1957 - The Guilty Are Afraid (22 page)

“I know you didn’t,” I said, “but I’m tired. I have had too much excitement for one day and excitement always makes me tired. I’ve brought your gun back.” I fished the .38 from my pocket, removed the magazine, shook the slugs into my palm, put the magazine back and offered the gun to her. She hesitated for a brief moment, then took the gun.

“I suppose you now want money,” she said disdainfully.

“Well, you haven’t much else to offer, have you?” I said, and smiled at her.

That really got her mad, as I intended it to. I was glad I had removed the slugs from the gun, otherwise I believe she would have shot me.

“How dare you talk to me like that!” she said, almost spitting at me. “If you think you can blackmail me . . .”

“Of course I can blackmail you,” I said. “Stop kidding yourself and stop acting like a 1948 Oscar winner. Sit down and listen to me.”

She stared at me as if she couldn’t believe her ears.

“My husband . . .” she began, but I cut her short with a wave of my hand.

“Don’t throw your husband in my face,” I said. “Even if he is the hot shot of this town, he couldn’t keep this setup out of the Courier.”

She put the gun down on a table and then moved over to a lounging chair away from me and sat down.

“What exactly do you mean by that?” she said, steel in her voice.

“You know what I mean. If I hadn’t happened along this morning when I did, Thrisby would be dead by now. A murder attempt by Creedy’s wife would hit the headlines of every newspaper in the country.”

“They wouldn’t dare print!” she said furiously.

“Don’t be too sure about that.”

She controlled her anger, and for a long moment she studied me.

“Well, all right: how much do you want?”

“I’m not another of your boyfriends, Mrs. Creedy, looking for money. I want some information out of you.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“What information?”

“I understand you hired my partner to watch Thrisby.”

She stiffened, her silver fingernails like claws on her knees.

“If Jacques told you that, he is lying. I did nothing of the kind!”

“He says you did.”

“He is and has always been a liar,” she said fiercely. “It’s a lie! I didn’t hire anyone to watch him!”

“Did you hire Sheppey to watch anyone?”

“No!”

“Did you know Thrisby was going around with a girl named Thelma Cousins?” I asked.

Her mouth tightened and I saw her eyes flinch.

“No.”

“Did you see Thelma Cousins and warn her to keep away from Thrisby?”

“No. I’ve never heard of the woman!”

“You can’t kid me to believe that. She was found murdered yesterday. It was in the papers with her photograph.”

“I tell you I’ve never seen nor heard of her,” she said and I could almost hear her heart beats as she glared at me.

I stared at her for a long moment and she met my gaze, her eyes smouldering. I could see I had come up against a wall of resistance I wasn’t going to penetrate. She had plenty of nerve, and she must have realized that I had no proof except Thrisby’s word.

“You would have no objection if I told Lieutenant Rankin what Thrisby has told me?” I said. “If you didn’t hire Sheppey and you know nothing about the girl you would have nothing to worry about if I did tell him, would you?”

Her eyes flickered and I thought for a moment she was going to lose her nerve, then she snapped, “You can tell him what you please, but I warn you if you start trouble for me I’ll sue you out of existence, and don’t imagine I can’t do it: I’m not listening to any more of this rubbish, so please go!”

I played my last card. I took out the match-folder.

“Is this yours, Mrs. Creedy?”

I was watching her closely, but she gave no sign of surprise nor of tenseness as Thrisby had done.

III

O
n my way out I was surprised to be asked to step into Mr. Creedy’s office.

“Were you seeing my wife?”

“I should ask her if you are all that interested,” I said. “Is that all you want to see me about? If it is I must be running along. I have my living to make and time presses.”

He studied me for some seconds, then picked up a sharp letter opener and studied it with lifted eyebrows as if he had never seen it before.

“I have been making inquiries about your agency,” he said, not looking at me. “I learn that you are solvent, that you have a reasonably profitable business and your assets are worth three thousand dollars.”

“They are worth more than that,” I said, smiling at him. “That’s what they are worth on paper. Personality and goodwill are the backbone of a business like mine. I have the goodwill and I am cultivating a personality. Three thousand isn’t a fair estimate.”

