“Some kind of drug. Henri gets it for her. I think that’s why she hangs on to him.”
“You think Evalyn might be capable of murder while under the influence of drugs,” Shayne summed up slowly.
Lucile made a slight gesture of dismissal with her hands and said, “Do any of us really know what we are capable of?”
Shayne took the hint and said nothing more about Evalyn. He asked, “How well did you know Margo?”
“Quite well. That is, we saw each other a couple of times a week. I suppose,” she went on slowly, “I was her best friend here in the Quarter. Neither of us make friends easily, and I think that’s why we were attracted to each other.”
“Tell me about Margo’s life here. She didn’t work?”
“No. She wanted to write, but she didn’t actually do any writing. She was always going to start, but never did. She must have had real talent, though,” she went on thoughtfully, “enough that some editor recognized it and was willing to spend money to develop it. That’s how she came to be here, you know.”
Shayne lied, “I didn’t know.”
“Oh, yes, this editor was paying her expenses to live here,” Lucile said, a note of pride in her voice. “She didn’t talk about it much, but when she first came here she seemed to be suffering from a sort of mental shock. She had a terrible complex about being defeated by life. From things she told me, I think she had tried to commit suicide as a result of her failure to write successfully. Some editor pulled her back from the brink and gave her new courage, showing his faith in her ability by advancing her money to come here and recuperate. He took quite a paternal interest in her, I guess.”
They sat quietly for a while, then Shayne got up and sat on the couch beside her. He said, “I realize that you don’t care to discuss the shortcomings of your friend, but tell me, how did Evalyn fit into the picture — with you and Margo, I mean?”