The Girl Who Knew Too Much(105)
“It wasn’t easy getting her into the tub, believe me.”
“What about the films?”
“Afterward I searched her room and found the two cans of film.” Claudia got herself back under control. “I now possess the negatives of each of Nick Tremayne’s pornographic films. They’re dynamite because they both feature Nick Tremayne having sex with Ralph.”
“That would be guaranteed to kill Tremayne’s career.”
“Definitely,” Claudia said. “But timing is everything. A year from now when Nick is the next Clark Gable those old films will be worth a fortune. The studio will pay whatever it takes to get ahold of the negatives.”
Irene managed to get her handbag open behind the chair. She reached inside. Her fingers closed around the small gun.
“Blackmailing a major film studio will be a very dangerous proposition,” she said.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Claudia said. “I plan to disappear before I go into business.”
“Does Archie—Nick Tremayne—believe that Betty’s death was an accident?”
“He did at the time. He wanted to believe it, you see. But now I think he’s starting to wonder. Sometimes he looks at me as if he’s no longer sure he can trust me. That other reporter from Whispers is the one who put the doubts in his mind.”
“You murdered Peggy Hackett because she was closing in on the story about the pornographic films, didn’t you?”
“I had to get rid of her. I broke into her house and waited for her upstairs in a hall closet. I couldn’t believe my luck when she had a couple of martinis and then decided to take a bath.”
“The fireplace poker was missing. That’s what you used to kill her.”
“She heard me at the very last instant but by then it was too late.”
“Why did you murder Gloria Maitland?”
“She got too close to Nick,” Claudia said. “They had an affair. He got drunk and made the mistake of telling her about those early films. After he dumped her, she started hounding him. Ogden paid her to go away but she didn’t.”
“Why did she follow Nick to Burning Cove?”
“She told Nick she would give him one last chance to resume their affair. They quarreled.”
“That was the fight that the hotel housekeeper witnessed.”
“Nick has a temper. He lost it and told Gloria he never wanted to see her again. I kept an eye on her. No one ever notices the star’s personal assistant. The next night she spent the evening drinking alone in the lounge. That wasn’t like her. Gloria liked to have people around. When she left, I followed her. When she went into the spa, I knew something was up. I confronted her. She laughed at me. Told me that you would be there any minute. She said that if I came up with more money than Whispers, she’d keep quiet.”
“What did you use to hit her?”
“A rock from the garden,” Claudia said.
“You shoved her into the water to drown, and then you tried to murder me.”
“I didn’t know how much you knew at that point or what you’d seen. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. When you escaped, I got scared. The next morning the story of Gloria Maitland’s drowning was on the front page of Whispers and you had implicated Archie. Ogden called, demanding to know what was going on.”
“You knew you had lost control of the situation. Ernie Ogden took over. He sent someone to search my apartment. He got me evicted. He even got me fired.”
“That should have been enough to silence you but you didn’t go away,” Claudia said. “Ogden said there was no need to worry but I knew he was wrong.”
“So you cooked up the scheme to make me disappear in a fire. Was Ogden in on that plan?”
“No. He had no way of knowing how high the stakes were, you see. He thought that with you off the Gloria Maitland story, everything was under control. But I knew you weren’t going to stop.”
“You were afraid that eventually I’d make the connections between the murders and those two early pornographic films. You used poor Daisy Jennings to lure me to that warehouse. You killed her. If Ernie Ogden wasn’t involved, how did you arrange to send Springer and Dallas to set the fire?”
“It’s no secret at the studio that Ogden uses Hollywood Mack when he wants some muscle work done. I made the call to Mack. Told him that Mr. Ogden wanted Springer and Dallas to throw a real scare into a nosy reporter. I told him I knew exactly where you would be that night and that Mr. Ogden wanted the warehouse set on fire.”
“But you weren’t going to take any chances, were you?” Irene said. “You were going to make sure I was dead first.”