She said nothing, watching me. “Not that you needed the help,” I went on, “since you’d already established a connection between Grant and his heirs by sending those clippings. Or no, you threw in that telegram also, didn’t you? Just in case Ephraim didn’t work out as a patsy, an investigation of Constantine would lead to Ivan Klobb. So he’d be the one the cops would have thought had been blackmailed—”
I let it trail off, feeling unsteady again. “Is this all?” she said.
I nodded. “Although some small items begin to fit now also. Like the twenty-two you said you got as a gift. Vaulking was a marksman. It isn’t important, but it’s a good bet he was the one who gave you the gun—which you planted at Ephraim’s when you were supposed to be at that revival of Casablanca. You didn’t go to the picture, Fern. After we made our statements that night, standing by the car—I said, ‘Play it again, Sam/ It’s ten years since I saw the film, and I don’t even know if Bogart uses the line more than once, but I still remember it. You didn’t react. At the time I chalked it up to your being upset. And sure, one other triviality. Tonight at the party—why was I there? You didn’t ask. You knew the minute you saw me—that Grant had contacted me because of my name being in the paper. I suppose you did have a minute of panic Tuesday when you found out the sucker you’d picked to hold your hand was a private cop. Jesus, I can just see it. If I hadn’t poked my face into that bedroom you would have found a pretense to look in yourself, of course, but what was next on the schedule? A coquettish little scream, a demure faint—?”
There was a minute. “I hope you’re going to notice just a few of the flaws in all this,” she said then. “Audrey and Josie were blackmailing me. And yet Audrey didn’t suspect me in the least when Josie was killed.”
“She did suspect you—tonight, when she saw that Ephraim was out. The gun in his apartment fooled her first, sure, like it fooled the cops. But she got scared the minute she spotted him at McGruder’s. She knew the police didn’t have anything on him. Then you knifed her about three minutes later—”
I had leaned against the table, and my ribs contracted sharply. “I suppose you would have killed her sooner,” I said, “if she hadn’t run off with Peters for the few days. But you were probably fairly sure they’d show up at the party. What weapon did you have for that one, Fern—I mean before you picked up the knife? The same gun you shot Grant with earlier?”
She ignored the question, toying with the top button of her jacket. I could have made more sense out of her reaction if she’d shaved her head and danced on a chandelier. “I killed Ulysses Grant to make Ephraim’s inheritance look like a motive,” she said. “But suppose Ephraim hadn’t gotten out of jail before tonight’s deaths—who would be the murderer then?”
“The cops thought of that. Thirteen million would buy a lot of partner—they would have worked like hell to bring Peters into it.”
She wet her lips. “And you’ve concluded all of this on the basis of something I said which I wasn’t supposed to know. Suppose Dana had made the same slip—could you have built a case against her the same way?”
I must have been staring at her stupidly. “Damn it, Fern, what kind of dumb irrelevancy is that? You made the slip, not Dana. It’s going to send you up for life at the least—can’t you comprehend the fact?”
“Is it? What a shame—just when we were beginning to get along with each other, too.” She came off the bed. I hadn’t believed she could do anything with her face which might distort its beauty, but her lips twisted into a snarl that was more than ugly. “So I couldn’t have known about the third killing,” she said.
I didn’t answer her, but only because the dizziness came back. I had to shut my eyes, fighting a sudden mounting nausea.
“I couldn’t have known,” she repeated. “Well, maybe you ought to ask Pete Peters if I couldn’t have, mister. Or wake Dana—she was here when we heard.”
My head was swimming. “Heard—?”
“Yes, hear