1957 - The Guilty Are Afraid (17 page)

“Do you like it?”

She came back to stand in the doorway and she again gave me her small bewitching smile. Just to look at her got my blood running around in my veins like a car on a roller coaster.

“It’s terrific.”

I was looking at the bar. There was an assortment of bottles on the shelves. It seemed to me there was every drink you could want there.

“Are those bottles the property of your dad or are they yours?”

“They’re his. I took them from the house. Four bottles at a time.” She smiled. “He has everything. I don’t see why I shouldn’t help myself sometimes, do you?”

She went behind the bar, opened the door of a refrigerator and took out a bottle of champagne.

“Let’s celebrate,” she said. “Here, you open it. I’ll get the glasses.”

She went out of the lounge. I broke the wire around the cork of the bottle and, as she returned with two champagne glasses on a tray, I eased the cork out. I poured the wine and we touched glasses.

“What do we celebrate?” I asked.

“Our meeting,” she said, her eyes sparkling at me. “You’re the first man I’ve met who doesn’t care if I’m rich or poor.”

“Now wait a minute . . . what makes you think that?”

She drank the champagne and flourished the empty glass.

“I can tell. Now go and look at your new home and tell me what you think of it.”

I put my glass down.

“Where do I begin?”

“The bedroom is through there to the left.”

We looked at each other. There was an expression in her eyes that could have meant anything.

I went to look at the bedroom, finding I was a little short of breath. I told myself I was letting my imagination run away with me, but the feeling that she wasn’t here merely to show me the bungalow persisted.

It was a nice bedroom: a double bed, closets and a mosaic floor. The closets were full of her clothes. The room was decorated in pale green and fawn.

The bathroom was right next door and looked as if it had been built for a Cecil B. de Mille movie with a sunken bath and a shower cabinet in pale blue and black.

I returned to the lounge.

Margot was lying full length on the window seat, her head supported by two cushions. She was staring out across the expanse of moonlit sea.

“Do you like it?” she asked, without looking at me.

“Yes. Are you quite sure you want me to have it?”

“Why not? I don’t use it now.”

“You have your things here still.”

“There’s nothing I want immediately. I’m a little bored with them. Later, I’ll use them again. I like giving clothes a rest. There’s plenty of room for your things.”

I sat in a lounging chair by her. Having her alone in this bungalow gave me a feeling of acute excitement. She turned her head and looked at me, then she said, “Are you making any progress with your murder?”

“I don’t think I am, but you can’t expect me to keep my mind on my job with this sort of thing happening to me, can you?”

“What is happening to you?”

“This—the bungalow. And, of course, you. . .”

“Am I so disturbing then?”

“You could be. You are.”

She looked at me.

“But then so are you.”

There was a long pause, then she swung her long legs off the window seat.

“I’m going to have a swim. Coming?”

“Why sure.” I got up. “I’ll get my bag. It’s in the car.”

Leaving her, I went out into the darkness, got my bag out of the car and came back.

I carried the bag into the bedroom where I found her standing before the full—length mirror. She had taken off her dress and she had on now a white negligée. She was looking at herself, her hands lifting her hair off her shoulders.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said, setting down the bag. “I’ll do it for you.”

She turned slowly. There was that look in her eyes I’ve seen from time to time in the eyes of a woman who is making a proposal.

“You think I’m beautiful?”

“More than that.”

I felt myself sliding over the edge. I made a poor attempt to stop this from developing into something I could be sorry about in the morning, by saying, “Maybe we’d better skip the swim and I’ll take you home.” I was aware of feeling suddenly short of breath. “We might be sorry. . .”

She shook her head.

“Don’t say that. I’m never sorry for anything I do.” Still looking at me, she walked slowly towards me.

II

G
ive me a cigarette,” Margot said from out of the darkness. I reached for my pack on the bedside table, shook one out, gave it to her, then flicked my lighter alight. In the tiny flame, I could see her with her golden head resting on the pillow. There was a relaxed, peaceful expression on her face and she looked at me, our eyes meeting above the flame and she smiled.

