Not Safe to Be Free [= The Case of the Strangled Starlet]

I

Floyd Delaney drove his big Bentley along the Moyenne Corniche with Sophia at his side.

The dinner at the Ch?teau de Madrid had been impeccable; the croustade de langouste, the restaurant’s specialty, delicious, the van Asters amusing, the magnificent aerial view of the harbour of Villefranche and the twinkling lights of Cap Ferrat like fairyland and the Ausone 1947 had been the finest wine he had tasted.

Delaney told himself he should feel content and relaxed, but he didn’t. He felt edgy and irritable and the wretched little Citro?n hogging the road ahead of him, preventing him from passing, infuriated him.

He drove the Bentley to within a foot of the Citro?n’s rear bumper, then putting the palm of his hand down hard on the button that operated the triple air-horns, he blasted the crawling car almost off the road.

He shot the Bentley past the Citro?n and stormed on down the long hill into Nice.

Why wasn’t he relaxed? he asked himself.

He glanced sideways at Sophia. She sat motionless, her face expressionless. Was there something wrong? Usually she was so vivacious, talkative and entertaining? To-night she had been silent and withdrawn and whenever he had looked at her he had been disturbed to see how hard her eyes were and there was a thrust to her chin that he hadn’t noticed before, giving her an almost aggressive look.

This bothered him. He was used to her solicitous attention. His wishes were her wishes, his needs her needs, but to-night it was as if he didn’t exist.

“Have you something on your mind, baby?” he asked abruptly as he slowed the car to negotiate the round-about by the harbour.

Sophia continued to stare ahead, paying no attention.

“Hey! What’s the matter with you?” Delaney demanded, raising his voice. “Did you hear what I said?”

Sophia started and looked at him, then she smiled.

“Sorry, darling. I was thinking. What was it?”

Delaney frowned.

“You seem to have something on your mind. What’s biting you? You’ve been dreamy all the evening.”

All the evening Sophia’s mind had been haunted by the thought of the dead girl in Jay’s cupboard. The more she thought about what had happened the more angry she had become. To think that because Jay had thirsted for an exciting experience, this young, pretty girl, beginning a successful career, should now be a lifeless lump of clay in the bottom of a cupboard.

Several times during the evening, Sophia had nearly blurted out the whole story, not only to Floyd but also to the van Asters, but she had checked herself.

Floyd was like a bull at a gate. There was nothing subtle about him. Murder meant the police. It would never cross his mind not to call the police.

If she could, she was determined to save him and herself from the horror of the publicity, but that didn’t mean she was going to let Jay go unpunished. Once she was sure the police didn’t suspect that he had been responsible for the girl’s death and once they were out of France, she would tell Floyd. Arrangements would have to be made to put the boy in a home and they must make sure he would never get out.

He must never be allowed his liberty again. He might easily be tempted to repeat the experiment later on and some other unsuspecting girl would die at his hands.

Sophia was annoyed with herself for betraying her pre-occupation. She quickly steered Floyd away from the real subject of her thoughts.

“Sorry, Floyd. I’ve been thinking about my silver mink. I must have the collar altered,” she said lightly. “It’s quite a problem. I saw Maggie in hers yesterday. It’s cut like mine and what a fright she looked!”

Delaney drew in a long breath of exasperation.

“For heaven’s sake! Do you mean to tell me you’ve been worrying about that coat all the evening? I was beginning to think there was something seriously wrong.”

“If I’m going to look the way Maggie looked, darling, then something is seriously wrong.”

Delaney shook his head, helpless. He reached out and patted her knee.

“Forget it. Get another coat. I’ll pay. I don’t want you to worry about a thing like that. Have a look around to-morrow. You may find something you like. If you do — buy it.”

Sophia leaned against him, rubbing her face against his shoulder.

“My man!” she said softly. “My lovely, kind, generous man!”

Delaney expanded his chest. This was better. This was the treatment he could absorb twenty-four hours of the day.

