1957 - The Guilty Are Afraid (23 page)

“From the odd talk I have picked up. Would you know if she has a gun permit?”

“What are you getting at, Brandon?” There was a rasp in his voice. “Don’t you know you’re fooling around with dynamite with the Creedys?”

“I know that, but dynamite doesn’t scare me. Has she a gun permit? It’s important, Lieutenant.”

He told me to hold on. After a long delay, he came back on the line.

“She has a permit for a .38 automatic: serial number 4557993. She’s had the permit now for three years,” he told me.

I reached for a scratch pad and jotted down the number.

“Thanks, Lieutenant. One more thing: did you get anywhere with your digging into Thelma Cousins’ background?”

“No. She just hasn’t any background. We’ve asked around. Hahn seems to be right. She didn’t go with men. It beats me what she was doing with Sheppey.”

“You have her last address, Lieutenant?”

“She had a room at 379 Maryland Road. The landlady’s name is Mrs. Beecham. You won’t get anything out of her. Candy spent an hour with her. She had nothing to tell him.”

“Thanks,” I said. “If anything new turns up, I’ll call you.” And I hung up.

I went into the bedroom, put on a suit, shoved the .38 in my shoulder holster, then left the bungalow, locked the door after me and got the Buick out of the garage. The time was now a quarter past five. There was still plenty of heat in the sun, and as I drove along the promenade I could see the long stretch of beach was crowded. I pulled up by a cop who was resting his feet on the edge of the kerb and asked him where Maryland Road was. He gave me directions. The road lay at the back of the town and it took me some twenty minutes of fighting traffic to get there.

Mrs. Beecham was a fat, elderly body with a friendly smile and an inclination to gossip.

I told her I was connected with the St. Raphael Courier and could she give me some information about Thelma Cousins.

She invited me into a room full of plush-covered furniture, a canary in a cage, three cats and a collection of photographs that looked as if they had been taken fifty years ago.

When we had sat down I told her I was writing a piece about Thelma and I was interested to know if she had a boyfriend.

Mrs. Beecham’s fat face clouded.

“The police officer asked that. She hadn’t. I often told her she should have some nice young man, but she was so bound up in the church. . .”

“You don’t think she had a secret boyfriend, Mrs. Beecham?” I asked. “You know how it is. Some girls are shy and they don’t let on they have someone.”

Mrs. Beecham shook her head emphatically.

“I’ve known Thelma for five years. If there had been anyone, she would have told me. Besides, she very seldom went out. The only time she did go out after she had finished her work was on Tuesdays and Fridays. It was then she went to the church to help Father Matthews.”

“She might have told you she was going to the church but she could have been going out with a boyfriend. That’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Beecham said, and looked shocked. “Thelma wasn’t like that at all. She wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“Did she ever have visitors here, Mrs. Beecham?”

“She had her friends from time to time. Two girls from the School of Ceramics and a girl who did church work.”

“No men?”

“Never.”

“Did a man ever call on her here?”

“No. I wouldn’t have encouraged it. I don’t believe in young girls having men in their rooms. Besides, Thelma wouldn’t have done such a thing.”

I took out my billfold and produced a photograph of Sheppey.

“Did this man ever call on Miss Cousins?”

She studied the photograph and then shook her head.

“I’ve never seen him before. No man ever called on her.”

“Did a blonde, smartly dressed woman ever call on her? A woman of about thirty-six . . . wealthy?”

She began to look bewildered.

“Why, no. Just her three friends and Father Matthews; nobody else.”

It looked then to me as if Thrisby had been lying when he had said both Sheppey and Bridgette had gone to Thelma’s place.

“On the day she died, did anything unusual happen? Did anyone come to see her, did she get a letter, or did someone call her on the telephone?”

“The police officer asked that. Nothing happened out of the way. She left as usual at eight-thirty to get to the School at nine. She always came back here for lunch. When she didn’t come back as usual, I got worried. When she didn’t turn up at her usual time after work I first called Father Matthews, and then the police.”

