1957 - The Guilty Are Afraid Read online

  “Mr. Brandon?”

  “Yes.”

  I surrendered my hat as I walked into a small hall, which was furnished with an oval-shaped table on which stood a silver bowl of orchids.

  The maid opened a door, said, “Mr. Brandon,” and stood aside for me to enter.

  I walked into a big lounge, decorated in white and apricot. The walls and drapes and the leather lounging chairs were in apricot; the carpet and Miss Creedy were in white.

  She stood by a big radiogram, looking towards me, slim and quite tall, with ash-blonde hair, the quality of spun silk. She was sensationally beautiful in the classic tradition and her eyes were the colour and seemed to have the same texture as those giant mauve-black pansies you see from time to time at the better flower shows.

  She was high-breasted, long-legged, with hips that had curve and just the right weight. She was wearing a white evening gown with a plunging neckline, and around her throat was a string of diamonds that had probably been given to her on her twenty—first anniversary and must have set old man Creedy’s bank balance back quite a long way.

  She wore elbow-length gloves, and around one wrist was a diamond-and-platinum watch, and on her little finger, worn over the glove, was a long flat ruby set in a thin gold hoop.

  She looked what she was: every inch a multi-millionaire’s daughter. All in all I could understand why Mrs. Creedy had found her hard to compete with. She must have flung her bonnet over the roof when this young woman had packed her bags and left home.

  “I would be glad if you would excuse me for making such a late call, Miss Creedy,” I said. “I wouldn’t be troubling you only my business is urgent.”

  She gave me a small smile. It was neither friendly nor hostile: a hostess welcoming a stranger in her home, a show of good manners; no more, no less.

  “Has it something to do with my father?”

  “Well, no: remotely perhaps, but to be honest I didn’t think you would see me unless I mentioned your father’s name.” I gave her a boyish smile, but it made no impression.

  She was now looking straight at me and her dark eyes had a disconcerting directness. “I am head of the Star Inquiry Agency,” I went on. “I’m hoping you might be willing to help me.”

  She stiffened a little and frowned. Although she looked severe, she still managed to look beautiful.

  “You mean you are a private detective?”

  “That is right. I am working on a case and you could help me, Miss Creedy.”

  I could see she was beginning to freeze.

  “Help you? I really don’t know what you mean. Why should I help you?” The freeze was now in her voice.

  “No reason at all except some people don’t mind helping others now and then.” I tried the boyish smile again, but still with no results. “This business might interest you if you will let me tell you about it.”

  She hesitated, then she waved to a chair.

  “Well, all right,” she said. “Perhaps you had better sit down.”

  I waited until she had sat down on the settee opposite before I dropped into the chair she had indicated.

  “Five days ago, Miss Creedy,” I said, “my partner Jack Sheppey came here from our office in San Francisco on an assignment he received over the telephone. The caller didn’t give his name to the girl who handles our switchboard. I was away at the time. Sheppey left without saying who the caller was, but he did write your father’s name on his blotter.”

  While I talked, I watched her and I could see I was holding her attention. She was thawing out.

  “Sheppey sent me a cable asking me to come down here. I arrived this morning. I went to the hotel where he was staying but he had gone out. A little later, the police came for me to identify him: he had been murdered in a bathing cabin out at Bay Beach.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Why, of course. I saw it in the evening paper. I didn’t realize . . . was he your partner?”

  “Yes.”

  “You say he wrote my father’s name down on his blotter?” she said, frowning at me. “Why should he have done that?”

  “I don’t know unless it was your father who called him.”

  She looked away then and began to turn the ruby ring around on her finger. I had an idea she was suddenly uneasy.

  “Daddy wouldn’t do that. If he wanted an inquiry agent, he would get his secretary to do it.”

  “Unless it happened to concern a matter of an extremely confidential nature,” I said.

  She continued to look away.

