Glorie began to cry.
Fenner went on, “While this was going on, Thayler had found himself a new toy. Thayler was a nasty bit of work too. There was a girl called Lindsay. Maybe he met her at a party. He liked her and somehow he got her to go to his house. He knew you weren’t about and he persuaded her to drop in. I can guess what happened but you can tell me. He attacked her, didn’t he? His usual stuff with a whip?”
Glorie went on crying.
“Well, he overdid it, didn’t he? She died. When you got home, after Chang had been killed, you found Thayler running in circles with a corpse on his hands. That’s the way it went, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She put her handkerchief to her eyes and began to rock herself backwards and forwards.
“You found the Lindsay dame dead, and her body badly cut by Thayler’s whipping. Now, baby, it’s your turn. Shoot! What did you do?”
Glorie said, “You know all about it. Why ask me?”
“But why did you come to me?”
“I heard about you. I thought I saw my chance of saving Harry and starting trouble for Carlos. I heard you were tough and wouldn’t stop at anything. I got a black wig, and wore simple clothes and came to you. I thought if—”
“You came to me as Marian Daley. You said your sister was missing. You thought if I took up the case I’d start eventually on Carlos. You gave me the hint. You said twelve Chinamen, because they always ship Chinamen over in dozens from Cuba, and I’d be smart enough to see that that was Carlos’s racket. You planned with Thayler to have the Lindsay dame’s body, without arms or legs or head, planted somewhere where I could find it, and I’d think that it was the body of Marian Daley. Since Marian never existed, Thayler couldn’t be tried for killing a non-existent person. So you tried to establish an identity between Marian and the body. To do this you got Thayler to fake up marks on your back, and when you came to see me, he telephoned to give you an excuse for undressing. I saw the marks, and naturally enough they impressed me. It was a rotten plan, and it could never have held water court of law, but you might have confused the issue if you’d have played cards right. But Thayler made mistakes.