I
There was a time when I proudly imagined I had a well-furnished, impressive, non-gaudy, super-de-luxe office to work in. Between us, Paula and I had spent a lot of hard-earned money on the desk, the carpet, the drapes and the book-cases. We had even run to a couple of original water colours by a local artist who, to judge by his prices, considered himself in the Old Master class: probably he was, although it was a pretty close-kept secret. But all this was before I had a chance of seeing the other offices in Orchid Buildings. Some of them were smarter than mine, some were not, but those I had seen didn’t make me wish to change mine until I walked into the office of Manfred Willet, the President of Glynn & Coppley, Attorneys at Law. Then I saw at a glance I would have to save many more dollars before I could hope to get anywhere near the super-de-luxe class. His office made mine look like an Eastside slum.
It was a big room, high ceilinged and oak panelled. A desk, big enough to play billiards on, stood at the far end of the room before three immense windows, stretching up to the ceiling. There were four or five lounging chairs and a big chesterfield grouped around a fireplace that could have been used as a hidey-hole for a small-sized elephant. The fitted carpet was thick enough to be cut with a lawn mower.
On the over-mantel and scattered around the room on tricky little tables were choice pieces of jade carvings. The desk furniture was of solid silver that glittered with loving care and constant polishing. Off-white Venetian blinds kept out the sun. A silent air-conditioning plant controlled the temperature. Double windows, sound-proof walls and a rubber-lined door insisted on complete silence. A stomach rumble in this office would sound like a ton of gravel going down a shoot.
Manfred Willet sat in a padded, swivelled chair behind the immense desk, smoking a fat oval cigarette fitted with a gold-tipped mouthpiece. He was tall and solid, around forty-five. His dark hair was flecked with grey, his clean-shaven, strikingly-handsome face matched the colour of his mahogany desk. His London-cut suit would have made any movie star green with envy, and his linen was as immaculate and as white as the first snowdrop of spring.
He let me talk. His grey-green eyes didn’t shift from the elaborate silver pen set on his desk. His big frame didn’t move. His mahogany-coloured face was as expressionless and as empty as a hole in a wall.
I began by showing him Janet Crosby’s letter, then told him about my visit to Crestways, the state of the place, that Maureen was supposed to be ill, that Janet had been playing tennis two days before she died of endocarditis. I mentioned Dr. Bewley, and that Benny Dwan, who worked for Dr. Salzer, had tailed me. I told him briefly of my visit to Eudora Drew, how Dwan had arrived and had strangled her. I dwelt on my interview with Captain of Police Brandon, and how he had warned me to lay off Salzer and Maureen Crosby. I mentioned casually that Brandon was prejudiced in their favour and why. I went on to describe how Dwan had tried to shoot me, and how he had been knocked off by someone who drove a car with diamond-tread tyres. I mentioned that Sergeants MacGraw and Hartsell had driven a car fitted with such tyres. I concluded by telling him of my visit to Nurse Gurney’s apartment, and of the fat woman who ate plums and how Nurse Gurney had vanished. It was a long story, and it took time to tell, but he didn’t hurry me or interrupt me or suggest I should cut out the details. He sat staring at his pen set, as still as the Graven Image, and I had an idea he wasn’t missing anything, that every little detail registered, and behind that blank, empty mahogany face, his brain was very, very much awake.
“Well, that’s the story,” I concluded, and reached forward to knock my cigarette ash into the ashtray on his desk. “I thought that you, as the Trustee of the estate, should know about it. I have been told by Brandon to return the five hundred dollars.” I took out my wallet and laid the money on the desk, put my finger on it and without any show of reluctance, pushed it towards him. “Strictly speaking that lets me out. On the other hand you may think there should be an investigation, and if that’s what you think I would be glad to carry on. Frankly, Mr. Willet, the set-up interests me.”
He turned his eyes on me and stared. Seconds ticked by. I had the idea he wasn’t seeing me. He was certainly thinking.
“This is an extraordinary story,” he said suddenly. “I don’t think I would have believed it if I didn’t know your organization by reputation. You have handled several tricky jobs for clients of mine, and they have spoken very highly of you. From what you have told me I think we have grounds to begin an investigation, and I should be glad if you would handle it.”
He pushed back his chair and stood up. “But it must be understood that such an investigation must be secret, and my firm must not be associated with it in any way. We will be prepared to pay your fee, but you must keep us covered. Our position is a difficult one. We have no business to pry into Miss Crosby’s affairs unless we are certain there is something wrong, and we are not certain of that, although it looks like it. If you uncover any tangible evidence that definitely connects Miss Crosby with these extraordinary happenings, then, of course, we can come out into the open. But not before.”
“That makes it awkward for me,” I pointed out. “I was relying on you to keep Brandon from bothering me.”
There was a twinkle in his eyes as he said, “I’m sure you will be able to handle Brandon without my help. But if the going happens to become difficult you can always quote me as your lawyer. If there was an assault I should be happy to represent you in court without charge.”
“That’s swell,” I said sarcastically. “But in the meantime I have been assaulted.”
He didn’t seem to think that was anything to worry about.
“No doubt you will adjust your fee to cover personal risks,” he said lightly. “After all, I suppose a job like yours does involve risks.”
I shrugged. The fee, I told myself, would certainly be jacked up to the ceiling.
“All right,” I said. “Then I can go ahead?”
He began to pace about the room, his hands behind him, his head bent, frowning at the carpet.
“Oh, yes. I want you to go ahead.”
“There are some questions I’d like to ask,” I said, lighting another cigarette. “When did you last see Maureen Crosby?”
“At Janet’s funeral. I haven’t seen her since. Her affairs are quite straightforward. Any papers that need her signature are sent to her through the mail. I have had no occasion to see her.”
“You haven’t heard she is ill?”
He shook his head. No, he had no idea she was ill.
“Are you satisfied Macdonald Crosby’s death was an accident?” I shot at him.
He wasn’t expecting this, and looked up sharply.
“What do you mean? Of course it was an accident.”
“Couldn’t it have been suicide?”
“There was no reason why Crosby should have committed suicide.”
“As far as you know.”
“A man doesn’t usually kill himself with a shot-gun if he owns a revolver, and Crosby owned a revolver. A shot-gun is liable to be messy.”
“If he had committed suicide would it have affected his estate?”
“Why, yes.” A startled look came into his eyes. “His life was insured for a million and a half dollars. The policy carried a non-payment suicide clause.”
“Who received the insurance money?”
“I don’t quite see where all this is leading to,” he said, returning to his desk and sitting down. “Perhaps you will explain.”
“It seems odd to me that Salzer, who is not a qualified doctor, should have signed the death certificate. The coroner and Brandon must have agreed to this. I’m trying to convince myself there was nothing sinister in Crosby’s death. Suppose he did commit suicide. According to you the estate would have lost a million and a half dollars. But if a nice, willing quack and a grafting coroner and Captain of Police got together it could be arranged to look like an accident, couldn’t it?”
“That’s a pretty dangerous thing to say. Isn’t Salzer qualified?”
“No. Who received the insurance money?”
“It was left to Janet, and at her death to Maureen.”
“So Maureen now has a million and a half in cash; is that right?”
“Yes. I tried to persuade Janet to invest the money, but she preferred to leave it in the bank. It passed in cash to Maureen.”
“What’s happened to it? Is it still in the bank?”
“As far as I know. I have no access to her account.”
“Couldn’t you have?”
He regarded me steadily for a moment or so.
“I might. I don’t know whether I’d care to.”
“It would be helpful to find out just how much is left.” I nodded towards Janet’s letter lying on the desk. “There’s this business of blackmail. And if Franklin Lessways, the coroner, and Brandon had to be squared it is possible not a great deal of it remains. I’d be glad if you could find out.”
“All right. I’ll see what can be done.” He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “I suppose I could take action against Salzer if what you say is true. He had no right to sign the certificate, but I’m not anxious to come out into the open just yet. There seems to be no doubt the shooting was accidental. The insurance company was satisfied.”
“They would be if Brandon and the coroner passed the certificate. It looks to me as if Salzer is financing Lessways as well as Brandon. What do you know about Lessways?”
Willet grimaced.
“Oh, he could be bought. He has a pretty rotten reputation.”
“Did you know Janet Crosby well?”
He shook his head.
“I met her two or three times. No more.”
“Did she strike you as having a bad heart?”
