Murder & the Married Virgin (17 page)

“I can’t help wondering about one thing, Shayne. That identification of Neal Jordan. Those two witnesses—how dark was it last night?”

Shayne said, “Pretty dark.”

“Jordan said something about a picture being stolen from his room,” Quinlan went on hesitantly.

Shayne didn’t say anything.

“Was that one of your deals? Did you frame the identification as he charged?”

Shayne said angrily, “When I went out of here a few hours ago you told me you didn’t want to know what I was going to do. All right. Leave it that way. You don’t know.”

“That’s fair enough,” Quinlan agreed unhappily. He picked up his fountain pen and rolled it between his palms, his eyes filled with curiosity.

Shayne smoked a cigarette while they waited for Lomax. When he heard a commotion outside the door he drew a chair aside and sat down.

Mr. Lomax looked worried but determined when two detectives ushered him into the office. “I thought a private citizen had some constitutional rights,” he said irritably to the inspector. “These men dragged me here—”

“A murder suspect,” Quinlan interrupted harshly, “has no rights.”

Lomax looked suddenly deflated. He sank into a chair and nodded helplessly. “I was afraid that was it. After they arrested Neal. He couldn’t take your third degree, I suppose.”

“He sang like a canary when he found he was in it up to his neck,” Quinlan told him.

Lomax’s face was more like a death mask than Shayne had seen it. He said sadly, “I think I knew it wouldn’t work out. Ever since I read this morning’s paper. In a way, I’m glad. It’ll be a relief to tell my story.”

“Anything you say may be used against you,” Quinlan warned. “You can refuse to testify if you wish.”

“No… No. I want to get it off my chest,” said Lomax earnestly.

Quinlan rang for a stenographer and said, “Go ahead,” when the elderly court reporter came in.

“It was shortly after midnight when Mr. Trueman telephoned. He told me the necklace was in his possession and that Mr. Shayne had offered him forty thousand dollars for it in behalf of the insurance company.” He paused to turn his murky blue eyes reproachfully upon Shayne. “You had promised to keep me informed of developments.”

Shayne said, “You fell for a gag. Actually, I’d refused to deal with Trueman.”

Mr. Lomax sighed. “I didn’t know, of course. I was anxious to avoid any loss to the insurance company because I felt the whole affair was due solely to my wife’s negligence. So I told Trueman I’d come down and discuss the matter with him. I had Neal get the car ready, and I explained the elements of the situation to him as I drove down.

“I remember that he thought it extremely foolish for me to take that attitude, but I felt duty-bound to pay for my wife’s negligence.

“The Club had just closed when I arrived—some time after midnight. I found Mr. Trueman in his office and it was not difficult to reach an agreement with him. Though he refused to tell me how he had obtained the necklace and insisted he was acting for a third party, he agreed to turn it over to me for fifty thousand dollars. But he insisted on cash, naturally, and I arranged to withdraw it from the bank this morning and complete the transaction at noon today. Mr. Trueman was in perfect health when I left him, and it wasn’t until I read this morning’s paper that I knew what happened afterward.”

“Can you prove your story?” Quinlan asked.

“Neal will tell you—”

Quinlan chortled mirthlessly.

“Your chauffeur saw you go in and saw you come out. Can anyone testify that Trueman was alive when you left his office?”

Lomax moved his skull-like head dispiritedly. “No. He was alone in his office. I’m afraid no one saw me leave. But surely you gentlemen don’t think
I
caused that havoc in his office, that
I
bested him in a deadly struggle. I haven’t the strength nor the will for a thing like that.”

“The damage may not have been as extensive as the papers made it sound,” said Quinlan. “They’re apt to exaggerate a thing like that. At the time we suspected another person who would fit into such a rough and tumble.” He looked at Shayne quickly and cleared his throat, shook his head decidedly. “No. Trueman was killed by a single blow on the head,” Quinlan went on to Lomax, “with some sort of an iron bar. A weakling could have delivered the blow—or even a woman.”

“But why would I do it? I was willing to pay his price.” Mr. Lomax spread out his pasty white hands nervously.

“That’s your story. Fifty grand is a lot of money. Or he may have demanded a hundred. That’s a good enough motive for a jury.”

“I’m a wealthy man,” Lomax told him with quiet dignity.

