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

I

Jay Delaney lay back in the canvas slung chair, a book in his lap and listened to the voice that was speaking to him in his mind.

He had grown used to listening to this voice. It had been urging him to do various acts of violence now for the past eighteen months, but up to now, he had resisted the voice’s cajoleries.

But this afternoon, as he relaxed in the hot sunshine, the suggestion the voice was making to him tempted him.

The idea of murdering a girl had been in his mind for some time. It would be, he had told himself over and over again, the ultimate test of his wits, his intelligence and his courage.

From behind his heavily tinted blue sun-glasses, he had been watching a girl seated on the sand some thirty yards or so from him.

The girl was wearing a sky-blue bikini and she was posing on the sand before a group of sweating photographers who stood or knelt in a semicircle around her while a big crowd along the Croisette stared with insatiable curiosity at the spectacle.

The girl was blonde and very young with a body conforming to the standard requirements of the movie world and her skin was the colour of honey from the comb. She was pretty with small features and a bright, animated expression that would come out well in a photograph.

Sexually the girl didn’t interest Jay. No girls had ever interested him that way. The qualities that made her attractive to him were her freshness, her vitality and her animation.

The voice in his mind said persuasively, “This is the girl you have been waiting for. This is the girl you should kill. It won’t be difficult. She is a film star. It won’t be difficult to get her alone. You have only to tell her that your father wants to meet her for her to go anywhere with you.”

Jay reached in his shirt pocket and took out the gold cigarette-case that his step-mother had given him for his twenty-first birthday, four months ago. From it, he took out a cigarette and lit it.

The girl had turned over now, her chin cupped in her hands, her legs lifted, her ankles crossed, while photographers took pictures of her long slim back and the curve of her hips, scarcely concealed by the skimpy bikini she was wearing.

It was true, Jay thought, it wouldn’t be difficult to get her alone. Being the son of Floyd Delaney, who was to Pacific Motion Pictures what Sam Goldwyn was to M.G.M., made it easy to approach her without arousing her suspicions.

He was suddenly glad that his father had insisted that he should accompany him to Cannes. He hadn’t wanted to go and he had raised all kinds of objections, but finally his father, who always got his own way in the end, had persuaded him to come along.

The Cannes Film Festival was fun, his father had said: lots of pretty girls, wonderful food, swimming and good movies. Besides, he needed a vacation.

So he had reluctantly tagged along as he had always tagged along wherever his father went.

It was a lonely business, this trailing along in the wake of his father’s glory. Twelve years ago, Jay’s mother had thrown herself out of a hotel window. Since her death, his father had married twice, divorcing his second wife after two ears of constant bickering. His present wife, Sophia, was five years older than Jay: a fragile, dark beauty with enormous blue eyes, a slender lovely body and the face of a Raphael Madonna. She was an Italian and had been a celebrated film star before Floyd Delaney had married her. Now, because of his possessiveness and his millions, she had retired from the screen.

Jay was always a little uneasy in her presence. Her beauty disturbed him and he avoided her as much as he could. When they did get a few minutes alone together, he had an uneasy feeling that she suspected there was something a little odd about him. He had often caught her looking at him, a quizzing, puzzled expression in her eyes as if she were trying to probe into what was going on in his mind.

She was always kind and pleasant to him and she always made an effort to include him in the conversation when a crowd surrounded his father and this bothered him. He much preferred to remain on the fringe of his father’s activities rather than to be forced to talk to people who obviously weren’t interested in him.

The Delaneys had been at the Plaza hotel now for three days. From there they were going on to Venice and then on to Florence with a camera unit to shoot background material for a new movie that was going into production in the late autumn.

During these three days in Cannes, his father and Sophia had spent most of their time watching the best films Europe had to offer. His father’s own film offering, an all-colour, star-studded, glittering musical, was to be shown on the last day of the Festival and Floyd Delaney had no doubt that it would take the first prize.

Jay had said he preferred to remain on the beach, rather than watch a series of foreign movies. Reluctantly, his father had agreed. He would have liked his son to have taken more interest in the film business, but, as it was the boy’s vacation, he told him to go ahead and please himself.

Jay looked over at the girl in the sky-blue bikini. She was standing now, her long, slim legs apart, her hand shielding her eyes while she laughed at the group of photographers who grinned back at her because they thought she was a nice, cute kid and because she didn’t throw her weight around like some of these little bitches who didn’t know enough even to wash their feet before putting on their swim-suits and who behaved as if they had talent instead of just a body in search of a job.

A press photographer, shambling across the sand, recognized Jay and paused.

“Hello there, Mr. Delaney,” he said. “Giving the movies a miss this afternoon?”

A little startled, Jay looked up and nodded.

What a specimen! he thought, looking at the shabby figure before him and what a complexion!

The man looked pickled with drink, but Jay smiled at him. He made a point always to be polite to anyone who spoke to him.

