You Find Him – I'll Fix Him

  "I know it is a dreadful thing to say," she went on, "but it is the truth. If you probe into her past you will find this out for yourself. She was utterly rotten. This wasn't the first time she was pregnant: a thing like that wouldn't have worried her. She knew what to do and who to go to. The men she went around with were degenerates and criminals. If anyone deserved to be murdered, she did!"

  I drew in a long, slow breath.

  "And yet you don't think she was murdered?" I said.

  "I don't know." She stared at me. "All I do know is that the police are satisfied she died accidentally. Why can't you be satisfied?"

  "Your husband has told me to make an investigation. That's an order."

  "If you investigate her death as a murder, you are certain to uncover a whole series of unpleasant facts about her. I am sure she behaved in Rome as she has behaved in New York. It will be impossible to conceal these facts from my husband. He is completely convinced that Helen was a decent, clean-living girl. The facts you will have to tell him will shock him. He won't forgive you for shattering his illusions about his daughter, nor is he likely to employ a man in the most important position on his newspaper who has shown him how completely fooled he has been about such a worthless degenerate as his daughter was. Now do you understand why I am asking you not to probe too deeply into this business?"

  I reached out, picked up my glass and finished my whisky.

  "How is it you know so much about Helen Chalmers?" I asked.

  "I'm not blind and I'm not stupid. I've known her for some years. I've seen the men she associated with. Her behaviour was notorious."

There was more to it than that: I was sure of it, but I didn't say so.

  "This puts me on a spot," I said. "Mr. Chalmers has told me if I don't uncover the facts, I won't get the job. Now you tell me if I do, I still won't get it. So what do I do?"

  "Don't uncover them, Mr. Dawson. Delay things. After a while, my husband will get over the shock of her death. At the moment he is furious and revengeful, but when he gets back to New York and is caught-up once more in his work, he will calm down. In a couple of weeks' time you can safely report no progress. I can assure you he will let the matter drop. I can promise you, if you don't start an investigation you will get the foreign desk, but if you do, I am sure my husband, when he learns the truth about Helen, will never forgive you."

  "So you suggest I sit back and do nothing?"

  Just for a moment her fixed smile slipped. Into her eyes jumped a staring fear that startled me. It was there for a split second, then the smile came back, but I had seen her fear all right.

  "Of course you will have to make out to my husband that you are doing your best, Mr. Dawson. You will have to send him reports, but no one can blame you if you don't discover any worth-while information." She leaned forward and put her hand on mine. "Please don't check up on Helen's life in Rome. I have to live with my husband. I know how he would react if he knew the truth about Helen. It was I who persuaded him to let her go to Rome, and he would blame me, so it's not only for your sake I'm asking you to do this, it's for mine as well."

  I was sitting facing the reception hall and I saw Chalmers come out of the elevator and go over to the reception desk. I pulled my hand from hers and got to my feet.

  "Here's Mr. Chalmers now."

  Her mouth tightened, and she turned to wave to Chalmers who came over. He carried a light overcoat on his arm and a despatch case in his hand.

  "Hello, Dawson, did you want to see me?" he asked as he put down his case. "We haven't much time."

  I had intended to tell him about the missing films and about the Renault that had followed me, but now, having listened to June Chalmers, I decided I needed some time to think over what she had said before I committed myself. I was suddenly stuck to explain what I was doing here.

  But June wasn't.

  "Mr. Dawson brought Helen's camera," she said. For a moment I wondered how she knew the camera was Helen's, but glancing at the case, I realized she had spotted Helen's initials on it. All the same this show of quick-wittedness told me she was a lot smarter than I had imagined. Chalmers scowled at the camera.

  "I don't want it. I don't want any of her things," he said curtly. "Get rid of it."

  I said I would do that.

  "Did you find anything up at the villa?"

  I caught June's anxious eyes. I shook my head.

  "Nothing helpful."

  He grunted.

  "Well, I expect results. We've got to find this punk fast. Get some men on the job. I expect to hear something by the time I get back to New York ... understand?"

  I said I understood.

  He took from his pocket a Yale key.

  "The police gave me this. It's the key to her apartment in Rome. You'd better arrange to have her things collected and sold. I'll leave it to you. I don't want anything sent back."

  I took the key.

  "We should be going, Sherwin," June said suddenly.

  He looked at his strap watch.