ANNA GRIEDES FELT THE firm hand of officer O’Riley fall on her shoulder. Anna Griedes flinched; the policeman’s touch had struck a sick note of finality. This, she thought dumbly, is the end of pretty, sharp-witted little Anna Griedes who was valedictorian of Indigo, Colorado, High School, class of 1935. The end of wiser, knowing Anna Griedes, who wanted to be an actress in pictures; and of Anna Griedes, calculating wench, courtesan, etcetera.
“Come on, Miss—uh—Martha, if that’s what you still call yourself,” said Officer O’Riley.
“I’m not—Martha.”
“That’s no news to us,” Officer O’Riley said.
Anna Griedes moved her head slowly and stupidly, her eyes searching the unfriendly faces in the room. Her gaze rested finally on Chance Molloy, not because his attitude was any less adamant—rather she sensed that if anyone was dominant here it was Molloy. She wanted to appeal to him, point out to him that she owed her life to him—hadn’t Copeland-Walheim-Fleshman been about to murder her?—and that she was grateful. Wouldn’t he, Molloy, help her—at least to the extent of withholding his vengeance? He could. Oh, he could. And she would do anything in return for the mercy—take a prison term without whimper, testify to the truth; after all, she knew the details of almost every crooked deal involved. Her frantic unspoken appeal went out to Molloy.
“Let’s go, tutz. The wagon’s waiting,” said Officer O’Riley.
Chance Molloy was casual. What he felt, what he thought, was an enigma back of his composed features. He spoke quietly to Gerling, the assistant district attorney, saying, “By the way, Gerling, you might gain something by taking it easy with her.” He passed over Gerling’s disturbed look of doubt, turned to Albin Verrill Gorr, added, “Gorr, she probably knows the inside of all the off-color deals. She might save your firm money if you could work out something with Gerling to get her cooperation. It might be beneficial all around.”
“You’ve got something there, Molloy,” Gorr said.
The frown loosened on Assistant District Attorney Gerling’s face. Gerling intended to run for elective office soon. After all, the backing of such an important firm as Cranston, Gorr, and Dunlap was not to be sneezed at ...
Anna Griedes bowed her head. She felt an inarticulate gratitude; she would, she knew, do anything to repay this mercy; she believed Molloy knew it. What she felt was more than just relief at a chance to escape the electric chair. It was a little more than that. It was in effect a regeneration, worked by Molloy whether or not he knew, or cared much, of a few finer things in her that probably had not been sullied beyond redemption.
“This way, lady,” said Officer O’Riley.
Chance Molloy watched the woman and the policeman leave without any special feeling. He was not unduly tired, but his emotions, and his nerves, had taken a going over, and he was glad it was ended. There was no elation. He had not won in any sense that, just now, he cared about—he did not know exactly why he should feel that way, but he did, and he did not dig into it for reasons.
He got out a cigarette, and George was ready with a match. He said, “Kiggins, you and George may as well get some sleep.” He hesitated, then added, “You did a nice job on this.” Praise, when praise really came from his heart, was somehow difficult for him, and rarely given. George and Kiggins understood that.
George and Kiggins went out together; George, as Molloy suspected, to immediately get drunk. Kiggins, he imagined, would take care of George—she had done so before. Molloy was lost, for a moment, in puzzled contemplation of the strange attitude of Kiggins toward George, and vice versa, and what might eventually come of it ...
George and Kiggins halted outside ... George must have brought up suddenly in the hall, because Molloy heard Kiggins say, “George!” And then, in ringing anxiety, Kiggins asked, “What is wrong, George?”
“Maybe I killed an innocent guy,” George said in a voice thickened and ill.
“Copeland?”
“Copeland ... Yeah.”
All of Molloy’s attention was gripped and held. In a moment, when surprise had subsided, he blamed himself violently for his shortsightedness in not exploring George’s mind for feelings of guilt, and dispelling them. He had not thought of it. He strode to the door, and stopped there. He stood arrested, now knowing exactly what he should say; wondering, too, if Kiggins might not do a better job of this than he.
George was looking down the stair at the front door and the snow beyond, staring with frightened eyes at the bitter white snow where Copeland had died.
“They killed Martha and didn’t want her to be missed,” George said hoarsely. “That’s it, ain’t it? They sent a fake Martha to New York? That’s the way it was, huh?”
The thin spiritual quality was dominant in Kiggins’ face as she said, “Stop it, George!”
George’s voice swelled and took frenzy.
“Why? Good God, why? If Copeland knew, who were they fooling?” he blurted. “That Anna Griedes—you saw her—she couldn’t fool anybody who knew Martha. But Copeland didn’t know Martha by sight. Copeland was expecting Martha to come to New York. Anna Griedes could deceive Copeland ... That means Copeland was ... when I leaned out of that window and shot Copeland as he ran away through the snow ... I shot an innocent man.”
Chance Molloy did not move forward, but watched mutely, anxiously. He was stirred deeply by George’s horror, was tortured by feelings of responsibility for it; but he still felt, knew instinctively, that Kiggins was the one to give solace.
“George,” Kiggins said softly. “George ... you’re all balled up.”