“No; but that doesn’t mean anything. Lots of people have bad hearts. It doesn’t always show.”
“But they don’t play tennis two days before they die as Janet did.”
I could see he was beginning to get worried.
“What are you hinting at?”
“Nothing. I’m just stating a fact. I’m not sold on the idea she died of heart failure.”
While he stared at me the silence in the room was heavy enough to sink a battleship.
“You’re not suggesting…” he began and broke off.
“Not yet,” I said. “But it’s something we should keep in mind.”
I could see he didn’t like this at all. “Suppose we leave that for the moment?” I went on. “Let’s concentrate on Maureen Crosby. From the look of the house and from what Nurse Gurney tells me it is possible Maureen isn’t living at Crestways. If she isn’t there—where is she?”
“Yes,” he said. “There’s that.”
“Is she in Salzer’s sanatorium? Has it occurred to you she may be a prisoner there?”
That brought him bolt upright in his chair. “Aren’t you letting your imagination run away with you? I had a letter from her only last week.”
“That doesn’t mean much. Why did she write?”
“I asked her to sign some papers. She returned them signed, with a covering note thanking me for sending them.”
“From Crestways?”
“The address on the note-paper was Crestways.”
“That still doesn’t prove she isn’t a prisoner, does it? I’m not saying she is, but that’s another thing we shall have to keep in mind.”
“We can find out about that right away,” he said briskly.
“I’ll write to her and ask her to call on me. I can find some business excuse for an interview.”
“Yeah. That’s an idea. Will you let me know what happens? It might be an idea to follow her when she leaves you and find out where she goes.”
“I’ll let you know.”
I stood up.
“I think that’s about all. You’ll remember to check on her bank statement?”
“I’ll see what I can do. Go slow on this, Malloy. I don’t want any blow-back. You understand?”
“I’ll watch it.”
“What’s your next move?”
“I’ve got to do something about Nurse Gurney. I liked that girl. If she’s alive, I’m going to find her.”
When I left him he wasn’t looking like the Graven Image any more. He was looking like a very worried, much-harassed, middle-aged lawyer. At least, it showed the guy was human.
II
The desk sergeant said Mifflin was free and for me to go on up. He looked at me with hopeful eyes, and I knew he was expecting me to name the winner of tomorrow’s races, but I had other things on my mind.
I went up the stone stairs. On the landing I ran into redheaded Sergeant MacGraw.
“Well, well, the Boy Wonder again,” he said sneeringly. “What’s biting you this time?”
I looked into the hard little eyes and didn’t like what I saw in them. This was a guy who would enjoy inflicting pain; one of those tough coppers who would volunteer when there was a softening job to be done, and how he would love it.
“Nothing’s biting me,” I said. “But if I stick around you long enough something may.”
“Smart—huh?” He grinned, showing small yellow teeth. “Keep your nose clean, Wonder Boy. We’re watching you.”
“Just so long as you don’t shoot me through the head,” I returned, pushed past him and went on down the corridor to Mifflin’s office.
I paused before I rapped and looked over my shoulder. MacGraw was still standing at the head of the stairs, staring at me. There was a startled expression on his face, and his loose-lipped mouth hung open. As our eyes met, he turned away and went down the stairs.
Mifflin looked up as I entered his office and frowned.
“You again. For Pete’s sake don’t keep coming to see me. Brandon doesn’t like it.”
I pulled up a straight-back chair and sat down.
“Remind me to cry when I have time. I’m on official business. If Brandon doesn’t like it he can go jump in the ocean.”
“What business?” Mifflin asked, pushing back his desk chair and resting his big hairy hands on the desk.
“One of the nurses attending Miss Crosby has vanished,” I said. “Brandon should be interested because this nurse is employed by Salzer.”
“Vanished ?” Mifflin repeated, his voice off-key. “What do you mean—vanished?”
I told him how I had called on Nurse Gurney, how the front-door bell had rung, how she had gone to answer it and hadn’t returned. I gave him the details about the fat woman in the empty apartment opposite, the plum stone on the escape and how simple it would have been for a strong man to have carried Nurse Gurney down the escape to the waiting car.
“Well, that’s a damned funny thing,” Mifflin said, and ran his fingers through his shock of black hair. “About a couple of years ago another of Salzer’s nurses disappeared. She was never found.”
“Did you ever look for her?”
“All right, Vic, you needn’t be that way,” he said angrily. “Of course we looked for her, but we didn’t find her. Salzer said he thought she had run away to get married. Her father wasn’t struck on her boy friend or something like that.”
“Salzer hasn’t reported Nurse Gurney is missing?”
He shook his head.
“He’d scarcely have had time, would he? Besides, she might have remembered something and gone out to get it. There must be any number of reasons why she left the apartment.”
“Without shoes and stockings and in the middle of a conversation? Don’t kid yourself. This is kidnapping, and you know it.”
“I’ll go over there and talk to the janitor. You better keep out of this. I’ll tell Brandon the janitor reported it.”
I shrugged.
“Just so long as something’s done. This other case interests me. Who was the nurse?”
Mifflin hesitated, then got up and went over to one of his many filing cabinets.
“Her name was Anona Freedlander,” he said, pawed through a number of files, selected one and brought it to his desk. “We haven’t a lot of information. Her father’s George Freedlander. He lives at 257 California Street, San Francisco. She disappeared on 15th May of last year. Salzer reported to Brandon. Freedlander came to see us, and it was his idea she had run off with this boy friend, a guy named Jack Brett. Brett was in the Navy. A couple of weeks before Anona disappeared he deserted. Brandon said we needn’t look too hard; we didn’t.”
“Did you ever find Brett?”
“No.”
“I wonder how hard you are going to look for Nurse Gurney.”
“Well, we’ll have to be convinced she has been kidnapped. Brandon won’t act on your say-so. It’ll depend on Salzer.”
“This damned city seems to be run by Salzer.”
“Aw, now, Vic, you don’t mean that.”
I got to my feet.
“Find her, Tim, or I’ll start something. I liked that girl.”
“Just take it easy. If she has disappeared we’ll find her. You’re sure that horse Crab Apple’s okay? I don’t want to lose five bucks.”
“Never mind Crab Apple. You concentrate on Nurse Gurney,” I said and stamped out of the room.
I drove back to Orchid Buildings. Paula was waiting for me in my office.
“We go ahead,” I said, and sat down behind my desk. “I’ve seen Willet, and he’ll finance an investigation, but he wants to keep his firm well in the background.”
“Plucky of him,” Paula said scornfully. “You take all the risks, I suppose?”
“He seemed to expect to pay a little extra,” I said, and grinned. I told her about my visit to Headquarters. “This guy Salzer seems in the habit of making his nurses vanish. You note the date? May 15th: the day Janet died. No one’s going to convince me her disappearance doesn’t somehow tie up with Janet’s death.”
Paula studied me.
“You think Janet was murdered, don’t you?”
I lit a cigarette and put the match carefully in the ashtray before replying.
“I think it’s possible. The motive’s there: all that money. She certainly didn’t die of heart failure. Arsenic poisoning, among other poisons, produces heart failure. An old goat like Bewley might easily have been deceived.”
“But you don’t know! “Paula said. “Surely you don’t think Maureen murdered her sister?”
“The incentive is pretty strong. Besides collecting a fortune of two million dollars there’s also the little insurance item. I don’t say she did it, but that kind of money is a big temptation, especially if you are in the hands of a blackmailer. And another thing, I’m not entirely satisfied that Crosby himself wasn’t murdered. If there had been nothing wrong about the shooting why didn’t Salzer call in someone like Bewley to sign the death certificate? Why sign it himself? He had to square Lessways, the coroner, and probably Brandon. It was either suicide or murder. I’m willing to bet it wasn’t an accident. And as Willet pointed out, if a man owns a revolver he isn’t likely to shoot himself with a shot-gun: so that leaves murder.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Paula said sharply. “That’s your big failing, Vic. You’re always making wild guesses.”
I winked at her.
“But how I do enjoy myself.”
III
As a form of relaxation I do jig-saw puzzles. Paula gets them for me from a legless hero she goes along and talks to on her afternoon off. This guy spends all his time cutting jig-saws from railway posters Paula gets for him. They make terrific puzzles and one takes me about a month to do. Then I pass it on to a hospital and get another off Paula’s pal.
