According to Fedor, Ralph Jordan had a penthouse apartment on Roosevelt Boulevard. He had taken the apartment soon after June Arnot had got rid of her Hollywood home, and although he had kept on his own luxurious home in Beverly Hills, he seldom lived there.
Conrad swung the car up the circular drive leading to Jordan’s apartment block and pulled up in the shadows. Near by was a row of garage lock-ups. A big black Cadillac, parked half in and half out of one of the lock-ups attracted his attention.
“Someone wasn’t looking where he was driving,” he said as he got out of the car. He walked over to the lock-up. Bardin followed him.
The Cadillac’s off-side wing had crashed against the side of the lock-up, splintering the wood. The wing was pushed in and the off-side headlamp was smashed.
Bardin opened the car door and inspected the registration tag.
“Might have guessed it,” he said. “Jordan’s car. Who said he wasn’t hopped to the eyebrows?”
“Well, at least he’s home,” Conrad returned, and walked over to the entrance to the apartment block. He pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby, followed by Bardin.
A stout pink-and-white reception clerk in a faultlessly fitting tuxedo rested two small white hands on the polished top of the reception desk and raised his pale eyebrows at Conrad with a touch of hauteur.
“Is there something I can do?”
Bardin pushed his bulk forward. He flashed his buzzer and scowled. When he wanted to, he could look tough and ferocious, and he was looking tough and ferocious now.
“Lieutenant Bardin, City police,” he said in a grating voice. “Jordan in?”
The reception clerk stiffened. His small hands fluttered.
“If you mean Mr. Ralph Jordan; yes, he is in. Did you wish to see him?”
“When did he get in?”
“Just after eight o’clock.”
“Was he drunk?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t notice.” The shocked expression on the clerk’s face made Conrad grin.
“What time did he go out?”
“Just after six.”
“He’s on the top floor, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. We’re going up. Keep your hands off the telephone if you know what’s good for you. This is a surprise visit. Anyone up there with him?”
“Not as far as I know.”
Bardin grunted, then tramped across the pile carpet that covered the halfacre of lobby to the elevator.
“So he went out just after six and got back at eight. That would have given him plenty of time to get to Dead End, do the job and get back again,” he said as the elevator took them swiftly and silently to the top floor.
“Keep your eye on him,” Conrad cautioned as the elevator doors slid back. “If he’s still hopped up he may be dangerous.”
“He won’t be the first hop-head I’ve had to handle, and I bet he won’t be the last — worse luck.”
Bardin paused outside the front door to the apartment.
“Hello: the door’s open.”
He thumbed the bell-push. Somewhere in the apartment a bell rang sharply. Bardin waited a moment then shoved the front door wide open with his foot and looked into the small lobby.
A door facing them stood ajar.
They waited another moment or so, then Bardin walked into the lobby and pushed open the inner door.
They looked into a big, airy lounge, ablaze with lights. Wine-coloured curtains covered the windows. The walls were grey. There were armchairs, settees, a table or two and a well-equipped cocktail-bar. A television set and a radiogram stood side by side, and on the mantelpiece were glass ornaments, beautifully fashioned and blatantly obscene. Bardin stood looking round, breathing heavily through his nostrils.
“Isn’t it wonderful how these punks live?” he said savagely. “The guy who said virtue is its own reward should take a look at this joint.”
“Your time will come when you get to heaven,” Conrad said with a grin. “You’ll be given a gold-plated revolver and diamonds on your badge. Doesn’t seem to be anyone around.”
“Hey! Anyone here?” Bardin bawled in a voice that rattled the windows.
The silence that greeted his shout was as solid and as engulfing as a snowdrift, and as cold.
They exchanged glances.
“Now what?” Bardin said. “Think he’s hiding up some place?”
“Maybe he went out again.”
“That queen would have seen him go.”
“Then let’s take a look.”
Conrad crossed the room, rapped on a door to the left, turned the handle and looked into a big airy bedroom. The only furniture except for a white pile carpet was a twelve-foot-wide bed that stood on a two-foot-high dais and looked as lonely as a lighthouse.
