“He’s dead?” she said, startled. “Who shot him?”
“I don’t know for certain, but I have an idea,” I said, hoisting my feet on to the desk. “Ten minutes after my call to Mifflin, the cops arrived, but Mifflin wasn’t with them. You remember those two coppers we ran into at Headquarters: the guy with the red hair and the tough-looking one? Well, they turned up. Sergeant MacGraw; that’s the red head, and Sergeant Hartsell. A couple of nice, well-behaved, quiet-mannered heels You could wish to avoid any day of the week. They made no bones about how pleased they were to find Dwan dead. Of course that was understandable. His death lets Salzer right out. All he has to do now is to claim Dwan was no longer working for him. Why Dwan stole Salzer’s car, knocked off Eudora and tried to knock off me is something for the police to find out. It’s my bet they never will find out.”
“You said you had an idea who killed him.”
“Yeah. When those two boys took Dwan away I wandered around and looked for clues. They came in a police car fitted with diamond tread tyres. I found the same pattern in the sand at the back of my cabin. It’s my guess they came out early in the evening to keep an eye on me and had a front-row seat for the little show Dwan put on for my benefit, and when I knocked him out and left him tied up the temptation was too much for them. While I was phoning Mifflin, they strolled over to Dwan and silenced him.”
“You mean two police officers…?” Paula began, her eyes growing wide.
“Look at the trouble it saves,” I said. “Put yourself in their place. Here is a guy wanted for murder, who will most certainly talk if he is ever brought to trial. He has probably a lot of things to say about Dr. Salzer that would make interesting reading in the papers. Brandon is a pal of Salzer. What could be more convenient than to put a slug into Dwan’s head and save the cost of a trial and inconvenience to Brandon’s little pal? Simple, isn’t it? I may be wrong, of course, but I doubt it. Anyway, there’s not much we can do about it, so let’s skip it and get down to something we can do something about. Have you looked up the Crosbys’ wills?”
Paula nodded.
“Janet didn’t make a will. Crosby left three-quarters of his fortune to her and a quarter to Maureen. Obviously Janet was his favourite. If Janet died, Maureen was to have the lot, providing she behaved herself. But if she ever gets mixed up in a scandal and gets herself in the newspapers, the whole fortune is to go to the Orchid City Research Centre, and she is to be paid only one thousand dollars a year. Crosby’s trustees are Glynn & Coppley, on the third floor of this building. Half the capital is tied up, the other half Maureen has the free run of, providing, of course, she behaves herself.”
“That’s a nice set-up for a blackmailer,” I said. “If she has put a foot wrong, and some crook has heard about it, he could shake her down for as much as she’s got. It wouldn’t be a lot of fun for her to live on a thousand a year, would it?”
Paula lifted her shoulders.