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will trust me after Iā€™ve turned on a blush or two for ā€˜em. So Madeline and I were in the money. She had brains, nerve, and a good front. I have everything but brains. We turned a couple of tricks ā€” one con and one blackmail ā€” and then she ran into Jerome Falsoner. We were going to give him the squeeze at first. But when Madeline found out that Sara was his heiress, that she was in debt, and that she and her uncle were on the outs, we ditched that racket and cooked a juicier one. Madeline found somebody to introduce me to Sara. I made myself agreeable, playing the boob ā€” the shy but worshipful young man.

ā€œMadeline had brains, as Iā€™ve said. She used ā€˜em all this time. I hung around Sara, sending her candy, books, flowers, taking her to shows and dinner. The books and shows were part of Madelineā€™s work. Two of the books mentioned the fact that a husband canā€™t be made to testify against his wife in court, nor wife against husband. One of the plays touched the same thing. That was planting the seeds. We planted another with my blushing and mumbling ā€” persuaded Sara, or rather let her discover for herself, that I was the clumsiest liar in the world.

ā€œThe planting done, we began to push the game along. Madeline kept on good terms with Jerome. Sara was getting deeper in debt. We helped her in still deeper. We had a burglar clean out her apartment one night ā€” Ruby Sweeger, maybe you know him. Heā€™s in stir now for another caper. He got what money she had and most of the things she could have hocked in a pinch. Then we stirred up some of the people she owed, sent them anonymous letters warning them not to count too much on her being Jeromeā€™s heir. Foolish letters, but they did the trick. A couple of her creditors sent collectors to the trust company.

ā€œJerome got his income from the estate quarterly. Madeline knew the dates, and Sara knew them. The day before the next one, Madeline got busy on Saraā€™s creditors again. I donā€™t know what she told them this time, but it was enough. They descended on the trust company in a flock, with the result that the next day Sara was given two weeksā€™ pay and discharged. When she came out I met her ā€” by chance ā€” yes, Iā€™d been watching for her since morning. I took her for a drive and got her back to her apartment at six oā€™clock. There we found more frantic creditors waiting to pounce on her. I chased them out, played the big-hearted boy, making embarrassed offers of all sorts of help. She refused them, of course, and I could see decision coming into her face. She knew this was the day on which Jerome got his quarterly check. She determined to go see him, to demand that he pay her debts at least. She didnā€™t tell me where she was going, but I could see it plain enough, since I was looking for it.

ā€œI left her and waited across the street from her apartment, in Franklin Square, until I saw her come out. Then I found a telephone, called up Madeline, and told her Sara was on her way to her uncleā€™s flat.ā€

Landowā€™s cigarette scorched his fingers. He dropped it, crushed it under his foot, lighted another.

ā€œThis is a long-winded story, Rush,ā€ he apologised, ā€œbut itā€™ll soon be over now.ā€

ā€œKeep talking, son,ā€ said Alec Rush.

ā€œThere were some people in Madelineā€™s place when I phoned her ā€” people trying to persuade her to go down the country on a party. She agreed now. They would give her an even better alibi than the one she had cooked up. She told them she had to see Jerome before she left, and they drove her over to his place and waited in their car while she went in with him.

ā€œShe had a pint bottle of cognac with her, all doped and ready. She poured out a drink of it for Jerome, telling him of the new bootlegger she had found who had a dozen or more cases of this cognac to sell at a reasonable price. The cognac was good enough and the price low enough to make Jerome think she had dropped in to let him in on something good. He gave her an order to pass on to the bootlegger. Making sure his steel paper-knife was in full view on the table, Madeline rejoined her friends, taking Jerome as far as the door so they would see he was still alive, and drove off.

ā€œNow I donā€™t know what Madeline had put in that cognac. If she told me, Iā€™ve forgotten. It was a powerful drug ā€” not a poison, you understand, but an excitant. Youā€™ll see what I mean when you hear the rest. Sara must have reached her uncleā€™s flat ten or fifteen minutes after Madelineā€™s departure. Her uncleā€™s face, she says, was red, inflamed, when he opened the door for her. But he was a frail man, while she was strong, and she wasnā€™t afraid of the devil himself, for that matter. She went in and demanded that he settle her debts, even if he didnā€™t choose to make her an allowance out of his income.

ā€œThey were both Falsoners, and the argument must have grown hot. Also the drug was working on Jerome, and he had no will with which to fight it. He attacked her. The paper-knife was on the table, as Madeline had seen. He was a maniac. Sara was not one of your corner-huddling, screaming girls. She grabbed the paper-knife and let him have it. When he fell, she turned and ran.

