“Why not?”
I shrugged — not much of a shrug, on account of my status quo. “I may not put it very well,” I said, “because this is the first time I have ever talked with my hands and feet tied and I find it cramps my style. But it strikes me as the kind of coincidence that doesn’t happen very often. I’m fed up with the detective business and I’d like to quit. I have something that’s worth a good deal to you — say fifty thousand dollars. It can be arranged so that you get what you pay for. I’ll go the limit on that, but it has to be closed damn quick. If you don’t buy I’m going to have a tough time explaining why I didn’t remember sooner what she told me. Twenty-four hours from now is the absolute limit.”
“It couldn’t be arranged so I would get what I paid for.”
“Sure it could. If you don’t want me on your neck the rest of your life, believe me, I don’t want you on mine either.”
“I suppose you don’t.” He smiled, or at least he apparently thought he was smiling. “I suppose I’ll have to pay.”
There was a sudden noise in his throat as if he had started to choke. He stood up. “You’re working your hand loose,” he said huskily and moved toward me.
It might have been guessed from his voice, thick and husky from the blood rushing to his head, but it was plain as day in his eyes, suddenly fixed and glassy like a blind man’s eyes. Evidently he had come there fully intending to kill me and had now worked himself up to it. I felt a crazy impulse to laugh. Kill me with what?
“Hold it!” I snapped at him.
He halted, muttered, “You’re getting your hand loose,” and moved again, passing me to get behind.
With what purchase I could get on the floor with my bound feet, I jerked my body and the chair violently aside and around and had him in front of me again.