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

I

With the sun burning on his back, Jay walked slowly down Rue d’Antibes. The principal shopping street of Cannes was crowded. In his beach wear he blended with the crowd of tourists in their gay holiday clothes.

He walked slowly, his hands deep in the pockets of his pale blue and white striped cotton trousers, his eyes hidden behind the dark lenses of his sun-glasses.

He reached Rue Foch and paused.

La Boule d’Or stood at the corner, as Ginette had described and a little way down the narrow street was the hotel Beau Rivage, Madame Brossette’s establishment.

Jay took out his cigarette case and lit a cigarette whilst he looked beyond the café at the small hotel.

It was as Sophia had described it: small, sordid and dirty. The lace curtains, grey-white with age and dirt, that screened the windows gave it a poverty-stricken look.

As he stood at the corner, feeling the hot sun burning down on his head, a girl in a clinging flowered patterned dress, a big handbag slung over her arm, a dark flashily dressed man at her heels, walked into the hotel.

Jay crossed the street and paused outside La Boule d’Or. This was a gay, clean little café with five tables set out on the street and a blue and white sun awning, offering welcome shade.

Four of the tables were occupied by young holiday makers, sipping orange juice and eating ices. They glanced casually at Jay as he took the vacant table.

He looked into the dim cool interior of the bar.

Behind the bar sat a thickset man, around fifty years of age. His general appearance, with his big fleshy face, heavily tanned, his close-cropped white hair, his pale bright blue eyes, suggested that for most of his life he had been at sea and this was true.

Jean Bereut had been a master mariner until an accident had deprived him of both his legs. Now, he was forced to sit behind the bar of La Boule d’Or and serve drinks while his mind drifted away from time to time to the far oceans where he had spent the best years of his life.

Seeing Jay seat himself, Bereut reached forward and struck a bell that hung within reach. A moment or so later, Ginette came out from the rear room and looked inquiringly at her father. He gave her a friendly grin as he jerked his thumb towards Jay.

She came across the room and paused at Jay’s side, her back turned to her father. Jay looked up and he felt a surge of pleasure run through him to see the flush that mounted to her face as she recognized him.

“Hello,” he said. “I was passing... ”

“Father mustn’t know,” she said, her voice an anxious whisper.

He understood that. He wouldn’t want his father to know either. His eyes moved over her. She was wearing a simple light blue dress and her hair was caught back by a strip of blue ribbon. He thought she looked lovely and he felt blood mount to his own face.

“Can I have a Vermouth, dry, with ice?” he said, then added quickly, “I’ll be down at the harbour at midnight. You will be there?”

“Yes, I’ll be there.”

She gave him a quick smile, then she went into the bar and he heard her ask her father for a Vermouth.

Jay looked across at the Beau Rivage hotel. The place stood inactive in its dingy sordidness. Then, as Ginette brought the Vermouth to his table, a girl with dyed red hair, wearing a shabby grey coat and skirt, accompanied by a red-faced, anxious-looking man in shorts and a flowered patterned shirt that proclaimed him to be an American on holiday, entered the hotel.

“I’m looking for another hotel,” Jay said. He nodded across to the Beau Rivage. “Is that any good?”

“The Beau Rivage?” Ginette’s eyes opened wide. “You mustn’t go there. It is a horrible place. All the street girls use it.”

“I didn’t know.” Jay leaned back in his chair, looking up at her. He saw she had a tiny mole just under her chin and he felt an urge to kiss it. “Do you know of any place — that’s cheap?”

“Well... ” She hesitated. “We have a few rooms. They’re clean, but I don’t suppose they are what you are used to.”

Jay laughed.

“You want to see the place where I am staying now. It’s clean, of course, but it isn’t very exciting. I may need to make a change. If I could have a room... ”

“Yes. It would be five hundred francs a day.” Ginette looked anxiously at him. “Would that be too much?”

“No, that would be fine. Well, if I have to leave the other place I’ll come here and discuss it with your father.” Jay had no idea why he was talking like this. He wanted to keep her at his side and he knew she wouldn’t remain there unless he held her on the legitimate excuse of business.

“Would you be staying long?” she asked.

“No, not for long. I shall be leaving for Venice some time next week.”

He was glad to see her expression of disappointment.

“I see,” she moved back. “Well, I must go.”

“To-night,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

She nodded and went back into the rear room.

Jay finished the Vermouth, lit another cigarette, and after a moment or so, he got up, went into the bar and laid a five hundred franc note on the counter.

