“Who burned down the studio?”
“That was Betty. She was in love with Nick, you see. He was plain Archie Guthrie in those days. But after he told her that he was going to Hollywood with me, she was furious. She knew that if Archie made it big, those films would make excellent blackmail material.”
“She murdered the man who made those films and the other actor.”
“I honestly don’t know if she intended for that creepy director and Ralph to die in the fire. But they were both there that night, probably passed out. They were heroin addicts.”
“When did you learn that Betty had stolen the two pornographic films?” Irene asked.
“She made her demands right after the release of Nick’s first film, Sea of Shadows. She telephoned him anonymously and told him how much she wanted. Nick panicked. He planned to go straight to Ernie Ogden. But I knew that would be a disaster. Nick was clearly an up-and-coming actor but he wasn’t a real star, not yet. I was sure the studio would drop him rather than pay blackmail. So I told Nick that I would take care of everything.”
“He believed you?”
“Of course.” Claudia smiled. “He needs me and he knows it. I’m the one who slept with three different directors in order to get him his first screen test. I’m the one who came up with the name Nick Tremayne. I’m the one who read his lines with him. I’m the one who worked the lunch counter at Woolworth’s and picked up traveling businessmen in bars in order to pay the rent. I did it so that Nick could focus on his acting.”
“How did you land the job as his personal assistant?”
“It was obvious after the release of Sea of Shadows that women loved Nick Tremayne. The studio publicist wanted Nick to get single in a hurry. Better for his image, they said. They told him that he had to get divorced.”
The penny dropped.
“You and Nick Tremayne were married?” Irene asked.
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“No,” Irene said. “No, it’s all starting to make a lot more sense.”
“The studio said they would pay for me to spend six weeks in Reno at a divorce ranch. For a pitiful amount of money, I was supposed to disappear.”
“They paid you to get the divorce?”
“Not nearly enough to make up for what I would lose in the long run. Not enough to compensate me for the sacrifices I had made. I knew that, unless Nick made some huge mistake, in a few years he would be worth millions. As his wife, I would have gotten a share of the money.”
“But as his ex, you’d wind up with nothing.”
“It wasn’t fair,” Claudia said. “Nick pleaded with me to get the divorce. They were threatening to cancel his contract if I didn’t. I finally told him that I would get the divorce but in exchange he had to find a way to let me stay close to him. I reminded him that I was his best friend. I told him that now that he was becoming famous, the only person he could ever really trust was someone who had been his friend and his lover from the old days.”
“He loved you?”
Claudia snorted. “Archie has never loved anyone but himself. But he knew that he owed me so he convinced the studio to hire me as his personal assistant. They agreed. All they cared about was that Nick Tremayne was single.”
“So you went to Reno, got the divorce, changed your name, and became Nick Tremayne’s personal assistant.”
“Just another Hollywood story,” Claudia said. “But then the blackmail started.”
“How did you figure out that Betty Scott was the extortionist?”
“That wasn’t hard. By then the director and Ralph were both dead. There was no one else who would have had access to those two films. It was obvious that Betty was the one who had possession of Island Nights and Pirate’s Captive.”
“So you decided to get rid of Betty Scott.”
“I told her that I would bring the money to her. I took the train to Seattle. We arranged to meet at the boardinghouse on a night when everyone else was out partying. I went upstairs to her room. She came out into the hall. When she realized I hadn’t brought the cash with me, she was furious. I tried to reason with her. I told her that we could both make a lot of money if we just waited until Nick was a bigger star. She laughed in my face. She said that she’d rather have a bird in the hand.”
“That’s when you killed her?”
“The bitch called me a failed actress.” Claudia’s voice rose in fury. “When she turned around to go into her room, I grabbed the big flower vase off a table and I hit her.”
“Betty Scott was found in the bathtub.”