  “I really can’t see what all this has to do with me,” she said. “I am going out in a few minutes . . .”

  “I saw your father this afternoon,” I said, and saw her stiffen. “I asked him if he had hired Sheppey and he said he hadn’t. He was very emphatic about it. He produced what looked like an ex-fighter named Hertz and told him to take a look at me. He implied if I didn’t mind my own business, Hertz would discourage me.”

  A slight flush mounted to her face.

  “I still can’t see what this has to do with me. So if you will please excuse me . . .”

  She got to her feet.

  “I am trying to trace Sheppey’s movements, Miss Creedy,” I said, standing up. “Apparently he went to the Musketeer Club and I want to find out who he went with. You are a member of the club. I was wondering if you would sponsor me at the club so I could make a few inquiries.”

  She stared at me as if I had suggested she should take a trip to the moon.

  “That’s quite impossible,” she said, and she sounded as if she meant it. “Even if I did take you into the club and I have no intention of doing such a thing, they wouldn’t tolerate you asking anyone questions.”

  “I’m with you there, Miss Creedy,” I said. “From what I hear of the place it seems pretty high-toned, but if you were to ask the questions, I’m sure you’d get the answers.”

  She stared at me, biting her underlip.

  “That is impossible. I’m sorry, Mr. Brandon, I must ask you to go now.”

  “This isn’t a frivolous request,” I said. “A man has been murdered. I have reason to believe the police won’t make much effort to find his murderer. I realize that’s a pretty sweeping thing to say, but I’ve talked to Captain Katchen of the Homicide Department, and he more or less told me if I didn’t keep clear of this business he would make me sorry. I’m not kidding myself that he wouldn’t do it. A little less than an hour ago I got involved in a fight because I was asking questions. Someone in this town is anxious to have Sheppey’s death hushed up. Sheppey was my friend. I don’t intend to let anyone hush up his death. I’m asking you to help me. All I want you to do . . .”

  She reached out and touched a bell push on the wall near her.

  “This has nothing to do with me,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I’m unable to help you.”

  The door opened and the maid came in.

  “Oh, Tessa, Mr. Brandon is leaving now.”

  I smiled at her.

  “Well, at least you haven’t threatened me as Captain Katchen did, nor have you as yet sent a thug after me as your father did,” I said. “Thank you for giving me your time, Miss Creedy.”

  I went out into the hall, picked up my hat and, opening the door, I set off down the corridor. It had been a long shot, and it hadn’t come off, but at least I hadn’t wasted my time. I had an idea that Margot Creedy knew just why her father had hired Sheppey. If she knew, it meant that Sheppey was hired on a matter concerning the family. I decided to take a look at Bridgette Creedy’s new boyfriend, Jacques Thrisby.

  Maybe Sheppey had been hired to find out just how friendly these two were. That could make sense. Creedy would naturally clam up and turn tough if he thought he might have to tell a court that he had hired a private eye to watch his wife: that was something no man would want to broadcast.

  The time now was ten minutes past eleven: a little early for me to return to the hotel. I got back into the Buick and sat for a long mome
nt, thinking, then I trod on the starter and headed down to Bay Beach.

  II

  As I drove along the promenade, I could see people still bathing in the sea. In the light of the big white moon the water was the colour of old silver.

  I reached Bay Beach after a ten-minute drive. This part of the beach was away from the fashionable end and I found the bathing station was closed, and the row of cabins, under the shadows of the palms, in darkness.

  I left the Buick in a side street just beyond the bathing station, then I walked down to the beach. Apart from a few cars, drifting along the beach road with nowhere to go and all the time in the world in which to get there, this section of the promenade was as quiet and as deserted as a railroad waiting room on a Christmas morning.

  The gate down to the beach was closed and locked. I looked to right and left, satisfied myself there was no one watching me, then put my hand on the top rail and vaulted over. I landed in soft sand with no noise. Moving fast, I reached the sheltering shadows of the palms and then paused.