Bereut put aside his paper and gave change, nodding genially to Jay.

“Come again, monsieur,” he said. “You will always he welcome.”

Jay thanked him. As he moved out into the the sun-baked street, he had a feeling he was being watched, and he looked back.

Ginette was standing in the doorway of the inner room. She raised her hand and smiled at him. Looking quickly at the bar and making sure her father was intent on his newspaper. Jay returned her smile and her signal, then he walked out of the cafe and strolled past the Beau Rivage hotel.

He caught a glimpse of an enormous woman sitting behind the reception desk: a woman with rust-coloured hair, and whose bodies seemed to be about to burst in its effort to contain the grossness of her bosom.

So this was Madame Brossette. Jay thought. She looked imposing enough and terribly strong. He flinched at the thought of having to kill her. She wouldn’t be easy to kill: not like the slight, beautifully proportioned Lucille Balu.

He walked on through the dark shadows and the patches of hard, white sunlight, then suddenly he paused before the window of a jeweller’s shop, stopping abruptly as if he had been caught hold of by an invisible hand and had been jerked to a standstill.

In the centre of the shop window was a necklace of sapphire blue beads, the size of small walnuts. They were the exact replica of the beads that Lucille Balu had worn and which he had dropped one by one into the harbour.

He stood staring at the beads. Providence, he was thinking. Luck seems to be favouring me.

He walked into the jeweller’s shop and bought the necklace. It cost four thousand five hundred francs.

When the assistant wanted to wrap the beads in tissue paper Jay stopped him.

“It’s all right. I’ll take them as they are,” he said, and, picking up the necklace, he dropped it into his hip pocket and laid on the counter a five thousand franc note.

Taking his change, he left the shop, and a few yards further on, he came to a hairdresser’s shop. He entered and asked for a razor.

The assistant showed his surprise at the request. He tried to interest Jay in an electric razor, but Jay, shaking his head, and smiling his meaningless smile, said: “No. I want a razor. The old-fashioned kind. After all, they do give the best shave. Haven’t you one?”

Yes, they had one, but it took several minutes for the clerk to find it. He laid the razor, its blade glittering in the sunshine, on the counter.

“Yes, that’s what I want,” Jay said.

He paid and let the assistant put the razor into its leather case, then, taking it from the man’s hand, he slid it into his hip pocket.

Moving slowly, he again passed the Beau Rivage hotel. This time he noticed there was a young girl behind the reception desk: a thin slattern who was yawning over a newspaper, scratching her head as she read with a bored expression on her thin, sun-tanned face.

It would be unwise, he thought as he passed the entrance and headed once more up the Rue d’Antibes, to do anything until it was dark. The back streets would be deserted soon after ten o’clock: then would be the time and he felt a quickening of his pulse as he thought what he had to do.

While he was walking back to the Plaza hotel, the news of the murder exploded like a hand grenade among the pressmen haunting the Plaza lobby.

For more than half an hour Inspector Devereaux was besieged in the assistant-manager’s office. Then when the pressmen were satisfied that they had all the information he could give them, there was a mad rush to the telephones.

Left alone with Guidet, Devereaux sat back and mopped his perspiring face.

He had said nothing about Joe Kerr to the pressmen. He had given them the details of the girl’s death. He had given them permission to visit the morgue where she had now been taken. He had said that the investigation was proceeding but so far there were no clues.

This was all very well for a few hours, but he knew before long pressure would be brought to bear on him for further information and a demand made for an arrest.

“Still no sign of Kerr?” he asked Guidet.

“Not yet. He’s not staying at any of the hotels here,” Guidet said. “We are extending the search further afield and I have every available man on the job. It looks suspicious. The hall porter tells me that Kerr always arrives before eleven in the morning and hangs about up to midnight. To-day, so far, there has been no sign of him.”

Devereaux dug his pencil viciously into the much-marked blotter.

“He was up there at the time the girl died; he left at the time she was put in the elevator. Now he has vanished. It looks like he is our man. He’s got to be found!”

“He will be,” Guidet said soothingly. “With a face like that... ”

“We still don’t know why the girl was up there. Who could she be visiting?” Devereaux picked up a typewritten list of the names of the occupants staying on the second floor. “There were only five suites occupied at the time of the girl’s death. The rest of the people were out. The fact she didn’t ask at the reception desk, but went straight up, looks as if she knew where she was going and the room number. Then who was she going to see?”