From long experience in doing these puzzles I have found the apparently small and unimportant-looking piece is very often the key to the whole picture, and I’m always on the look-out for such a piece. In the same way, when I’m on a job I’m always on the look-out for some insignificant trifle that appears to have no bearing on the case, but very often has.
I had been sitting in my office for the past hour, brooding. The time was a few minutes past seven. The office was closed for the night. Only the whisky bottle remained.
I had jotted down a number of notes that looked impressive, but didn’t add up to much. And on reading through the list of likely clues I paused at Douglas Sherrill’s name. Why, I asked myself, had Janet suddenly broken off the engagement a week before Macdonald Crosby’s death? This fact didn’t appear to have any bearing on the case, but it might have. I couldn’t be sure until I found out just why the engagement had been broken off. Who could tell me? Douglas Sherrill, obviously, but I couldn’t go to him without tipping my hand, and I wasn’t ready to do that at the moment. Then who else was there? I consulted my notes. John Stevens, Crosby’s butler, was a possibility. I decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to see what kind of a guy Stevens was. If he looked as if he could be trusted it might pay me to take him into my confidence. Martha Bendix had said he now worked for Gregory Wainwright.
No time like the present, I thought, and turned Wainwright up in the book. I put through the call, and after the second or third ring a stately voice said, “This is Mr. Wainwright’s residence.”
“Is that Mr. John Stevens?” I asked.
There was a pause, the voice said cautiously, “Stevens speaking. Who is that, please?”
“My name is Malloy. Mr. Stevens, I would like to talk to you about an important and private matter. It has to do with the Crosbys. Can you meet me some time tonight?”
Again that pause.
“I don’t understand.” It was an old man’s voice, gentle, and perhaps a little dull-witted. “I’m afraid I don’t know you.”
“Maybe you have heard of Universal Services.”
Yes, he had heard of Universal Services.
“I run it,” I said. “It is important to me to talk to you about the Crosbys.”
“I don’t think I have any right to discuss my last employer with you,” he said distantly.
“I’m sorry.”
“It won’t hurt you to hear what I have to say. After I have explained the position you may feel inclined to tell me what I want to know. If you don’t there’re no bones broken.”
The pause was longer this time.
“Well, I might meet you, but I can’t promise…”
“That’s all right, Mr. Stevens. At the corner of Jefferson and Felman there’s a cafe. We might meet there. What time would suit you?”
He said he would be there at nine.
“I’ll be the guy wearing a hat and reading the Evening Herald,” I told him.
He said he would look out for me and hung up.
I had nearly two hours to wait before I met him, and decided to pass the time at Finnegan’s. It took me a few minutes to lock up the office. While I was turning keys, closing the safe, and shutting the windows, I thought about Nurse Gurney. Who had kidnapped her? Why had she been kidnapped? Was she still alive? Thoughts that got me nowhere, but worried me. Still thinking, I went into the outer office, looked around to make sure the place was bedded down for the night, crossed the room, stepped into the passage and locked the outer door behind me.
At the end of the corridor I noticed a short, stockily-built man lolling against the wall by the elevator doors, and reading a newspaper. He didn’t look up as I paused near him to thumb the bell-push calling the elevator attendant. I gave him a casual glance. He was dark skinned, and his blunt-featured face was pock-marked. He looked like an Italian; could have been Spanish. His navy-blue serge suit was shiny at the elbows and his white shirt dirty at the cuffs.
The elevator attendant threw open the doors, and the Wop and I entered. On the third floor, the elevator paused to pick up Manfred Willet who stared through me with blank eyes and then interested himself in the headlines of the evening paper. He had said he wanted secrecy, but I thought it was carrying it a little far not to know me in the elevator. Still, he was paying my fee, so he could call the tune.
I bought an Evening Herald at the bookstall, giving Willet a chance to leave the building without falling over me. I watched him drive away in an Oldsmobile the size of a dreadnought. The Wop with the dirty shirt cuffs had collapsed into one of the armchairs in the lobby and was reading his newspaper. I walked down the corridor to the back exit and across the alley to Finnegan’s bar.
The saloon was full of smoke, hard characters and loud voices. I had only taken a couple of steps towards my favourite table when Olaf Kruger, who runs a boxing academy on Princess Street, clutched hold of me.
Olaf was not much bigger than a jockey, bald as an egg and as smart as they come.
“Hello, Vic,” he said, shaking hands. “Come on over and get drunk. Haven’t seen you for weeks. What have I done?”
I pushed my way towards the bar and winked at Mike Finnegan as he toiled under the double row of neon lights, jerking beer.
“I’ve been to the fights pretty regular,” I said as Olaf climbed up on a stool, elbowing a little space for himself with threatening gestures that no one took seriously. “Just didn’t happen to see you. That boy O’Hara shapes well.”
Olaf waved tiny hands at Finnegan.
“Whiskies, Mike,” he bawled, in his shrill, piping voice. “O’Hara? Yeah, he shapes all right, but he’s a sucker for a cross counter. I keep telling him, but he don’t listen. One of these days he’s going to meet a guy with the wind behind him, and then it’s curtains.”
We talked boxing for the next half-hour. There was nothing much else Olaf could talk about. While we talked we ate our way through two club sandwiches apiece and drank three double whiskies.
Hughson, the Herald’s sports writer, joined us and insisted on buying another round of drinks. He was a tall, lean, cynical-looking bird, going bald, with liverish bags under his eyes, and tobacco ash spread over his coat front. He was never without a cigar that smelt as if he had found it a couple of years ago in a garbage can. Probably he had.
After we had listened to three or four of his long-winded, dirty stories, Olaf said, “What was that yarn about the Dixie Kid getting into a shindig last night? Anything to it?”
Hughson pulled a face.
“I don’t know. The Kid won’t talk. He had a shiner, if that means anything. One of the taxi-drivers on the pier said he swam ashore.”
“If he was thrown off the Dream Ship, that’s quite a swim,” Olaf said, and grinned.
“You two guys talk to yourselves,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “Don’t mind me.”
Hughson hooked nicotine-stained fingers into my breast pocket.
“The Dixie Kid went out to the Dream Ship last night and got into an argument with Sherrill. Four bouncers are supposed to have tossed him overboard, but not before he’s supposed to have socked Sherrill. There’s a rumour Sherrill’s going to bring an assault charge. If he does, the Kid’s washed up. He’s over his ears in debt now.”
“It’s my guess Sherrill will bring a suit,” Olaf said, shaking his bald head. “He has a mean reputation for that kind of thing.”
“He won’t,” Hughson said. “He can’t afford the publicity. I told the Kid he was safe enough, but even at that, the little rat won’t talk.”
“Who’s Sherrill, anyway?” I asked as calmly as I could, and crooked a finger at Finnegan to refill the glasses.
“You’re not the only one who’s asking that,” Hughson told me. “No one knows. He’s a mystery man. Came to Orchid City about a couple of years ago. He took a job selling real estate on commission for Selby & Lowenstein’s. I believe he made a little money; not much, but enough to buy himself a small house on Rossmore Avenue. Then, somehow or other, he got himself engaged to Janet Crosby, the millionairess, but that didn’t last long. He dropped out of sight for about six months, and then suddenly reappeared as owner of the Dream Ship: a three-hundred ton schooner he’s converted into a gambling-den which he keeps anchored just outside the three-mile limit. He has a fleet of water taxis going to and fro, and the members of the club are as exclusive as an investiture at Buckingham Palace.”
“And gambling’s not the only vice that goes on in that ship.” Olaf said, and winked. “He’s got half a dozen hand-picked girls on board. It’s a sweet racket. Being three miles outside the city’s limit, he can thumb his nose at Brandon. I bet he makes a pile of jack.”
“What foxes me,” Hughson said, reaching for the whisky I had bought him, “is how a heel like Sherrill ever found enough money to buy a goddamn great schooner like the Dream Ship.”
“They say he floated a company,” Olaf said. “If he had come to me and offered to sell me a piece of that ship, I’d have jumped at it. I bet whoever owns shares in her makes a packet, too.”
I listened, thinking what a marvellous thing it was to meet two guys in a bar and hear the very thing I wanted to hear without even asking.
“That ship sounds fun,” I said casually. “I wouldn’t mind being a member.”
Hughson sneered.
“And you’re not the only one. You haven’t a hope. Only guys in the White Book stand a chance. Every member is hand-picked. If you haven’t got dough Sherrill doesn’t want you. The entrance fee is two hundred and fifty dollars, and the sub works out at five hundred a year. He caters for the big boys, not the proletariat.”