“Who wants to watch a movie in this weather?”

“I guess that’s right, but your father’s in there.” The man moved a little closer and Jay could smell the whisky on his breath. “Your father’s keen: the keenest man in the business. I don’t reckon he’s missed one picture since he’s been here.”

“I don’t think he has.” Jay nodded over to the girl in the bikini. “Who’s that? Do you know her name?”

The man turned and peered at the girl.

“Lucille Balu: pretty nifty, huh? She’s working with a small independent French unit right now, but in a year, she’ll be up at the top. She’s got a lot of talent.”

“Yes,” Jay said and having got the information he wanted, he pointedly picked up his book.

The photographer studied him. A good-looking kid, he thought. He would make quite a movie actor and how the girls would rave about him!

“Look, Mr. Delaney, could you fix an exclusive for me with your father?” he asked hopefully. “I’d like to get his views on the future of the French cinema and take some pictures. Could you put in a word for me? My name’s Joe Kerr.”

Jay shook his head, smiling.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Kerr, but you’d better talk to Mr. Stone. He handles that side of my father’s business.”

The red-raw face tightened in a grimace.

“I know, but I can’t get anywhere with him. Couldn’t you put in a good word for me?”

“It wouldn’t help. My father doesn’t listen to any suggestions I make.” Jay’s smile widened and he looked very young and boyish. “You know what fathers are.”

“Yeah.” Kerr’s raddled face fell and he shrugged his shoulders. “Well, thanks anyway,” then, seeing Jay made another pointed movement with his book, he went shambling away across the sand.

Jay looked at the girl again.

The photographers were thanking her and then they moved off towards a red-haired girl who was lying seductively on the sand, impatiently waiting for them.

Lucille Balu came across the sand and entered the Plaza enclosure. She sat down at one of the tables within ten feet of where Jay was sitting.

A small, compact, powerfully-built man with wiry black hair came over to her, carrying a wrap and a beach bag which he put on the table.

“Nice work,” he said. “Well, that’ll do for to-day. I’m going to catch a bit of this movie. Do you want to come?”

The girl shook her head.

“I’ll stay here for a while.”

“All right, but don’t hide yourself: let the people see you. I’ll meet you in the Plaza bar at six.”

Jay listened to this conversation and he watched the little man stroll away. Turning his head and behind the dark screen of his sun-glasses, he watched the girl as she opened the beach bag to take out a powder compact. She is very attractive, he thought.

“Why not now?” the voice in his mind asked. “This thing has been with you for a long time. Why don’t you do it? She will make a perfect subject. You could take her up to the hotel suite. You have two hours before they will be back. You will have plenty of time to arrange things.”

Jay glanced around the enclosure. There were only a dozen or so people sitting at the tables. At this hour in the afternoon most people were in the cinema or sight-seeing. No one was paying any attention to him or to the girl.

He decided he would do it and without giving himself a chance to change his mind, he shut his book and stood up. His heart was beating a little faster, but otherwise he felt surprisingly calm and relaxed.

The girl was touching up her lips, looking at herself in the mirror of the compact as Jay came up to her.

“It’s Mademoiselle Balu, isn’t it?” he said in his impeccable French.

The girl glanced up, stiffened a little and then immediately smiled.

“Yes. You are Monsieur Delaney.”

“Junior: it makes a lot of difference,” Jay said with his charming, boyish smile. “This is fortunate. My father was talking about you this morning. He wants to meet you.”

The expression of surprise and excitement that spread over the girl’s face amused him.

“Mr. Delaney wants to meet me? Why, how wonderful!” She cocked her head on one side and smiled at him. “You’re serious? You’re not joking?”

“Why, no. He said if I happened to run into you to bring you to meet him,” Jay said. “If you have nothing to do, why not come now?”

“Now?” The girl was becoming flustered and she stared at Jay, her eyes very wide and he thought how vulnerable she looked and that pleased him. “But where?”

“At the Plaza hotel, of course. He thinks you have a lot of talent.” Jay smiled. “I don’t often agree with my father, but this time, I think he is absolutely right.”

The flattery didn’t have the result he expected. The girl continued to stare at him.

She had a sudden wish that she could see beyond the two blue screens that hid his eyes. Somehow, even though his smile was charming, she felt a little uneasy about him.

But, she told herself, if his father wanted to see her, this expensive trip down to Cannes would be justified. Her agent Jean Thiry, the little man who had just left her, had insisted that she should go to Cannes.

“You never know,” he had said. “It’s a gamble of course, but then one of the big shots from Hollywood might spot you. Cannes is a shop window for a girl like you.”

Then she remembered seeing Floyd Delaney and his beautiful wife leave the Plaza about an hour ago and go over to the cinema.

“But Mr. Delaney is in the cinema now.”

