No Business of Mine

“You’re through, Netta,” I said, standing over her. “Get that into your thick little skull. If you hadn’t killed Littlejohns I might have played with you, but you killed him to save your rotten skin, and that let me out. What the hell do you think I am? A sucker? I wouldn’t cover up anyone who did what you did to Littlejohns.”

Netta crawled to her feet, then flopped limply on the chaise-longue, buried her face in her hands.

I turned to Corridan who was still staring at the heap of jewellery as if hypnotized.

“Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” I said. “I promised myself I’d crack the Allenby case because you acted so damn high-hat. I’ve done it.”

Corridan’s face was a study. He looked at Netta, at me. “But how did you know she had the stuff on her?” he demanded.

“You’ll be surprised how much I do know,” I said. “She and Jack Bradley were behind the Allenby robbery. I’ll give you all the facts, and then you can manufacture the evidence. Do you want to hear?”

“Of course, I want to hear,” he said, knelt down, scooped up the jewellery, dropped it back into the belt. “How did you get on to this?”

He put the belt on the table.

“I got on to it because I never believed Netta committed suicide,” I said, lighting a cigarette and perching myself on the table. “I was sure she hadn’t killed herself after I had searched the flat. Most of her clothes and all her silk stockings had vanished. I’ve known Netta for some time, and have a good idea of her character. She wasn’t the type to commit suicide, and she had a passion for clothes. It seemed to me, after the body had been kidnapped, that some other girl had died in her flat, and Netta, taking fright, had run off with as many of her clothes as she could carry.”

Corridan leaned against the wall, eyed me.

“You told me all that before,” he said, “and I worked that out for myself anyway.”

“Sure,” I said. “But there was plenty still to puzzle me. For one thing, who was the dead girl? Then another thing foxed me. Why should Netta, although she’d taken time to pack her clothes, have left sixteen five-pound notes in the flat and that bunch of bonds worth five thousand pounds? That got me for some time until Madge Kennitt told me a girl and a man had been with Netta that night. The girl was obviously the one who’d died. The man either killed her or was Netta’s accomplice. It seemed to me the reason why Netta had left the money in the flat was because she didn’t trust her companion, and he didn’t give her a chance to get the money from its hiding-place without him seeing her do it. So she had to leave it there, but hoped to collect it later, but I found it first.” I glanced over at Netta, but she didn’t look up. She sat with her head in her hands, motionless.

“Go on,” Corridan said quietly.

“Who was the mysterious man, and why didn’t she want him to know about the money?” I went on. “I’ve talked to Netta, and she has told me he was Peter French, who was Anne’s lover. That’s another way of saying he was Netta’s lover. You see, Netta never had a sister. But we’ll come back to Peter French in a moment.

“Nine months ago, Netta married Jack Bradley. For some reason they kept the marriage a secret, and they didn’t live together except at weekends which they spent in a cottage at Lakeham, bought by Bradley as a hide-out for them both. Netta called herself Anne Scott when she was at Lakeham. She tells me that French killed her sister because she knew he had killed George Jacobi. Since she never had a sister, that was obviously a lie. Who then was the girl who had died in Netta’s flat, and was later found in the cottage? I want you to get this clear, Corridan. The girl who was kidnapped from the mortuary and the girl we found in the cottage were one and the same.”

Corridan pursed his lips. “But one was a redhead and the other was a blonde,” he said. “How do you account for that?”

“Netta explained it to me,” I said. “She tells me that French dyed the girl’s hair and bleached it back to its normal colour after he had removed the body to the cottage.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Corridan muttered.

I nodded. “It wants a little believing,” I said, “but after thinking it over, it seems to me that’s what happened. If the girl wasn’t Netta’s sister, and I’ve proved beyond doubt that Netta never had a sister, then who was she and why was she murdered, and why was the murderer so anxious to prevent her being identified?”

“Have you found that out?” Corridan asked eagerly.

“I think so,” I returned. “Not only have I found it out, but Littlejohns found it out, too. That’s why he died.”

“Who was it then?”

“Selma Jacobi, the wife of George Jacobi who was murdered by Jack Bradley,” I said.

Netta sat up, glared across at me.

“It’s a lie!” she screamed. “Jack didn’t kill him. It was Peter French.”