Payoff for the Banker by Frances and Richard Lockridge Page A

after she had finished. Then he shook his head.
    â€œThat’s not good enough,” he said. “You don’t seem to get the situation, Miss Burke. I can take you in as it is—as it is right now. On the basis of the letter. And let you try to work your way out of it. Unless you sell me a better story.”
    â€œThat’s the way it was,” the girl said. “Really.”
    â€œNo,” Bill said. “Not unless Ozzie is lying. He says Merle was never at the apartment.”
    â€œHe—” the girl said. “I don’t believe he said that.”
    â€œRight,” Bill said. “You don’t believe he said it. I do. We can take you both down. You can ask him. If you get a chance. We can say you and he were in it together.”
    Her eyes widened. She stood up suddenly and her voice, too, went up.
    â€œWe weren’t in anything together,” she said. She almost screamed it. “Not in anything . You can’t make that stick.”
    Weigand did not meet her mood. His voice was level, casual. He said they could try.
    â€œIf Ozzie said that,” she said, “it was—it was because he didn’t know. He—”
    â€œDidn’t know what?” Weigand said. “That Merle was visiting you? While he was paying your apartment rent—while Ozzie was? Is that what Murdock didn’t know?”
    The girl looked at him and now her eyes were narrow—speculative. She raised her hands and pushed back her hair, which fell in curves around her face. The movement rounded the silk against her body. She let her hands drop and suddenly she shrugged just perceptibly. She sat down again. Her voice regained its studied depth as she spoke.
    â€œSuppose it was,” she said. “Suppose—what you want to suppose. Why would I kill him? Suppose I was crossing Ozzie up.”
    â€œYou were?” Bill said.
    â€œSuppose I was,” she said. “Suppose the old boy thought I was—well, thought I was something he wanted. Suppose he made a good bid and I decided a girl’s got to live. Would I tell Ozzie everything?”
    â€œNot if Mr. Merle was satisfied with things that way,” Bill said. “Was he?”
    â€œHe was—suppose he was scared as hell,” she said. “Scared people would find out if he—if he got me an honest-to-God place to live. Suppose he wanted me to go on with Ozzie as—as a way to cover up. Suppose he came through with enough—”
    â€œTo make it worth your while not to hold out for an honest-to-God place to live. And the rest of it,” Bill finished. “Are you saying that was the way it was? A dirty trick on Ozzie?”
    â€œWhat the hell,” the girl said. “You only live once. Is it any of your business?”
    â€œNot that part of it,” Bill Weigand told her. “Unless you killed Merle.”
    â€œWhy would I?” she said. “With things that way I wouldn’t have any reason. I’d want to keep him alive. But Ozzie—”
    â€œBut Ozzie wouldn’t,” Weigand said. He looked at her. She was something to look at; but he was no longer even speculatively carnivorous. “So you want to throw us Murdock,” he said.
    â€œI’m not throwing you anybody,” she told him. “I’m just telling you the way things could have been. Nobody’s going to hang it on me. I’ve got to look after myself.”
    â€œYou seem to,” Weigand told her.
    â€œWhat the hell,” the girl said, “who doesn’t?”
    Bill Weigand could think of a lot of people who didn’t; he could think of casualty lists. But there was no point to it.
    â€œRight,” Weigand said. “So this is your story.”
    He sketched it for her, and as he did so he admitted to himself that it fitted well enough—fitted with the few pieces of the puzzle he had so far found—with Merle’s interest in antiques, for