“I’m interested in buying a going concern,” Creedy said, suddenly staring at me. His eyes went through me like twin bullets through chiffon. “I’m prepared to take over your agency. Shall we say ten thousand dollars to include the goodwill and what there is of the personality?”

“And what happens to me if I sold you the business?” I asked.

“You carry on, subject to my supervision, of course.”

“I don’t supervise easily, Mr. Creedy: not on an offer of ten thousand dollars.”

“I might be prepared to raise the purchase price to fifteen thousand dollars,” he said, and began to puncture holes in his snowy blotter with the letter opener.

“I take it I wouldn’t be encouraged to continue to investigate my partner’s death?”

He pursed his lips and did more damage to his blotter.

“That is a police matter, Mr. Brandon. You are not getting paid to investigate your partner’s death. I think it would be reasonable, if I bought your business, to expect you to exert your talents on something that made a profit.”

“Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m sorry. Thanks for the offer. I appreciate it, but I’m solving this case, profit or no profit.”

He laid the letter opener down, placed his fingertips together and rested his chin on them. He stared at me the way you might stare at a spider that has dropped into your bath.

“I intend to buy your business, Mr. Brandon. Perhaps you will name your price.”

“On the theory that every man has his price providing the price is big enough?”

“That is an accepted fact. Every man does have his price. Don’t let us waste time. I have a lot to do today. What is your price?”

“For my business or for not going ahead with the investigation?”

“For your business.”

“It amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?”

“What is your price?”

“I’m not selling,” I said, and got to my feet. “I’m going ahead with this investigation and no one is stopping me.”

He leaned back in his chair and began to drum gently on the desk with his fingertips.

“Don’t be hasty about this,” he said. “I have made inquiries about your partner. I am told he was an utterly worthless person. I am told that if you hadn’t worked with him the business wouldn’t have survived for very long. I am told he was a womanizer, if I may use the term. He wasn’t even a good investigator. Surely you are not going to pass up a very good opportunity because of a man like that. I want your business, Mr. Brandon. I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars for it.”

I stared at him, not believing I had heard aright.

“No,” I said. “I’m not selling.”

“A hundred thousand,” he said, his face intent.

“No,” I said and I felt my hands turn moist.

“A hundred and fifty thousand?”

“Cut it out!” I said, and I put my hands on his desk and leaned forward to stare into his expressionless eyes. “You are bidding too cheap, Mr. Creedy. A hundred and fifty thousand isn’t much to keep your name out of the biggest scandal on this coast, is it? A million would be more like it, but don’t offer it to me because I wouldn’t take it. I’m going through with this investigation and you and your money won’t stop me. If you’re all that anxious to keep me from finding out the truth why don’t you give your lackey Hertz a couple of hundred bucks and tell him to fix me? Probably he would do it for less. Sheppey was my partner. I don’t give a damn if he was a good or a bad partner. In my racket no one kills an investigator and gets away with it. We feel the same way about it as the police feel when a cop gets killed. Get that into your money-riddled mind and stop trying to buy me off!”

I turned around and started my long walk towards the exit.

The silence I left behind me was painful.

Chapter 12

I

I
drove back to the bungalow with plenty on my mind. I put the car in the garage to be out of the blazing sun, unlocked the front door of the bungalow and went into the bedroom.

I stripped off, put on a pair of swimming trunks, collected a towel and then walked down to the sea. I had a twenty-minute swim, then returned to the bungalow and sat down on the verandah in the shade, put my feet up on the rail and considered the various points I had discovered.

I had to make up my mind if it was Thrisby or Bridgette Creedy who was lying. Thrisby’s story was acceptable to me and Bridgette had every reason to lie, but I wasn’t absolutely sure she had been lying.

What I had to decide was whether Thelma Cousins was being dangled in front of me to take my attention away from something else. I was quite sure the match-folder meant nothing to Bridgette, but it meant a lot to Thrisby.

