‘bottle hand’ out of sight inside her jacket when we carried her.... I felt that the bottle might be a good lever later on, and I guessed right. And I didn’t destroy her handbag either. I still have it intact, Forgive me if I don’t say where.”
“So that’s your game!” Dale said at last, taking a deep breath. “Well, I’ll admit one thing, I would never have thought you deep enough to try anything so dangerous as blackmail. For that’s what it is! You realize that?”
“Of course—but I prefer ‘business arrangement’. It doesn’t sound quite so odious.”
“And you know what happens to blackmailers, don’t you?”
“Certainly I do. I’ve examined the situation thoroughly, and I have decided that in this case it’s a reasonable risk. If you are silly enough to tell the police about me you’ll also have to tell them about Janice—and explain away the evidence, which I’ll produce. No doubt I’ll suffer, but not half as much as you will. On the other hand, for five thousand pounds you can have peace and....” Lee lighted a cigarette. “Peace and my unswerving loyalty.”
Dale got up suddenly. He came round the desk in two strides, gripped Lee by the lapels of his jacket and hauled him out of his chair. His cigarette spilled to the carpet.
“Now listen to me,” Dale breathed, pinning him to the wall. “I’m not being a party to your demands, and what’s more I’m going to give you something for your trouble. I’ll—”
There was a tap on the door. With an effort Lee called, “Come in.”
Perforce Dale had to release his hold, and Lee took good care to place a reasonable distance between himself and his employer. He remained grimly passive as a girl clerk came in, a letter in her hand.
“For you to sign, Mr. Dale. That letter to Phillips.”
“Eh?” Dale looked at her as though he wondered who she was.
“Oh, yes! The letter to Phillips. Thanks.”
The girl gave a vaguely puzzled glance from one to the other and then went out again and closed the door. Lee moved forward, recovered his smouldering cigarette from the carpet, and crushed it in the ashtray. In stony calmness he looked at Dale as he pinched finger and thumb to his eyes.
“The little exercise in primitive emotions being over, Mr. Dale, let me underline what I’ve said. I want five thousand pounds by tomorrow morning at the latest—and I don’t want a cheque. Give me that, and you have a guarantor for your movements when Janice Elton died.”
“From the way you talk,” Dale snapped, “one would think I really did murder her.”
“There’s only your word for it that you didn’t, isn’t there? Of course, if you prefer to do battle with the law when it catches up instead of giving me a cent, that’s up to you—but I’ll make it very hard for you, Mr. Dale, Very hard.”
Dale moved to the desk and sat down heavily. He sat looking at Lee fixedly for a moment before he spoke.
“The thing to do at this moment, Lee, is ask a question—the same question that all victims ask the blackmailer. How do I know you’ll keep to your side of the bargain if I pay you five thousand pounds?”
Lee grinned. “You don’t know I will: you’ll have to trust me, just as you’ve done for the last twenty years.”
“Trust you! What an idiot you must think I am! No, Lee, it won’t work. Whatever the consequences I’m going to report your behaviour to the police. Now get out, before I kick your miserable hide through that doorway!”
“Obviously, you haven’t weighed up every angle,” Lee sighed. “On what grounds are you going to report me to the police? You haven’t a single witness of what I’ve said, and on my side there are no demands in writing. Threats of extortion, don’t they call it? Finally, I’d deny everything, and you’d be left trying to explain away the matter of Janice—her last note to whomsoever it might concern, and the poison bottle. Naturally, if you, report me to the police I’ll give them tremendous assistance without involving myself.”
Dale muttered something under his breath. Aloud he said: “Quite a schemer, Lee, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I rather flatter myself that I am. I play chess a lot, you know—and as the immortal Sherlock once said, that’s a sure sign of a scheming mind.... Your move, Mr. Dale, and your queen is in danger.”
Silence. Dale picked up his ballpoint and studied it absently, and then he put it down again. Lee spread his hands.
“Such a lot of fuss when we can really be quite amicable about it,” he protested. “You’re worth scores of thousands of pounds, Mr. Dale, and five thousand would be a mere button off the shirt to you—yet a fortune to a middle-class clerk like me. Out of it we’d both get peace and quiet.... Good Lord, it isn’t even sensible to haggle over it.”
“You detestable little rat,” Dale whispered.
Lee shrugged. “All right, so I’m a rat. I don’t blame you for letting off steam, but I’m adamant just the same. When you make a mistake like you have you’ve got to pay for it.”
“I’ve made no mistake beyond the one of having you for a head clerk. And I did not murder Janice Elton.”
“Don’t waste time telling me, Mr. Dale. Save it for the police when they get here.”
Through a long interval Dale sat thinking. Finally he slapped his hands palm down on the desk.
“All right, Lee, you’ve caught me on the hop—but for that five thousand pounds I demand a receipt. I want that poison bottle and Janice’s bag with the letter inside it.”
Lee hesitated and then he nodded. “Very well.... That still leaves me with a trump card, which I can’t possibly give you.”
“Trump card? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about myself. I’m your witness, remember? I could deny that you were ever with me if it suited my purpose.”
“But I’m paying you five thousand pounds to swear that you were! What kind of a scoundrel are you?”
“I’m no scoundrel; I am merely trying to make money out of the man who’s ridden rough shod over me for a very long time. All right, you’ll get your receipt, but the rest I reserve to myself.”
“So you can bleed me again when the mood seizes you?”
“I’m sorry you have such a poor opinion of my honour, Mr. Dale. Don’t worry; you’ve nothing to fear, and I shall expect the money by tomorrow morning at the latest—in cash, as I said before.”
“It’ll be here this afternoon,” Dale snapped. “When you go for lunch don’t forget that you’ve two things to bring back with you—the handbag and the poison bottle. I was a damned fool to let you take charge of them in the first place.”
“Just one of those things,” Lee smiled. “On the other hand, if you had had them in your possession and for some reason the police had suddenly swooped, it would have been—well, awkward, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, get out of here!” Dale exclaimed bitterly. “Get back to your own office and stop there!”
“I’ll have to come in now and again in the ordinary course of business, I’m afraid.”
“Make it as seldom as possible!”
Lee went, the smile still on his thin features....
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