“Well, maybe I’m not so lousy,” he said, grinning, “but that’s a bet, honey.” He increased the speed of the car as they got on to the broad sea road leading to Antibes. “You know, the older I get and the longer I live, the surer I am that money fixes everything. You get blue because your mink coat looks wrong. Okay, I can get you another and you’re not blue anymore. Take this car. I like a good car. I don’t want a showy thing all chromium and yards long. I want a car that looks a million bucks, acts a million bucks and makes me feel like two million bucks. If I hadn’t the money, wanting a car like that would eat my heart out. But I’ve got the money, so I can buy this beauty and I don’t get a frustration complex. Money fixes everything. You’ve just got to have enough of it.”

But all Floyd’s money wouldn’t fix this dreadful thing that Jay had done, Sophia thought. It wouldn’t fix murder. He might try to pull strings, get the smartest attorneys, even talk to the judge, but once the facts were put to the jury, Jay would be found guilty and no money on earth could buy off the press nor hush up the horror that Floyd Delaney’s son was a homicidal lunatic.

It was as they were crawling through the bottle-neck just outside Antibes, to get on to the main road to Cannes, that Delaney said suddenly: “I’ve decided not to take Jay to Venice. I’m going to leave him in Nice.”

Sophia stiffened. She looked quickly at her husband.

“Is that such a good idea, darling?”

“Yeah. The boy doesn’t know the first thing about film making. Verneuil is making a movie at the Nice Studios. He’s a good technician and he knows his job inside out. I want Jay to watch him work. It’ll be more useful to him than lounging about in Venice.”

Sophia became alarmed. Jay wasn’t fit to be left alone. There was no knowing what he might get up to. Besides, when the police began their investigation, it would be much safer to have him out of France.

“He’s looking forward to Venice,” she said tentatively. “Is it quite fair, Floyd? After all, he is on vacation. It may be his last chance for years to see the place and we know it is well worth seeing.”

Delaney’s face darkened.

“Look, honey, let me handle this. It’s more important for the boy to learn his trade than to fool around in Venice. Plenty of time for him to go there. I want him to get to know something of the French technique while he is here.”

By now Sophia knew Floyd well enough not to press him. Once he had made up his mind, he reacted badly to any opposition.

She thought with dismay of the danger of leaving Jay here alone and again she was tempted to tell Floyd the truth. But she resisted the temptation to be free of the responsibility. They had still three more days before they left for Venice. She would wait and see what happened during those three days before making a decision.

She looked at the lighted clock on the dashboard of the car. It was now twenty minutes to three. She must talk to Jay when she got back to the hotel. She had to know what he intended to do with the girl’s body. She felt cold and ill when she thought of that. How could Jay hope to get the girl’s body out of the hotel without being seen?

What was he doing at this moment? she wondered.

It would have alarmed her if she had known just what Jay was doing as Floyd drove her along the main road to Cannes.

Jay had waited an hour and a half for Ginette’s return. When he heard the steady beat of the outboard engine, he had got to his feet, aware of an undiscovered feeling of pleasure and excitement.

Ginette was surprised to find him waiting for her and for a moment she hesitated before taking his outstretched hand to help her out of the boat.

“Did you have any luck?” he asked as she stooped to tie-up the boat.

“A little: better than last night. To-morrow night will be better because the tide will be earlier.” She set down the basket she had got from the boat and surveyed him. “Have you been waiting here all the time?”

“Yes. It’s nice here. Besides, I wanted to see you again.”

She looked straight at him, smiling and there was no coyness in her eyes.

“Did you? I wondered about you when I was fishing.”

“I should have asked you to let me come with you. Could I come to-morrow?”

She nodded.

“Of course, if you want to. I shall be here about midnight.”

“Then I’ll meet you here.”

“All right.”

She picked up the basket and fishing lines and moved over to her bicycle.

“Where did you say your café was?”

“Rue Foch. It’s at the corner. It is called La Boule d’Or.” She laughed. “There’s nothing gold about it except the goldfish in the window.” She paused, looking at him. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to bed.”

“Where are you staying?”

He felt instinctively that it would be a mistake to tell her he was staying at the Plaza hotel. She mustn’t know that he was the son of a millionaire. He was sure it would affect their association together.

“I’m staying at the Paris,” he said, naming a modest hotel on the Boulevard Alsace. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he added. “I think you are beautiful. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”

In the hard light of the moon, he saw the blood mount to her face.