  I had no concrete idea why I should have come down here except that I hadn’t anything better to do, and I wanted to see again the place where Sheppey had died. Keeping in the shadows, I looked over at the row of cabins.

  There was a chance that Rankin had left a cop on duty and the last thing I wanted at this moment was to run into the law. But there was no sound nor movement on this strip of lonely beach except from the murmur of the sea and the occasional car that drove along the promenade above me and out of my sight.

  Satisfied I had the place to myself, I moved down the row of cabins until I reached the second one from the end. In that one, Sheppey had died.

  I pushed against the door, but found it locked. Taking a flashlight and a gadget of thin steel from my hip pocket, I examined the lock. Then I inserted the gadget between the lock and the doorpost and levered hard and pushed. The door swung open.

  I paused in the doorway, feeling the pent-up heat of the little room coming out at me like the blast from a fierce oven. I stepped just inside, turned the beam of my flashlight on and swung it slowly around the room.

  There were two stools, a table and a divan bed. In the corner where Sheppey had died, there was a big dark stain on the floor that gave me a cold, creepy feeling.

  Opposite me were two doors, leading into the changing rooms. One of them Sheppey had used: the other, the girl who had been with him.

  I wondered about her. Had she been a decoy to get Sheppey down here? He had been mug enough about women to have fallen into that kind of trap. Had his death nothing to do with Creedy? Had he been fooling around with the girl belonging to some thug who had caught up with them?

  If the boyfriend had suddenly walked in on them it would explain why the girl had left her clothes in the cabin. While he was killing Sheppey she had probably run out and away. But why hadn’t she got help? Wouldn’t she have tried to get someone to stop this thug killing Sheppey? Or had it happened so fast that Sheppey was dead before she could get out and, seeing he was dead, she had just run?

  I pushed my hat to the back of my head and wiped my forehead with my hand. Or had she killed him?

  I moved into the hut and closed the door. I didn’t want any swimmer or someone in a boat to spot my light through the open door.

  I went over to the first door leading into the dressing room, opened it and glanced inside. It was a cupboard of a room with a bench and four hooks for clothes and a small mirror. I swung my beam around as I wondered if this was the room Sheppey had used. I didn’t expect to find anything. The police had already been over it, and it was too small for them to miss anything: I didn’t find anything.

  I stepped out, thinking I was wasting time. There was nothing here for me: not even atmosphere. Maybe I wouldn’t have bothered to have looked in the other little room, but suddenly I had a feeling I was no longer alone in the dark cabin. I stood motionless, listening, hearing my heart thumping. My finger eased on the button of the flashlight and thick darkness engulfed me.

  For a long moment I heard nothing, then just as I was thinking my imagination was playing me tricks, I heard a sound that seemed close: the sound of a faint sigh: the sound someone makes when letting his breath out slowly through his open mouth.

  It was a sound so slight that if I hadn’t been listening intently, and if there hadn’t been any other sound during that brief moment, I wouldn’t have heard it. I felt the hair on the nape of my neck move. I wished now I had brought a gun. Stepping back two steps brought me against the door of the changing room. I lifted the flashlight and pressed the button.

  The white beam of the light made a meaningless circle on the floor boards. I swung it around, saw nothing, and listened again.

  On the road a car went by with a roar and a woosh of someone in a hurry.

  I turned the beam to the door of the second changing room, reached forward, turned the handle and gently pushed open the door.

  I lifted the flashlight.

  She was sitting on the floor, facing me, in a pale blue French swimsuit, her golden skin shiny with sweat. Her eyes were fixed in a vacant stare. Down her left shoulder was a long stream of dried blood.

  She was a dark, good-looking girl with black silky hair; around twenty-four or five with the figure of a model. She was much too young to be dying.

  She stared sightlessly into the beam of the flashlight. I stood transfixed, sweating ice, my heart hammering, my mouth dry.