“Maybe. We’ll check on that. In the meantime, here’s another motive that’s going to sound good to a jury. You made him show you the necklace. As soon as you saw it you realized he was trying to palm off an imitation on you. In your justifiable fury you killed him.”

“Oh,” said Lomax faintly, “you know about the necklace being only an imitation?”

“Certainly. In the struggle the necklace was broken and the stones scattered all over the floor. You left one behind when you gathered them up. As soon as we saw it we recognized it as synthetic.”

Shayne lounged forward and said, “That’s why you were so anxious to get the necklace back, wasn’t it, Lomax? Because if it reached the insurance company your fraud would be discovered.”

“Yes. But I tried to do the honest thing. You know I told you I’d prefer not to collect any insurance—that I’d rather pay it out of my own pocket than have your company lose.”

Shayne nodded. “I smelled a nigger in the woodpile right then. I’ve known a lot of wealthy men, but never one with a conscience before. And when I learned you were hard up for cash six months ago, I guessed you’d cashed in the necklace and substituted an imitation. Your wife didn’t know about it, did she?”

“No.” Lomax shuddered. “It was in her name, you know.”

“Wait a minute there, Shayne,” Quinlan protested angrily. “You’re breaking down your own case. If Lomax had substituted an imitation, why would he steal it in the first place—if he didn’t want to collect insurance?”

“I didn’t steal it,” Lomax protested.

“The hell you didn’t.” Quinlan pointed his cigar at Lomax. “You wouldn’t have had to murder Katrin Moe if you hadn’t stolen it. She was the only person in the house who knew it was in the safe in your bedroom at the time the house was burglarized.”

Lomax threw up one arm as though to fend off the accusation.

“Murdered? Katrin? No. She committed suicide. It
must
have been suicide. I saw the locked door myself—and the gas turned on in her grate.”

“Sure you did,” Quinlan said in a cold even tone. “You were even careful to have someone else break down her door—to have a witness to the fact that it must be suicide. But we know how you did it. And it was smart. I concede that. Damned near perfect. A mere twist of the wrist to shut her gas off after she’d gone to sleep with it burning. Then another twist of the wrist to send gas pouring into her room while she slept.”

Mr. Lomax looked from Quinlan to Shayne in consternation.

“You’re demented,” he panted. “It couldn’t have happened that way. Katrin never burned her gas. We all knew of her aversion to a gas fire.”

Quinlan remained leaning forward. He stopped poking his cigar at Lomax and held it perfectly still in mid-air.

He didn’t move a muscle for a full thirty seconds. Then he twisted his head to look at Shayne in mute appeal.

Shayne drew in a long breath and exhaled noisily. “I didn’t tell you because I figured you’d lock me up the moment you found out that theory had blown up on us. Lomax is right. Katrin Moe never turned her gas on. She wouldn’t stay long in a room where gas was burning.”

Quinlan slowly sank back in his chair and put his cigar in his mouth. He said, “Now, by God—” in a low, stifled voice.

“There’s just one question I want to ask you, Lomax,” Shayne interrupted. “Whose idea was it to put that insulating material around the hot-air pipes in the basement?”

Lomax looked up at Shayne, completely surprised. “That was Neal’s idea. He suggested it Wednesday afternoon, and explained that fuel would be greatly conserved. I thought it was fine of him to offer to do the work himself—”

“That’s all I want,” Shayne cut in.

He turned to Quinlan and said grimly, “Bring Neal Jordan in here.”

Lomax looked at Shayne quizzically.

Quinlan hesitated and started to expostulate angrily, but the look on Shayne’s face checked him. He flipped a button and said into the mouthpiece, “Bring Jordan in here.”

NEAL JORDAN’S FACE was flushed from sweating and the heat from the bright lights. He smiled pleasantly when he stepped inside the doorway. His smile faded when he saw his employer sitting there with a stricken look on his ashen face.

He said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Lomax. I wasn’t going to tell them until—” He paused, and in loud ringing voice continued, “Until they told me about Katrin. I couldn’t stomach that.”

Lomax’s eyes were weary and confused. He drew a hand across his forehead and said, “I don’t know. I simply don’t know.”

“The hell you don’t,” Shayne burst out. “You’ve known all along but you wouldn’t let yourself believe it.”

Lomax tightened his bloodless lips and gave him a hurt look.

