1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead (7 page)

Benny sat forward.

‘Now wait a minute!’ he exclaimed heatedly. ‘That’s a pretty lousy thing to say, isn’t it?’

‘I know, but we must face facts, Ed. Anita offered me a thousand dollars to give her the information. I wouldn’t play. Half an hour later she and Dana are seen together at Dana’s apartment, and the next morning a necklace worth twenty thousand is found under Dana’s mattress. Maybe I have a suspicious mind, but to me that points to a bribe.’

‘It looks like it,’ Kerman said reluctantly. ‘She’d have to be pretty strong-minded if Anita offered her a necklace like that.’

To hell with that for an idea,’ Benny broke in. ‘Not so long ago you said Natalie Cerf might have planted the necklace on Dana. Don’t you ever stick to a theory?’

‘But I didn’t know then that Anita had been to Dana’s apartment. This Mrs. Selby didn’t see or hear anyone visit Dana after Anita had gone, did she?’

‘No, but she was asleep, remember. She mightn’t have heard if someone sneaked up there.’

‘I know how you feel about this, Ed. We were all fond of Dana, but after all she was only a kid. That necklace would be a big temptation.’

Benny grimaced.

‘Well, maybe, but I don’t like to think...’

‘Nor do I, but there it is. It’s an idea worth thinking about. We’ve got to find Anita. The two most likely places where she may be hiding are L’Etoile or Barclay’s house. Unless, of course, she’s left town. I’ll go out and see Barclay this afternoon. You, Ed, go back to Dana’s apartment and try and find out from Mrs. Selby if she noticed whether Anita was wearing the necklace when she left. Then from there go to the spot where Dana was found and check every yard of the way. Someone may have seen her. It’s a slight hope as not many people would be around at that time, but that cuts both ways. If anyone did see her they’ll remember her.’

‘Okay,’ Benny said.

‘And, Jack, you hunt for the Packard, and when you’ve got that going, have a crack at L’Etoile.’

Miss Bolus said, ‘I could do that. I’m a member.’

‘Do you want to?’ I asked, surprised.

‘Well, I’m going out there anyway for a swim. It won’t hurt me to look around.’

‘I bet you look cute in a swimsuit,’ Benny said admiringly.

‘I looked cuter without one,’ she said, giving him a calculating stare that made him gulp. She pushed back her chair. ‘Give me a description of the car and I’ll see what can be done.’

Kerman wrote down the registration number and description of the Packard on the back of his card.

‘If you are ever lonely,’ he said, ‘you’ll find my telephone number on the reverse side.’

‘Do I look as if I’m ever lonely?’ she asked, turned her chinky eyes on me and said, ‘Where do I get in touch with you?’

I told her where I lived.

She gave me an indifferent little nod, looked the other two over without apparently seeing them, and went away, moving with a long flowing stride that took her along as effortlessly as if she were being drawn forward on wheels.

She went through the swing doors as remote and un-touchable as the Everest Peak.

‘My! My!’ Benny said, rubbing his hands enthusiastically.

‘My dreams will be in Technicolor tonight. Where did you find her, Vic?’

‘And what’s the big idea?’ Kerman asked.

‘I don’t know yet,’ I said. ‘It was her idea, not mine. She used to go round with Caesar Mills. Kruger introduced us. I wanted to find out how Mills got the money to buy himself a house at Fairview. She didn’t know, but thought she could find out. You know how it is: one thing led to another. She has a way with her. She could get information out of a deaf mute. The point is she wants to get even with Mills. That makes two of us. I have a feeling she’ll be useful.’

Benny and Kerman exchanged glances.

‘The one outstanding point you have made in that little speech,’ Benny said, ‘is the gag line that one thing leads to another, and boy going around with a Popsie like that you can bet your sweet life o
ne thing will lead to another!’

A
s I walked over to the parking lot to collect my car it occurred to me that I was thinking far too much about Caesar Mills and far too little about Dana’s killer. I reminded myself that my outraged feelings towards Mills were personal and private, and I had no business even to think of him until I had found Dana’s killer. But I couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be if in some way I could involve Mills in the murder so I could concentrate on him with an easy conscience.

Although I was aware that my immediate job was to go out to Wiltshire Avenue and take a look at George Barclay, there was another little job concerning Caesar Mills that also needed my care and attention, and after wrestling with my conscience I decided it mightn’t be such a waste of time if I looked into the Mills affair first.

I got into my car, drove over to the nearest drug store, parked, went inside, and consulted a telephone book. A little wave of satisfaction flowed over me when my finger, running down a column, stopped at a line that read: Mills, Caesar, 235 Beechwood Avenue. Fairview 34257.

