Lay Her Among The Lilies Page 8

  While she was out of the office I had another nip out of the bottle and lit another cigarette.

  First, Nurse Gurney, I told myself, and then Glynn & Coppley.

  Paula came back after a few minutes and placed a slip of paper on my disfigured blotter.

  "Apartment 246, 3882 Hollywood Avenue," she told me. "Did you know she's one of Dr. Salzer's nurses?"

  "She is?" I pushed back my chair. "Well, what do you know? It keeps coming back to Salzer, doesn't it? "I edged my out-tray towards her. "There's not much here. Nothing you can't cope with."

  "That's nice to know." She picked up the tray. "Are you going ahead with this case?"

  "I'm not sure. I'll tell you this afternoon." I reached for my hat. "I'll be seeing you."

  It took me half an hour to reach Hollywood Avenue. The mid-morning traffic on Centre Avenue made the going slow, but I was in no hurry.

  1882 Hollywood Avenue turned out to be a six-storey apartment block, that had been thrown together with an eye to quick profits and little if any comfort for the customers. The lobby was dim and shabby. The elevator was big enough to hold three people if they didn't mind packing in like sardines. A chipped metal sign with a hand pointing to the basement stairs had Janitor printed on it in faded blue letters and hung lopsided on the wall.

  I entered the elevator, pushed the grill shut and pressed the button marked 2nd Floor. The elevator rose creakily as if it was in two minds not to rise at all came to a sighing standstill two floors up. I tramped down an endless corridor flanked on either side by shabby, paintchipped doors. After what seemed to me to be half a mile walk I arrived at Apartment 246, which was up a cul-de-sac, one of two apartments facing each other. I screwed my thumb into the bell-push, then propped up the wall and selected a cigarette. I wondered if Nurse Gurney was in bed. I wondered if she would be glad to see me again, and hoped she would.

  I had to wait about a couple of minutes before I heard sounds, and then the door opened. Nurse Gurney looked a lot more interesting out of her nurse's uniform. She was wearing a housecoat thing that reached to her ankles, but fell apart from her knees down. Her feet and legs were bare.

  "Why, hello," she said. "Do you want to come in?"

  "I wouldn't mind."

  She stood aside.

  "How did you find my address?" she asked, leading me into a small living-room. "This is a surprise."

  "Yeah, isn't it?" I said, dropping my hat on a chair. "You look knocked for a loop."

  She giggled.

  "I happened to look out of the window and saw you coming. So I've had time to recover. How did you know I lived here?"

  "Phoned the Nurses' Association. Were you going to bed?"

  "Uh-huh, but don't let that drive you away."

  "You get into bed and I'll sit beside you and hold your hand."

  She shook her head.

  "That sounds dull. Let's have a drink. Was there anything special or is this just a social call?"

  I lowered myself into an armchair.

  "Fifty-fifty, although the accent's on the social side. Don't ask me to fix the drinks. I'm feeling a little under the weather. I didn't sleep good last night."

  "Who were you out with? "

  "Nothing like that." I reached gratefully for the highball and saluted her with it.

  She came over and flopped on the divan. Her housecoat fell back. My eyes had time to pop before she adjusted it.

  "You know I never expected to see you again." she said, holding the tumbler of whisky and ice so her chin could rest on the rim. "I thought you were one of those hit-and-run artists."

  "Me? Hit-and-run? Oh, no, you've got me dead wrong. I'm one of those steady, faithful, clinging types."

  "I bet—wait until the novelty wears off." she said a little bitterly. "Is that drink all right?"

  "It's fine." I stretched out my legs and yawned I certainly felt low enough to creep in a gopher's hole and pull the hole in after me. "How long do you expect to go on nursing the Crosby girl?"

  I said it casually, but she immediately gave me a sharp, surprised look.

  "Nurses never talk about their cases," she said primly, and drank a little of the highball.

  "Unless they have a good reason to," I said. "Seriously, would you like a change of jobs? I might fix you up."

  "Would I not! I'm bored stiff with my present work: it's cock-eyed to call it work, seeing I don't have a thing to do."

  "Well, surely. There must be something to do."

  She shook her head, began to say something, then changed her mind.

  I waited.

  "What's this job of yours?" she asked. "Do you want nursing? "

  "Nothing would please me more. No. it's not me. A friend of mine. He's an iron-lung case, and wants a pretty nurse to cheer him up. He has plenty of money. I could put in a word for you if you like."

  She considered this, frowning, then shook her head.

  "I can't do it. I'd like to, but there are difficulties."

  "I shouldn't have thought there would be any difficulty. The Nurses' Association will fix it."

  "I'm not employed by the Nurses' Association."

  "That makes it easier still, doesn't it? If you're a freelance . . ."

  "I'm under contract to Dr. Salzer. He runs the Salzer Sanatorium up on Foothill Boulevard. Maybe you've heard of it."

