Lay Her Among the Lilies vm-2 Page 22

  “Wouldn’t it be better for you to see Mifflin?”

  “We haven’t the time. If Anona’s at Maureen’s place she’s in trouble.”

  Kerman leaned forward.

  “What is all this about?”

  I waved the dossier at him.

  “It’s right here, and that lug Mifflin didn’t think it important enough to tell me. Since 1944, Anona had endocarditis. I told you they were trying to keep a cat in a bag. Well, it’s out now.”

  “Anona’s got a wacky heart?” Kerman said, gaping at me. “You mean Janet Crosby, don’t you?”

  “Listen to the description they give of Anona,” I said. “Five foot; dark; brown eyes; plump. Work that out.”

  “But it’s wrong. She’s tall and fair,” Kerman said. “What are you talking about?”

  Paula was on to it.

  “She isn’t Anona Freedlander. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “You bet she isn’t,” I said excitedly. “Don’t you see? It was Anona who died of heart failure at Crestways! And the girl in Salzer’s sanatorium is Janet Crosby!”

  III

  We stood at the foot of the almost perpendicular cliff and stared up into the darkness. Far out to sea a great red glow in the sky pin-pointed the burning Dream Ship. A mushroom of smoke hung in the night sky.

  “Up there?” Kerman said. “What do you think I am—a monkey?”

  “That’s something you’d better discuss with your father,” I said, and grinned in the darkness. “There’s no other way. The front entrance is guarded by two electrically-controlled gates, and all the barbed wire in the world. If we’re going to get in, this is the way.”

  Kerman drew back to study die face of the cliff.

  “Three hundred feet if it’s an inch,” he said, awe in his voice. “Will I love every foot of it!”

  “Well, come on. Let’s try, anyway.”

  The first twenty feet was easy enough. Big boulders formed a platform at the foot of the cliff; they were simple enough to climb. We stood side by side on a flat rock while I sent the beam of my torch up into the darkness. The jagged face of the cliff towered above us, and, almost at the top, bulged out, forming what seemed an impassable barrier.

  “That’s the bit I like,” Kerman said, pointing. “Up there, where it curves out. Getting over that’s going to be fun: a tooth and fingernail job.”

  “Maybe it’s not so bad as it looks,” I said, not liking it myself. “If we had a rope…”

  “If we had a rope I’d go quietly away some place and hang myself,” Kerman said gloomily. “It would save time and a lot of hard work.”

  “Pipe down, you pessimistic devil!” I said sharply, and began to edge up the cliff face. There were foot and handholds, and if the cliff hadn’t been perpendicular it would have been fairly easy to climb. But, as it was, I was conscious that one slip would finish the climb and me. I’d fall straight out and away from the cliff face. There would be no sliding or grabbing to save myself.

  When I had climbed about fifty feet I paused to get my breath back. I couldn’t look down. The slightest attempt to lean away from the cliff face would upset my balance, and I’d fall.

  “How are you getting on?” I panted, pressing myself against the surface of the cliff and staring up into the star-studded sky.

  “As well as can be expected,” Kerman said with a groan. “I’m surprised I’m still alive. Do you think this is dangerous or am I just imagining it?”

  I shifted my grip on a knob of rock and hauled myself up another couple of feet.

  “It’s only dangerous if you fall; then probably it’s fatal,” I said.

  We kept moving. Once I heard a sudden rumble of fall-ling rock and Kerman catch his breath sharply. My hair stood on end.

  “Keep your eye on some of these rocks,” he gasped. “One of them’s just come away in my hand.”

  “I’ll watch it.”

  About a quarter-way up I came suddenly and unexpectedly to a four-foot ledge and I hoisted myself up on it, leaned my back against the cliff face and tried to get my breath back. I felt cold sweat on my neck and back. If I had known it was going to be this bad I would have tried the gates. It was too late now. It might be just possible to climb up, but quite impossible to climb down.

  Kerman joined me on the ledge. His face was glistening with sweat, and his legs seemed shaky.

  “This has cooled me off mountain climbing,” he panted. “One time I was sucker enough to imagine it’d be fun. Think we’ll get over the bulge?”

  “We’ll damn well have to,” I said, staring up into the darkness. “There’s no other way now but to keep going. Imagine trying to climb down!”

  I sent the beam of the flashlight searching the cliff face again. To our left and above us was a four-foot-wide crevice that went up beside the bulge.