“What kind of a guy is Sherrill? “I asked.
“One of those smooth Alecs,” Hughson said. “Handsome, slick, tough and bright. The kind of heel women fall for. Curly hair, blue eyes, big muscles, and dresses like a movie star. My idea of a genuine, top-drawer, son-of-a-bitch.”
“Any idea why Janet Crosby broke the engagement?”
“That girl had sense. I don’t know what happened, but it’s my guess she saw the red light. All he was after was her money, and I guess she realized that before it was too late. Any girl who marries a runt like Sherrill is heading for trouble.”
Olaf, who was getting bored with this conversation, said, “Do you fellas think the Dixie Kid would make a show against O’Hara? I gotta chance to match him, but I’m not sure it would be much of a fight.”
For the next fifteen minutes we argued back and forth about the Dixie Kid’s merits, then looking at the clock above the bar I saw it was time I got moving.
“I’ll have to leave you guys,” I said, and slid off the stool. “I’ll be around at the gym one of these days. See you then.”
Olaf said he would be glad to see me any time, and would I give his best respects to Paula.
Hughson said to tell Paula he dreamed of her most nights. I left them buying more whisky.
As I crossed the room to the exit I spotted the Wop with the dirty shirt cuffs sitting at a table near the door, still engrossed in his newspaper, and as I pushed open the double swing doors, he casually folded the paper, shoved it into his pocket and got to his feet.
I walked swiftly to where I had parked the Buick, got in, started the engine and drove down the dark alley. From somewhere in the rear another car engine roared into life and a set of parking lights swam into my driving-mirror.
I drove along Princess Street, keeping my eye on the driving-mirror. The car following me was a Lincoln. The blue, anti-dazzle windshield prevented me from seeing the driver, but I guessed who it was.
At the bottom of Princess Street I turned right into Felman Street. The traffic was thinning out, and I drove fast, but the Lincoln had no trouble in sitting on my tail. Ahead of me I could see the red neon sign of the cafe where J had arranged to meet John Stevens. Just before I reached the cafe I pulled sharply into the kerb and braked hard. The Lincoln was following me too closely to do anything but drive straight on. It went past, slowing down.
I nipped out of the Buick and dodged into a dark shop doorway. The Lincoln had pulled into the kerb fifty yards ahead. The Wop got out and looked down the street without attempting to conceal his actions. He was quick enough to spot I had left the Buick, and he walked towards my parked car, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets.
I stepped back into the shadows and watched him glance into the empty car, look right and left, and then walk on. He didn’t seem disconcerted when he couldn’t see me, but continued on down the street just like any Spick out for an airing.
I watched him out of sight, then crossed the street by way of the subway and nipped into the cafe.
The wall clock facing me as I entered showed five minutes to nine o’clock. There were only about half a dozen people at the tables: a blonde Bobbysoxer and her boy, two elderly men playing chess, two women with shopping-bags, and a girl with a thin, pinched face at a corner table, drinking milk.
I picked a table away from the door and sat down, opened the Evening Herald and spread it on the table. Then I lit a cigarette and wondered about the Wop. Was he another of Salzer’s playmates or was he a new angle in this business? He was tailing me all right, and making a very bad job of it. Either that or he didn’t care if I knew he was after me. I had taken a note of his car licence number. Another little job for Mifflin, I thought, and that reminded me. I turned to the sports pages and checked the races. Crab Apple had won her race. Well, that was all right. Mifflin wouldn’t mind checking the car number now he had made a little money.
On the stroke of nine the double glass doors pushed open and a tall old man came in. I knew he was Stevens the moment I saw him. He looked like an Archbishop on vacation. He came towards me with that stately walk butlers have when they come in to announce dinner is served. The expression on his face was slightly forbidding, and there was a cautious, distant look in his eyes.
I stood up.
“Mr. Stevens?”
He nodded.
“I’m Malloy. Sit down, will you? Have a coffee?” He put his bowler hat on one of the chairs and sat down. Yes, he would have a coffee.
To save time I went to the counter, ordered two coffees and carried them over. The Bobbysoxer was staring at Stevens and giggling with the bad manners of the very young. She said something to her boy, a fresh-faced youth in a striped jersey and a college cap at the back of his head. He looked over at Stevens and grinned. Maybe they thought it was funny for an Archbishop to come to a Help-Yourself Cafe or maybe the bowler hat amused them. I put the two cups on the table.
“Nice of you to come, Mr. Stevens,” I said, and offered him a cigarette. While he was lighting it I studied him. He was all right. The faithful family retainer who could keep his mouth shut. He could be trusted, but the trouble would be to get him to talk. “What I have to say is in strict confidence,” I went on, sitting down. “I’ve been hired to investigate Miss Janet Crosby’s death. A certain party isn’t entirely satisfied she died of heart failure.”
He stiffened and sat bolt upright.
“Who is the certain party?” he asked. “Surely it is a little late for an investigation?”
“I’d rather not say at the moment,” I told him. “I agree it is late, but only within the past few days have certain facts come to light that make an investigation necessary. Do you think Janet Crosby died of heart failure?”
He hesitated.
“It’s not my business,” he said reluctantly. “Since you ask me, I admit it was a great shock to me. She seemed such an active young person. But Dr. Salzer assured me that in her case a sudden stoppage of an artery would cause heart failure without previous symptoms. All the same I found it hard to believe.”
“I wonder if you have any idea why Miss Crosby broke off her engagement with Douglas Sherrill?”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you that without knowing who is making this investigation,” he said primly. “I have heard of your organization and I believe it is well spoken of, but I am not prepared to gossip about my late employer unless I know who I am dealing with.”
That was as far as we ever got.
There was a sudden frozen stillness in the cafe that made me look up sharply.
The double glass doors swung open, and four men walked in. Two of them carried Thompson sub-machine-guns, the other two had Colt automatics in their hands. Four dark-skinned Wops: one of them was my pal with the dirty shirt cuffs. The two with the Thompsons fanned out and stood either side of the room where they had a clear field of fire.
The Wop with the dirty cuffs and a little dago with red-rimmed eyes marched across the room towards my table.
Stevens gave a kind of strangled grunt and started to his feet, but I grabbed him and shoved him back on his chair.
“Take it easy,” I hissed at him.
“All right, hold it!” one of the Wops with the Thompson said. His voice cut through the silent room like a bullet through a ton of ice-cream. “Sit still, and keep your yaps shut or we’ll put the blast on the lot of you!”
Everyone sat or stood as still as death. The scene looked like a stage set in a waxworks show. There was a bartender with his hand frozen on the soda pump, his eyes goggling. One of the elderly men’s fingers rested on his Queen as he was moving it to checkmate his friend. His face was tight with horror. The thin, pinched-looking girl sat with her eyes tight closed and her hands across her mouth. The Bobbysoxer leaned forward, her pretty, painted mouth hanging open and a shrill scream in her eyes.
As the Wop passed her, the scream popped out of her mouth. It made a shrill, jarring sound in the silent room, and cursing, the Wop hit her savagely with his gun barrel across her cute, silly little hat. He hit very hard, and the barrel made an ugly sound as it thudded on the straw of the hat, crushing it into her skull. She fell out of the chair, and blood began to run from her ears, making a puddle on the floor. The kid with her turned the colour of a fish’s belly and began to retch.
“Quiet, everybody!” the guy with the Thompson said, raising his voice.
I could see by the look of these Wops that if anyone made a move they would start shooting. They were ruthless, murderous and trigger-happy. All they wanted was an excuse. There was nothing I could do about it. Even if I had a gun I wouldn’t have started anything. A gun against two Thompsons is as useless as a toothpick against a foil, and I wouldn’t have been the only one to have got shot up.
The two Wops arrived at my table.
I sat like a stone man, my hands on the table, looking up at them. I could hear Stevens breathing painfully at my side: the breath snored through his nostrils as if he were going to have a stroke.
The Wop with the dirty cuffs grinned evilly at me.
“Make a move, you son-of-a-bitch, and I’ll drop your guts on the floor,” he said.
Both of them were careful to keep out of the line of fire of the Thompsons.
The Wop reached out and grabbed Stevens by his arm.
“Come on, you. You’re going for a little ride.”
“Leave him alone,” I said through tight lips.
The Wop smacked me across the face with the gun barrel. Not too hard, but hard enough to hurt.