I wondered if it would pay off to go to his place, wait until he went out then search the house. I might turn up something that would give me the key to the mystery. I wondered if he had a servant living with him. I thought it would be a good idea to go out there this night.

I was lighting a cigarette when I heard the telephone bell ring. I got up and went into the lounge, lifted off the receiver and said, “Hello.”

“Is that you, Lew?”

Margot’s voice.

“Why, I wasn’t expecting to hear from you,” I said. “Where are you?”

“I’m in my apartment. I’ve been thinking about that match-folder.”

I sat on the arm of a lounging chair, holding the telephone on my knee.

“I’m pretty sure it belongs to Jacques Thrisby,” she went on.

I didn’t say I thought it might too.

“What makes you say that, Margot?”

“I remember now that he was sitting opposite me at the table. I remember he took out his cigarette case. It had a lighter attached and the lighter wouldn’t work. He took this match-folder out of his pocket, then a waiter came up and gave me a light. He left the match-folder and the cigarette case lying on the table beside him. He left them there when he danced with Doris. I am pretty sure now I took the folder to light my cigarette. It’s quite possible I put the folder into my bag without thinking. I can’t say definitely that I did so, but I am sure Jacques put a folder of matches on the table.”

“It adds up,” I said. “I let him see the folder when I went out there this afternoon. He reacted like a man who has sat on a tack.”

“Did you talk to him, Lew?”

“Bridgette was there. I arrived at the dramatic moment when she was about to shoot him.”

“Shoot him?” Margot’s voice went up. “Oh, Lew, surely not!”

“She may have been planning to scare him, but I had the idea she meant to give him the full treatment. He had just handed her a pretty brutal brushoff.”

“She must be out of her mind! What are you going to do about it, Lew? You haven’t told the police?”

“No. I doubt if Thrisby would admit she tried to kill him. I’d only be landing myself into more trouble, and I can’t imagine the police filing a charge against her. Did you know she had a gun?”

“No.”

“I think she was the one who hired Sheppey. Thrisby said so. I talked with her this afternoon, but she says Thrisby is lying. He told me he was going around with Thelma Cousins, the girl who was murdered. Bridgette found out and hired Sheppey to watch them. That’s his story, but she denies it.”

“This is fantastic. Will the police find out about it?”

“They could do. It’s something you’ll have to face up to, Margot. This is a murder case.”

“Do you think Bridgette had something to do with Sheppey’s death?”

“I don’t know what to think at the moment.”

“What are you going to do?”

I could hear a note of alarm in her voice.

“Tackle Thrisby again. Do you know if he has a servant at his place, Margot?”

“Yes: a Filipino, but he doesn’t sleep there. He comes in early, and leaves around eight o’clock.”

“I’ll go out there tonight and take a look around.”

“What do you expect to find then, Lew?”

“I don’t know, but it’s surprising what you can dig up if you take the trouble to look. When am I seeing you again, Margot?”

“Do you want to?”

“You mustn’t ask trifling questions. You wouldn’t like to come out here after half past ten? I might be able to tell you what I’ve found in Thrisby’s place.”

She hesitated, then said, “Well, I might be able to.”

The thought of seeing her again this night sent a hot wave of excitement through me.

“Then I’ll expect you around ten-thirty.”

“All right. Be careful, Lew. Don’t go near the house unless you’re sure he’s out. Don’t forget what I told you: he’s dangerous and ruthless.”

I said I wouldn’t forget and she hung up.

I sat and thought, then after a while I called St. Raphael police headquarters. When I got a connection, I asked if Lieutenant Rankin was in.

After a pause, Rankin came on the line.

“What do you want?” he growled when I told him who was talking.

“Traced that icepick yet?” I asked.

“What do you think I am—a miracle worker? You can buy those picks anywhere in town. There must be hundreds of them lying around.”

“Sounds to me as if you’re making no progress.”

“I’m not, but it’s early days yet. This isn’t going to be a fast job. Have you got anything?”

“Only a pain in the neck for you,” I said. “I’m beginning to think it wasn’t Creedy who hired Sheppey. It looks as if his wife did.”

“Why do you say that?”