Do Evil In Return by Margaret Millar

trusted—not Voss, who had no reason, not O’Gorman, whom she feared. O’Gorman had reasons to kill her, but fists are his weapons—there’s nothing fancy or subtle about Eddie. No. The person who might have murdered Violet would have to be someone she liked or trusted well enough to accompany out to the pier near the point where her purse was found. Someone like you, for instance.”
    “She didn’t like or trust me. And you surely can’t be serious about suspecting that I…”
    “I’m curious. I’m curious about the card she was carrying in her purse with your name and address typed on it.”
    “All I can tell you is that I didn’t give it to her.”
    “Some day,” he said, “I’ll find out who did. It might be interesting.” A fly circled the table, came to rest on his knuckles. He didn’t brush it off. He watched it explore the hill of one knuckle and walk gingerly into the valley between his fingers. “Have you ever walked out on the pier late at night?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “I went down there last Friday after midnight looking for a fisherman who’d stabbed a man in a bar. I didn’t find him. I didn’t find anyone, in fact. There wasn’t a soul on the pier and every boat was dark. But it was noisy. The sea was noisy and the wind was noisy and there was a loose piling that kept rubbing against the planks at every wave and shrieking like a gull. A good place for a murder. A push, a drop of fifteen feet into the water, perhaps a scream. But, as I said, there are natural noises out there. They might cover the scream as the night would cover the murderer.” He had been sitting, tense, on the edge of the seat as he described the pier. He leaned back now, visibly relaxing. “Well, that’s what could have happened. And probably didn’t.”
    The fly had discovered the coffee cup and was walking cautiously around the rim like an explorer at the edge of a crater.
    “As for the old man,” Easter said, “there’s no question of murder.”
    “No question? ”
    “His death was natural. No signs of any blows or wounds. He died of an acute peptic ulcer that eroded through a blood vessel and caused a fatal hemorrhage. The argument he had with Voss and O’Gorman probably precipitated the hemorrhage but there’s no way of proving that. Voss and O’Gorman are technically innocent as lambs.”
    She looked incredulous. “You mean you’re not even going to try and find them?”
    “Oh, there’s a warrant out for their arrest, certainly. But not in connection with Violet’s death, or the old man’s. We can’t prove anything there; we can’t prove any charge of attempted extortion; we can’t even prove they locked Mrs. Voss up in the attic. All we have on them is suspicion of armed robbery in connection with the purse they stole from you. Sad, isn’t it?”
    “Yes.”
    “There’s no justice. Go on, say it.”
    “There’s no justice,” she repeated. “But there should be.”
    “Certainly there should be,” he said ironically. “There ought to be a law. Say that one, too—there ought to be a law.”
    “Well, there ought to be!” She spoke in such a loud, angry voice that the man in the next booth turned to stare at her, half anxious, half hopeful, as if he’d like to witness a good quarrel, providing it didn’t get too rough.
    “Looking for someone?” Easter asked.
    “Me?” The man coughed. “Well, no. Not at all.”
    His head disappeared like a turtle’s.
    “Nice girls don’t raise their voices in public,” Easter said. “Or tangle with blackmailers. Of course, there’s always the possibility that you’re not a nice girl, that my eyes have been bedazzled. They are, you know. Absolutely bedazzled. It’s the damnedest thing. Are you interested?”
    “No.”
    “Then you don’t have to blush if you’re not interested.”
    “If I’m blushing, it’s because I’m embarrassed by your impudence.”
    He smiled. “Blushing or unblushing, you look fine… Where was I? Oh yes,