“Do you?” She smiled and he could see she was pleased. “Thank you. I am glad you think so.” She slung the basket by its strap over her shoulder and prepared to mount her cycle. “Then I will see you to-morrow night?”

Yes, you’ll see me to-morrow night, Jay thought, unless I am caught carrying the body of that girl out of the suite and into the elevator. What did the Catholics say? Between the stirrup and the ground? So much could happen between this intimate moment and to-morrow night.

“I’ll be here to-morrow at midnight.”

She held out her hand.

“Then good night.”

The feel of her firm cool flesh made his heart beat quicken. He was suddenly sure that, if he had met her sooner, he wouldn’t have done what he had done.

“Good night.”

He watched her cycle away and then he began the lone walk back to the Plaza hotel.

II

His head nodding, his mouth slack, Joe Kerr slept and dreamed of his wife. It was a nightmare dream that haunted his sleep. He saw himself again in his Cadillac, the horror of his wife’s one blood-chilling scream ringing in his ears. He saw himself get out of the car and move to where she was pinned between the rear bumper and the garage wall. The red taillights of the car lit up her crushed, bleeding body.

He woke with a start as Floyd Delaney and his wife came from the elevator and crossed the corridor, pausing outside the door to their suite while Delaney fumbled with the key.

Joe heard Delaney say: “Phew! I’m ready to hit the sack. How do you feel, honey?”

Sophia said: “Me too. I feel I could sleep for weeks.”

Joe watched them enter the suite and he shook his aching head, trying to clear his fuddled brain. He looked at his watch. The time was ten minutes to three o’clock.

How long had he slept?

He remembered he had looked at the time at twenty-five minutes to one. Then he must have fallen asleep. Had the Balu girl left the suite while he had been sleeping? He doubted it. The fact that he had woken when Delaney and his wife had returned assured him that, if the girl had left, he would have known about it.

He groped for his half-pint flask of whisky, then paused as he heard the whine of the ascending elevator. A moment later the door swished back and Jay Delaney stepped into the corridor.

Joe watched him cross the corridor to the door of suite 27. He watched him tentatively turn the handle, then open the door.

Well, the family was back now. What was going to happen? Where was the Balu girl? With resigned patience, Joe prepared himself for another long wait.

In the suite, Sophia had kissed her husband good night and had gone into her room, shutting the door. She leaned against the door, listening. After a few minutes she heard the sound of the shower that told her Floyd was preparing for bed and cautiously, she opened her bedroom door and moved into the lounge as Jay came in.

Jay glanced quickly around, then asked softly: “Where’s father?”

“He’s gone to bed. I want to talk to you, Jay.”

“In here?” He waved to his bedroom and she nodded. They went in together and Jay sat on the edge of the bed while Sophia leaned against the door.

Sophia was tense and pale, but Jay was relaxed; his eyes hidden behind his dark glasses gave her no chance of knowing what his true feelings were.

She said, “Have you thought what you are going to do?”

Since leaving Ginette, Jay had been irritated to discover that he was now bored with having Lucille’s body to cope with. When he had killed her, he had thought the business of disposing of her body would be an exciting test for his ingenuity and his wits, but now, his mind still full of Gillette’s lovely little face, he wished he could give her his full attention and not to have to be bothered with the dead girl.

“I’m going to put her in the elevator, take the elevator to the top floor and leave it there,” he said. “No one will be able to guess where she died. It’s the safest way.”

Sophia considered this. Her sharp wits told her that because of its simplicity it could be successful.

“But you may be seen,” she said.

Jay shrugged his shoulders.

“Yes but no plan is completely fool-proof. I must take that risk unless... ” He paused and looked intently at her.

“Unless — what?” she said sharply.

“Unless you would be willing to help me.”

Sophia stiffened.

“Help you? If I did and you were caught, it would make me an accessory.”

“Yes, I suppose it would.” He rubbed his jaw, frowning. “It was only an idea. It would have made it fool-proof if I had someone in the corridor to warn me if anyone was coming while I got her into the elevator. That’s where the risk is: carrying her across the corridor. Someone might come up the stairs... ”

“Are you going to do it now?” Sophia asked.

Jay looked at his watch. It was now half-past three.

