Murder by the Book

I repeated it, with fuller detail. Toward the end she began slowly shaking her head. When I stopped she spoke.

"But that would be a lie-saying you have a copy of the manuscript when you haven't. I couldn't tell them a deliberate lie!"

"Maybe not," I said regretfully. "If you're the kind of person who has never told a lie in all your life, I can't expect you to tell one just to help find the man who killed your brother -and who also killed two young women, ran a car over one of them and pushed the other one out of a window. Even if it couldn't possibly hurt any innocent person, I wouldn't want to urge you to tell your very first lie."

"You don't have to be sarcastic." Her face had turned a mild pink. "I didn't say I never told a lie. I'm no angel. You're perfectly right, I would have done it for the money, only then I wouldn't have known it was a lie." Suddenly her eyes twinkled. "Why don't we start over and do it the other way?"

I would have liked to give her a good hug. "Listen," I suggested, "let's take things in order. We've got to go through his letters first anyhow, there's no objection to that, then we can decide on the next step. You get the letters, huh?"

"I guess so." She arose. "They're in a box in the garage."

"Can I help?"

She said no, thanks, and left me. I got up and crossed to a window to look out at the California climate, I would have thought it was beautiful if I had been a seal. It would be beautiful anyway if one of Dykes's letters had what I was after. I wasn't asking for anything elaborate like an outline of the plot; just one little sentence would do.

When she came back, sooner than I expected, she had two bundles of white envelopes in her hands, tied with string. She put them down on the glass-topped table, sat, and pulled the end of a bowknot

I approached. "Start about a year ago. Say March of last year." I pulled a chair up. "Here, give me some."

She shook her head. "I'll do it."

"You might miss it. It might be just a vague reference."

"I won't miss it. I couldn't let you read my brother's letters, Mr. Thompson."

"Goodwin. Archie Goodwin."

"Excuse me. Mr. Goodwin." She was looking at postmarks.

Evidently she meant it, and I decided to table my motion, at least temporarily. Meanwhile I could do a job. I got out my notebook and pen and started writing at the top of a sheet:

Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin & Briggs 522 Madison Avenue New York, N. Y. Gentlemen: