The Guilty Are Afraid Read online

  “Joe will, the bell hop, if you ask him.”

  “If you have nothing better to do, come into my room. I have a bottle of Vat 69 that needs a workout.”

  His fat face brightened. It wouldn’t have surprised me to learn he hadn’t many friends.

  “I guess I can spare a few minutes.”

  We went into my room and I shut the door.

  Greaves sat on the upright chair while I sat on the bed. The ice had long since melted. I didn’t bother to phone for more. I gave him three fingers of whisky and myself one.

  I studied him as he sniffed at his glass. His round, fat face was devoid of guile. His moustache had a few white hairs. His eyes were hard, suspicious and a little weary. It couldn’t be much fun to be a house dick to a hotel of this standing.

  “Do they know who killed him?” he asked after he had taken a healthy gulp at his drink.

  “If they do, they haven’t told me,” I said, then went on, “Did you see the girl he went out with?”

  Greaves nodded.

  “I saw her.” He produced a crumpled pack of Luckies, offered me one and lit up. “The cops in this town only cooperate with the dicks of the big hotels. Little guys like me they ignore. Okay, that’s no skin off my nose. If that city slicker Rankin had talked to me, I could have told him something, but no, he has to talk to Brewer. Know why? Because Brewer can just afford to buy himself a silk cravat. That’s why.”

  “What could you have told him?” I asked, sitting forward.

  “He asked Brewer for a description of the girl,” Greaves said. “That shows you the kind of cop he is. All Brewer saw of her were her clothes. I was watching her. I could see she was wearing that outfit because she didn’t mean to be recognized again. The first thing I spotted about her was she was a blonde. She was either wearing a wig or she had dyed her hair. I don’t know which, but I know she was a blonde.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  Greaves smiled sourly.

  “By using my eyes. She had short sleeves and the hairs on her arms were blonde. She had a blonde’s skin and complexion.”

  I wasn’t particularly impressed by this reasoning. The hair on her arms could have been bleached by the sun. I didn’t say so because I didn’t want to discourage him.

  “I’ve been trained to look for the little giveaway habits people have and she had one,” Greaves went on. “She was in the lobby for five minutes. All the time she was playing the piano on her thigh.” He stood up to demonstrate. “With her right hand, see? Moving her fingers against her thigh like this.” He went through the motions of playing a scale. “All the time, and that was a well-developed habit. It wasn’t a stunt: she didn’t know she was doing it.”

  I took a drink while I considered this information.

  “The police would have quite a job looking for a girl who had that trick, wouldn’t they?” I said.

  Greaves sneered.

  “You’d have to get close to her first. But it would clinch it if they thought they had found her and weren’t sure.”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s right. From what you saw of her, what line do you think she was in?”

  He lifted his heavy shoulders.

  “Hard to tell. She could have been in show business. I don’t know: a model, a singer or an actress. She wore her clothes well and she had plenty of style.”

  “Are you telling Rankin all this?”

  Greaves killed his cigarette, then shook his head.

  “He wouldn’t listen even if I could be bothered to take a trip down to headquarters. He has no time for small guys like me. The hell with him.”

  “Any idea how the guy who searched Sheppey’s room got in?”

  “He used Sheppey’s key. Sheppey took it along with him: forgot to hand it in. It’s my guess the guy who killed him found the key, hotfooted back here, walked up the stairs, let himself in and took the room to pieces. It needed nerve, but he was safe enough. We’re understaffed and at that hour of the morning there wouldn’t be anyone up here.”

  I decided it was time to let him know I was more or less in the same line of business as he was. I took out my card and handed it to him.

  “I’m not asking questions for the fun of it,” I said.

  He read the card, frowned, rubbed his fat nose and handed the card back to me.

  “Was he your partner?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve always wanted to get into your racket. There’s a lot more money in it than mine. How are you doing?”

  “I can’t grumble until this happened. Now I’ll have to shut down until I find the killer.”

  He stared at me.

  “That’s police work. What do you think you can do?”

  “It’d look good, wouldn’t it, if I went back to Frisco and carried on as if nothing had happened? What sort of advertisement would it be if I didn’t do something towards tracing the killer? Besides, Jack was my best friend. I couldn’t sit still and let the police handle it.”

  Greaves pulled a face.

  “Then watch out. Rankin isn’t so bad: he’s a reasonable cop, but Captain Katchen is in a class all by himself. If there’s one thing he hates more than a hotel dick, it’s a shamus. If he gets the idea you are poking around on his territory, you’re in for trouble, and I mean trouble.”

  I finished my drink, then wiped my wrists with my handkerchief.

  The room temperature was up in the eighties.

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “There was a private eye who came here from Los Angeles to check on a suicide case. The widow was convinced it was murder so she hired this guy to poke around. Katchen warned him off, but he still kept trying. One day when he was out driving, a prowl car slammed into him, wrecked his car, put him in hospital with a broken collarbone and when he came out he got six weeks for drunken driving. He swore the cops had poured half a pint of whisky over him before taking him to hospital, but no one believed him.”

  “He sounds a nice type. Thanks for the tip. I’ll keep clear of him.”

  Greaves finished his drink regretfully and put down the glass.

  “You’d better. Well, I guess I’ll be hauling my butt. I’m supposed to be in the lobby around this time to make sure none of the old gentlemen smuggle in a floosie. They never have done it, but the manager is sure they’ll try some time. Thanks for the drink. Any time you want help, I’ll do what I can.”

  I said I’d remember that.

  As he was leaving the room, I said casually, “Does the name Lee Creedy mean anything to you?”

  He paused to stare, then pushed the door to and leaned against it.

  “He’s the biggest man we have in this town.”

  I managed not to show my excitement.

  “How big?”

  “He’s worth a hundred million bucks for a start. He owns the Green Star shipping line. They have a fleet of tankers plying between Frisco and Panama. He owns the Air Lift Corporation that runs air taxis from here to Miami. He owns three newspapers and a factory that employs ten thousand men and women who turn out electrical components for cars. He owns a piece of the Casino, a piece of our lightweight champion, a piece of the Ritz-Plaza Hotel and a piece of the Musketeer Club, the only really exclusive night club in this lousy town, and when I say exclusive, I don’t mean expensive although it’s expensive enough. You have to have a five-figure income and maybe a blood test before you get in. That’s how big he is. Maybe he owns other things as well, but that will give you the general idea.”

  “He lives here?”

  “He’s got a place out at Thor Bay: about five miles along the coast: a fifteen-acre estate with a little shack of about twenty-five bedrooms, a swimming pool you could float an aircraft carrier on, six tennis courts, a zoo with lions and tigers, a staff of forty, all falling over their flat feet to give him service, and a little harbour just big enough to take his four-thousand ton yacht.”

  “Married?”

  “Oh, sur
e.” Greaves wrinkled his nose. “Remember Bridgette Bland, the movie star? That’s her.”

  I had a vague recollection of once seeing her in some movie. If she was the girl I was thinking of, she had caused a minor sensation four years ago at the Cannes film festival. She had received a lot of publicity by riding a horse into the lobby of the Majestic Hotel and tossing the reins to the reception clerk before strolling to the elevator to be whisked up to her five-room suite. She had lasted about two years in pictures and then she had faded out. If I wasn’t confusing her with someone else, I remembered she had the reputation for being wild and tiresome. Greaves was regarding me with question marks in his eyes.

  “What gives with Creedy?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “His name came up. Some guy mentioned him. I wondered who he was.”

  Greaves stared thoughtfully at me, then nodding, he opened the door and went away.

  I lit a cigarette and stretched out on the bed.

  Jack had said the job was larded with money. If his client had been Lee Creedy then there would be money to be had. But why should a man in Creedy’s position hire an obscure inquiry agent three hundred miles from his hometown? With his set-up and bank balance he could have got Pinkerton or any other of the de luxe agencies. I ran my fingers through my damp hair.

  A man like Creedy would be surrounded by secretaries, bouncers, flunkies and yes-men whose job it would be to keep people like me away from him. It wouldn’t be easy to get near him; it wouldn’t be easy to ask him if he had hired Jack and why.

  I drank a little whisky to get me in the right mood, then I lifted the telephone receiver.

  “Give me Greaves,” I said to the switchboard girl.

  There was a delay, then Greaves came on the line.

  “I have a call to make,” I said. “How clear is your switchboard?”

  He didn’t need a blueprint to understand what I meant.

  “You’ve nothing to worry about. There was a cop hanging around for a while, but he’s gone now.”

  I thanked him, then flashed the operator and asked for directory inquiries. When the girl answered I said I wanted to be connected with Lee Creedy.

  She told me to hold on and after a while a man’s voice said, “This is Mr. Creedy’s residence.”

  He sounded as if he either had a plum in his mouth or should have had his adenoids snipped in the past.

  “Put me through to Mr. Creedy,” I said briskly.

  “If you will give me your name, sir,” the voice said distantly, “I will put you through to Mr. Creedy’s secretary.”

  “My name is Lew Brandon. I don’t want Mr. Creedy’s secretary, I want Mr. Creedy in person.”

  I didn’t think it would work and it didn’t.

  “If you will hold on, sir, I will connect you with Mr. Creedy’s secretary.”

  The boredom in his voice was as insulting as a slap in the face. There were a few clicks, then a curt voice, sharp enough to slice bread on, snapped, “Hammerschult here. Who is talking?”

  “This is Lew Brandon. I want Mr. Creedy.”

  “Hold it, please.”

  By listening carefully I could hear his heavy breathing and could hear him turning the pages of what could have been an address book. This was a careful guy. He wasn’t going to get rude until he knew who he was talking to.

  “Mr. Brandon?” he demanded, much more aggressive now. “What is your business? “

  “Mr. Creedy will tell you if he wants you to know. Just put me through and stop wasting my time.”

  I put some menace in my voice, making it sound tough.

  It didn’t work, but it slowed him down a little.

  “It isn’t possible for you to speak to Mr. Creedy,” he said, his tone quieter. “If you could give me some idea what you want, I will speak to him and he may call you back.”

  I knew this was the dead-end. If I became too tough, he would guess I was trying to trample over him, so I played my last and none-too-strong card.

  “Tell him I am the senior partner of the Star Agency of San Francisco. He’s waiting for me to report to him.”

  “Is he?” The voice sounded surprised and less confident. “All right, Mr. Brandon, I’ll speak to him and we’ll call you. What is your number?”

  I gave him the hotel number and he hung up.

  I stubbed out my cigarette, finished my whisky and closed my eyes.

  I would have, I thought, an hour’s wait, possibly longer. I might not hear at all. There seemed no point at the moment in doing anything. I relaxed, and after a while, I dozed off.

  The sharp and violent ringing of the telephone bell brought me awake with a start that nearly threw me off the bed. I grabbed up the receiver, looking at my wristwatch. I had been asleep for fifteen minutes.

  “Mr. Brandon?”

  I recognized Hammerschult’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Creedy will see you at three o’clock this afternoon.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears.

  “Three o’clock?”

  “Yes. Will you please be punctual? Mr. Creedy has several appointments for this afternoon, and he will only be able to spare you a few minutes.”

  “That’ll be long enough,” I said, and hung up.

  For a long moment I lay staring up at the ceiling, then I swung my legs to the floor. Creedy had to be Jack’s client. That could be the only reason why a man of his position would bother to see me I looked at my watch again.

  I had just under the hour to get out to his place.

  I went over to my suitcase to unpack my best suit.

  Chapter 3

  I

  Lee Creedy’s estate was built on the far end of a mile-long, narrow peninsula that projected into the exact centre of Thor Bay.

  You could get a good view of it from Bay Boulevard. Before I turned off on to the private road that ran the length of the peninsula to the estate, I slowed down and took a look at it.

