Boulevard.

I was beginning to have an idea why she was so sure Butler was dead.

Three

She came down and let me in when I rang the buzzer. Neither of us said anything until we were back up in the living room. She sat down in the same place she’d been before, across the coffee table, and smiled at me, the eyes cool and a little amused.

“I wondered if you’d be back,” she said. “And how soon.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She lit a cigarette and looked thoughtfully at the smoke. “Let’s put it this way: If you didn’t have sense enough to see it, you wouldn’t be smart enough to be of any help. This is no child’s game, you know. And it could be dangerous as hell.”

“There’s one thing I’m still not too sure of,” I said. “And that’s why you’re so certain she’s the one that killed him and left his car in front of your apartment. Wasn’t there anybody else who could have known he was going to run off with you?”

“It’s not likely. And nobody but that vindictive bitch would have gone to that much trouble and risk of exposure just for the pleasure of letting me know. I mean, leaving the car right out front here. She would do that.”

“How about telling me the whole thing?” I said.

“Suppose you tell me something first,” she said coolly. “Do you want in this, or don’t you?”

“What do you think? I came back, didn’t I?”

“Not worried about breaking the law?”

“Let’s put it this way: Whoever’s got that money is outside the law himself, or herself. So he or she can’t yell cop. And as far as conscience is concerned, you can buy a lot of sleeping pills with sixty thousand dollars.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Who said anything about sixty thousand? I’m offering you a third.”

“And you know what you can do with your 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