George lifted his head. He looked at her with inarticulate gratitude. “You think so?”
“What was the first thing Mr. Molloy did when he heard Martha was going to New York?”
“Huh?”
“He had Roy Cillinger, our Vice-President, find an apartment for Martha.”
“Oh, that,” George said.
“Wouldn’t it have looked queer if Martha hadn’t shown up to take the apartment?”
“Well—Roy Cillinger would have wondered. Molloy too.”
“The murderers didn’t want anyone to start wondering about their victim. Murder is serious, George. These people knew it wasn’t safe to take the tiniest chance. Don’t you see that they wouldn’t dare let such an odd thing happen as Martha not showing up to take the apartment? You bet Roy Cillinger would have wondered. He would have told Mr. Molloy. And Mr. Molloy had a big business deal involved—he would have investigated at once. Copeland and Walheim knew that—I suppose little details like that become enormously important to one when one has done murder.”
“I guess so,” George admitted.
“Anna Griedes knew Martha awfully well, George. She had even lived a while in Martha’s apartment. Anna Griedes must have known that Roy Cillinger had never seen Martha.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So they sent Anna Griedes to New York and she told Roy Cillinger she was Martha and Roy Cillinger returned to South America perfectly satisfied. You see how simply they avoided that danger.”
“Yeah.”
“So don’t be a dope, George,” Kiggins said.
Molloy overheard, and he winced; he would not have tried genial insult on a man as troubled as George was. He’d have expected a fist blow in return. But he saw that Kiggins had a touch with George, as he’d known she had.
George was grinning sheepishly. “But why’d Anna Griedes stay on in New York as Martha?”
“Oh, that.” Kiggins shrugged. “How many reasons do you want?”
“Eh?”
“There were several,” Kiggins told him. “First, Martha had intended to stay when she came, so to keep the picture natural, the fake Martha stayed. That gave a reason for Martha not being in California. She was here. Nobody would start wondering. Martha couldn’t be in California—she was dead. A fake Martha could only be in New York, where nobody knew Martha.”
George nodded, but asked, “Did they need a phony Martha after they got rid of Roy Cillinger?”
“They sure did. They had to have someone who knew Martha awfully well to keep up the impression that Martha was not dead. To answer Mr. Molloy’s letters, for example, and answer Julie Edwards’ letters.”
“I guess they did, at that,” George said.
“Martha couldn’t disappear. Mr. Molloy would have investigated instantly. She had to seem to be somewhere.”
“Yeah.”
“Then,” Kiggins added, “there was the fact that nobody but Walheim was to know Copeland was in it. Anna Griedes wasn’t to know about Copeland. Copeland was sly—if Walheim was caught, Copeland would claim he knew nothing. And so he went through the motions of believing Anna Griedes was Martha. He hoped to appear innocent to Anna Griedes, so she would have nothing on him, in case the whole mess fell afoul of the law.”
“Copeland fancied himself as the unknown mastermind, huh?”
“That’s it.”
Molloy saw George grin faintly. And Molloy himself relaxed; his own breathing had not been right for the last few minutes, and he made it more regular. Kiggins, with words of one syllable, was talking George out of his feelings of guilt.
Kiggins gestured vaguely. “I imagine there were other angles. Anna Griedes was green at murder, and would feel safer, be less likely to do something in terror that would give it away, if she was far from the murder scene. They probably reasoned that if they kept her busy fooling Copeland, she would have less time to get frightened—idle hands do the most worrying, you know. After murder, it’s hard for the guilty to just wait, I suppose. So they kept her occupied where Copeland could also keep an eye on her.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Feel better?” Kiggins asked.
George’s grin was more genuine. He took Kiggins’ arm, and they went down the stairs.
Molloy was relieved. He felt that he would have tried to soothe George with sympathy, which would have been wrong, because what George had needed was the facts in small words. Kiggins had sensed this. Kiggins was a remarkable woman. But he had known this also.
Molloy stubbed the cigarette out. He had drawn only twice from it. He turned to Julie Edwards, said, “Care to ride into town with me?”
“Yes, thank you,” Julie said.
He noticed her dry-eyed intensity. He took her arm, and they went downstairs—he envying her the restraint which she seemed to regard as an affliction. He wished he had more of it himself—the ability of closer and more sensitive emotional focus was a fine prize.
They went outdoors and, the knife-edged cold whittling on them, dashed to the refuge—windless, but still cold—of the automobile. They were inside, and he banged the door.
He turned the key, the engine took, and he palmed frost off the windshield. He waited, respectful of the needs of a good piece of machinery, for the engine to warm itself.
Silently, he waited. There was, still, no high feeling of having won. He watched Julie lean forward, lay a hand on the view mirror, turn it until she could see herself. The eternal feminine, he thought. She had nice hair, and her face was, in all fairness, lovely. He began to consider the attraction she seemed to have for him whenever the distractions had permitted—and several times in spite of them. There would be leisure now to probe this. He was pleased about that. He was after all a man who was impatient with indecision. Presently he knew inwardly a considerable content.
The car stirred, moved forward, traveled the sweep of driveway. Molloy turned the heater on, and it blew more warmth on them.