  “See that?” I said. “If we got our feet and shoulders against the sides of that opening we might work our way up past the bulge.”

  Kerman drew in a deep breath.

  “The ideas you get,” he said. “It can’t be done.”

  “I think it can,” I said, staring at the walls of the crevice. “And I’m going to try.”

  “Don’t be a fool!” Alarm jumped into his voice. “You’ll slip.”

  “If you want to try the bulge, try it. This is my way.”

  I swung off the ledge, groped for a foothold, edged my hand along the cliff face until I got a grip and started up again. It was slow and difficult work. The hazy moonlight didn’t help me much, and most of the time I had to feel for handholds. As my head and shoulders came level with the bottom of the crevice the knob of rock on which I was standing gave under me. I felt it shift a split second before it went and I threw myself forward, clawing at the rock bed of the crevice in a frantic effort to get a hold. My fingers hooked into a ridge of rock and there I hung.

  “Take it easy!” Kerman bawled, as hysterical as an old lady with her dress on fire. “Hang on! I’m right with you!”

  “Stay where you are,” I panted. “I’ll only take you down with me.”

  I tried to get a foothold, but the toes of my shoes scraped against the cliff face and trod on air. Then I tried to draw myself up, pulling the whole of my weight with my fingertips, but that couldn’t be done. I managed to raise myself a couple of inches and that’s as far as I got.

  Something touched my foot.

  “Take it easy,” Kerman implored below me. He guided my foot on to his shoulder. “Now, give me your weight and push up.”

  “I’ll push you down, you fool!” I panted.

  “Come on!” His voice shook. “I’ve got a good grip. Slowly and steadily. Don’t do anything suddenly.”

  There was nothing else to do. Very cautiously I transferred the weight of my body on to his shoulder, then transferred my finger grip to another ridge where I had a better hold.

  “I’m heaving,” I panted. “Right?”

  “Yeah,” Kerman said, and I felt him brace himself.

  I heaved with my arms and shoulders and slid up and on to the floor of the crevice. I lay there, panting until Kerman’s head appeared above the ledge, then I crawled forward and pulled him up beside me. We flopped down, side by side, not saying anything.

  After a while I got unsteadily to my feet.

  “We’re having quite a night,” I said, leaning against the crevice wall.

  Kerman squinted up at me.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Will I get a medal for that?”

  “I’ll buy you a drink instead,” I said, drew in a deep breath, dug my shoulders into the wall and got my feet up against the opposite wall. By pressing hard with my shoulders and feet I managed to maintain a sitting position between the two walls.

  “Is that the way you’re going to travel?” Kerman asked, horrified.

  “Yeah—it’s an old Swiss custom.”

  “Have I got to do that, too?”

  “Unless you want to stay where you are for the rest of your days.” I said
heartlessly.

  “There’s no other way.”

  I began to edge myself upwards. The sharp rocks dug into my shoulder-blades, and it was slow work, but I made progress. So long as the muscles in my legs didn’t turn sour on me I would get to the top. But if they did, it would be a quick drop and a rocky landing.

  I kept moving. I’d rather go up this way than attempt the bulge. A third of the way up I had to stop and rest. My legs felt as if I had been running for a hundred miles, and the muscles in my thighs were fluttering.

  “How are you doing, pal?” Kerman called, shining his flash up at me.

  “Well, I’m still in one piece,” I said dubiously. “Wait until I get to the top before you try it.”

  “Take your time. I’m in no hurry.”

  I stared again. It was slow work, and my shoulders began to ache. I kept looking up at the star-studded sky. It seemed to be coming closer; maybe that was just wishful thinking, but it inspired me to keep on. I kept on, my breath hissing through clenched teeth, my legs stiffening, my shoulders bruised. Up and up; inch by inch, knowing there was no going back. I had to get up there or fall.

  The crevice began to narrow, and I knew then I was passing the bulge. The going became harder. My knees were being slowly forced towards my chin. I was getting less leverage. Then suddenly I stopped. I could go no farther. Above me the crevice had narrowed down to about three feet. Bracing myself, I got out the flashlight and sent the beam along the wall and above me. A scrubby bush grew out of the rock within reach. To my right was a narrow shelf: the top of the bulge.