“I may as well. The elevator is now on automatic. This is the best time.”

“Now? This very moment?”

“Yes, when you have gone.”

Sophia hesitated, then she made the decision. Everything she had gained during her struggle to fame and everything that her husband had gained was in the balance, depending on whether or not some late comer strolled up the stairs when Jay carried the girl’s body into the corridor.

To take such a risk would be inviting disaster, she told herself. She had to help him.

“I’m going to the head of the stairs,” she said quietly. “If anyone comes I’ll call out ‘good night’. You must be very quick, Jay.”

He stared at her, startled.

“You mean you are going to help me? I don’t understand. Why are you doing this? They could send you to prison.”

“Never mind why I am doing it,” she said curtly. “I’m going to do it.” She looked at him, her face pale and her eyes glittering. “But don’t imagine you won’t have to pay for this, Jay, because you will and you’ll pay dearly.”

He frowned and his hands turned into fists.

“Of course.” His voice was bitter. “I was stupid enough to think for a moment you were thinking of me. You are doing it only for father and yourself, aren’t you?”

“Is that so surprising?” Sophia said coldly. “Why should we suffer because of what you have done? If your father knew, he would hand you over to the police. He has the courage to face the horrible publicity of the trial and the pity of our friends, but I’m not going to let a brutal, callous act of a mentally deranged boy ruin my husband’s future if I can help it. I’m prepared to take the risk of going to prison rather than see all your father’s hard work go for nothing and my social life ruined. So I’m going to help you, but don’t imagine you won’t pay for this degenerate thing you have done.”

Jay took out his cigarette case, opened it and offered it to Sophia. She hesitated, then took a cigarette. She stood motionless while he lit it for her and then one for himself.

“So you think I’m insane?” he said, sitting on the bed again. “That’s interesting. You are quite wrong, of course. I’m not insane. I did it because I was bored. You don’t know what it is to be really bored. For years now I have craved for something to happen that would be unusual and exciting. There can’t be anything more exciting than to risk one’s life. That was why I killed her.” He paused and his hands moved uneasily up and down his thighs as he stared at her. “But I’ll be frank with you, Sophia. This thing has misfired. It’s nothing like so exciting as I had imagined it would be. There was one moment when it was worthwhile. It was quite a moment when you came back here unexpectedly. I got a thrill out of that, but after, it has all been flat and dull.”

Sophia looked at him with loathing.

“I don’t want to listen to your explanations, Jay. You have done this horrible thing, now you must try to save your father and me from the consequences.”

“Of course.”

His indifferent smile riled her.

“Are you ready?” she said and opened the door.

“Yes.”

“I’ll call the elevator. Be quick.”

Bracing herself, she walked into the lounge. As she went to the door leading out on to the corridor, she heard Jay cross his room and unlock the cupboard door.

She looked into the deserted corridor, then she crossed to the elevator and pushed the call button. She heard the faint whining sound as the elevator ascended. She walked quickly to the head of the stairs and peered over the banister rail. She looked down the deserted stairs, her heart hammering so violently she could scarcely breathe.

She stood there, a rigid, frightened figure, watching the stairs and listening.

Jay must have moved very quickly and silently, for she heard nothing and alarmed at the time he seemed to be taking, she was about to turn when she heard the swish of the elevator door as it closed and a moment later, the whining sound that told her the elevator was in motion.

She looked around and stared down the corridor at the red indicator light that showed the elevator was climbing.

For a moment or so she remained still, then she walked unsteadily back to the suite.

She entered and closed the door, then she went into Jay’s room.

The cupboard doors stood open. She looked into the cupboard, feeling a cold cramped sensation in her stomach. There was nothing in the cupboard to show that a dead girl had lain there for more than twelve hours.

Leaving the room, she went back into the lounge and sat down. She felt cold and sick and very tired. She shut her eyes, letting her head drop back against the head-rest of the chair.

She remained like that for a long five minutes, then she heard the door open and she looked up.

Jay came in. He closed the door and locked it. He was pale and his upper lip shone with sweat.

They looked at each other.

“It’s all right,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded as he took out his handkerchief and wiped his hands and wrists.

