“We go ahead,” I said, and sat down behind my desk. “I’ve seen Willet, and he’ll finance an investigation, but he wants to keep his firm well in the background.”
“Plucky of him,” Paula said scornfully. “You take all the risks, I suppose?”
“He seemed to expect to pay a little extra,” I said, and grinned. I told her about my visit to Headquarters. “This guy Salzer seems in the habit of making his nurses vanish. You note the date? May 15th: the day Janet died. No one’s going to convince me her disappearance doesn’t somehow tie up with Janet’s death.”
Paula studied me.
“You think Janet was murdered, don’t you?”
I lit a cigarette and put the match carefully in the ashtray before replying.
“I think it’s possible. The motive’s there: all that money. She certainly didn’t die of heart failure. Arsenic poisoning, among other poisons, produces heart failure. An old goat like Bewley might easily have been deceived.”
“But you don’t know! “Paula said. “Surely you don’t think Maureen murdered her sister?”
“The incentive is pretty strong. Besides collecting a fortune of two million dollars there’s also the little insurance item. I don’t say she did it, but that kind of money is a big temptation, especially if you are in the hands of a blackmailer. And another thing, I’m not entirely satisfied that Crosby himself wasn’t murdered. If there had been nothing wrong about the shooting why didn’t Salzer call in someone like Bewley to sign the death certificate? Why sign it himself? He had to square Lessways, the coroner, and probably Brandon. It was either suicide or murder. I’m willing to bet it wasn’t an accident. And as Willet pointed out, if a man owns a revolver he isn’t likely to shoot himself with a shot-gun: so that leaves murder.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Paula said sharply. “That’s your big failing, Vic. You’re always making wild guesses.”