“Shut your yap!” he said.
The other Wop had rammed his gun into Stevens’ side and was dragging him out of his chair.
“Don’t touch me,” Stevens gasped, and feebly tried to break the Wop’s hold. Snarling; the Wop clubbed him with his fist, caught him by his collar and hauled him away from the table.
My pal with the dirty cuffs stepped away from me and the guy with the Thompson came a little closer, the gun sight centred on my chest. I sat still, holding the side of my face, feeling blood, hot and sticky, against my fingers.
Stevens fell down.
“Come on; hurry,” the Wop with the dirty cuffs said furiously. “Get this dumb old punk out of here.” He bent and grabbed hold of one of Stevens’ ankles. The other Wop caught hold of the other ankle, and they ran across the room dragging Stevens along on his back with them, upsetting tables and chairs in their progress to the door.
They kicked open the double doors, dragged the old man across the sidewalk to a waiting car. Two other Wops were standing outside with machine-guns, threatening a gaping crowd lined up on either side of the cafe entrance.
It was the coolest, nerviest, most cold-blooded thing I have ever seen.
The two Wops with the Thompsons backed out of the cafe and scrambled into the car. One of the Wops in the street swung round and started firing through the plate-glass window at me. I was expecting that, and even as he swung round I threw myself out of my chair and lay flat under the table, squeezing myself into the floor. Slugs chewed up the wall just above me and brought plaster down on my head and neck. One slug took the heel of my shoe off. Then the firing stopped and I peered around the table in time to see the Wop spring on to the running-board of the car as it shot away from the kerb and went tearing down the street.
I scrambled to my feet and made a dive for the telephone.
IV
The voice sounded like an echo in a tunnel. It crept into the corners of my room: the subdued whisper of a turned-down radio. For the past half-hour I had been waiting for that voice. The jig-saw puzzle spread out on the table before me interested me as much as the dead mouse I had found in the trap this morning: probably a little less. The shaded reading-lamp made a pool of lonely light on the carpet. A bottle and glass stood on the floor within easy reach. Already I had had a drink or perhaps even two or three. After an evening like this a drink one way or other doesn’t make a great deal of difference.
I was still a little jumpy. No one likes to have a whole magazine of a sub-machine-gun fired at him, and I was no exception. The way those two Wops had dragged that old man out of the cafe haunted me. I felt I should have done something about it. After all, it was my fault he was there.
“At nine o’clock this evening,” the announcer said, breaking into my thoughts, “six men, believed to be Italians, armed with machine-guns and automatics, entered the Blue Bird Cafe at the corner of Jefferson and Felman. While two of the gunmen guarded the entrance, and two more terrorized the people in the cafe, the remaining two seized John Stevens and dragged him from the cafe to a waiting car.
“Stevens, who will be remembered by the city’s socialities as butler to Mr. Gregory Wainwright, the steel millionaire, was later found dead by the side of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Highway. It is believed he died of a stroke, brought on by the rough handling he received from the kidnappers, and when he was found to be dead, the kidnappers brutally threw his body from the speeding car.”
The announcer’s voice was as unemotional and as cold as if he were reading the fat stock prices. I should have liked to have been behind him with a machine-gun and livened him up with a burst above his head.
“The police are anxious for any information that will lead to the arrest of the criminals,” the announcer went on. “These six men have been described as short, stockily built, dark-skinned, and all wearing blue suits and black hats. “The police are also anxious to question an unknown man who was with John Stevens when the kidnappers arrived. After telephoning Police Headquarters, giving a description of the criminals and the number of their car, he disappeared. Eye-witnesses have described him as tall, powerfully built, dark hair, sallow complexion and sharp-featured. He has a wound on the right side of his face from a blow from one of the kidnappers. Anyone recognizing this man should communicate immediately to Captain of Police Brandon, Police Headquarters, Graham 3444…”
I leaned forward and snapped down the switch.
“Sallow and sharp-featured, but not handsome. No one said he was handsome.”
I turned slowly in my chair.
Sergeant MacGraw stood in the open french windows, and behind him lurked Sergeant Hartsell. I didn’t jump more than a foot. It was one of those reflex actions over which I had no control.
“Who told you to blow in?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“He wants to know who told us to blow in,” MacGraw said, speaking out of the side of his mouth. “Shall we tell him?”
Hartsell came into the room. There was a cold, bleak look on his thin face, his deep-set eyes were stony.
“Yeah, tell him.”
MacGraw closed the french windows without taking his eyes off me.
“A little bird told us,” he said, and winked. “There’s always a little bird to tell us the things we want to know. And the little bird also told us you were with Stevens tonight.”
I sweated gently. Maybe it was because it was a hot night. Maybe I didn’t like the look of these two. Maybe I was remembering what Brandon had said about a beating up in a dark alley.
“That’s right,” I said. “I was with him.”
“Now that’s what I call being smart,” MacGraw said, and beamed. “Wonder Boy tells the truth for a change.” He poked a thick finger in my direction. “Why didn’t you stick around? The prowl boys would have liked to have talked to you.”
“There was nothing I could tell them,” I said. “I gave the desk sergeant a description of the car and the men. That let me out, and besides, I had enough for one night so I blew.”
MacGraw sat down in one of the armchairs, felt in his inside pocket and hooked out a cigar. He bit off the end, spat the shred of tobacco messily against my wall and lit up.
“I like that,” he said, rolling thick smoke around in his mouth before releasing it. “You had enough for one night. Yeah, that’s very nice. But, pally, how wrong you are. The night hasn’t even started for you yet.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Let’s get going,” Hartsell said in a hard voice. “I’m on duty in another hour.”
MacGraw frowned at him.
“Take it easy, can’t you? What’s it matter if you are a little late? We’re on duty right now, aren’t we?” He glanced at me. “What were you talking to Stevens about?”
“I wanted to know if he was satisfied Janet Crosby died of heart failure. He wasn’t.”
MacGraw chuckled and rubbed his big white hands together. He seemed genuinely pleased to hear this.
“You know the Captain’s no fool,” he said to Hartsell. “I’m not saying he’s everyone’s bed-fellow, but he’s no fool. Those were his very words. ‘I’ll bet that son-of-a-bitch was talking to Stevens about the Crosbys.’ That’s what he said to me as soon as we got the description. And he was right.”
Hartsell gave me a long, mean look.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Was that all you wanted to know, Wonder Boy?” MacGraw asked. “Or were there other questions you asked Stevens?”
“That’s all I wanted to know.”
“Didn’t the Captain tell you to lay off the Crosbys?”
Now it was coming.
“He mentioned it.”
“Maybe you think the Captain talks just to hear his own voice?”
I looked from MacGraw to Hartsell and back to MacGraw again.
“I don’t know. Why not ask him?”
“Don’t get tricky, Wonder Boy. We don’t like ‘em tricky, do we, Joe?”
Hartsell made an impatient movement. “For Pete’s sake, let’s get on with it,” he said.
“Get on with—what?” I asked.
MacGraw leaned forward to spit at the wall again. Then he scattered ash on the carpet.
“The Captain didn’t seem happy about you, pally,” he said, and grinned. “And when the Captain’s unhappy he gets sore, and when he gets sore he takes it out of the boys, so we thought we’d better make him happy again. We figured the way to get his smile back would be to come and see you and give you a little work-out. We thought it would be a good idea to sort of smack your ears down: maybe tear them off. Then we thought it would be another good idea to sort of wreck your place; kick the furniture around and hack bits out of the wall. That’s the way we figured it, didn’t we, Joe?”
Hartsell licked his thin lips and allowed a leer to come into his stony eyes. He took out a short length of rubber hose from his hip pocket and balanced it lovingly in his hand.
“Yeah,” he said.
“And did you think what would happen if you carried out these good ideas?” I asked. “Did it ever occur to you I might sue for assault, and that someone like Manfred Willet might take you apart in court and get the badge off your coats? Did that come into your sweet little minds or was that something you overlooked?”
MacGraw leaned forward and screwed his burning cigar down on the polished surface of the table. He glanced up, grinning.
“You’re not the first punk we’ve called on. Wonder Boy,” he told me. “And you won’t be the last. We know how to take care of lawyers. A lush like Willet doesn’t scare us, and besides you won’t take us to court. We came here to get a statement from you about Stevens.
