“Thaler and Miss Brand aren’t strangers,” I said. “Willsson brought a five-thousand-dollar check here, and was killed leaving. That way, Miss Brand might have had trouble cashing it—if Willsson hadn’t been thoughtful enough to get it certified.”
“My God!” the girl protested, “if I’d been going to kill him I’d have done it in here where nobody could have seen it, or waited until he got out of sight of the house. What kind of a dumb onion do you take me for?”
“I’m not sure you killed him,” I said. “I’m just sure that the fat chief means to hang it on you.”
“What are you trying to do?” she asked.
“Learn who killed him. Not who could have or might have, but who did.”
“I could give you some help,” she said, “but there’d have to be something in it for me.”
“Safety,” I reminded her, but she shook her head.
“I mean it would have to get me something in a financial way. It’d be worth something to you, and you ought to pay something, even if not a fortune.”
“Can’t be done.” I grinned at her. “Forget the bank roll and go in for charity. Pretend I’m Bill Quint.”
Dan Rolff started up from his chair, lips white as the rest of his face. He sat down again when the girl laughed—a lazy, good-natured laugh.
“He thinks I didn’t make any profit out of Bill, Dan.” She leaned over and put a hand on my knee. “Suppose you knew far enough ahead that a company’s employees were going to strike, and when, and then far