The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle were falling into place. They didn’t make sense yet, but I had a feeling they soon would.For some reason or other Hamilton Royce and Fay Benson had left Tampa City and had gone to Welden. There someone had paid Hank Flemming to kidnap and murder Fay, and Royce had returned to Tampa City on the day she died.I liked him for the role of the man who had paid Flemming to kill Fay, but until I found out why she had been killed, I could take no action against him.Then suddenly out of the blue Cornelia appears in this so far motiveless drama. According to ex-Police Captain Bradley she was his suspect No.1 for Van Blake’s murder. If she had murdered her husband even by proxy she would be wide open to blackmail. She had dined twice in Paris with an unsuccessful showgirl, and that showgirl had been a blackmailer. Blackmail could be the only reason, so far as I could see, why Cornelia had met Joan Nichols twice. It would explain too why she had hesitated to admit knowing her, and why she was anxious that I shouldn’t go to Paris to stir up more trouble for her.