“No one here,” Conrad said as he walked into the room.
“Try the bathroom,” Bardin said, his voice sharpening.
They crossed the room to the bathroom door and opened it. They looked into the most elaborately equipped bathroom they had ever seen, but their eyes had no interest for the luxury nor the glittering plumbing. Their attention became riveted on the sunken bath.
Ralph Jordan lay in the waterless bath, his head sunk on his chest. He was wearing a wine-coloured dressing-gown over a pair of pale blue lounging pyjamas. The walls of the bath and the front of his dressing-gown were stained red. He held in his right hand an old-fashioned cut-throat razor. The blood on the thin blade looked like scarlet paint.
Bardin pushed past Conrad and touched Jordan’s hand.
“Deader than a joint of beef: chilled beef at that.”
He took hold of a long lock of Jordan’s hair and lifted his head.
Conrad grimaced as he caught sight of the deep gash across Jordan’s throat: so deep it had severed the wind-pipe.
“Well, that’s that,” Bardin said, stepping back. “Like I said: an open and shut case. He went out there, knocked her off, then came back here and cut his throat. Very considerate of him. It makes a nice tidy job — for me, anyway.” He groped for a cigarette, lit it and blew a cloud of smoke into the dead man’s face. “Looks like Doc Holmes is going to have a busy night.”
Conrad was moving around the bathroom. He discovered an electric razor on the wall.
“Odd he should have a cut-throat razor. You’d have to go to a good many homes these days to find one, and you wouldn’t have thought Jordan would have kept one so handy.”
Bardin groand.
“Now don’t start lousing up the issue. Maybe the guy cut his corns with it: people do.” He pushed open a door by the head of the bath and looked into an elaborately equipped dressing-room. On a chair was a suit, shirt and silk underwear. A pair of brogue shoes and socks lay near by.
Conrad walked into the room, then came to a sudden standstill.
“Now this will make you really happy, Sam,” he said, and waved to a bloodstained object on the floor.
Bardin joined him.
“Well, I’ll be damned! A machete!” He knelt beside the razor-sharp knife. “I bet it’s the murder weapon. It’s just the thing to cut someone’s head off with, and it would lay a belly open like you open a door.”
“It wouldn’t interest you to wonder why a guy like Jordan should have a South American jungle knife in his possession?”
Bardin sat back on his heels. His grin made him look like a wolf.
“Maybe he picked it up as a souvenir. I bet he’s been to South America or the West Indies: probably the West Indies. It’s the murder weapon all right, and I’ll bet the blood on it is June Arnot’s blood.”
Conrad was turning over the clothes on the chair.
“There’s no blood on these. I shouldn’t have thought it possible to cut off someone’s head and not get blood on you.”
“For crying out loud!” Bardin said impatiently. He stood up and stretched his big frame. “Do you have to lean so hard on your job? Maybe he had a coat on or something. Does it matter? I’m satisfied; aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Conrad said frowning. “It’s all very pat, isn’t it? The whole setup could be a plant, Sam. The gun with Jordan’s initials on it, the smashed car, Jordan’s suicide and now the murder weapon. Everything cut and dried and laid out ready for inspection. It smells a little to me.”
“It smells because you’re over-anxious to earn a living,” Bardin said, lifting his massive shoulders. “Forget it. It convinces me, and it’ll convince the Captain. It would convince you if you didn’t yearn to get Maurer into the chair. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Conrad pulled at his nose thoughtfully.
“Maybe. Well, okay. I guess there’s nothing here for me. Want me to drop you off at headquarters?”
“I’ll call them from here. I’ll want the boys to look this joint over. As soon as I get them working, I’ll go back to Dead End and give the press the story. You’re going home?”
Conrad nodded.
“May as well.”
“Lucky guy. No late work, a nice little home and lots of glamour to keep you warm. How is Mrs. Conrad?”
“Oh, she’s fine, I guess,” Conrad said, and was annoyed to hear how flat and unenthusiastic his voice sounded.