For some reason or other—maybe you don’t like our faces, maybe you’re a little drunk, maybe you have a boil where it hurts—anything will do, you get tough. In fact, Wonder Boy, you get very tough indeed; so tough me and Joe have to sort of restrain you, and while we’re restraining you as gently as we possibly can, you get a little roughed up and the room sort of gets wrecked. But it’s not our fault. We don’t like it that way—not much, anyway, and if you hadn’t disliked our faces or hadn’t been a little drunk or hadn’t had a boil where it hurts, it wouldn’t have happened. That’s what they call in court your word against two respectable, hardworking police officers’, and even a lush like Willet couldn’t make much out of it, and besides that we could take you to Headquarters and keep you in a nice quiet cell where the boys could drop in from time to time and wipe their boots on your face. It’s a funny thing, but a lot of our boys like dropping in on certain of our prisoners and wiping their boots on their faces. I don’t know why it is; probably they’re high-spirited. So don’t let’s have any more talk about assault charges and badges off coats and smart lawyers; not unless you don’t know what’s good for you.”
I had a sudden cold feeling in my stomach. It would be my word against theirs. There was nothing to stop them arresting me and slinging me into a cell. By the time Willet got moving a lot of things could have happened. This didn’t seem to be my evening for fun and games.
“Got it all worked out, haven’t you?” I said as calmly as the circumstances allowed.
“We’ve got to, pally,” MacGraw said, grinning. “There are too many punks making trouble, and our jail isn’t that large. So we just hand out a little discipline every now and then and save the city some dough.”
I should have kept my eyes on Hartsell who was standing a few feet to my left and rear. Not that I could have done a great deal about it. They had me, and I knew it, and what was worse, they knew it, too. But all the same I was dumb not to have watched him. I heard a sudden swish and began to duck, but I was much, much too late. The rubber hose caught me on the top of the head and I fell forward on hands and knees.
MacGraw was waiting for that, and his foot shot out; the square steel-tipped toe of his shoe caught me in the throat. I fell over on my side, trying to get breath through a constricted, contracting windpipe. Something hit me on the forearm, sending pain crawling up into my skull. Something thudded on the back of my neck; a sharp something crashed into my ribs. I rolled away, got on my hands and knees, saw Hartsell coming at me and tried to duck.
The hose seemed to bounce against my brain; just as if the top of my head had been trepanned and my brain was there to be hit. I sprawled on to the carpet, clenching my fists, holding back the yell that tried to burst its way out of me.
Hands grabbed me and hauled me to my feet. Through a misty-red curtain MacGraw seemed over-large, overbroad and over-ugly. I began to fall forward as he released me. I fell on his fist that was travelling towards me in a punch that sent me reeling across the room, knocking over the table. I landed on my back amid a shower of jig-saw nuzzle pieces.
I lay still. The light in the ceiling came rushing towards me, stopped, and then rushed away again. It did that several times, so I closed my eyes. At the back of my mind I was thinking this could go on and on until they were tired, and it would take a lot to tire a couple of thugs like MacGraw and Hartsell. By the time they were through with me there wouldn’t be a great deal left. I wondered dreamily why they didn’t move in; why they left me lying on the floor.
So long as I didn’t move the pain that rode me was bearable. I didn’t like to think what would happen to my head if I did move. It felt as if it were hanging on a thread. One little movement would be enough to send it rolling across the floor.
Out of the pain and the mist I heard a woman say, “Is this your idea of fun?”
A woman!
That last punch must have made me slug-happy, I thought, or maybe it was the beating I had taken on top of my head.
“This guy’s dangerous, ma’m,” MacGraw said in a gentle, little-boy-caught-in-the-pantry voice. “He was resisting arrest.”
“Don’t you dare lie to me!” It was a woman’s voice all right. “I saw what happened through the window.”
I wasn’t going to miss this, even if it killed me. Very carefully I raised my head. All the veins, arteries and nerves in it yelled murder, pulsed, expanded and became generally hysterical, but I managed to sit up. The light dug arrows into my eyes, and for a moment or so I held my head in my hands. Then I peeped through my fingers.
MacGraw and Hartsell were standing by the door looking as if their feet were resting on a red-hot stove. MacGraw had a cringing this-has-really-nothing-to-do-with-me smile on his face. Hartsell looked as if a mouse had run up his trousers leg.
I turned, keeping my head still, and looked towards the french windows.
A girl stood between the half-drawn curtains; a girl in a white strapless evening-gown that showed off her deeply-tanned shoulders and the snug little hollow between her breasts. Her raven-black hair lay about her shoulders in a page-boy bob. I had a little trouble in focussing, and her beauty came to me slowly like a picture thrown on the screen by an amateur projectionist. The blurred outlines of her face slowly became sharp-etched. The misty hollows that were her eyes filled in and came alive. An oval, small-featured, very lovely face with a small, perfectly-moulded nose, red sensual lips and wide, big eyes as dark and as hard as nuggets of coal.
Even with the blood pounding in my head and my throat aching and my body feeling as if it had been fed through a wringer, I felt the impact of this girl’s allurement the way I had felt the impact of MacGraw’s fist. She not only had the looks, but she also had that thing: you could see it there in her eyes, the way she stood, in the curves of her body, in the tanned column of her throat: shouting at you like the twenty-foot letters on an advertising hoarding.
“How dare you beat this man!” she said in a voice which carried across the room with the heat and the force of a flame-thrower. “Is this Brandon’s idea?”
“Now look, Miss Crosby,” MacGraw said pleadingly. “This guy’s been sticking his snout into your affairs. The Captain thought maybe we should discourage him. Honest, that’s all there’s to it.”
For the first time as far as I knew she turned her head to stare at me. I couldn’t have looked a particularly pretty object. I knew I had collected a number of bumps and bruises and the cut on my right cheek where the Wop had hit me was bleeding again. Somehow I managed to grin at her: a little crooked, not much heart in it, but still, a grin.
She looked at me the way you look at a frog that’s jumped into your morning cup of coffee.
“Get up!” she snapped. “You can’t be as badly hurt as all that.”
But then she hadn’t been slapped over the skull three or four times or kicked in the throat and ribs or punched in the jaw, so it wasn’t fair to expect her to know if I was badly hurt or not.
Maybe it was because she was such a lovely that I made the effort and somehow got to my feet. We Malloys have our pride, and we don’t like our women to think we are soft. I had to grab hold of the back of a chair as soon as I was on my feet, and I very nearly spread out on the floor again, but, by clinging on and riding the pain that went shooting down into my heels and back again to my skull like a roller-coaster gone haywire, I began to come out of it and get what is termed my second wind.
MacGraw and Hartsell were looking at me the way tigers look at a lump of meat that’s been sneaked out of their cage.
She began speaking to them again in that scornful, blistering voice:
“I don’t like your sort. And I’m going to do something about it. If this is the way Brandon runs his police force the sooner he gets the hell out of it the better!”
While MacGraw was mumbling excuses I set my compass and steered a zigzag-course towards the overturned whisky bottle. The cork was well home so no damage had been done. It was quite a feat to bend and pick it up, but I managed it. I anchored myself to the mouthpiece and drank.
“And before you go you’re having a taste of your own medicine,” she was saying, and, as I lowered the bottle, she thrust the rubber cosh she had picked up towards me. “Go on, hit them!” she said viciously. “Get your own back!”
I took the cosh because otherwise she would probably have pushed it down my throat, and I looked at Hartsell and MacGraw, who stared back at me like two pigs waiting to have their throats slit.
“Hit them!” she repeated, her voice rising. “It’s time someone did. They’ll take it. I’ll see to that.”
It was an extraordinary thing, but I was pretty sure they would have stood there and let me beat their heads off.
I tossed the cosh on to the settee.
“Not me, Lady, that’s not the way I get my fun,” I said, my voice sounding like a record being played with a blunt gramophone needle.
“Hit them!” she commanded furiously. “What are you frightened of? They won’t dare touch you again. Beat them up!”
“Sorry,” I said. “It wouldn’t amuse me. Let’s turn them out. They’re lousing up the room.”
She turned, snatched up the cosh and walked up to MacGraw. His white face turned yellow, but he didn’t move. Her arm flashed up and she hit him across his face. An ugly red weal sprang up on his flabby cheek. He gave a whimpering grunt, but he still didn’t move.
As her arm flashed up again I grabbed her wrist and snatched the cosh out of her hand. The effort cost me a stab of pain through the head and a hard-stinging slap across the face from Miss Spitfire. She tried to get the cosh from me, but I held on to her wrists and yelled: “Beat it, you two lugs! Beat it before she knocks the hell out of you!”
