’d known her in Chicago. He had enough on her so that he thought that she would keep quiet. Together they hid the body under the bed and he left since he had an early morning call.

He worked on the set all day. In the evening, Mary Morris got a note from Kingstone and collapsed. The professor picked the note up from the floor and must have read it. He thought that Kingstone was going to expose him, hurried over to her apartment, and shot her. As she fell, he saw that there was something in her stocking. He pulled it out, starting the run, and was surprised that it was a passport.

“From the picture, he knew that Delia West was not the real granddaughter. On the following evening he was over at Honia’s and saw Kreach’s men bring the doped girl up the stairs. He recognized her from the passport picture, and he didn’t know what to do.

“While he was trying to decide, he went out and got drunk, trying to build up his courage, I suspect At any rate, I saw him at Lowry’s, followed him back to Madam Honia’s, and finally sent him home.

“But he came back and went up to try and rescue the girl by himself. I saw him as I was leaving and followed him up the stairs to the doped girl’s room. I guess he told the rest of the story pretty straight.”

Nancy said, “And if he hadn’t butted in, Boren and the West girl would have killed Mary, gotten her money and never been suspected.”

William Lennox yawned. “I don’t think that they meant to kill Mary at first. Mary was old. The chances were that she wouldn’t live very long. They could afford to wait. But after Ed and I bailed out the doped girl, they had to move fast.

“They sent out Kreach’s men to try and get the girl back, and also to wipe me out before I talked. They killed Mary, and they also put a watch on Ed Strong’s boarding house.”

Nancy sounded very reproachful. “You knew all this, you used me to help, and yet you never once told me what was going on.”

Lennox looked at her. “Look, Nancy…” he was trying to find words for what he wished to say. “I… I didn’t know very much. I couldn’t figure out what Ed’s motive was. I think I understand now. Mary was an old friend. He was trying to save her some grief. He butted in and, once in, he couldn’t get out.

“But none of it was clear enough in my own mind to discuss, even with you.”

She was partly mollified. “Well, let it go. Here’s the studio, but I wish you wouldn’t go in. Talk to Spurck on the phone, or better yet, write him a letter from New York. If you get into his office, he’ll fix it somehow so that you never get away.”

Lennox was looking at her strangely and there was a startled expression about his sleepy eyes. “Nancy,” he said, in a tone of great discovery. “Nancy, come east with me.”

She took her time to answer. “No Bill, not now.” Her voice was level with carefully controlled feeling.

His face fell. He was like a small, disappointed child. It was all that the girl could do to keep her hands from reaching out for him.

“I’m a fool,” he told her. “You’ve been nice, and kind, and swell. Always a man misunderstands.”

She said, “It isn’t that.”

“Then who is it?”

She managed to laugh at him. “It isn’t anyone else either, Bill. It’s you. You have to know your own mind. You have to be sure—oh, I know.” She stopped him as he would have spoken. “You think that you do. You’re with me now, near me, feeling sleepy and sentimental. I want you to be away from me, to think clearly. I love you, you slob, but I won’t be another Kitty Foster.”

Again he would have spoken, but she stopped him. “Go on in, see Spurck, resign, and then go east. In six months, when the book is done, we’ll talk again. We’ve been friends, Bill. We’ve had good times. Let’s don’t spoil it with something else that we aren’t sure of yet.”

“All right,” he told her, and got out of the car. “But if you’re worrying about Kitty Foster…”

She shook her head, still smiling. “I’m not worrying about Kitty. She isn’t important. She isn’t even an incident. It’s Hollywood that I’m worried about. You’re married to the picture business, Bill. I want to be certain that you can get free. I don’t want to share my husband with a studio.”

“I’ll get free,” he told her, grimly. “I’ve done Sol’s dirty work for the last time. I’ll tell him that, grab two hours’ sleep, and then a plane for New York. I’ve got two friends in the publishing business. I can get enough of an advance to live on while I write the book.”

She watched him cross the street, a tall figure, with shoulders back. A free man, slave no longer, going in to give his declaration of independence.

He was gone a long time, so long that she thought that perhaps he had fallen asleep. When he came out finally, he was still walking straight, and his tired face had a glow, put there by lively interest.

She frowned when she saw the look. “Bill, did you quit? Are you going east?”

He flushed as he got into the car. “Look, Nancy. I want you to understand.”

“I understand,” she said. “It’s Hollywood, my boy. It’s like an all-consuming octopus, reaching out its gripping arms to clasp and hold us all. Don’t think that I don’t understand. I’ve felt its pull. We’re lotus eaters, William.”

He said, “You don’t see. I haven’t changed my mind, it’s just a mild delay. I had an idea for salvaging the Foster picture. It’s tremendous, and only I can see it through. The book and we can wait that long. What’s a couple of weeks in any life?”

“What’s a couple of weeks, indeed.” Her old smile was back in place, and she bent forward to kiss him lightly on the lips. “Just a couple of weeks, my lad. I, too, believe in Santa Claus.”