A Touch of Death Read Online Free Page A

third. It’s half or nothing.”
    “You’ve got a nerve—”
    “What do you mean, nerve? I’m the one that has to go up there and stick his head in the lion’s mouth and search the place. You don’t take any risk.”
    “All right, all right,” she said. “Relax. I just thought I’d try. A half it is.”
    “That’s better. Now, tell me about it.”
    “All right,” she said. “You know now why I’m so certain he’s dead. He has to be, or he’d have shown up here. Butler was no fool. He knew he didn’t have a chance unless he had a place to hide. So he and I worked it out. I got this apartment several months before he pulled it off. When he took the money and made the break he was to come here, hide in this apartment without even going out on the street for at least two months, until some of the uproar had died down and we had changed his appearance as much as possible. Then we were going to get away to the West Coast in a car and trailer, with Butler riding in the trailer. He’d turn up in San Francisco with a whole new identity. It was a fine idea, of course, except that he never did show up here. His car did, but somebody else drove it.”
    “That’s right.”
    “So you believe me now?” she said.
    “Yes. Certainly. That was the thing that made the difference. The other story didn’t make any sense. As soon as it soaked into my head that you were the woman he was running off with— And, of course, if he didn’t show up here, it was because he couldn’t.”
    “So the money’s still right there in the house in Mount Temple,” she said.
    “That I’m not so sure of. Anybody might have killed him, for that much.”
    “No. Nobody else could have known about it. But she did. The last time I saw him he was afraid she’d put detectives on our trail.”
    “How long have you known them?” I asked. “Were you actually a nurse there in Mount Temple?”
    “Yes. But that was last fall and winter. I’d been back here four months when he actually pulled it off.”
    “He was pretty gone on you?”
    “Maybe. In a way,” she said.
    “You after him? Or the money?”
    “Let’s say both. We believed in taking what we needed, and what we needed was each other. What do you want? Tristan and Isolde?”
    “And now that he’s dead, you’ll settle for the money?” Then I changed it. “For half the money.”
    “That’s right. What should I do? Throw myself off a cliff?”
    “We’ll get along,” I said.
    She crushed the cigarette out with a savage slash at the ashtray. “There’s another thing, too. She’s not going to get away with it. The drunken bitch.”
    Well, I thought, I’ll be a sad...
    “Get this through your head,” I said. “Once and for all. This is a business proposition, or I’m out, as of now. There’ll be no wild-haired babes blowing their tops and killing each other in anything I’m mixed up in. I thought you were tough.”
    She glared at me. “I am,” she said. “What I mean is
    she’s not going to get away with the money.”
    “That’s better. Just keep it in mind.”
    “Mount Temple’s about two hundred miles away,” I
    said. “I can drive it in four hours.”
    She shook her head. “You’ll have to go on the bus.”
    “What do you mean, go on the bus?”
    “Look. You’ll be in that house two days. Maybe three.
    Where are you going to leave your car? In the drive?”
    “I’ll park it somewhere else in town.”
    “No. In that length of time somebody might notice it. The police might impound it. A hundred things could happen.”
    I could see she was right. A car with out-of-town tags sitting around that long might attract attention. But the bus idea wasn’t much better.
    “I’m supposed to get in there and out without being seen by anybody who could identify me afterward. The bus is no good.”
    She nodded. “That’s right, too. We can’t be too careful about that. I think the best thing is for me to drive you up there.”
    “Listen,” I said.