“Yes. No one saw me. I took the elevator to the top floor and left it there. I didn’t meet anyone on the way down.”

“The police will be here soon. There will be an investigation. What about your fingerprints in the elevator?”

He shrugged impatiently.

“Hundreds of people use the elevator. I’m not worried about that.”

“What have you done with her beads?”

“I’ve thrown them into the sea.”

“Are you sure nothing of hers has been left here?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Didn’t she have a handbag?”

“No.”

“Are you quite sure? Girls always have handbags, Jay.”

“She didn’t. I’m sure.”

Sophia began to relax a little. Perhaps after all it would be all right, she thought. How could the police guess the girl had died in this suite? Surely their name and reputation would put them beyond suspicion?

“Then we must hope, Jay. I’m going to bed now.”

“Thank you for helping me,” Jay said. “You don’t have to worry. No one saw me.”

But there he was wrong.

Joe Kerr had seen Sophia leave the suite and press the elevator call button. He had watched her move furtively down the corridor to the head of the stairs and look over the banister rail.

He had leaned forward, blankly surprised, wondering what she was doing when he saw Jay come unsteadily out of the suite with Lucille Balu slung limply over his shoulder.

Joe recognized the girl’s blue and white dress and the colour of her hair.

He was so surprised to see Jay carrying the girl out of the suite that he remained transfixed and it wasn’t until it was too late that he groped for his camera. By then the elevator door had closed and the elevator had begun to climb.

He watched Sophia come back along the corridor and as she passed under one of the ceiling lights, he saw how bad she looked; as if she were going to faint.

He waited.

A few minutes later, he saw Jay come down the stairs, walk across the corridor to the door of suite 27, open the door and disappear inside. He heard the key turn in the lock.

Still Joe sat motionless, staring with his frog-like, watery eyes at the door to suite 27.

His drink-sodden brain took some time before it accepted the evidence of his eyes and even then, he was suspicious of what he had seen.

He had been waiting outside the door of Delaney’s suite for a long time, and, as the hours had passed, he had become resigned to the fact that he was wasting his time, as he had wasted it so often on some hopeless assignment he had hoped would turn out to be something that would interest Manley and make him some money.

Lucille Balu had walked into the suite at four o’clock in the afternoon. This boy, Jay Delaney, had carried her out, apparently unconscious, twelve hours later and had taken her upstairs in the elevator.

Why was she unconscious? What had been happening to her during those twelve hours?

Joe grappled with this puzzle, his mind baffled.

Obviously, Floyd Delaney’s high-toned wife was in the secret. She had acted as a scout, making sure the way was clear for the boy to get the unconscious girl out of the suite.

Had the girl been drugged or made drunk so the boy could seduce her? Joe wondered. Surely a woman like Sophia Delaney wouldn’t have associated herself with such a situation?

But the fact remained that the girl had been in the suite for twelve hours and had been carried out unconscious.

If he could prove that young Delaney had drugged the girl and Sophia Delaney had assisted in such an act, what a story it would make!

Unsteadily he got to his feet.

Where had the boy taken her? he wondered. He was pretty sure the girl wasn’t staying at the hotel. Where had she been dumped to sleep off the effects of the drug or drink the boy had plied her with?

Joe moved out of his hiding place and walked softly down the corridor to the elevator, then, deciding it might be dangerous to bring the elevator down to that floor, he started up the stairs to the floor above.

He was breathing heavily by the time he reached the third floor. Stair climbing and a diet of two bottles of whisky a day didn’t agree with him.

He thumbed the elevator button and, leaning against the wall, he waited for the elevator to descend, planning to start on the top floor and search any empty room he found until he discovered the girl.

A few seconds later, he was standing rigid, sweat on his face, as he stared down at Lucille Balu’s dead body.

She lay on her back, her legs bent, her skirts above her knees. There was a look of frozen terror on her blood-congested face that sent a chill up Joe’s spine. Around her throat was the mark of a cord that had been pulled brutally tight, leaving a deep impression on her brown, tender skin. Her long slim fingers were hooked in agony; her eyes, starting out of her head, were fixed in the impersonal stare of death.