“I don’t know whether you realized how the murder of Katrin Moe was accomplished or not,” Shayne said quietly. “But you must have known it was murder and you kept your mouth shut. You were sitting on top of a volcano, weren’t you? You knew what was going on between your wife and Neal Jordan, and you closed your eyes to it. You were careful to keep any money out of her hands because you were afraid she might run off with him—and as soon as the necklace vanished you knew she’d stolen it to collect the insurance.”

“No.” Lomax forced the word out. “The necklace was hers. Why would she steal it to collect the insurance? She could have sold it if she wanted money.”

“You’re forgetting it was synthetic. Not worth more than a few grand.”

“But she didn’t know that,” Lomax protested. “I’m sure she didn’t. If she’d tried to sell it secretly and found out about the substitution I would have heard about it—and in no uncertain terms.”

Shayne nodded. “That’s one of the angles that’s had me stopped all the time,” he admitted. “Knowing that gems have gone up in value since you bought the necklace.
Why
would anybody be anxious to collect a hundred and twenty-five thousand insurance when the necklace itself would bring so much more today in the legitimate market?”

“It’s still got me stopped,” Quinlan said harshly. “Unless Lomax stole it—”

“Lomax didn’t steal it. Don’t forget that he was willing to pay the insurance money himself. And again, that’s why I couldn’t see anyone else killing Trueman to get it back after Trueman tried to pull a double-cross by turning it back to me.”

Turning slowly to Neal, Shayne went on, “But I think I’ve got an answer that fits both those facts. A synthetic stone chips much more easily than the genuine. The only reason you and Mrs. Lomax could have preferred an insurance swindle to a legitimate sale was because the Ghorshki emerald had been damaged. Wasn’t that it?”

Jordan smiled and said quietly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The hell you don’t. Why else did you have to get it back from Trueman after you’d passed it to him?”

“Did I?” Jordan’s deliberate manner bordered on insolence.

Shayne turned to Quinlan and explained, “In a necklace like this, built around one large faultless stone, the value depends largely on that stone. A tiny chip marring it would cut the value in half. Mrs. Lomax and Neal Jordan knew that. They knew the insurance company wouldn’t pay off in full if the damage became known. That’s why Neal had to kill Trueman to prevent him from selling it to me.”

“If you take Mr. Lomax’s story at face value,” said Jordan, “it busts that theory all to hell. If he had planned to buy it back from Trueman—”

“That,” Shayne cut in harshly, “was just as bad from your angle. You’d still be stuck with a damaged necklace and Katrin’s murder would have been for nothing.”

“Fairy tales,” Jordan scoffed.

Shayne snorted and picked up a sheaf of papers from Quinlan’s desk. “Two witnesses saw you there between two and three o’clock this morning. But you and Lomax both agree he was there between twelve and one.” To Lomax, he said, “What did you think when you heard Neal drive out again after you got home from the Laurel Club?”

“Nuts,” said Jordan loudly. “I didn’t—”

Shayne said, “Shut up. Didn’t he, Lomax?”

The aged manufacturer nodded slowly.

“I heard the car go out the drive. When I read about Trueman’s death this morning, I wondered—I didn’t know what to do.”

“I know it was tough on you with your wife mixed up in it,” Shayne said in a kindly tone. “You knew all the time it was she who stole the necklace, didn’t you?”

“No,” Lomax cried out.

“The hell you didn’t,” Shayne said angrily. “Why else did you think Katrin Moe was murdered?”

“She wasn’t. That is, I didn’t know—”

“You must have suspected the truth. You knew your wife was having an affair with Jordan—that the trip to Baton Rouge was a phony and they went somewhere else to spend the night together.”

Lomax came out of the chair with a smothered oath, his hands doubled into fists.

Quinlan said, “Sit down, Lomax,” in a cold voice that sent him back to his seat.

“Sure, he knew about that,” Jordan sneered. “He had detectives on us months ago. But I don’t know what all this stuff is about the necklace—and Katrin being murdered.”

“You know more about it than anybody,” Shayne told him. “You planned it all when you and Mrs. Lomax got back from Baton Rouge and heard about the burglary in your absence. That burglary was made to order if you could make it appear the necklace had been left out of the safe Tuesday night. The only one who could disprove that was Katrin. So she had to die before the loss of the necklace was announced.”

“I suppose you think I persuaded her to go to bed and turn on the gas?” Neal Jordan sneered.