Holding her was like holding an angry tigress. She was surprisingly strong. As I wrestled with her MacGraw and Hartsell charged out of the room as if the devil was after them. They fell down the steps in their hurry to get away. When I heard their car start up I released her wrists and stepped away.
“Take it easy,” I said, panting with my exertions. “They’ve gone now.”
For a moment she stood gasping, her face set and her eyes blazing; a lovely thing of fury, and then the anger went and her eyes lost their explosive quality and she suddenly threw back her head and laughed.
“Well, we certainly scared the daylights out of those two rats, didn’t we?” she said, and flopped limply on the settee. “Give me a drink and have one yourself. You certainly look as if you need one.”
As I reached for the bottle I said, looking at her intently, “The name, of course, is Maureen Crosby?”
“You’ve guessed it.” She rubbed her wrists, making a comical grimace. “You’ve hurt me, you brute!”
“Sorry,” I said, and meant it.
“Lucky I looked in. If I hadn’t they would have had your hide by now.”
“So they would,” I said, pouring four fingers of Scotch into a glass. My hand was very unsteady and some of the whisky splashed on to the carpet. I handed her the glass, and began to fix myself a drink. “Whiterock or water?”
“In its bare skin,” she returned, holding the glass up to the light. “I don’t believe in mixing business with pleasure or water with Scotch. Do you?”
“It depends on the business and the Scotch,” I said, and sat down. My legs felt as if the shin bones had been removed. “So you are Maureen Crosby. Well, well, quite the last person I expected to call on me.”
I thought you would be surprised.” There was a mocking expression in the dark eyes and the smile was calculated.
“How’s the drug cure going?” I asked, watching her. “I’ve always heard a dopie should lay off liquor.”
She continued to smile, but her eyes were not amused.
“You shouldn’t believe all you hear.”
I drank some of the whisky. It was very strong. I shuddered and put the glass on the table.
“I don’t. I hope you don’t either.”
We sat for a long moment, looking at each other. She had the knack of making her face expressionless without losing her loveliness which was quite an achievement.
“Don’t let’s get complicated. I’m here to talk to you. You’re making a lot of trouble. Isn’t it time you took your little spade and dug in someone else’s graveyard?”
I made believe to think this over.
“Are you just asking or is this a proposition?” I said finally.
Her mouth tightened and the smile went away.
“Can you be bought? I was told you were one of those clean, simple, non-grafting characters. I was particularly advised not to offer you money.”
I reached for a cigarette.
“I thought we had agreed we didn’t believe all we heard,” I said, leaning forward to offer the cigarette. She took it, so I had to reach for another. Lighting hers caused me another stab of pain in the head and didn’t improve my temper.
“It could be a proposition,” she said, leaning back and blowing smoke at the ceiling. “How much?”
“What are you trying to buy?”
She studied the cigarette as if she hadn’t seen one before, said, without looking at me, “I don’t want trouble. You’re making trouble. I might pay you to stop.”
“What’s it worth?”
She looked at me then.
“You know you’re a big disappointment to me. You’re just like any of the other slimy little blackmailers.”
“You’d know about them, of course.”
“Yes; I know all about them. And when I tell you what I think it’s worth I suppose you will laugh the way they always laugh and raise the ante. So you will tell me what it’s worth to you and give me the chance to laugh.”
I suddenly didn’t want to go on with this. Maybe my head was aching too badly; maybe, even, I found her so attractive I didn’t want her to think me a heel.
“All right, let’s skip it,” I said. “I was kidding. I can’t be bought. Maybe I could be persuaded. What makes you think I’m stirring up trouble? State your case. If it’s any good I might take my spade and go dig elsewhere.”
She regarded me for perhaps ten seconds, thoughtfully, silently and a little doubtfully.
“You shouldn’t kid about those things,” she said seriously. “You might get yourself disliked. I wouldn’t like to dislike you unless I had a reason.”
I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.
“That’s fine. Are you just talking to gain time or do you mean that?”
“I was told you had the manners of a hog and a way with women. The hog part is right.”
I opened my eyes to leer at her.
“The woman part is on the level, too, but don’t rush me.”
Then the telephone rang, startling us both. It was right by me, and as I reached for it she dipped swiftly into her handbag and brought out a .25 automatic. She pushed the gun against the side of my head, the little barrel rested on my skin.
“Sit where you are,” she said, and there was a look in her eyes that froze me. “Leave the telephone alone!”
We sat like that while the bell rang and rang. The shrill sound gnawed at my nerves, bounced on the silent walls of the room, crept through the closed french windows and lost itself in the sea.
“What’s the idea?” I asked, drawing back slowly. I didn’t like the feel of the gun against my face.
“Shut up!” There was a rasp in her voice. “Sit still!”
Finally the bell got tired of ringing and stopped. She stood up.
“Come on, we’re getting out of here,” and again the automatic threatened me.
“Where are we going?” I asked, not moving.
“Away from telephones. Come on if you don’t want to get shot in the leg.”
But it wasn’t the thought of being shot in the leg that made me go with her; it was my curiosity. I was very, very curious because all of a sudden she was frightened. I could see the fear in her eyes as plainly as I could see the little hollow between her breasts.
As we walked down the steps to a car parked just outside my front gate, the telephone began to ring again.
V
The car was a stream-lined, black Rolls, and its power and pace was tremendous. There was nothing about the car to convey a feeling of speed : no sway, no roll, no sound from the engine. Only the thunder of the wind ripping along the stream-lined roof and the black, blurred smudge of a madly-rushing night told me the needle of the speedometer, flickering on ninety, wasn’t fooling.
I sat beside Maureen Crosby in what felt like a low slung armchair and stared at the dazzling pool of light that lay on the road ahead of us and that fled before us like a scared ghost.
She had whipped the car along Orchid Boulevard, blasting a Path for herself through the theatre traffic by the strident, arrogant use of the horn. She overtook cars in the teeth of oncoming traffic, slipping between diminishing gaps and a certain head-on crash by the thickness of her fender paintwork. She stormed up the broad, dark Monte Verde Avenue and on to San Diego Highway. It was when she got on to the six-traffic-lane highway she really began to drive, overtaking everything that moved on the road with a silent rush that must have made the drivers start right out of their skins.
I had no idea where we were going, and when I began to say something, she cut me off with a curt, “Don’t talk! I want to think.” So I gave myself up to the mad rush into the darkness, admiring the way she handled the car, sinking back into the luxury of the seat, and hoping we wouldn’t hit anything.
San Diego Highway makes its way through a flat desert of sand dunes and scrub and comes out suddenly right by the ocean, and then cuts in again to the desert. Instead of keeping to the highway when we reached the sea, she slowed down to a loitering sixty, and swung off the road on to a narrow track that kept us by the sea. The track began to climb steeply, and the sea dropped below us until we breasted the hill and came out on to a cliff head. We were slowing down all the time, and were now crawling along at a bare thirty. After the speed we had been travelling at, we scarcely seemed to be moving. The glaring headlights picked out a notice: Private. Positively No Admittance, at the head of another narrow track lined on either side by tall scrub bushes. She swung the car into it, and the car fitted the track like a hand fits in a glove. We drove around bends and hairpin corners, as far as I could see, getting nowhere.
After some minutes she slowed down and stopped before a twelve-foot gate smothered in barbed wire. She tapped her horn button three times: short, sharp blasts that echoed in the still air and was still coming back at us when the gate swung open apparently of its own accord.
“Very, very tricky,” I said.
She didn’t say anything nor look at me, but drove on, and, looking back, I saw the gate swing to. I wondered suddenly if I was being kidnapped the way Nurse Gurney had been kidnapped. Maybe the whisky I had swallowed was taking a hold, for I really didn’t care. I felt it would be nice to have a little sleep. The clock on the dashboard showed two minutes to midnight: my bed-time.
Then suddenly the track began to broaden out into a carriage way, and we slip through another twelve-foot gate, standing open, and again looking back, I saw it swing to behind us as if closed by an invisible hand.
Into the glare of the headlights appeared a chalet-styled wooden house, screened by flowering shrubs and Tung blossom trees. Lights showed through the windows of the ground floor. An electric lantern shed a bright light on the steps leading to the front door. She pulled up, opened the car door and slid out. I got out more slowly. A terraced garden built into the cliff spread out before me in the moonlight. At the bottom, and it looked a long way down, I could see a big swimming-pool. The sea provided a soft background of sound and glittered in the far distance. The scent of flowers hung in the hot night air in overpowering profusion.