I snapped out the flame, and all I could see of her was the faint outline of her nose as she drew on the cigarette, making the spark burn redly.

“I wonder what you think of me?” she said out of the darkness. “I don’t want to make any excuses. I’m not all that free and easy, but sometimes it happens, and then it’s a must. The moment I saw you I felt something I haven’t felt for months, and this is the result. I don’t expect you to believe me, but it’s true. One of those mad, uncontrolled impulses, and I am shamelessly glad.” She reached out her hand and took mine. “I want to say you are nicer than I hoped you would be, and a better lover than I dreamed you would be.”

I was still pretty confused and surprised at the sudden way this had happened. Her words pleased me, but at the same time I was aware that I had fallen for her too easily. I had imagined I had got beyond the point where I could be swept off my feet. It disturbed me to know I hadn’t. I lifted myself on my arm and bent over and kissed her.

“And you were wonderful,” I said, letting my lips browse over her face, “and you are wonderful.”

She ran her fingers through my hair.

“So long as both of us are pleased with each other.”

Then she slid away from me and, getting off the bed, she went out of the room. I reached for my dressing gown, put it on and went after her.

I found her standing by the open french doors looking out at the silvery beach and the sea. She made a picture in the light of the moon: like a statue by the hand of a master.

“What now?” I said, coming up by her side. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”

“Let’s swim now,” she said, taking my hand. “Then I must go. What is the time?”

I led her out on to the terrace so I could read my watch in the light of the moon.

“It’s after two.”

“A quick swim, and then I really must go.”

She ran ahead of me down to the sea and I went after her, throwing aside my dressing gown. We swam out for two hundred yards or so, then turned and headed back to the beach. The water was warm and around us there was a complete stillness as if we were the only two people left on earth.

We walked across the sand towards the bungalow, hand in hand.

As we reached the bungalow steps, she stopped suddenly, turned and lifted her face. I slid my hands down her long, slender back, over the curve of her hips and pulled her to me. We stood like that for a long moment, then she pushed me away.

“It’s been lovely, Lew,” she said. “I’m coming again. Will you mind?”

“What a question! Can you imagine I’d mind?”

“I’ll get dressed. Will it bore you to take me back?”

“I’d rather you stayed the rest of the night. Why don’t you?”

She shook her head.

“I can’t. Don’t think I don’t want to, but I have a maid whom Daddy pays. If I stayed out all night, Daddy would hear about it.”

“You certainly seem to have your old man in your hair,” I said. “Well, all right. Let’s go in.”

It didn’t take me more than a few minutes to get dressed. While she was fixing her hair, sitting before the dressing table mirror, I sat on the bed, waiting for her.

“You know I think I should pay you rent for this place,” I said, “I could rise to thirty dollars a week, and it’d give you some pin money.”

She shook her head and laughed.

“That’s very sweet of you, but I don’t want pin money: I want spending money. No. I’m glad for you to have it and I’m not going to be paid for it.” She stood up, smoothed down her glittering dress over her hips, looked at herself and then turned. “Now, we must go.”

“Well, all right, if you’re absolutely sure.”

She came over to me and touched my face with her fingertips.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

We went through the rooms, turning off the lights, then I locked the front door and dropped the key into my pocket. We walked down to the car.

As we drove back over the uneven road, my mind was busy. It seemed to me this was a good opportunity to ask questions. I felt she must be in a receptive mood, and there was one question that I really wanted answered.

So I said casually, “Can you think of any reason why your father would want to hire a private detective?”

She was sitting low down, her head resting against the top of the bench seat. She stiffened a little, turned to look at me.

“Now you have had your way with me,” she said, “you are hoping I will be compliant.”

“No. You don’t have to answer the question. I won’t hold it against you if you don’t.”

She was silent for a long moment, then she said, “I don’t know, but I could make a guess. If he did hire your partner, then it was because he wanted him to watch his wife.”

