“And about Alta Ashbury?”
She nodded.
“Go ahead.”
“Crumweather was going to make the last shakedown. The first two payments went to someone else.”
“And Jed Ringold gave her the third batch of letters,” I asked, “and double-crossed everyone?”
“No. That’s the funny part of it. He didn’t. He only gave her an envelope with some hotel stationery in it.”
“Did you know he was going to do that?”
“No. No one knew it. It was a racket Jed thought up for himself. He thought he could pocket the money and get out, but — things just didn’t work that way.”
“Where’s that batch of those letters now?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. Jed played along all right for a while, and then he got ideas of his own. I told him it was dangerous.”