I said, “You can’t drive and talk. Get over and let me take the wheel.”
We made the switch. I said, “Get this straight. Alta Ashbury was being blackmailed. It doesn’t make any difference what for. The person who was blackmailing her was a lawyer named Crumweather — C. Layton Crumweather.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “She must have gone to see Ringold. The description fits and—”
“The description may fit, and she may have gone to see Ringold, but the man who was blackmailing her was Crumweather.”
“How do you know?”
“He was interested in getting some dough for the defence of a client of his — a man who was charged with a crime.”
“Who, lover?”
“I’ve forgotten his name.”
She glared at me.
“Now then,” I went on, “the only way we can handle this thing — to get Alta in the clear and to get me out of it — is to be in a position to put the screws down on Crumweather. He’s a crooked lawyer.”