“Has he any reason to have her watched? “

“I should imagine he has every reason. It surprises me he hasn’t done it long ago. She has some gigolo always hanging around her. She has this horrible man Thrisby at the moment. Perhaps Daddy is getting tired of it. I wish he would divorce her. Then I could go home.”

“Would you like to do that?”

“No one likes to be turned out of their home. Bridgette and I just can’t live together.”

“What’s the matter with Thrisby?”

“Everything. He’s the complete home wrecker: a horrible man.”

I let the subject hang for a few moments then, as I drove off the beach road on to the promenade, I said, “Your father wouldn’t have hired Sheppey to check on you, would he?”

She flicked her cigarette out of the window.

“He doesn’t have to pay a detective to do that. My maid does all the necessary spying. It was a condition he let me have the apartment that I should have her with me. No, unless it’s something I know nothing about, I think you can be fairly sure he hired him to watch Bridgette.”

“Yes, that’s what I think.”

We drove in silence for a mile or so, then she said, “Do you plan to watch Bridgette?”

“No: there’s not much point in that. I don’t imagine she had anything to do with Sheppey’s death. What I think happened was that while he was watching her, he came across something that had nothing to do with her. It was something important, and he was smart enough to realize it, so he got killed. This is a gangster town. Take the Musketeer Club. Sheppey could have found out something going on there. Although it is only used by the blue-blood trade, it is run by a gangster.”

“Oh, you really think that? “

“I’m guessing. I may be wrong, but until I’ve found out more I’m going to stay with the idea.”

“If Sheppey got evidence that would give Daddy a divorce, Bridgette would be without a dime. She hasn’t any money of her own, or practically none. If Daddy divorced her, she would be out in the cold and she wouldn’t like that.”

“You’re not suggesting that she killed Sheppey?”

“Of course not, but Thrisby could have. I’ve seen him; you haven’t. He’s utterly ruthless and if he thought he wasn’t going to get any money out of Bridgette because of something Sheppey had found out, he might have killed him.”

That was a line I hadn’t thought of.

“I think I’ll take a look at him. Where do I find him?”

“He has a little place up on the Crest. It lies at the back of the town. He calls it the White Chateau. It isn’t a chateau, of course. It’s just a flashy, nasty little love nest.”

The bitterness in her voice made me look quickly at her.

“Bridgette isn’t the only woman he entertains up there,” she went on. “Any woman with money is welcomed.”

“Well, at least, he isn’t the only one,” I said. “This coast line is full of them.”

“Yes.” She pointed. “You take the first on the right now. It’ll bring you straight to the Franklyn Arms.”

I turned off the promenade and saw ahead of me the lighted sign of her apartment block. I drove to the entrance and pulled up before the revolving doors.

“Well, good night,” she said, and her hand touched mine. “I’ll call you. Be careful of that man Thrisby.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” I said. “I’ll handle him. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

As I made to get out, she said, “No, don’t. My maid is probably watching from the window. Good night, Lew.”

She leaned against me and I felt her lips touch my cheek, then she opened the car door, slid out and walked quickly under the lighted canopy and disappeared through the revolving doors.

I drove away.

When I reached the promenade, I pulled up by the kerb to light a cigarette then, setting the car moving, I drove slowly back to the bungalow.

On the way, I did some thinking. I switched my mind from Margot and concentrated on Cordez. For some reason or other the folder of matches that I had found in Sheppey’s suitcase appeared to be worth five hundred dollars. Cordez had parted with three of these folders to three different people and in each case they had paid him that sum. It was safe to assume that Sheppey had either found the folder or had taken it from someone. That someone had ransacked both Sheppey’s and my room at the hotel. He had failed to find it in Sheppey’s room, but had found it in mine, and had substituted another folder, probably in the hope I hadn’t noticed the ciphers at the back of the matches. Therefore it was safe to assume that the ciphers meant something. It could also mean that this mysterious folder of matches was the cause of Sheppey’s death.

I felt I was moving in the right direction, but I had still a lot more information to collect before I could get further than guesswork.