Guidet shrugged his shoulders. He had puzzled his head about this point for the past half hour and had come to no conclusion.

“It is possible,” Devereaux said, tapping on the desk with his pencil, “that she knew most of the important film executives have suites on this floor. She may have gone up there on the off-chance of meeting one of them with the view of getting herself noticed. So many young stars are doing that in the lobby. She may have thought there would be less competition up there.”

Guidet grimaced. He didn’t think much of this idea.

“Then she chose an odd time. There was scarcely anyone up there.”

Devereaux consulted his list.

“There’s this man from the London Studios: Monsieur Hamilton. He is a casting director. She may have been trying to see him.”

“How did she know he was in? How did she know his room number?”

“He may have told her.”

“And you think Kerr was up there to see Delaney and finding himself alone in the corridor with a pretty girl, attacked her? She wasn’t assaulted.”

“He didn’t mean to kill her,” Devereaux said. “When he found she was dead, he became frightened and ran away.”

“There’s the curtain cord. If he had strangled her with his hands I might agree with you, but the cord makes it premeditated.”

Devereaux nodded, frowning.

“Yes. He would have had to entice her into an empty suite. If she saw him undo the cord she would know he meant harm and she would have had time to scream. Yes, you’re right, he must have had the cord ready. Then why did he kill her?” He dropped the pencil on the desk. “We must find him.” He again picked up the sheet of paper and studied it. “Take some men with you and examine all the suites that were un-occupied at the time of the girl’s death. Monsieur Vesperini will tell you if they are occupied now or not. We must work with him. His position is difficult. We mustn’t disturb his clients if we can help it.”

While they were talking Jay had entered the hotel lobby. He could tell immediately from the buzz of excited conversation that the news had broken.

No one paid any attention to him as he made his way through the crowd to the elevator.

As the elevator took him to the second floor, he slid his hand into his hip pocket and with his thumbnail he broke the string of the necklace so the beads rolled free in his pocket.

At the second floor, he left the elevator and began to walk slowly down the corridor.

When he was near the door to suite 27, he paused and took out his cigarette case and casually glanced behind him.

A big, heavily-built man was standing at the head of the stairs looking down the corridor at him.

Jay wasn’t surprised. He had been prepared to find a detective up here by now.

Having lit his cigarette, he moved on to suite 30. The occupant of this suite was Merril Ackroyd, one of his father’s top directors. Jay knew Ackroyd had been to Paris for the past two days. He knew also that he was due to return this morning. He paused outside the suite and rapped on the door, aware that the detective was watching him.

This was an exciting moment and Jay felt his heart beating fast. He heard footsteps cross the room, then the door jerked open.

Ackroyd, a small, thin man with a crew-cut and a tanned, handsome face, stared at Jay, surprised, then he grinned.

“Hello there, Jay! Come on in! I’ve just this minute got back.”

Jay followed him into the big sitting-room and closed the door.

“I was passing,” he said, wandering away from Ackroyd. “I wondered if you were back. Did you have a good trip?”

“Yeah, swell.” Ackroyd was puzzled to have this visit from Jay, but, as Jay was Floyd Delaney’s son, he was prepared to waste a little time in being sociable. “Have a drink? What’s all this I hear about a murder here last night? Is it right the girl was Lucille Balu?”

“Yes.” Jay said. He was now standing by the window. He saw the drapes hadn’t been caught back and were hanging loose. “The police are swarming all over the hotel.”

Ackroyd said: “Well, what do you know! Hang on a second, Jay. I haven’t unpacked yet. I’ve got a bottle of White Label in my grip. I’ll get it.”

He went into his bedroom.

Jay took the scarlet cord off its hook, twisted it into a coil and slid it inside his shirt. Then, taking out two of the blue beads, he flicked them under the settee.

He was sitting in a lounging chair by the time Ackroyd came back with the whisky.

“That kid!” Ackroyd said as he poured two big shots into glasses. “For heaven’s sake! Who would want to kill her? What’s your father think? He was going to get her under contract.”

“I don’t think he knows yet,” Jay said mildly. “He left for the Nice Studios before the news broke.” He took the whisky, noticing with a sense of pride how steady his hand was.

“Must have been some lunatic, I guess. Well, I sure hope they catch the sonofabitch.” Ackroyd finished his drink. “A kid like that! I’m sorry for Thiry. She was the only string in his stable worth a damn.”