  I put the flash back into my pocket, reached for the bush. I got a grip on it close to where it grew out of the cliff and pulled gently. It held. I transferred some of my weight to it. It still held. Then drawing in a deep breath I relaxed the pressure of my feet against the wall and swung into space. It was quite a moment. The bush bent, but it was well rooted. I swung to and fro, feeling sweat like ice-water running down my spine, then I swung myself towards the ledge and with my free hand groped for a hold. My fingers dipped into a crack: not enough to hold me, but just enough to steady me. I hung there, pressing my body against the wall of the crevice, my feet treading air, my right hand clutching the bush, my left hand dug into the narrow crack in the ledge. One false move now, and I would go down. I was scared all right. I’ve been in some panics in my life, but none like this one.

  Very cautiously I began to lever down with my right hand and pull with my left. I moved up slowly. My head and shoulders came up above the ledge. I began to lean forward as my chest touched the edge of the ledge. I hung like that, nearly done, my heart pounding, blood singing in my ears. After a while I collected enough strength to climb another couple of inches. I dragged up one knee and rested it on the ledge. Then, with a frantic effort, I heaved forward and was on the ledge, flat on my back, aware of nothing but the pounding of my heart and the rasping of my breath.

  “Vic!”

  Kerman’s voice floated up the funnel of the crevice.

  I made a croaking noise and crawled to the edge.

  “Are you all right, Vic?”

  His voice sounded miles away: a faint whisper out of the darkness. Looking down I saw a pin-point of light waving to and fro. I had no idea I had climbed so far, and seeing that light made me dizzy.

  “Yeah,” I shouted back. “Give me a minute.”

  After a while I got my breath and nerve back.

  “You can’t do it, Jack,” I shouted down to him. “You’ll have to wait until I can get a rope. It’s too tricky. Don’t try it.”

  “Where will you get the rope from?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll find something. You wait there.”

  I turned around and sent the beam of the flashlight into the darkness. I was only about thirty feet below the cliff head. The rest of the way was easy.

  “I’m going now,” I shouted down to him. “Hang on until I get a rope.”

  I practically walked up the next thirty feet, and came up right beside the ornate swimming-pool. Above me was the house. A solitary light burned in one of the windows.

  I set off towards it.

  IV

  The verandah, when I got there, was deserted, and the swing lounging chair looked invitingly comfortable. I would have liked to have stretched out on it and taken a twelve-hour nap.

  A standard lamp with a yellow and blue parchment shade was alight in the big lounge. The casement doors leading from the lounge to the verandah stood open.

  I paused at the head of the verandah steps at the sound of a voice: a woman’s voice, out of tune with the still, summer night, the scent of flowers and the big yellow moon. The voice was loud and shrill. Maybe it was angry, too, and the edges of it were a little frayed with suppressed hysteria.

  “Oh, shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” The voice was saying. “Come quickly. You’ve talked enough. Just shut up and come!”

  I could see her in there, kneeling on one of the big settees, holding the telephone in a small, tight-clenched fist. Her back was turned to me. The light from the lamp fell directly on her beautifully-shaped head and picked out the tints in her raven-black hair. She was wearing a pair of high-waisted, bottle-green slacks and a silk shirt of the same colour, and made the kind of picture Varga likes to draw. She was his type: long legged, small hipped, high breasted, and as alive and as quick as mercury.

  She said, “Do stop it! Why go on and on? Just come. That’s all you have to do,” and she slammed down the receiver.

  I didn’t think the situation called for stealth or super-refined cunning, and I wasn’t in the mood to play pretty. I was leg-weary and bruised and still short of breath, and my temper was as touchy as the filed trigger of a heist man’s rod. So I moved into the room without bothering to tread quietly. My footfalls across the parquet floor sounded like miniature explosions.

  I saw her back stiffen. Her head turned slowly. She looked over her shoulder at me. Her big black eyes opened wide. There was a pause in which you could have counted a slow ten. She didn’t recognize me. She saw what looked like an overgrown sailor in tattered white ducks with a rip in one trousers knee, a shirt any laundry would have returned with a note of complaint and a face that had more dirt on it than freckles.

  “Hello,” I said quietly. “Remember me? Your pal, Malloy.”

  She remembered me then. She drew in a deep breath, pushed herself off the settee and stood firmly on her small, well-shaped feet.

  “How did you get here?” she asked, her face and voice were as expressionless as the ruffles on her shirt.

