Lay Her Among The Lilies Page 5

  A nice neighbourhood this, I thought. Not the kind of road Mrs. Bendix's bunny-faced pal would care to walk down.

  Paula's smart little two-seater came bustling out of Princess Street and headed towards me. It pulled up and the door swung open. Paula looked very trim and slightly glacial in her grey, pin-head suit. She was hatless, and her brown eyes looked at me enquiringly.

  "Where now?" she asked, as I settled beside her.

  "Drive up here nice and slow and stop on the bend. Eudora's place is that white and blue abomination on the right," I said, and as the car moved forward I rapidly told her what had happened. "I have an idea she might communicate with someone," I concluded. "I may be wrong, but I think it'll be worth while keeping on eye on her for the next couple of hours. The only way to watch the house without getting the neighbours in an uproar is for us to be a courting couple. That's something they all understand in this district."

  "Pity you had to pick on me," Paula said coldly.

  "Well, I couldn't very well pick on Kerman," I said, a little peeved. "Let me tell you some girls would jump at the opportunity."

  "Can I help it if some girls have queer tastes?" she asked, pulling up on the bend. "Is this right?"

  "Yeah. Now for the love of mike, relax. You're supposed to be enjoying this." I slid my arm round the back of her neck. She leaned against me and stared moodily down the road at the cabin. I might just as well have necked with a dressmaker's dummy. "Can't you work up a little enthusiasm?" And I tried to nibble her ear.

  "That may go down big with your other girl friends," she said icily, jerking away, "but it doesn't with me. If you'll open the glove compartment you'll find some whisky and a couple of sandwiches in there. That might keep you more suitably employed."

  I unwound my arm from her neck and dived into the glove compartment.

  "You think of everything," I said, beginning to munch. "This is the only thing in the world that'd stop me kissing you."

  "I knew that," she said tartly. "That's why I brought it."

  I was working on the second sandwich when an olive-green Dodge limousine came tearing down the road. I didn't have to look twice to see it was the same olive-green Dodge and the same big tough driving it.

  I wormed myself down in the seat to be out of sight.

  "That's the guy who's been tailing me," I said to Paula. "Keep an eye on him and see where he goes."

  "He's stopped outside Eudora's place, and he's getting out," she told me.

  Cautiously I lifted my head until my eyes were level with the windshield. The Dodge had stopped as Paula had said outside the blue and white cabin. The big tough got out, slammed the door with so much force he nearly knocked the car on its side, and went pounding down the path to the front door. He didn't knock, but turned the handle and marched in: a man in a hurry.

  "And that, bright eyes, is called a hunch," I said to Paula. "I thought she would either go out or telephone. Well, she telephoned. Big Boy has arrived for a consultation. It certainly looks as if I've tipped my hand. What happens from now on should be interesting."

  "What will you do when he leaves?"

  "I'll go in and tell her I couldn't raise five hundred. Then we'll see how she plays it."

  I had finished the sandwich and was just starting on the whisky when the front door of the cabin opened and Big Boy came out. He had been inside eleven and a half minutes by the clock on the dashboard. He looked to right and left, scowled at Paula's parked car, but was too far away to see who was in it, walked leisurely up the path, vaulted over the gate, climbed into the Dodge and drove quietly away.

  "Well, that didn't take long," I said. "If everyone transacted business as fast as that there'd be an awful lot more work done. Come on, honey, we may as well make the call. At least, you drive me over and wait outside. I wouldn't like her to get nervous."

  Paula started the car and drove up to the gate of the blue and white cabin. I got out.

  "You may or may not hear screams," I said. "If you do, think nothing of it. It'll only be Eudora impressed by my personality."

  "I hope she hits you over the head with a flat iron."

  "She may. She's one of those unpredictable types. I like them that way."

  I climbed over the gate and walked down the path to the front door. I rapped and waited, whistling softly under my breath. Nothing happened. The house was as quiet as a mouse watching a cat.

  I rapped again, remembering how Big Boy had looked up and down the road, and seeing in that memory a sudden sinister significance. I touched the door, but it was locked. It was my turn now to look up and down the road. Apart from Paula and the car it was as empty as the face of an old man who is out of tobacco and has no money. I lifted the knocker and slammed it down three times, making quite a noise. Paula peered out of the car window and frowned at me.

  I waited. Still nothing happened. The mouse was still watching the cat. Silence brooded over the house.

  "Drive down to Beach Road," I said to Paula. "Wait for me there."

  She started the engine and drove away without looking at me. That's one of the very good things about Paula. She knows an emergency when she sees one, and obeys orders without question.

  Again I looked up and down the road, wondering if anyone was peeping at me from behind the curtains of the many houses within sight. I had to take that risk. I wandered around to the back of the house. The service door stood open, and moving quietly I peered into a small kitchen. It was the kind of kitchen you would expect to find in a house owned by a girl like Eudora Drew. She probably had a monthly wash-up. Everywhere, in the sink, on the table, on the chairs and floor, were dirty saucepans, crockery and glasses. The trash bin was crammed with empty bottles of gin and whisky. A frying-pan full of burnt grease and bluebottle flies leered up at me from the sink. There was a nicely blended smell of decay, dirt and sour milk hanging in the air. Not the way I should like to live, but then tastes differ.

  I crossed the kitchen, opened the door and peered into the small, untidy hall. The doors opened on to the hall— presumably the living-room and the dining-room. I gumshoed to the right-hand door, peered into more untidiness, more dust, more slipshod living. Eudora wasn't in there; nor was she in the dining-room. That left the upstairs rooms. I mounted the stairs quietly, wondering if she might be having a bath, and that was the reason why she hadn't answered my ring, but decided it was unlikely. She wasn't the type to take sudden baths.

  She was in the front bedroom. Big Boy had made a thorough job of it, and she had done her best to protect herself. She lay across the tumbled bed, her legs sprawled out, her blouse ripped off her back. Knotted around her throat was a blue and red silk scarf—probably hers. Her eyes glared out of her blue-black face; her tongue lay in a little bed of foamy froth. She wasn't a pretty sight, nor had death come to her easily.

  I shifted my eyes away from her, and looked around the room. Nothing had been disturbed. It was as untidy and as dusty as the other rooms, and reeked of stale perfume.

  I stepped quietly to the door, not looking at the bed again, and moved out of the room and into the passage. I was careful not to touch anything, and on my way downstairs I rubbed the banister rail with my handkerchief. I went into the smelly, silent little kitchen, pushed open the screen door that had swung to in the hot breeze, on down the garden path to the gate, and walked without haste to where Paula was waiting.

  Chapter II

  I

  Captain of the Police Brandon sat behind his desk and glowered at me. He was a man around the wrong side of fifty, short, inclined to fat, with a lot of thick hair as white as a fresh fall of snow, and eyes that were as hard and as friendly and as expressionless as beerstoppers.

  We made an interesting quartet. There was Paula, looking cool and unruffled, seated in the background. There was Tim Mifflin, leaning against the wall, motionless, thoughtful, and as quiet as a centenarian taking a nap. There was me in the guest of honour's chair before the desk, and, of course, there was Captai
n of the Police Brandon.

  The room was big and airy and well furnished. There was a nice Turkey carpet on the floor, several easy chairs and one or two reproductions of Van Gogh's country scenes on the walls. The big desk stood in the corner of the room between two windows that overlooked the business section of the city.

  I had been in this room before, and I had still memories of the little unpleasantness that had occurred then. Brandon liked me as much as Hiroshima liked the atomic bomb, and I was expecting unpleasantness again.

  The interview hadn't begun well, and it wasn't improving. Already Brandon was fiddling with a cigar: a trick that denoted his displeasure.

  "All right," he said in a thin, exasperated voice, "let's start from the beginning again. You had this letter. . ." He leaned forward to peer at Janet Crosby's letter as if it had been infected with tetanus. He was careful not to touch it. "Dated May 15th, 1948."

  Well, at least that showed he could read. I didn't say anything.

  "With this letter were five one-hundred-dollar bills. Right?"

  "Check," I said.

  "You received the letter on May 16th, but put it unopened in a coat pocket and forgot about it. It was only when you gave the coat away the letter was found. Right?"

  "Check."

  He scowled down at the cigar, then rested his broad fat nose on it.

  "A pretty smart way to run a business."

  "These things happen," I said shortly. "I remember during the Tetzi trial, the police mislaid . . ."

  "Never mind the Tetzi trial," Brandon said in a voice you could have sliced ham on. "We're talking about this letter. You went up to the Crosby's estate with the idea of seeing Miss Maureen Crosby. Right?"

  "Yeah," I said, getting a little tired of this.

  "But you didn't see her because she isn't well, so you had to stick your nose still further into this business by calling on Miss Janet Crosby's personal maid. Right?"

  "If you like to put it like that I don't mind."

  "Is it right or isn't it?"

  "Oh, sure."

  "This woman Drew said she wanted five hundred dollars before she talked. That's your story, and I'm not sold on it. You watched the house, and after a while an olive-green Dodge arrived and a big fella went in. He remained in there for about ten minutes, then came away. Then you went in and found her dead. Right?"

  I nodded.

  He removed the band from the cigar, groped for a match. All the while his beer-stopper eyes stared moodily at me.

  "You claim the Dodge belongs to Dr. Salzer," he said, and scraped the match on the sole of his shoe.

  "Mifflin says it does. I asked him to check the registration number."

  Brandon looked over at Mifflin who stared with empty eyes at the opposite wall.

  "A half an hour after Malloy telephoned you, asking you who owned this car, you received a report from Dr. Salzer that the car had been stolen. That's right, isn't it?"

  "Yes, sir," Mifflin said stonily.

  Brandon's eyes swivelled in my direction.

  "Did you hear that?"

  "Sure."

  "All right." Brandon applied the burning match to his cigar and sucked in smoke. "Just so long as you understand, and just so long as you don't get any fancy ideas into your head about Dr. Salzer. You may not know it, but Dr. Salzer is a very respectable and eminent citizen of this city, and I'm not going to have him bothered by you or anyone like you. Do you understand that?"

  I pulled thoughtfully at my nose. This was unexpected.

  "Sure," I said.

  He blew smoke across the desk into my face.

  "I don't like you, Malloy, and I don't like your itsy-bitsy organization. Maybe it has its uses, but I doubt it. I'm damned sure you are a trouble maker. You stirred up enough trouble with that Cerf case some months ago, and if you hadn't been so damned smooth, you would have been in a lot of trouble yourself. Miss Janet Crosby's dead." He leaned forward to peer at the letter again. "The Crosbys were and still are a very wealthy and influential family, and I'm not standing for you stirring up trouble for them. You have no legal right to the five hundred dollars Miss Crosby sent you. That is to be paid back to her estate — immediately. You are to leave Miss Maureen Crosby alone. If she is in trouble with a blackmailer —which I doubt — she will come to me if she needs help. This business has nothing to do with you, and if I find you are making a nuisance of yourself I'll take steps to put you where you won't trouble anyone for a very long time. Do you understand?"

  I grinned at him.

  "I'm beginning to," I said, and leaned forward to ask, "How much does Salzer pay into your Sports Fund, Brandon?"

  The fat pink and white face turned a dusky-mauve colour. The beer-stopper eyes sparked like chipped flint.

  "I'm warning you, Malloy," he said, a snarl in his voice. "My boys know how to take care of a punk like you. One of these nights you'll get taken up a dark alley for a beating. Lay off the Crosbys and lay off Salzer. Now get out!"

  I stood up.

  "And how much does the Crosby estate pay into your welfare fund, Brandon?" I asked. "How much did old man Crosby slip you for hushing up that auto-killing Maureen performed two years ago? Respectable and eminent? Don't make me laugh. Salzer's as respectable and eminent as Delmonico's chucker-out. How come he signed Macdonald Crosby's death certificate when he isn't even qualified?"

  "Get out!" Brandon said very quietly.

  We stared at each other for perhaps the best part of four seconds, then I shrugged, turned my back on him and made for the door.

  "Come on, Paula, let's get out of here before we suffocate," I said, and jerked open the door. "Remember that little crack about taking me up a dark alley. It's just as much fun sueing the Captain of Police for assault as it is anyone else."

  I stamped down the long passage behind Paula. Mifflin came after us walking like a man in hob-nailed boots treading on eggs.

  He caught up with us at the end of the passage.

  "Wait a minute," he said. "Come in here," and he opened his office door.

  We went in because both Paula and I liked Mifflin, and besides, he was too useful to fall out with. He shut the door and leaned against it. His red rubbery face was worried.

  "That was a sweet way to talk to Brandon," he said bitterly. "You're crazy, Vic. You know as well as I do that kind of stuff won't get you anywhere."

  "I know," I said, "but the rat got me mad."

  "I would have tipped you off, only I hadn't time. But you ought to know Brandon hates your guts."

  "I know that, too. But what could I do? I had to tell him the story. What's Salzer to him?"

  Mifflin shrugged.

  "Salzer's a good friend to the police. Sure, I know he runs a racket up at that sanatorium. But there's nothing illegal in it." He lowered his voice, went on, "Where the hell do you think Brandon got his Cadillac from? A Captain of Police's money doesn't run to a job like that. And another thing: Maureen Crosby put Brandon's kid through college, and she takes care of Mrs. Brandon's doctor's bills. You picked on two of Brandon's best patrons."

  "I guessed there must be something like that to throw Brandon into such an uproar," I said. "Look, Tim, did Salzer really report his car stolen?"

  "Yeah, I took the call myself."

  "What are you going to do about this killer? Anything or nothing?"

  "Why, sure. We're going to find him. I know what you're thinking, Vic, but you're wrong. Salzer's too smooth to get mixed up in a killing. You can count him out."

  "Well, okay."

  "And watch out. That stuff about a beating wasn't fiction. You won't be the first or the last guy who's had his ears smacked down because Brandon doesn't like him. I'm telling you. Watch out."

  "Thanks, Tim. I'll watch out, but I can take care of myself."

  Mifflin rubbed his shapeless nose with the back of his hand.

  "It's not that simple. You start fighting back and you get caught with a police-assault rap.

  They'll
fake a charge against you and take you in, and then the crew boys will really go to town on you."

  I patted his arm.

  "Don't let it worry you. It's not going to worry me. Anything else?"

  Mifflin shook his head.

  "Just watch out," he said, opened his office door, peeped up and down the passage to make sure the coast was clear and then waved us out.