  I nodded.

  "Is Salzer Maureen's doctor?"

  "Yes. At least I suppose he is. He never comes near her."

  "What's he got, then—an assistant?"

  "No one comes near her."

  "That's odd, isn't it?"

  "You're asking a lot of questions, aren't you?"

  I grinned at her.

  "I'm a curious guy. Isn't she bad enough to have a doctor?"

  She looked at me.

  "Between you and me, I don't know. I've never seen her."

  I sat up, spilling some of my whisky.

  "You've never seen her? What do you mean? You nurse her, don't you?"

  "I shouldn't be telling you this, but it worries me, and I have to tell someone. Promise you won't pass it on?"

  "Who would I pass it on to? Do you mean you've never even seen Maureen Crosby?"

  "That's right. Nurse Flemming won't let me into the sick-room. My job is to fob off visitors, and now no one ever visits, I haven't a thing to do."

  "What do you do, then, at night?"

  "Nothing. I sleep at the house. If the telephone rings I'm supposed to answer it. But it never rings."

  "You've looked in Maureen's room when Nurse Flemming isn't around, surely?"

  "I haven't, because they keep the door locked. It's my bet she isn't even in the house."

  "Where else would she be?" I asked, sitting forward and not bothering to conceal my excitement.

  "If what Flemming says is right, she could be in the sanatorium."

  "And what does Nurse Flemming say?"

  "I told you: she's sweating out a drug jag."

  "If she's in the sanatorium, then why the deception? Why not say right out she's there? Why put in a couple of nurses and fake a sick-room?"

  "Brother, if I knew I'd tell you," Nurse Gurney said, and finished her drink. "It's a damned funny thing, but whenever you and I get together we have to talk about Maureen Crosby."

  "Not all the time," I said, getting up and crossing to the divan. I sat by her side. "Is there any reason why you can't leave Salzer?"

  "I'm under contract to him for another two years. I can't leave him."

  I let my fingers stroke her knee.

  "What kind of guy is Salzer? I've heard he's a quack."

  She slapped my hand.

  "He's all right. Maybe he is a quack, but the people he treats are just over-fed. He starves them and collects. You don't have to be a qualified man to do that."

  My hand strayed back to her knee again.

  "Do you think you could be a clever, smart girl and find out if Maureen is in the sanatorium?" I asked, and began a comp
licated manoeuvre.

  She slapped my hand, hard this time.

  "There you go again—Maureen."

  I rubbed the back of my hand.

  "You have quite a slap there."

  She giggled.

  "When you have my looks you learn to slap hard."

  Then the front-door bell rang: one long, shrill peal.

  "Don't answer it," I said. "I'm now ready not to talk about Maureen."

  "Don't be silly." She swung her long legs off the divan. It's the grocerman."

  "What's he got I haven't? "

  "I'll show you when I come back. I can't starve just to please you."

  She went out of the room and closed the door. I took the opportunity to freshen my drink, and then lay down on the divan. What she had told me had been very interesting. The uncared-for garden, the crap-shooting chinamen, the whittling chauffeur, the smoking butler all added up to the obvious truth that Maureen wasn't living at Crest-ways. Then where was she? Was she at the sanatorium? Was she sweating out a drug jag? Nurse Flemming would know. Dr. Jonathan Salzer would know, too. Probably Benny Dwan and Eudora had known. Perhaps Glynn & Coppley knew, or if they didn't they might wish to know. I began to see a way to put this business on a financial footing. My mind shifted to Brandon. If I had Glynn & Coppley behind me, I didn't think Brandon would dare start anything. Glynn & Coppley were the best, the most expensive, the top-drawer lawyers in California. They had branch offices in San Francisco, Hollywood, New York and London. They were not the kind of people who'd allow themselves to be nudged by a shyster copper like Brandon. If they wanted to they had enough influence to dust him right out of office.

  I closed my eyes and thought how nice it would be to be rid of Brandon and have a good, honest Captain of Police like Mifflin in charge at Headquarters. How much easier it would be for me to get co-operation instead of threats of dark alley beatings.

  Then it occurred to me that Nurse Gurney had been away longer than it was necessary to collect a few groceries, and I sat up, frowning. I couldn't hear her talking. I couldn't hear anything. I set my drink down and stood up. Crossing the room I opened the door and looked into the lobby. The front door was ajar, but there was no one to see. I peeped into the passage. The door of the opposite apartment looked blankly at me and I returned to the lobby. Maybe she was in the johnny, I thought, and went back into the sitting-room. I sat and waited, getting more and more fidgety, then after five minutes I finished my drink and went to the door again.

