Hard Case Crime: Blackmailer by George Axelrod

“Nothing,” he said. “So far as I know she had nothing whatsoever to do with this.”
    “She wasn’t one of your stockholders?”
    Walter laughed shortly. “Of course not!”
    “She had no interest in the book? No access to it?”
    “Absolutely not.”
    “You may be interested to know, Walter, that Jean Dahl came in to my office a week ago and offered to sell me the new Anstruther book for fifty thousand dollars.”
    “Incredible!” Walter said. “Utterly incredible. She was bluffing, of course. There are three typewritten copies of the manuscript in existence. And all three of them are there in my safe.”
    I walked over to the window and looked out at thepark. “Walter,” I said, “what kind of paper are your three copies typed on?”
    Walter looked puzzled.
    “Ordinary typing paper,” he said. “I don’t know what you mean...”
    “Ordinary white paper?”
    “Naturally.”
    Naturally?
    There was nothing natural about it. Jean Dahl had showed me a sheet of yellow paper in the office. A sheet of yellow paper that I was sure was authentic. There was something just a little bit wrong. I didn’t know quite what it was. But something was wrong somewhere.
    Walter rose abruptly and walked toward me.
    “Richard, I have been very patient with you. But I must have a definite answer. I am going in to have breakfast with Janis. Sit here and think. Try to make up your mind.”
    “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll make up my mind. But, listen, Walter, I want you to understand something. I know you’re lying to me about a lot of things. I just want you to know that I realize that. I don’t trust you, Walter. I don’t trust you at all. For all I know you killed Jean Dahl. And for all I know you were the man who called me on the phone last night with your trick imitation of Max Shriber’s voice. I just want you to know that I don’t trust you for a second. You’ve got this house all rigged with sliding pictures and God knowswhat. If I had any sense at all, I’d tell you where to stick your book and get the hell out of here right now.”
    Walter giggled happily.
    “You have a most suspicious nature,” he said. “It’s positively morbid. And, I must say that I admire you for it. I myself am a terribly suspicious person. And as far as this house is concerned...” He giggled again.
    Then he leaned over to his control board and pressed one of the several dozen buttons. He fiddled with the switches for a moment or two. Then I heard the hum of the loudspeaker on the phonograph. Then a whirring sound. Then voices.
    Walter’s voice said, “Richard, you are making yourself perfectly ridiculous. Now let go of me and hand me a towel. Please.”
    Then another voice said, “I’m sorry, Walter. But I’ve got to talk to you.”
    He reached over and pressed another button. The voices stopped.
    Walter was grinning like a little boy. “It’s done with wire recorders,” he said proudly. “I wired the whole thing myself. It’s vastly complicated. I knew absolutely nothing about electricity. But I bought every available book on the subject and taught myself. Look.”
    He fiddled with some more gadgets.
    “This one is really amusing. The pickup is built into the bedstead in my guest room. The way some of my guests do carry on!”
    Over the loudspeaker Janis Whitney’s voice said,“Where the hell is Walter? The coffee is getting cold.”
    Jimmie’s voice said, “He’s still in there with Dick Sherman.”
    “Oh, that one,” Janis said. “I think he’s real cute.”
    Walter switched off the microphone.
    I had to grin.
    “Walter,” I said, “I overestimated you. I thought you were a murderer and a crook and a big operator. Hell, you’re just a nasty, evil-minded old maid.”
    Walter did not seem to be upset. He smiled broadly and said, “Janis is absolutely right, Richard. I think you’re real cute too.”
    He said the words, “I think you’re real cute too,” and for an instant I thought the mike