“Is all this yours?” I asked.
She was standing by my side. The top of her sleek dark hair was in line with my shoulder.
“Yes.” After a pause, she said, “I’m sorry about the gun, but I had to get you here quickly.”
“I would have come without the gun.”
“But not before you had answered the telephone. It was very important for you not to answer it.”
“Look, I have a headache and I’m tired. I’ve been kicked in the throat, and although I’m tough, I have still been kicked in the throat. All I ask is for you not to be mysterious. Will you tell me why you have brought me here. Why it was important I shouldn’t answer the telephone and what you want with me?”
“Of course. Shall we go in? I’ll get you a drink.”
We went up the steps. The front door stood open, and we walked into a lobby, through an archway into a big lounge that ran the width of the house. It was everything you would expect a millionairess to have. No money had been spared. The colour scheme was cream and magenta, and the room was showy without being vulgar. Not my idea of a room, but then I run to very simple tastes.
“Let’s sit on the verandah,” she said. “Will you go through? I’ll bring the drinks.”
“Are you alone here?”
“Except for a servant. She won’t worry us.”
I walked out on to the verandah. There was one of those big swing lounging seats about ten feet long arranged so you could sit and admire the view: as a view it was well worth admiring. I dropped on to a soft leather cushion and stared at the distant sea. All the time I had been in the car I had been wondering what she wanted with me. I still wondered.
She came out after a few minutes, pushing a trolley on which were bottles, glasses and an ice-pail. She sat down at one end of the seat. There was about eight feet of leather and space between us.
“Whisky?”
“Thank you.”
I watched her pour the whisky. Dark blue lights in the verandah roof made enough light for me to see her, but not enough to try the eyes. I thought she was about the loveliest lovely I had ever seen. Even her movements were a pleasure to watch.
We were both careful not to say anything while she poured the drinks. She offered me a cigarette, and I took it. I lit hers, and then mine.
We were now ready to begin, but she still seemed reluctant to say anything, and I wasn’t chancing a wrong remark that might put her off. We stared at the garden, the sea and the moon while the hands of my wrist-watch moved on.
She said suddenly, “I’m sorry about the way I—I acted. I mean offering you money to leave me alone. I know it was the wrong approach, but I didn’t want to give anything away until I had had a chance to find out what kind of man you are. The fact is I want your help. I’m in a mess, and I don’t know how to get out of it. I’ve been an awful fool, and I’m scared. I’m scared out of my wits.”
She didn’t look scared, but I didn’t tell her so.
“I wish I knew for certain if he knows of this place,” she went on, as if talking to herself. “If he does he’s certain to come here.”
“Suppose we take this nice and slow?” I said mildly. “We have all the time in the world.
Why was it important I shouldn’t answer the telephone? Let’s start with that one.”
“Because he would know where you were, and he’s looking for you,” she said, as if she were talking to a dim-witted child.
“You haven’t told me who he is. Is it Sherrill?”
“Of course,” she said shortly.
“Why is he looking for me?”
“He doesn’t want trouble, and you’re making trouble. He’s determined to get rid of you. I heard him tell Francini to do it.”
“Is Francini a little Wop with pock-marks on his face?”
“Yes.”
“And he works for Sherrill?”
“Yes.”
“So it was Sherrill who engineered Stevens’ kidnapping?”
“Yes. That settled it for me. When I heard the poor old man had died I came straight to you.”
“Does Sherrill know you have this place?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I’ve never talked about it, and he hasn’t ever been here. But he might know. There’s very little he doesn’t know.”
“All right, now we have got that ironed out, suppose we begin at the beginning?”
“I want to ask you something first,” she said. “Why did you come to Crestways, asking for me? Why did you go and talk to Dr. Bewley? Has anyone hired you to find out what I have been doing?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Who?”
“Your sister, Janet,” I told her.
If I had hit her across the face she wouldn’t have reacted more violently. She reared back in the seat as if she had trodden on a snake, making the swing rock violently.
“Janet?” The word came out in a horrified whisper. “But Janet’s dead. What do you mean? How can you say such a thing!”
I took out my wallet, found Janet’s letter and held it out to her.
“Read this.”
“What is it?” she asked, and seemed afraid to look at it.
“Read it, and look at the date. It was mislaid for fourteen months. I only read it myself for the first time a day or so ago.”
She took the letter. Her face stiffened and the pupils of her eyes contracted at the sight of the handwriting. After she had read it she sat still for several minutes, staring at it. I didn’t hurry her. Fear, real and undisguised, was plain to see on her face.
“And this—this started you making inquiries?” she asked at last.
“Your sister sent me five hundred dollars. I felt bound to earn it. I came out to Crestways to see you and talk it over. If you had been there and had explained the letter I should have returned the money and dropped the inquiry. But you weren’t there. Then all kinds of things started to happen, so I continued the investigation.”
“I see.”
I waited for her to say something else, hut she didn’t. She sat still, staring at the letter; her face white and her eyes hard.
“Were you being blackmailed?” I asked.
“No. I don’t know why she wrote to you. I suppose she was trying to make trouble. She was always trying to make trouble for me. She hated me.”
“Why did she hate you?”
She stared down at the garden for a long time without saying anything. I drank some of the whisky and smoked. If she was going to tell me she would in her own time. She wasn’t the type to be rushed.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “If I tell you why she hated me I’ll be putting myself entirely at your mercy. You could ruin me.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. “But if I don’t tell you,” she went on, clenching her fists, “I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this mess. I must have someone I can trust.”
“Haven’t you a lawyer?” I said, for something to say.
“He would be worse than useless. He’s my trustee. By the terms of my father’s will if I get involved in a scandal I lose everything. And I’m up to my ears in what would be a horrific scandal if it got out.”
“You mean with Sherrill?” I said. “Did you finance the Dream Ship?”
She stiffened, turned, stared at me. “You know that?”
“I don’t know it. I’m making a guess. If it got out you were behind the Dream Ship it would make a scandal.”
“Yes.” She suddenly moved along the seat so she was close to me. “Janet was in love with Douglas. I was crazy about him, too. I stole him from her. She tried to shoot me, but father saved me. He was shot instead of me,” she blurted out and hid her face in her hands.
I sat as still as a stone man, waiting. I wasn’t expecting this, and I was startled.
“It was hushed up,” she went on after a long pause. “Never mind how. But it preyed on Janet’s mind. She— she poisoned herself. That was hushed up, too. We were afraid it would come out why she killed herself. It was easy enough to hush up. The doctor was old. He thought it was heart failure. Then, when I came into the money, and there was a lot of it, Douglas showed himself for what he is. He said unless I gave him the money to buy Dream Ship he would circulate the story that I had stolen him from Janet and she had tried to kill me, but killed father, and had poisoned herself: all because of me. You can imagine what the papers would have made of that, and I should have lost everything. So I gave him the money for his beastly ship, but that didn’t satisfy him. He keeps coming to me for more money, and he watches every move I make. He found out you had started to make inquiries. He was afraid you would uncover the story, and, of course, if you did, he would lose his hold on me. He did everything he could to stop you. When he heard Stevens was meeting you, he kidnapped him. And now he’s going to wipe you out. I don’t know what to do! I’ve got to go somewhere and hide. I want you to help me. Will you help me? Will you?” She was clutching my hands now. “Will you promise you won’t give me away? I’ll do anything for you in return. I mean it! Will you help me?”
There was a slight sound behind us, and we both turned. A tall, powerfully-built man with dark curly hair, dressed in a scarlet sleeveless sweatshirt and dark blue slacks stood just behind us. He held a .38 automatic in his hand and it pointed directly at me. There was a cheerful, patronizing smile on his tanned face as if he was enjoying a private joke that was a little too deep for the average intelligence.
“She tells a pretty tale, doesn’t she?” he said in one of those ultra-masculine voices. “So she wants to run away and hide? Well, so she shall. She’ll be hidden all right, where no one will ever find her, and that goes for you, too, my inquisitive friend.”
I was calculating the distance between us, wondering if I could get up and reach him before he fired, when I heard the all too familiar swish of a descending cosh and the inside of my head seemed to explode.
The last sound I heard was Maureen’s wild, terrified scream.