ā€œHaving followed her as soon as Iā€™d finished telephoning to Madeline, I was standing on Jeromeā€™s front steps when she dashed out. I stopped her and she told me sheā€™d killed her uncle. I made her wait there while I went in, to see if he was really dead. Then I took her home, explaining my presence at Jeromeā€™s door by saying, in my boobish, awkward way, that I had been afraid she might do something reckless and had thought it best to keep an eye on her.

ā€œBack in her apartment, she was all for giving herself up to the police. I pointed out the danger in that, arguing that, in debt, admittedly going to her uncle for money, being his heiress, she would most certainly be convicted of having murdered him so she would get the money. Her story of his attack, I persuaded her, would be laughed at as a flimsy yarn. Dazed, she wasnā€™t hard to convince. The next step was easy. The police would investigate her, even if they didnā€™t especially suspect her. I was, so far as we knew, the only person whose testimony could convict her. I was loyal enough, but wasnā€™t I the clumsiest liar in the world? Didnā€™t the mildest lie make me blush like an auctioneerā€™s flag? The way around that difficulty lay in what two of the books I had given her, and one of the plays we had seen, had shown: if I was her husband I couldnā€™t be made to testify against her. We were married the next morning, on a license I had been carrying for nearly a week.

ā€œWell, there we were. I was married to her. She had a couple of million coming when her uncleā€™s affairs were straightened out. She couldnā€™t possibly, it seemed, escape arrest and conviction. Even if no one had seen her entering or leaving her uncleā€™s flat, everything still pointed to her guilt, and the foolish course I had persuaded her to follow would simply ruin her chance of pleading self-defence. If they hanged her, the two million would come to me. If she got a long term in prison, Iā€™d have the handling of the money at least.ā€

Landow dropped and crushed his second cigarette and stared for a moment straight ahead into distance.

ā€œDo you believe in God, or Providence, or Fate, or any of that, Rush?ā€ he asked. ā€œWell, some believe in one thing and some in another, but listen. Sara was never arrested, never even really suspected. It seems there was some sort of Finn or Swede who had had a run-in with Jerome and threatened him. I suppose he couldnā€™t account for his whereabouts the night of the killing, so he went into hiding when he heard of Jeromeā€™s murder. The police suspicion settled on him. They looked Sara up, of course, but not very thoroughly. No one seems to have seen her in the street, and the people in her apartment house, having seen her come in at six oā€™clock with me, and not having seen her ā€” or not remembering if they did ā€” go out or in again, told the police she had been in all evening. The police were too much interested in the missing Finn, or whatever he was, to look any further into Saraā€™s affairs.

ā€œSo there we were again. I was married into the money, but I wasnā€™t fixed so I could hand Madeline her cut. Madeline said weā€™d let things run along as they were until the estate was settled up, and then we could tip Sara off to the police. But by the time the money was settled up there was another hitch. This one was my doing. I ā€” I ā€” well, I wanted to go on just as we were. Conscience had nothing to do with it, you understand? It was simply that ā€” well ā€” that living on with Sara was the only thing I wanted. I wasnā€™t even sorry for what Iā€™d done, because if it hadnā€™t been for that I would never have had her.

ā€œI donā€™t know whether I can make this clear to you, Rush, but even now I donā€™t regret any of it. If it could have been different ā€” but it couldnā€™t. It had to be this way or none. And Iā€™ve had those six months. I can see that Iā€™ve been a chump. Sara was never for me. I got her by a crime and a trick, and while I held on to a silly hope that some day sheā€™d ā€” sheā€™d look at me as I did at her, I knew in my heart all the time it was no use. There had been a man ā€” your Millar. Sheā€™s free now that itā€™s out about my being married to Polly, and I hope she ā€” I hope ā€” Well, Madeline began to howl for action. I told Sara that Madeline had had a child by Jerome, and Sara agreed to settle some money on her. But that didnā€™t satisfy Madeline. It wasnā€™t sentiment with her. I mean, it wasnā€™t any feeling for me, it was just the money. She wanted every cent she could get, and she couldnā€™t get enough to satisfy her in a settlement of the kind Sara wanted to make.

ā€œWith Polly, it was that too, but maybe a little more. Sheā€™s fond of me, I think. I donā€™t know how she traced me here after she got out of the Wisconsin big house, but I can see how she figured things. I was married to a wealthy woman. If the woman died ā€” shot by a bandit in a hold-up attempt ā€” then Iā€™d have money, and Polly would have both me and money. I havenā€™t seen her, wouldnā€™t know she was in Baltimore if you hadnā€™t told me, but thatā€™s the way it would work out in her mind. The killing idea would have occurred just as easily to Madeline. I had told her I wouldnā€™t stand for pushing the game through on Sara. Madeline knew that if she went ahead on

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