  Then, very slowly, she began to topple sideways.

  I was unable to move. I just stood there, staring. It wasn’t until she slid with a horrible ghost-like silence to the floor that I moved forward to clutch at her.

  But by then I was just that much too late.

  II

  She lay on her side, her dark hair covering her face. Looking down at her, I saw on the floor an icepick with a white plastic handle. It was a reminder that this girl had died the same way as Sheppey had died, although this time the killer’s hand had lost some of its cunning, for Sheppey had died instantaneously.

  I bent over her, sweat running down my face and dripping off my chin. The spasm, completely unmistakable, that I had seen run through her as she had spread out on the floor told me the exact moment when she died. I didn’t have to feel for an artery nor lift her eyelid to know she was beyond any help I could give her.

  I kept the beam of light on her. There was nothing to tell me who she was. All she had on was this swimsuit. The fact that she was well groomed, that her hair had been recently shampooed and set, that her nails were manicured and stained dark red and the costume itself was a good one told me nothing. She could have been rich or she could have been poor. She could have been a model; she could have been just one of the thousands of workers in St. Raphael City; she could have been anything.

  There was one thing I was certain of: she was the girl who had called for Jack Sheppey at the hotel: the one Greaves had been so certain had been a blonde. Remembering he had thought she had either been wearing a wig or had dyed her hair, I held the torch closer to satisfy myself that he had been wrong, and I did satisfy myself.

  She was neither wearing a wig nor had she dyed her hair.

  There was no doubt about that and that proved just how wrong a trained house dick could be.

  I turned the beam of light on to her arms. In the bright light, the soft down looked fair. It wouldn’t have been natural if it had been otherwise. She had been worshipping the sun for months to judge by her tan: the down on her arms would naturally be bleached.

  I straightened up. Taking my handkerchief from my pocket, I wiped my face.

  The heat in the tiny room was awful. I found I had sweated right through my clothes and I moved back into the larger room.

  It was then that I noticed another door that obviously communicated with the next-door cabin. There was a bolt on the door, but it wasn’t pushed into its socket.

  That gave me a jolt.

  I realized it must have been through th
is door that the killer had come and gone. For all I knew he was still in the cabin next door, waiting for me to go away, and I wished even more that I had brought a gun with me.

  Moving softly I crossed the room, snapped off my flashlight and put my ear to the panel of the door. I listened for a long moment, but heard nothing. I groped for the door handle, found it and, gripping it tightly, I slowly turned it. When it was as far back as it would go I put a little pressure on the door, but it didn’t move.

  Someone had gone into the next cabin through this doorway but had bolted the door after him.

  Was he still in there?

  I stepped back, aware that my mouth was dry. He probably hadn’t a spare icepick with him, but it was possible he had a gun.

  Then a sound came to me that made me stiffen and set my nerves crawling.

  In the distance came the wail of a police siren; a sound that grew in volume and told me a police car was coming along the promenade at high speed.

  I wasn’t kidding myself that those prowl boys were sounding off for the fun of it. They were on business and the most obvious place for them to be coming to was right here.

  I turned on my flashlight, took out my handkerchief and wiped the door handles in the little cabin. Although I worked fast, I didn’t skimp the job: I knew how important it was not to leave a print that would bring Katchen after me. Finished, I jumped for the door, opened it and looked quickly to right and left.

  The beach was still deserted, but apart from the shadows made by the group of palms, it was as bare of a hiding place as the back of my hand.

  The note of the siren was much louder now and still coming fast. If I returned the way I had come I was certain to run right into them. There was no hope of hiding among the palms. They would be sure to spot me as they came down towards the cabins. That left me with the wide-open beach.

  When I have to I can run. There was a time when I had won a couple of impressive-looking cups for the half mile: not Olympic stuff, but moving in that direction.

  I didn’t hesitate. I started off across the sand at not perhaps my best speed, but close to it.