“Did you see any good shows in Paris?” Jay asked abruptly, changing the subject. The reference to a lunatic sent a wave of irritation through him. Why must everyone jump to the conclusion that the girl had been killed by a lunatic?

“Nothing worth getting excited about,” Ackroyd said. He talked about this Paris trip for a few minutes, then pointedly asked Jay if he would like another drink.

“No, thanks. I must be getting along,” Jay said and got to his feet. “Are you going to Nice?”

“Yup.” Ackroyd pushed himself out of the lounging chair. “I promised your father to have lunch with him.” He looked at his wrist watch. “Suffering cats! It’s after twelve!”

They walked to the door together and as Jay stepped into the corridor, he saw Guidet and three police officers entering a suite further down the corridor. The assistant manager of the hotel was with them. They didn’t notice Jay.

“Looks like business,” Ackroyd said, watching the detectives disappear into the suite. “Well, see you,” he said and, waving his hand, he shut the door.

Jay walked down the corridor and entered his suite.

Well, he had set the stage, now there was nothing he could do until nightfall. He must hope that the police wouldn’t find Joe Kerr before then. It was a risk he had to take.

He went into his bedroom, took the silk curtain cord from inside his shirt and put it in the top drawer of the chest, along with the razor and the rest of the beads. Then he locked the drawer and pocketed the key.

Taking his swimming-trunks and a towel, he left the suite.

The detective at the head of the stairs glanced at him casually, then looked away.

Jay had difficulty in expressing a giggle of excitement. If this man only knew what he had been doing, he thought, as he pressed the button for the elevator.

This was developing into an experience as exciting as he imagined it would be.

II

A little after three o’clock in the afternoon the telephone bell on Devereaux’s borrowed desk started into life.

For the past hour, the Inspector had been rearranging the notes he had taken during the morning and had been busy studying them. The more he studied them the more he became convinced that Joe Kerr was the man he was after and it irked him that Kerr hadn’t as yet been found.

So, with an impatient frown, he lifted the receiver and barked, “Yes? Who is it?”

“Will you come up to the second floor, Inspector?” Guidet said, excitement in his voice. “We have found the suite where she was killed.”

“You have?” Devereaux got hastily to his feet. “I’m coming.”

He left the office, pushed his way through the crowded, excited lobby, and, not waiting for the elevator, he ran up the stairs to the second floor.

He was immediately pursued by a group of pressmen and four or five photographers.

Guidet must have anticipated trouble, for he had posted four gendarmes at the head of the stairs who stopped the pressmen entering the corridor.

There was an immediate uproar and, impatiently, Devereaux told them that he would make a statement as soon as he could; then he hurried down the corridor to where Guidet stood outside the door of suite 30.

“Well?” Devereaux demanded.

“There’s a curtain cord missing in here and I’ve found two of the beads from the girl’s necklace on the floor.”

Devereaux’s face lit up with a triumphant smile.

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Who owns the suite?”

Vesperini came forward.

“It belongs to Monsieur Merril Ackroyd. He is an important American film director. He was in Paris last night and has only just returned. He got back at ten-fifteen this morning.”

“So the suite was empty last night?”

“That is right.”

Devereaux entered the suite and stood looking around.

“The beads?”

“They are under the settee. I left them where I found them for you to see.”

Two of the police officers picked up the settee and moved it out of the way. On the carpet lay two blue beads.

Devereaux bent over them and examined them without touching them.

“No more of them?”

“No.”

“In the struggle, the necklace must have broken. The beads would have shot all over the room. He missed these two. And a curtain cord is missing?”

“Yes.” Guidet pulled aside the drapes. “There’s one on the left, but the right one is missing.”

“Have the beads photographed as they lie,” Devereaux said. “Then test them for prints.” He turned to Vesperini.

“The suite was locked, of course, when Monsieur Ackroyd left for Paris?”

“Yes.”

“And yet someone got in here. How was that possible?”

Vesperini shrugged his shoulders.

“Although it is unlikely, someone could have got hold of a pass-key. The maids do sometimes leave their keys in the doors while they are cleaning.”

“Test the room for prints,” Devereaux said. “It’ll be a job, but I want every print you find.” He turned to Vesperini. “Can you move Monsieur Ackroyd to another suite? It will be necessary for my men to seal this one after they have finished working.”

Vesperini nodded.

“I’ll arrange something.”

Signing to Guidet, Devereaux left the room.