Rankin was right. It was like digging into concrete. I thanked the old girl, said she had helped me and got away with difficulty.

As I walked back to the Buick, I was feeling a little depressed. I realized I hadn’t made the progress I thought I had. It seemed pretty certain to me now that Thrisby had been lying.

II

A
round nine o’clock I drove out to the White Chateau. It was growing dusk as I got on to the mountain road, and as the sun set, the sky and the sea turned an orange red. From the height of the road, the view of St. Raphael City was magnificent.

But I wasn’t in much of a mood to admire the view. I had too much on my mind, and I couldn’t help thinking from time to time that in an hour and a half I would have Margot with me in the isolation of the bungalow.

I drove fast, using my spotlight to warn traffic coming in the opposite direction that I was on my way. I reached the branch road down to the White Chateau soon after nine-thirty. Leaving the Buick on the roadside, I walked down the road until I came to the wooden gate. I pushed this open and walked quietly up the path. By now the sun had set, and it had grown suddenly very dark.

I had brought with me a flashlight and a couple of tools for opening a window or a locked drawer. I paused at the edge of the lawn to look at the house, which was in darkness.

Crossing the lawn and moving silently, I walked around the house. No lights showed anywhere, but before attempting to break into the place, I walked over to the double garage and tried one of the doors. It slid back at my touch, and I was surprised to see a Packard Clipper in there. I touched the hood and found it cold. It obviously hadn’t been out all day.

Moving even more cautiously, I crossed the lawn again and went up on to the terrace. I walked to the front door, and rang on the bell.

For three minutes I waited. Nothing happened. No one answered the bell. I moved along to the french doors. Out of the darkness the Siamese cat suddenly appeared and walked along by my side. I paused outside the French doors, tried the handles but found the doors locked. The cat took this opportunity to twine itself around my legs. I bent to rub its head, but it moved quickly away, jumped up on to the balustrade of the terrace and watched me warily.

I took a flat jemmy from my pocket, inserted it between the french doors, exerted pressure while I pulled steadily on the door handle. There was a sudden clicking sound and the door swung open.

I pushed the door further open and stood listening, but I heard nothing. The room was in darkness. I took out my flashlight and shot the beam into the room. I was a little uneasy about the Packard being in the garage. It might be that Thrisby hadn’t left the house - but why the darkness? I told myself it was more than likely that someone had picked him up in their car, and that was the reason why his Packard was in the garage.

I stepped into the lounge, crossed to the light switch and turned it on. Then I got a shock. Standing across one of the corners of the big room was a desk. All the drawers hung open, and a mass of papers, letters, old bills, lay scattered on the top of the desk and on the floor.

Across the room was a cupboard containing a nest of drawers: these drawers hung open too and more papers were scattered on the floor. It looked as if someone had beaten me to it, and I swore softly under my breath.

I crossed the lounge to the door, opened it and stepped into a big hall. Facing me were stairs leading to the upper rooms. Across the way were two more doors. I opened one and looked into a fair-sized dining room. Here again the drawers of the sideboard hung open and table ware had been bundled out on to the floor.

I tried the other door and looked into a luxury equipped kitchen that hadn’t been disturbed. I returned to the hall and stood at the foot of the stairs, holding the beam of the light on the stairs while I listened.

Somewhere in the house a clock ticked busily, but otherwise there was an oppressive silence.

As I stood there, I wondered what it was the intruder had been looking for and if he had found it. I wondered, too, how Thrisby would react when he returned and found the disorder. It would be interesting to see if he called the police or if he did nothing about it.

I would be in an unpleasant position if he suddenly walked in on me, and for a moment I hesitated about going up the stairs. I was pretty sure that anything that might have interested me in this house had already been taken. But I finally decided to have a quick look over the rest of the house and then get out fast. I mounted the stairs two at a time and arrived on a broad, dark landing.

Then I got a shock that pretty nearly lifted me to the ceiling.

