Lay Her Among The Lilies

I took one of the fat, gold-tipped cigarettes I found in the box and lit it. I hoped it would

make me feel like a moneymaker too, but it didn’t. It looked a lot better than it tasted: that

kind of cigarette usually does.

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Then suddenly, just as I was getting ready to doze, he tossed the papers into the out-tray,

hitched forward his chair, and said, “Now, Mr. Malloy, let’s get at it. I have another

appointment in ten minutes.”

“Then I had better see you some other time,” I said. “We won’t be through in ten minutes. I

don’t know how much you value the Crosby account, Mr. Willet, but it must be worth a tidy

sum. Without shouting it from the house tops it wouldn’t surprise me if you won’t have the

account much longer.”

That jarred him. He stared at me bleakly, crushed out his half-smoked cigarette and leaned

halfway across his desk.

“What exactly do you mean?”

“Do you want it in detail or do you want just a quick peep at it?” I asked. “It’s bad either

way, but in detail it sort of creeps up on you.”

“How long will it take?”

“A half an hour, maybe more; and then you’ll want to ask questions. Say an hour, maybe a

little longer. But you won’t be bored.”

He chewed his lower lip, frowning, then reached for the telephone and cancelled three

appointments all in a row. I could see it hurt him to do it, but he did it. A ten-minute

interview with a guy like Willet would he worth a hundred bucks, maybe more—to him, not

to you.

“Go ahead.” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Why haven’t you been in touch with me

before?”

“That’s part of it.” I told him, and laid my hat under my chair. I had a feeling I might he

buying a new one before very long. “I’ve spent the past five days in an asylum for the

insane.”

But I wasn’t going to jar him so easily again. He made a grunting noise, but his expression

didn’t change.

“Before I get started,” I said, “maybe you might tell me about Miss Crosby’s banking

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account. Did you get a look at it?”

He shook his head.

“The bank manager quite rightly refused. If he had shown it to me and the fact had leaked

out, he would have lost the account: it’s worth a lot of money. But he did tell me the

insurance money had been converted to bearer bonds and has been withdrawn from the

account.”

“Did he say when?”

“Soon after probate.”

“And you have written to Miss Crosby asking her to call on you?”

“Yes. She’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”

“When did you write to her?”

“Tuesday: five days ago.”

“Did she answer by return?”

He nodded.

“Then I don’t think she’ll keep the appointment. Anyway, we’ll see.” I tapped the ash into

his silver ashtray. “All right, that covers the points we made together. Now I’d better get on

with my tale.”

I told him how MacGraw and Hartsell had called on me. He listened, sunk down in his

chair, his eyes as anonymous as a pair of headlights. He neither laughed nor cried when I

described how they had beaten me up. It hadn’t happened to him, so why should he care? But

when I told him how Maureen had appeared on the scene, his brows came down in a frown,

and he allowed himself the luxury of tapping on the edge of his desk with his fingernails.

That was probably the nearest he would ever get to a show of excitement.

‘“She took me to a house on the cliff road, east of San Diego Highway. She said it was

hers: a nice place if you like places that cost a lot of money and are smart enough to house

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movie stars in. Did you know she had it?”

He shook his head.

“We sat around and talked,” I went on. “She wanted to know why I was interested in her,

and I showed her her sister’s letter. For some reason or other she seemed scared. She wasn’t

acting: she was genuinely frightened. I asked her if she was being blackmailed at that time,

and she said she wasn’t, and that Janet was probably trying to make trouble for her. She said

Janet hated her. Did she?”

Willet was playing with a paper-knife now; his face was set, and there was a worried look

in his eyes.

“I understand they didn’t get on: nothing more than that. You know how it is with stepsisters.”

I said I knew how it was with stepsisters.

Time went by for a few minutes. The only sound in the room was the busy tick of Willet’s

desk clock.

“Go on,” he said curtly. “What else did she say?”

“As you know, Janet and a guy named Douglas Sherrill were engaged to be married. What

you probably don’t know is Sherrill is a dark horse; possibly a con man, certainly a crook.

According to Maureen, she stole Sherrill from Janet.”

Willet didn’t say anything. He waited.

“The two girls had a showdown which developed into a fight,” I went on. “Janet grabbed a

shot-gun. Old man Crosby appeared and tried to take the gun away from her. He got shot and

killed.”

I thought for a moment Willet was going to jump right across his desk. But he controlled

himself, and said in a voice that seemed to come from under the floor, “Did Maureen tell you

this?”

“Oh. yes. She wanted to get it off her chest. Now here’s another bit you’ll like. The

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