  Somewhere in the apartment a refrigerator gave a whirring grunt and made me jump halfway out of my skin. I raised my voice and called, "Hey!" but no one answered. Moving quietly, I opened the door opposite the living-room and looked around what was obviously her bedroom. She wasn't there. I even looked under the bed. I went into the bathroom and the kitchen and a tiny room that was probably the guest-room. She wasn't in any of these rooms. I went back to the living-room, but she wasn't there either. It was beginning to dawn on me she wasn't in the apartment, so I went to the front door, along the passage until I arrived at the main corridor. I looked to right and left. Stony-faced doors looked back at me. Nothing moved, nothing happened; just two lines of doors, a mile of shabby drugget, two or three grimy windows to let in the light, but no Nurse Gurney.

  V

  I stared blankly out of the window of the small living-room at the roof of the Buick parked below.

  Without shoes or stockings she couldn't have gone far, I told myself, unless . . . and my mind skipped to Eudora Drew, seeing a picture of her as she lay across the bed with the scarf biting into her throat.

  For some moments I stood undecided. There seemed nothing much I could do. I had nothing to work on. The front-door bell rings. She says it's the grocerman. She goes into the lobby. She vanishes. No cry; no bloodstains; no nothing.

  But I had to do something, so I went to the front door and opened it and looked at the door of the opposite apartment. It didn't tell me anything. I stepped into the passage and dug my thumb into the bell-push. Almost immediately the door opened as if the woman who faced me had been waiting for my ring.

  She was short and plump, with white hair, a round, soft-skinned face, remarkable for the bright, vague, forget-me-not blue eyes and nothing else. At a guess, she was about fifty, and when she smiled she showed big, dead-looking white teeth that couldn't have been her own. She was wearing a fawn-coloured coat and skirt that must have cost a lot of money, but fitted her nowhere. In her small, fat, white hand she held a paper sack.

  "Good morning," she said, and flashed the big teeth at me.

  She startled me. I wasn't expecting to see this plump, matronly woman who looked as if she had just come in from a shopping expedition and was now about to cook the lunch.

  "I'm sorry to trouble you," I said, lifting my hat. "I'm looking for Nurse Gurney." I waved to the half-open front door behind me. "She lives there, doesn't she?"

  The plump woman dipped into the paper sack and took out a plum. She examined it closely, the eyes in her vacant, fat face suspicious. Satisfied, she popped it into her mouth. I watched her, fascinated.

  "Why, yes," she said in a muffled voice. "Yes, she does." She raised her cupped hand, turned the stone out of her mouth into her hand in a refined way and dropped the stone back into the sack. "Have a plum?"

  I said I didn't care for plums, and thanked her.

  "They're good for you," she said, dipped into the sack and fished our another. But this time it didn't pass her scrutiny and she put it back and found another more to her liking.

  "You haven't seen her, have you?" I asked, watching the plum disappear between the big teeth.

  "Seen who?"

  "Nurse Gurney. I've just called and I find the front door open. I can't get any answer to my ring."

  She chewed the plum while her unintelligent face remained blank. After she had got rid of the plum stone, she said. "You should eat plums. You haven't got a very healthy colour. I eat two pounds every day."

  From the shape of her that wasn't all she ate.

  "Well, maybe I'll get around to them one day," I said patiently. "Nurse Gurney doesn't happen to be in your apartment?"

  Her mind had wandered into the paper sack again, and she looked up, startled. "What was that?"

  Whenever I run into a woman like this I am very, very glad I am a bachelor.

  "Nurse Gurney." I felt I wanted to make signs the way I do when I talk to a foreigner. "The one who lives in that apartment. I said she doesn't happen to be in your apartment."

  The blue eyes went vague.

  "Nurse Gurney?"

  "That's right."

  "In my apartment?"

  I drew a deep breath.

  "Yeah. She doesn't happen to be in your apartment, does she?"

  "Why should she be?"

  I felt blood begin to sing in my ears.

  "Well, you see, her front door was open. She doesn't appear to be in her apartment. I wondered if she had popped over to have a word with you."

  Another plum came into view. I averted my eyes. Seeing those big teeth bite into so much fruit was beginning to undermine my mental stability.

  "Oh, no, she hasn't done that."

  Well, at least we were making progress.

  "You wouldn't know where she is?"

  The plum stone appeared and dropped into the sack. A look of pain came over the fat, blank face. She thought. You could see her thinking the way you can see a snail move if you watch hard enough.

  "She might be in the—the bathroom," she said at last. "I should wait and ring again."

  Quite brilliant in a dumb kind of way.

  "She's not in there. I've looked."

  She was about to put the bite on another plum. Instead she lowered it to look reproachfully at me.

  "That wasn't a very nice thing to do."

  I took off my hat and ran my fingers through my hair. Much more of this and I would be walking up the wall.

  "I knocked first," I said, through cl
enched teeth. "Well, if she's not with you I'll go back and try again."

  She was still thinking. The look of pain was still on her face.

  "I know what I would do if I were you," she said.