The Guilty Are Afraid

“You were good, but not quite good enough,” I said, watching her. “As an actress you were superb, but you were only a second-rate liar. You were doing fine until you tried to sell me the idea that Thrisby owned the match-folder. That dinner you described never took place. Thrisby was fooling around with a new girlfriend on that particular night and Bridgette was up at his house. That was a clumsy lie, Margot, and it led me right to you.”

She sat down abruptly and hid her face in her hands.

“I was puzzled why you should have lent me this bungalow,” I went on. “It was so out of character, but now I can see you were taking precautions. If I got to be a nuisance you might have to get rid of me. This is a conveniently lonely place to kill a man in, isn’t it?”

She looked up then, her face white and her eyes glittering. She still looked beautiful, but it was a hard, dangerous beauty.

“And you had this under your pillow,” I said, holding up the icepick. “It explains why Sheppey’s killing appeared to be so expert and Thelma Cousins’ death so clumsy. When you have a man in your arms, Margot, it is easy to reach under your pillow, take out the pick and drive it into the back of his neck. That’s what you planned to do to me, wasn’t it? Thelma, of course, would have been standing when you struck her, and in that position it would be much more difficult to kill cleanly.” I looked at her. “Well, say something. You killed Sheppey, didn’t you?”

She shook her head.

“You don’t understand,” she said, the words spilling out of her mouth. “He was blackmailing me. He found the folder and he stole it from me. He said he wouldn’t give it back to me unless I submitted to him. He forced himself on me. I killed him in self-defence.”

“You’ll have to lie better than that, Margot. Sheppey wasn’t a blackmailer. He had lots of faults, but he wouldn’t go as low as that. It’s much more complicated than that. Let me tell you what I think happened,” I said, and sat on the edge of the bed. “Thrisby and you were short of money. You were in love with him and he appeared to be in love with you. He got money out of Bridgette, and you two spent it. But Bridgette was no fool. She began to suspect what was going on. She probably got someone like Hammerschult to hire Sheppey to watch you. It must have been fun for Sheppey to follow you around. I bet he fell for you a lot faster than I did. You persuaded him to double-cross Bridgette and not tell her you were Thrisby’s mistress. I am quite sure you rewarded him. Unfortunately for him, he stumbled on the match-folder racket. He got hold of your folder. You had to get it back. You can’t live without your regular shot, can you? So you decided to kill him.”

“No!” she exclaimed, beating her fists together. “It didn’t happen like that! He attacked me. . . .”

“And you had an icepick handy? You planned it, Margot.”

“I didn’t! You’ve got to believe me. . .”

“Then why did you go to his hotel in an elaborate disguise? The black wig, the sunglasses and the get-up made you feel safe when you lured Sheppey to that bathing cabin. You had to be sure no one at the hotel could identify you. The hotel dick was smart enough to see through your disguise, but I was mug enough not to listen to him. Because Sheppey was double-crossing Bridgette, he accepted your disguise. You had only to point out to him that Bridgette mustn’t see you two together for him to accept the wig and the dark glasses. Anyway, you probably gave him that look of invitation you gave me. He wouldn’t care what colour your hair was so long as you made good on that invitation. You got him to the beach cabin and you killed him. When you found he hadn’t the match-folder on him, you took the key of his room, went to the hotel and hunted for the folder there, but you didn’t find it.”

She crossed her arms over her breasts and shivered.

“I don’t want to hear any more of this,” she said. “It’s not true.”