I put the telephone book back on the rack, lit a cigarette and gently massaged the back of my neck. I stood like that for a moment or so, then hurried out, climbed into the car and drove over to the County Buildings at the corner of Feldman and Centre Avenue.

The Land Record Office was on the second floor, and in charge of a sad-looking old clerk in a black alpaca coat and a querulous frame of mind. After a little persuasion he got me the record I wanted. 235 Beechwood Avenue had been bought by Natalie Cerf a year ago. There was no mention of Comrade Mills having any part in the transaction.

I pushed the record book across the counter, passed a remark about the weather to show the clerk what nice manners I had, and went slowly down the stone steps into the afternoon sunshine.

I sat in my car for a while exercising my brain. The more I thought about my discovery the happier I became. It looked as if the drag-hook I had thrown out into the unknown depths had caught something big. The cream-and-blue Rolls belonged to the Cerfs. 235 Beechwood Avenue belonged to Natalie Cerf, and both were being used by a guard, employed by Cerf to lounge at the main entrance and kick callers in the neck. And in his spare time this guard went around looking like a million dollars, and kept his cigarettes in a gold combined case and lighter that must have set him back at least a couple of months’ salary.

Maybe all this hadn’t anything to do with Dana’s killing, but the setup interested me. Kruger had told me that Mills had been broke when he first came to Orchid City. Well, since those days he had certainly got on. Blackmail is one of the short cuts to wealth and seemed to offer the most satisfactory explanation of his sudden opulence. Maybe he was blackmailing the whole Cerf Family. He had every opportunity of finding out if Anita was a kleptomaniac. Why was he using Natalie’s house unless he had something on her?

Keep at it, Malloy, I said to myself, you’re doing fine.

Take it one step farther. You’ve made up your mind to drag Mills into this mess, so go ahead and drag him in.

So I began to reason like this: if Mills is a blackmailer, couldn’t he be the guy who shot Dana? It was guesswork, but the kind of guesswork that suited my present mood.

Nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to watch that bright boy take a walk to the gas chamber.

I then decided I had spent enough time on Comrade Mills, anyway for the immediate present, and conscious that my visit to George Barclay’s place would now be something of an anti-climax, I drove over to Wiltshire Avenue, a nice, quiet, snobby road, screened on either side by high box hedges that concealed the houses lurking behind them. Barclay’s house stood at the far end of the circular cul-de-sac, facing me as I drove down the long, shady avenue.

I pulled up outside the iron-studded oak tree gate, got out of the car and looked to right and left to see if anyone was watching me. No one was. The road was as quiet and as lonely as a pauper’s grave, but a lot more decorative.

The latch of the oak gate yielded to pressure and the gate swung open. I peered around into a large, well-kept garden.

About fifty yards ahead of me, facing a lawn that looked like a billiard table to end all billiard tables, was the house. It was a two-storey, chalet-style, brick-and-wood building, nice if you like phoney imitations of Swiss architecture. A flight of wooden steps ran up the side of the house to a verandah, and on the roof four fat, white doves balanced on the overhang and regarded me with their heads on one side as if they were hoping to hear me yodel.

The afternoon sun was hot, and no breeze penetrated the thicket of Tung blossom trees that surrounded the garden. I sweated a little. Nothing moved: even the doves looked as if they were holding their breath.

Mounting the steps to the front door, I dug my thumb into the bellpush and waited. Nothing happened, and I rang again. But, this afternoon, no one was at home.

The house wasn’t particularly difficult to break into, and I wondered how much time I had before Barclay returned. I decided a quick look around might pay dividends, but not with my car at the gate to advertise that Prowler Malloy was inside and up to no good.

Reluctantly I went down the steps, along the garden path and out through the gateway to my car. I drove rapidly to the end of the Avenue, parked under a beech tree, removed the registration card from the steering post, and walked back to Barclay’s house.

The doves were still there to watch me mount the steps to the front door. I rang the bell again, but there was still no one at home, and I found a window that wasn’t bolted. It took me half a minute to lever it open with the blade of my knife, take one more look around, wink at the doves who didn’t wink back, and slide over the sill into a nice quiet atmosphere of green sunblinds and shadows.

There appeared to be only the one room downstairs. At the far end of this room was a broad stairway leading to a balcony and the upper rooms.

I moved around, using my eyes, making no noise and listening intently. No one screamed, no bodies fell out of the cupboards, no one shot me in the back. After a moment or so I became a lot less tense and much more interested in my surroundings.

The room was overpoweringly masculine. Old swords, battleaxes and other ancient weapons cluttered up the walls.

A pair of fencing foils and mask decorated the overmantel.

There were at least half a dozen pipe racks full of well-used pipes, a barrel for tobacco stood on an occasional table alongside a bottle of Black and White whisky, White Rock soda and glasses.