  The house was massive: three stories high with vast windows, terraces, a blue-tiled roof and white walls covered with flowering climbers. The rear of the house appeared to hang over the cliff face. It had a magnificent view of the two arms of the bay.

  I was driving the office Buick. The police had left it outside the hotel. There was a bad scratch on one of the door panels and a hubcap was dented. I didn’t know if the police were responsible or if Jack had bumped something on his drive down from Frisco. It was possible that Jack had done the damage. He had never been much of a driver, cutting in too close and taking too many chances. But I was glad to have the car. It would save me the cost of taking taxis, and from what I had been told, the cost of living in St. Raphael City was so high I would need every cent I had.

  I turned off Bay Boulevard on to the road to the peninsula. A hundred yards or so further on I came to a big sign that told me that this was a private road and only visitors to the Thor Estate could go beyond this point. A quarter of a mile further on I came on one of those red and white poles you see on the continent blocking the road. Nearby was a small white guardhouse. Two men in white shirts, white cord breeches, black shiny knee-high boots and peak caps watched me come. Both of them looked like ex—cops: both of them were wearing ‘45 Colts at their hips.

  “I’ve an appointment with Mr. Creedy,” I said, looking out of the car window.

  One of them moved over to me. His cop eyes ran over me, and by his curt nod I knew he didn’t approve of the Buick nor, come to think of it, of me.

  “Name?”

  I told him.

  He checked a list he had in his hand, then he waved to the other guard, who lifted the barrier.

  “Straight ahead, turn left at the intersection and park your car in Bay 6.”

  I nodded and drove on, aware they were both staring at me as if to make sure they would know me again. A half a mile further on I came to massive gates of oak, fifteen feet high and studded with iron nails, that stood open. I then hit the sanded carriageway and I dr
ove through woodland, and then past the ornate, magnificent gardens with their acres of close-mown lawns, their beds of flowers, their sunken rose gardens and their fountains.

  Chinese gardeners were at work on one of the big beds, planting out begonias: taking their time as the Chinese do, but making a good job of it. Each plant was exactly equidistant from the other: each plant planted at the same level: an exactitude that no other gardener in the world can do as well as the Chinese.

  At the intersection I turned left as directed. I came to a vast stretch of tarmac divided by white lines into fifty parking places. Some of the places had signs made of oak with glittering gilt letters.

  I left the Buick in Bay 6, got out and took a quick look at some of the signs. No. 1 sign said: Mr. Creedy. No. 7, Mrs. Creedy. No. 23, Mr. Hammerschult. There were a lot more names that meant nothing to me.

  “Hot stuff, huh?” a voice said behind me. “Important people: big-shotting themselves to death.”

  I looked around.

  A short, thickset man in a white guard’s uniform, his peaked cap at the back of his head, gave me a friendly grin. His face was red and sweaty, and as he came closer, I smelt whisky on his breath.

  “It takes all kinds to make up the world.”

  “Damn right. All this crap though is so much waste of good money.” He waved his hand at the signs. “As if they should care who parks where.” His small, alert eyes travelled over me. “You looking for anyone in particular, buster?”

  “Old man Creedy,” I told him.

  “That a fact?” He blew out his cheeks. “Rather you than me. I’ve had all I can stomach. This is my last day here and am I rejoicing!” He leaned forward and tapped me lightly on the chest. “Why is it money always goes to the punks? This guy Creedy: nothing ever pleases him. His shoes aren’t shined enough, his car isn’t clean enough, the roses aren’t big enough, his food either isn’t hot enough or cold enough. He’s never happy, never satisfied; always moaning, yelling or cursing and driving a guy nuts. If I had the tenth of his money I’d be as happy as a king, but not him.”

  I sneaked a look at my watch. The time was four minutes to three.

  “That’s the way it is,” I said. “Just one of those things. I’d like to continue this theme, but I’m due to meet him at three and I’m told he takes it badly if he’s kept waiting.”