As I swung the beam of my flashlight around, I saw in a far corner of the landing the figure of a crouching man. He looked as if he were about to spring on me. My heart did a somersault. I jumped back and the flashlight fell out of my hand. It rolled across the floor and then went bumping down the stairs sending the beam flashing against the wall, then the ceiling, then the banisters, until it landed in the hall below, leaving me in total darkness.

I stood rooted, my breath whistling between my teeth, my heart slamming against my side.

Nothing happened. The clock downstairs continued to tick busily, making an enormous sound in the tomblike silence of the house.

I slid my hand inside my coat and my fingers closed around the butt of the .38. I eased it out of the holster and my thumb slid the safety catch forward.

“Who’s there?” I said, and I was annoyed to hear that I sounded like a flustered old maid who finds a man under her bed.

The silence continued to press in on me. I listened, standing motionless, my eyes staring into the darkness ahead of me where I had seen the crouching man. Was he creeping towards me? Would I suddenly have him on top of me with his fingers searching for my throat?

I suddenly remembered how Sheppey had died with an icepick driven into his throat. Was this Sheppey’s killer facing me? Had he an icepick in his hand?

Then something moved across my leg. My nerves leapt practically out of my body. My gun went off with a bang that rattled the doors and I sprang back, sweat starting out on my face.

I heard a low growling sound and a scuffle, and I knew the cat had come up in the dark and had rubbed itself against my leg.

I stood still, my back pressed against the banister rail, cold sweat oozing out of me, my heart hammering. I put my hand in my pocket, and took out my cigarette lighter.

“Stay where you are,” I said into the darkness. “One move and you’ll get it!”

Pushing the .38 forward, I lifted my left hand above my head and flicked the lighter alight. The tiny flame gave me enough light to see the man in the corner hadn’t moved. He still crouched there on his heels: a little, dark man with a brown wrinkled face, slit eyes and a big, grimacing mouth that showed some of his teeth.

There was a stillness about him that gave me the creeps.

No one could stay so completely still unless he were dead.

The lighter flame began to fade.

I moved to the head of the stairs, then went down them to where the flashlight lay, its beam pointing across the hall to the front door.

I picked up the flashlight, turned around and forced myself up the stairs again. When I reached the head of the stairs, I swung the beam of the flashlight on to the crouching man.

I guessed he was Thrisby’s servant. Someone had shot him through the chest and he had crawled into the corner to die.

There was a puddle of blood by his feet and a dark patch of blood on his black linen coat.

I walked slowly over to him, pushing the gun back into my holster. I touched the side of his face with my fingertips. The cold skin and the board-like muscles under the skin told me he had been dead for some hours.

I drew in a long slow breath and swung the beam of the flashlight away from the dead face. Two big sparks of living light lit up in the beam of the flashlight as the cat paused at the head of the stairs, crouching and growling the way Siamese cats do when they disapprove of anything. I watched the cat cross the landing, walking slowly, its head held low with the sinister wildcat movement, its tail trailing.

It passed the Filipino without even pausing and stopped outside a door, facing me. It reached up, standing on its hind paws and tapped the door handle with its front paw. It tapped three times, then let out its moaning growl and then tapped again.

I moved forward slowly, reached the door, turned the handle and gave the door a little push. It swung wide open.

Darkness and silence came out of the room. The cat stood on the threshold, its ears pricked, its head slightly on one side. Then it walked in. I stood where I was, my heart hammering, my mouth dry.

I turned the beam of the flashlight on the cat. The beam held it in its clear-cut circle of light across the room to the foot of the bed.

The cat jumped up on the bed.

I shifted the circle of light and my heart skipped a beat. Thrisby lay across the bed. He was still in his white singlet, his dark red shorts and his sandals.

The cat moved over to him and began to sniff inquiringly at his face.

In the beam of the flashlight I could see the terrified, fixed grimace on his face, the clenched hands and the blood on the bed sheet.

There was no sign of a wound or of blood on the white singlet, but I was sure if I turned him over I would find the wound.

Someone had shot him in the back as he had tried to get away. As he had died, he had fallen across the bed.