To judge by the weapons, the golf clubs, the pipes, the stuffed birds, the sporting prints and the other undergraduate atmospheric novelties that littered the place, I didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that Barclay belonged to the rugged, hairy-chested, outdoor school of manly men.

I didn’t think I would find anything of interest in this room. It was too open and above board; nothing-in-my-hand, nothing-up-my-sleeve kind of room, so I went up the stairs on tiptoe and paused on the balcony to listen.

It crossed my mind there was a possibility that Barclay might be sleeping off his lunch in one of the upstairs rooms: a thought that disturbed me. My nerves hadn’t entirely recovered from my encounter with Mills, and I had no wish to walk into a guy who collected battleaxes as a hobby and who might take a pot shot at me with a crossbow or pat me on the dome with an iron-studded mace. So I listened, but no sounds of heavy breathing reached me, and I plucked up enough courage to open the door nearest to me and glance in.

A very male bathroom greeted my eyes; a bath, a shower, a mechanical rowing machine and a Turkish bath cabinet, but no bath salts, no powder, no perfume bottles, and the towels hanging on the hot rail as if they were made from sharp wire thread.

I went to the next room, peeped around the door and decided this was where Barclay spent his nights.

There was a big double bed, a dressing-table and mirror, a fitted wardrobe, a trousers press, and over the bed hung a sporting print of an old guy with whiskers, holding an ancient fowling piece and looking as if he had a cold in his nose.

I left the door ajar, sneaked over to the dressing-table and opened one of the drawers. A large glossy photograph in a morocco-leather frame lay face up to greet me. It was an intimate photograph that struck a false note in this atmosphere of wide open spaces and clean manly fun. It was a picture of Anita Cerf, a full-length shot, with a spotlight full on her and the background blacked out. She had nothing on but a pair of dark, fur-backed gloves, which she used the way a fan dancer uses her fans but with much more effect. It was a novelty picture and would have sold in gross lots to the members of the Athletic Club at five dollars a throw. Across the foot of the picture was scrawled in white ink: For darling George, with love from Anita.

I should have liked very much to have taken the picture along with me, but it was too big to go into my pocket. I lifted it from the drawer, slid it out of the frame and turned it over. On the back was a rubber-stamped address:

Louis,

Theatrical Photographer,

San Francisco.

I studied the photograph. It could have been taken some years ago. She looked younger than when I had last seen her, and the don’t-give-a-damn expression was not in evidence. I thought regretfully of my lost opportunity. There were times, I told myself, when being too honest with women was a mug’s game. If I’d seen this photograph before she had called on me I wouldn’t have needed a second invitation to neck with her on my casting couch.

I slipped the photograph into its frame and returned it to the drawer. The other drawers yielded nothing of interest, and I turned my attention to the wardrobe.

Dana had said that Barclay dressed like a movie star. To judge by the contents of the wardrobe the description was about right. I stared at the rows and rows of suits, the long shelf of hats and the dozens of pairs of shoes at the bottom of the cupboard. I decided that was nothing in there for me, but just to make sure I pushed some of the suits to one side so I could see the back of the wardrobe.

I stood looking at the blue coat and skirt that was hanging neatly on a hanger. I remained without moving for several seconds, then I felt a little chill run up my spine and reached forward and lifted the two garments off the hook and carried them to the window. I had seen them often enough. They belonged to Dana. I remembered that Benny had said the suit was missing from her wardrobe and that he guessed she must have worn it on the night she was killed.

Well, here it was, hidden at the back of Barclay’s cupboard, and instead of the finger pointing to Mills it was now pointing to Barclay.

I had no time to think or to make up my mind what I was going to do with my find for suddenly I heard an un-mistakable sound of a footfall in the room below that brought me round on my heels, my nerves jerking and crawling up my spine.

I hurriedly rolled the coat and skirt up into a bundle, and stepped quickly to the door. Someone was moving about in the room below. I heard a board creak, then the sound of a drawer being opened and a rustle of papers. I crept out on to the balcony and looked over the banisters, keeping out of sight.

Caesar Mills stood before the writing desk in the distant corner of the room, a cigarette hanging from his thin lips, a bored, nonchalant expression on his face. He was wearing a blue Kuppenheimer lightweight suit and a wide-brimmed panama hat with a gaudy hatband. As Kruger had said he looked like a million dollars.

I faded quietly back into the bedroom, opened the dressing-table drawer, snapped up the photograph, rolled it hurriedly in the middle of Dana’s coat and skirt, opened the bedroom window and slid out on to the verandah.

I had a hunch that bright boy was looking for Anita’s picture, and I was going to take a great deal of care
that he shouldn’t have it.