Joe felt a sudden thump of pain at his heart as he looked at the dead girl. The pain made him giddy and faint. He took a step back, grimacing. For some moments he stood motionless, aware that the shock had been a dangerous one and that his heart, which he had suspected for some time, had reacted badly. Then, making an effort, he turned and started a slow, shambling retreat down the corridor to the stairs.

The night clerk who sat the reception desk, idly turning the pages of Paris-Match, was surprised to see Joe lurch down the stairs and cross unsteadily to the revolving doors that led out to the Croisette.

He recognized Joe and grimaced. He supposed that Joe had been somewhere upstairs sleeping off a bout of drinking and he watched him manoeuvre himself through the revolving doors with a feeling of relief that Joe wasn’t going to make a nuisance of himself.

Joe kept walking: his brain frozen and numbed.

It wasn’t until he had reached the Beau Rivage hotel, a fifth-rate hotel in Rue Foch, where he was staying and had got up to his bedroom that he recovered sufficiently from the shock to begin to analyse what he had seen.

Twenty years ago, Joe had been the crime reporter on the New York Inquirer. During the four years he had worked on the paper, he had photographed innumerable bodies, murdered violently. He had become hardened to the horrors he had had to see. Also, he had been able to tell at a glance how the unfortunates he had had to photograph had died.

He knew that Lucille Balu had been strangled by a cord that had been looped around her throat and then pulled tight. From her congested face, the marks around her throat and her expression of agony, he had no doubt that she had been murdered.

His first and immediate reaction was to talk to Manley. A story as big as this needed co-operation and he was about to reach for the telephone to put through an unheard-of-expensive call to Hollywood, when he paused. An idea dropped into his mind and he leaned back to consider it.

Floyd Delaney was a millionaire four or five times over. In Joe’s Rolliflex was incontestable evidence that Lucille Balu had entered Delaney’s suite at four o’clock. Any police surgeon worth a damn could tell within a half an hour when she had died and Joe was pretty sure the girl had been murdered between four and four forty-five, when Jay Delaney had been in the suite.

That meant either young Delaney or Sophia Delaney had murdered her and Joe thought it wasn’t likely that Sophia had done it, but obviously she was an accessory.

Here then was a situation that could be turned into profit. Why call Manley? Why bother to write the story? All Joe had to do was to talk to Delaney, come to a financial understanding with him to keep his mouth shut and he would be on easy street for the rest of his life.

Joe’s raddled face lit up at the thought and he shifted the grimy pillow at his head, making himself more comfortable.

Delaney might be persuaded to part with half a million. With that Joe could retire and settle somewhere on the French Riviera. He could buy a small villa, get a house-keeper to look after him and give up the struggle of competing with the smart young punks who were trying to push him out of his job. What a terrific kick he would get out of telling Manley to go jump in a lake!

He frowned, stroking his red, raddled nose.

A half a million! With that money, he could get a villa with a view of the sea; he could afford a comfortable armchair, a good radio and a continuous flow of whisky. Pretty good, he thought and no more work.

As he lay thinking about this, a sudden uneasy thought came into his mind.

Technically speaking, if he went to Delaney and asked him for half a million in return for his silence, he would be committing blackmail. If Delaney wasn’t prepared to make a deal with him, he might find himself in the hands of the police. Also, by keeping silent, even if Delaney parted with the money, he would be making himself an accessory to murder and if he were found out, he could be faced with a stiff prison sentence.

Joe flinched at the thought of getting into trouble with the police and again he was tempted to call Manley, to give him the story and let him handle it, but, as his hand moved to the telephone, he again hesitated.

“Take it easy,” he said aloud. “Wait and see how this thing develops. You’ve got the pictures. You mustn’t rush this. If the police get a lead on the boy, Delaney might jump at the chance of buying the pictures off me. The thing to do is to take it nice and easy and wait. It’ll be tricky, but you can cope with it. This could be the biggest thing that has ever happened to you if you don’t make a mess of it.”

He reached up and turned off the light. The time was now twenty minutes past four. His body ached for sleep, and, as soon as the sordid little room turned dark, he closed his eyes and slept. He dreamed he was carrying his wife’s crushed and bleeding body along a corridor in the Plaza hotel.

Lucille Balu, giggling excitedly, walked by his side.