I got up and walked over to the window and looked down on Fifth Avenue. It was all crawling and busy and it wasn’t raining and it wasn’t snowing and it looked fine. Central Park was pleasant, too, even for February. It looked like I would like to keep on seeing it for quite a while yet, but the odds at the moment were less than even.
“Well, I suppose I ought to save the taxpayers some money and give myself up before they go to all that trouble and expense of spreading a dragnet to apprehend the fiend. A flock of New York’s Finest are no doubt right this minute combing the Casbah from top to bottom.”
Maggie gingerly got to her feet somewhat like a camel, one end at a time. After several exploratory pokes, she evidently decided she could navigate under her own power and came over beside me at the window. The sunlight made her hair shine. I was going to miss that, too. She took my arm and very gently led me to the couch and pushed me down on it. She stood in front of me with arms folded and just looked at me. I resented being treated like an idiot.
“Now you listen to me for a minute,” she began. “You’ve been having one hell of a fine time working yourself up to a good second-act curtain and it’s all a lot of nonsense.”
“That’s all right for you to say. You’re not wanted for murder.” I started to get up and she pushed me back down again. I considered swatting her.
“But that’s the point,” she went on. “You didn’t kill that old battle-axe, did you? Or did you?”
“Of course not, but…”
“Then as far as I can see all you did was not tell somebody you found her murdered—if she was murdered, which I doubt. It might have been an accident.”
“I took the book away.”
“That’s another thing. Why ever did you do that?”
“Well, it had my name on it and your name on it and that would have meant that we were there, and there you are.”
“So what? I wasn’t there.” Then her eyes got very round and she suddenly bent over as if to kiss me, but midway she yelped from the reminders that she wasn’t quite capable of such action yet. “But you, darling, you were trying to shield me. I think you’re wonderful. Let’s have another drink.” And we did and I began to feel better. It’s nice being thought a gentleman capable of shielding someone from something. We got all the pillows from the chairs and couch and put them on the floor and lay down with our drinks.
“Now then,” I said, after we were comfortable. “What were you about to be all stern about a minute ago?”
“It’s all really too simple. You’ve done all the wrong things so far just because you’re a ham at heart and you felt you had to pad your part. Anybody but an actor would have given a yell and, when people started to come running, said ‘look what I found’ but not you, you little Hamlet you…Oh, no…Well, anyway you’ve done it and that’s that. As it stands now we’ve got two choices. You can call up the police right now and tell them all about it. How you are going to alibi taking that filthy book I have no idea.”
“What’s the other choice?” I asked. “If I do that it will mean a lot of explaining. I’m liable for attempting to obstruct justice or concealing evidence, or something.”
“Then we could just assume that you did put your gloves back on or someone messed up your prints after you left, and then we could burn the Youth and Beauty Book to a crisp and cast the ashes off the Triboro Bridge.”
That sounded good so far.
“And then what?”
“Then we’ll just say no more about it.”
“Oh, fine. But don’t forget the book was open on her desk and the heavy of the piece might have seen our names as well as one Bobby LeB., whoever the hell he is.”
“Then I think a bit of dialogue with Mr. LeB. is clearly indicated. Very subtle-like…underplayed, but very, very fraught. Where does he live?”
“I don’t even know who he is much less where he lives.”
“Then maybe it’s all in the Youth and Beauty Book. Practically everything else is, God knows. Get it up!”
I got it up. The dried blood didn’t make the job any more appetizing. Nellie had not been the most efficient person in the world, and the book had, on the whole, somewhat the aspect of a sheaf of used Kleenex.
Slips of paper with phone numbers and random addresses were stuck all through, as well as some empty envelopes and dull-looking bills, even her bank book.
After a couple of hours we had to give up the search for Bobby LeB.’s address. Though, as Maggie pointed out, we certainly discovered a lot of unmarried actors and actresses whom we never suspected before, answering to the same phone numbers. The only information we could discover about Mr. LeB. was that the last year he had several appointments with Nellie, but not at any regular intervals and he was always entered only as Bobby LeB. or once or twice simply B. B., which we took to mean our boy.
I got interested in her bank book. Nellie was doing a great deal better financially than either of us would have imagined. You would have gathered from her books that what money she did have she made selling shoestrings and gum, along with Apple Annie, in theater lobbies. But according to her bank book she was almost in the surtax brackets. Every month for the last year there was a five-hundred-dollar lump deposit in addition to littler ones during the month. My nose began to twitch as I pointed this out to Maggie.
“Obviously blackmail.”
She was not impressed.
“Oh, really! It was a sad day for the world when you discovered circulating libraries.”
“But how else can you explain it? You know she didn’t cast that many shows.”
“Maybe she had an income. Maybe she had property. People do get five hundred dollars a month without resorting to blackmail.”
“But that would explain everything. Why she was murdered.”
“Here we go again. Timmy, look me in the eye.” I did. “Do you really believe all that junk?”
“No, I guess not. Not really.”
“Then that’s all right. Otherwise I might start worrying.” I stuffed the bank book back in the Youth and Beauty Book and tossed it on the floor.
“Well, what do we do now?”
“I know a man who used to be in naval intelligence during the war. I’ll bet he could help us. We could certainly use a little intelligence around here. Do you want me to call him up?”
“Let me try first before we send for the fleet,” I said.
“Well, I only wanted to be helpful. Have you eaten?”
“No. Have you?”
“I’m starved. Let’s go to Sardi’s for lunch.”
“Oh, no we won’t,” I said.
“The murderer always returns to the scene of his crime.”
“My pal!”
“Well, why not? You’ve done all the wrong things so far. One more couldn’t make much difference. We can drop in at Nellie’s office casual-like and you can get a quick swipe at that doorknob, and we can pitch that damned book in a corner of her office and just forget all about it.”
I helped her up off the floor.
“Okay. What can we lose?”
She went into the bedroom to dress while I had another drink, but it didn’t help much. I started to get depressed all over again. I took my drink and leaned against