  “I climbed the cliff. You should try it sometime when you run out of excitement,” I said, moving into the room. “It’s good for the figure, too; not that there’s anything wrong with yours.”

  She bent her thumb and stared at it; then she bit it tentatively.

  “You haven’t seen it yet,” she said.

  “Is the operative word in that sentence ‘yet’?” I asked, looking at her.

  “It could be. It depends on you.”

  “Does it?” I sat down. “Shall we have a drink? I’m not quite the man I was. You’ll find my reflexes act better on whisky.”

  She moved across the lounge to the cellaret.

  “Is it true about the cliff?” she asked. “No one has ever climbed it before.”

  “Leander swam the Hellespont, and Hero wasn’t half as good looking as you,” I said lightly.

  “You mean you really climbed it?” She came back with a long tumbler full of whisky and ice. It looked a lot more tempting than she did; but I didn’t tell her so.

  “I climbed it,” I said, and took the glass. “To your dark and lovely eyes, and the figure I haven’t seen—yet.”

  She stood by and watched me drink a third of it. Then she lit a cigarette with a hand that was as steady as the cliff we were talking about, took it from her red, sensual mouth and gave it to me.

  Our fingers touched. Her skin felt feverish.

  “Is your sister
here?” I asked, and set the whisky carefully on the coffee table at my side.

  She inspected her thumb again thoughtfully, then looked at me out of the corners of her eyes.

  “Janet’s dead. She died two years ago,” she said.

  “I’ve made a lot of discoveries since you told me that,” I said. “I know the girl your mother kept a prisoner in the sanatorium for something like two years is your sister, Janet. Shall I tell you just how much I do know?”

  She made a little grimace and sat down.

  “You can if you want to,” she said.

  “Some of it is guess-work. Perhaps you’ll help me as I go along?” I said, settling farther down in the chair. “Janet was your father’s favourite. Both you and your mother knew he was going to leave her the bulk of his money. Janet fell in love with Sherrill, who also knew she was coming into the money. Sherrill was quite a dashing type, and dashing types appeal to you. You and he had an affair on the side, but Janet found out and broke the engagement.

  There was a quarrel between you two. One of you grabbed a shot-gun. Your father came in at the wrong moment. Did you shoot him or was it Janet?”

  She lit a cigarette, dropped the match into an ashtray before saying, “Does it matter? I did if you must know.”

  “There was a nurse staying in the house at the time: Anona Freedlander. Why was she there?”

  “My mother wasn’t quite right in the head,” she said casually. “She didn’t think I was, either. She persuaded father I wanted looking after, and she sent Nurse Freedlander to spy on me.”

  “Nurse Freedlander wanted to call the police when you shot your father?”

  She nodded and smiled. The smile didn’t reach the expressionless, coal-black eyes.

  “Mother said they would put me away in a home if it came out I had shot him. Nurse Freedlander made herself a nuisance. Mother got her back to the sanatorium and locked her up. It was the only way to keep her quiet. Then Janet insisted on me being locked up, too, and mother had to agree. She sent me here. This is her house. Janet thought I was in the sanatorium. She found out I wasn’t, but she didn’t know where I was. I think that’s why she wrote to you. She was going to ask you to find me. Then Nurse Freedlander had a heart attack and died. This was too good a chance to miss. Mother and Douglas carried her body to Crestways. Mother told Janet I wanted to see her, and she went over to the sanatorium. She was locked up in Nurse Freedlander’s room, and Nurse Freedlander was put in Janet’s bed. It was quite a bright idea, wasn’t it? I called Dr. Bewley who lived near by. It didn’t occur to him that the dead woman wasn’t Janet, and he signed the death certificate. It was easy after that. The Trustees didn’t suspect anything, and I came into all the money.” She leaned forward to tap cigarette-ash into the ashtray, went on in the same flat, disinterested voice, “It was true what I told you about Douglas. The little rat turned on me and tried to blackmail me and made me buy the Dream Skip. Janet’s maid blackmailed me, too. She knew Janet hadn’t died. Then you came along. I thought if I told you some of the story it might scare Douglas off, but it didn’t. He wanted to kill you, but I wouldn’t let him. It was my idea you should go to the sanatorium. I didn’t think you would get Janet away. As soon as I found out where she was I got Sherrill’s men to bring her here.”