“Kerr must now be found at once,” he said. “I am going to give the press his description with permission to print in the evening papers if we don’t find him by late this afternoon.”

“All right,” Guidet said. “The usual formula about believing he can help us in the investigation?”

“That’s it,” Devereaux said. “A description of him, but no photograph. While I’m talking to the boys, find Thiry and get him to identify the beads. Show them to the hall porter, too,” and, leaving Guidet to take the elevator, Devereaux marched down the corridor to where the pressmen were impatiently waiting.

After he had told them that they now knew where the girl had been murdered and had promised the photographers access to the room the moment the police had finished examining it, he went on: “Do any of you gentlemen know a photographer whose name is Joe Kerr?”

There was a roar of laughter from the pressmen and the New York Tribune photographer said sarcastically, “Is there anyone who doesn’t know him? Why, Inspector?”

“He may be able to help us in the investigation,” Devereaux said cautiously. “He was up on this floor about the time the girl met her death.”

The Tribune photographer looked around, frowning.

“Anyone seen Joe this morning?”

No one had.

“Perhaps one of you knows where he is staying?” Devereaux asked.

The Nice Matin reporter said Joe was staying in some hotel off Rue d’Antibes.

Devereaux stiffened to attention.

“There are a great many hotels off Rue d’Antibes,” he said. “Do you remember the street or the name of the hotel?”

The Nice Matin reporter shook his head.

“Can’t say I do. A couple of nights ago I dropped the old soak off by the Casino. He had asked me for a lift. I remember he said he was staying off the Rue d’Antibes.”

“He could be an important help,” Devereaux said, trying to appear casual. “If any of you see him you might tell him I’d like to talk to him.” He paused, then went on, “If we don’t trace him by five o’clock to-night, I’ll get you to put a paragraph in your paper. Just a description, saying we would like to interview him.”

“Hey! Just a moment.” Lancing of the Associated Press pushed forward. “Do you think the old buzzard killed the girl?”

Devereaux shook his head.

“I don’t know who killed her,” he said. “I know Kerr was on the second floor at the time she died. I’m hoping he might have seen the killer.”

“Yeah?” Lancing’s red, aggressive face sneered. “I bet! Let me tell you something: that old vulture was always making passes at the girls. Why, only last week he had the nerve to goose Hilda Goodman as she was passing through the lobby and Hilda took a swipe at him. She busted his bridgework. Maybe he tried the same stunt with the Balu girl and, when she socked him, he strangled her.”

“Pipe down!” the Tribune reporter said curtly. “Joe may be a soak, but he isn’t a killer. And let me tell you, if you had the nerve, you would have goosed our Hilda yourself — I know you would.”

There was a general laugh.

“Well, gentlemen,” Devereaux said, “you are holding me up. Just remember I would like to talk to Kerr if you see him.”

He pushed through the circle of men and hurried down the stairs.

So Kerr made passes at women, he was thinking. Maybe that was the motive. He had met the girl, made a pass at her, she had struck him and in a drunken rage he had dragged her into the suite and strangled her.

But he knew it wasn’t quite right: it didn’t fit. There was an act of premeditation about this killing: there was the curtain cord and the fact the killer had used the pass-key to get into the suite. No, this hadn’t been a sudden act of rage or panic.

Guidet met the Inspector in his office.

“The hall porter identifies the beads,” he said. “I haven’t been able to find Thiry yet. I think he must be in the cinema. We have a good finger-print on one of the beads.”

“You have? Well, that’s something,” Devereaux sat down behind his desk. “Ricco of the Nice Matin says Kerr is staying at a hotel off the Rue d’Antibes.”

“Every hotel in that district has been covered,” Guidet said. “That was the first district to be checked.”

“And no one knew him?”

“No.”

“Then check again. It’s possible someone is hiding him. Put twenty men on the job and tell them not to come back until they have found him. Have them cover the shops as well.”

Guidet looked surprised.

“The shops?”

“Perhaps someone has noticed him going to and fro to the hotel. I want this man and I’m going to have him!”

At this moment the detective in charge of the finger-print department came in.

“I’ve found a print in the elevator that matches the print on the bead, Inspector,” he said. “There’s no record down here. I’m having it checked at Headquarters.”

Devereaux grunted.

“If it’s Kerr’s print,” he said softly, “then I think we have him.”

He waved impatiently to Guidet to get off, nodded to the other detective, then, pulling his massive notes towards him, he began to go through them again.