The Anonymous Client

Phyllis gets the report from the detective agency the next day, she investigates. Finds Marilyn has called on a David C. Bradshaw. Now things are popping real nice for Phyllis. She’s already called in a tip to the cops on Phillip Harding being poisoned, and that morning they act on it. The body’s exhumed, arsenic’s found. Marilyn has a tough morning with the cops. When they finally leave, Marilyn gets a phone call. Phyllis, thinking it’s a rendezvous call from Doug, listens in. But it’s not Doug, it’s Bradshaw. With a blackmail demand. Jackpot! Phyllis keeps listening. Better and better. Marilyn had already paid blackmail money. The detectives can swear Marilyn called upon Bradshaw. And Marilyn makes another appointment to see him. And Phyllis knows detectives will follow Marilyn there again.
    “Well, no reason for Phyllis to tag along too. If she tried to, the detectives might spot her. But she knows where Marilyn’s going. She gets out of there fast, goes to Manhattan, stakes out Bradshaw’s apartment from across the street. Waits for the scenario to unfold.
    “What happens? Marilyn arrives, slightly late, since she was held up waiting for Doug. Of course, Phyllis doesn’t know Marilyn was going to meet Doug, since she split right after the Bradshaw call. Had she known that, it might have altered her plans. But she doesn’t know.
    “So Marilyn arrives, goes in, and comes out five minutes later. The detectives are trailing along behind. Great. The stage is set. Phyllis goes up, rings the doorbell, gets buzzed into the apartment, talks to Bradshaw. I don’t know what line she pulled on Bradshaw, but knowing he was a blackmailer, thinking up one couldn’t have been that hard. At any rate, she kids him along, picks up a knife, and zaps him in the back. Voila! Perfect frame.”
    Dirkson shook his head. “Full of holes.”
    “Such as?”
    “What about the ten thousand bucks hidden in the hallway?”
    “Phyllis does that. She knows Marilyn came to pay him off. She searches the body for the ten grand. Finds it. She doesn’t want to leave that money on the body, because why would Marilyn pay him off and then kill him? On the other hand, she wants the money discovered ’cause it will point to Marilyn. So she takes it and hides it in the upstairs hallway. The theory: Marilyn killed Bradshaw, then, trapped in the apartment and afraid she would be discovered with the money on her, hid it and got out. Not a great theory, but the best she could do. The bills have to be discovered to point to Marilyn, and hiding them is slightly more credible than leaving them on the body.
    “Only, what Phyllis doesn’t know is the bills she removed from the body aren’t Marilyn’s, they’re Bradshaw’s, and Marilyn’s ten grand is still left in the money belt. But Phyllis had no reason to suspect there was another ten grand involved.
    “And,” Steve said, “if you want to talk about weak theories, you’re the one dealing with the contention that Marilyn would have paid Bradshaw off, killed him, and then left the money on the body. Frankly, I find that hard to swallow.”
    Dirkson smiled. “I don’t think I’ll have a problem. You’re forgetting the time of death, Winslow. The altercation? The witness? The phone call to the cops? If Phyllis Kemper did what you describe—and I’m not saying she didn’t—by the time she got up the stairs, Donald Blake was dead.”
    “You’re splitting hairs, Dirkson. You’re talking minutes here. No medical examiner can be that exact.”
    “There’s the witness and the phone call.”
    “Sure there is. But how exact is exact? Those detectives who logged the times Marilyn went in and out. You think they got it to the minute?”
    “That’s their job.”
    “Yeah. That’s their job, and I bet they’re aces at it. They probably log everything the instant it happens. Probably set their watches by Greenwich mean time every morning. Totally infallible, I’m sure.”
    Dirkson waved his hand impatiently. “I don’t want to quibble. You save your arguments for the jury. I’m just telling you I don’t think they’re going to pull very much weight.”
    “I don’t want to argue either. I told you, I didn’t come here to discuss the case.”
    “You could have fooled me. I happen to be rather busy, Winslow. You got a point, make it. Otherwise, I got work to do.”
    “All right, I’ll make it. If Marilyn’s found guilty on any count of the Bradshaw murder you’re