Jay took this in his stride.

“My father doesn’t sit through many of these films He sneaks out the side exit. He’s back at the hotel now.” He looked at his gold Omega. “I know he is going out just after tour. Its half past three now, but if you have something else to do, perhaps some other time.”

“But I haven’t a thing to do,” the girl said, getting hastily to her feet. “I’d love to meet him.”

“You will want to change, won’t you?” Jay said. It amused him to see the panic that had jumped into her eyes He saw she was wondering what she should wear, how she could possibly change in half an hour and still look her best “Are you staying at the Plaza?”

She shook her head.

“The hotel next door. The Metropole.”

“You don’t have to be formal,” he said. “My father already knows how beautiful you are.”

She laughed nervously.

“Well, I’d better hurry if I have only half an hour,” she said and slipped on her beach wrap.

Jay watched her.

When she had been posing for the photographers she had been very self-possessed, but now, at the thought of meeting his father, she had lost her poise. She was pathetically eager and like any other young girl in a fluster.

“There’s just one thing,” he said and his intimate, boyish smile widened. “Perhaps you’d better not tell anyone that you are seeing my father. There’ll be time for that later. People here do gossip, don’t they? My father’s moods are very unpredictable. I think he has plans for you, but it would be as well not to count too much on him.”

She realized how damaging it would be to her career and her reputation if it got around that the great Floyd Delaney had given her a personal interview and then nothing had come of it. But suppose he made her an offer? She wished Jean hadn’t gone to the cinema. She would have liked to have had a word with him first.

“No, of course. I won’t say anything to anyone,” she said. “Suite 27? I must fly.”

“At four o’clock then.”

He watched her hurry up the steps on to the Croisette, then he lit another cigarette and sat down.

He had now to consider how he was to kill her. It would be done in the suite. Obviously there mustn’t be anything messy: no blood. He thought of the silk curtain cords that held back the drapes at the big windows of his father’s lounge. It shouldn’t be difficult to drop one of these cords over her head and tighten it around her throat before she could scream.

He flicked ash off his cigarette, again conscious that he was calm and that pleased him.

The excitement and the tension he needed would begin after he had killed her. The mere act of killing her was nothing — a means to an end. The excitement would begin when he had a dead body on his hands in a suite in the famous Plaza hotel. That would be the test of his ingenuity; a challenge to his power of inventiveness, when one slip would put him into the hands of the police.

He sat there, letting the sun beat down on his upturned, handsome young face, his mind deliberately blank, aware that his heart was now beating faster and his hands were a little damp.

At ten minutes to four o’clock, he got up and walked slowly up the steps to the Croisette.

The crowd staring at the starlets in their scanty swim-suits ignored him. Even if they had been told that he was the son of one of the most famous motion picture makers they wouldn’t have given him more than a glance.

A few of the film executives nodded to him as he crossed the road to the hotel and he nodded back with his customary politeness. He was sure these men, who had often been ruthlessly treated by his father, were thinking he was a nice kid who hadn’t been spoilt by his father’s millions and the thought amused him.

He collected the key to his father’s suite, acknowledging the nod and the smile from the clerk who handed him the key. He walked up the stairs to the second floor that was reserved for the important executives attending the festival. The long corridor was deserted as he had expected it to be deserted.

At this hour none of the executives would be in their suites. They would either be in the cinema or else on the terrace discussing their affairs.

He unlocked the door of suite 27 and walked in.

The suite consisted of a large lounge, a dining-room and three bedrooms. It had been completely redecorated for Floyd Delaney’s arrival.

Jay crossed the lounge and removed one of the scarlet silk cords that held the cream curtains in place. He ran the cord through his fingers. It felt smooth and strong to his touch. He coiled the cord and then placed it on the settee, putting a cushion over it to hide it from sight.

He looked down at his watch. The time was one minute to four.

He sat down.

In another minute she would be here. In five or more minutes she would be dead and then what was to be the most exciting experience in his life would begin.

He remained motionless, his eyes on the hands of his watch while he listened to the thump-thump-thump of his heart.

As the minute hand of his watch centred exactly on the hour, there came a gentle rap on the door.

II

The Festival offering for that afternoon was a documentary made in India and Sophia Delaney found it unbearable.

The background music set her teeth on edge, the scenes were of poverty and squalor and it went on and on and on. She thought longingly of the beach and the sea and the sunshine. Finally, when the picture switched to an Indian hospital to show men and women suffering from tropical diseases with close-ups of revolting sores and gigantic limbs swollen out of all recognition, her spirit rebelled.

She glanced at her husband, who sat huddled down in his seat, his eyes riveted on the French subtitles while he strove conscientiously to follow the action of the film. She realized there was no hope of getting him to leave. He would never set the bad example of walking out on another man’s film. She knew he had always at the back of his mind the possibility that one day, someone as important as himself might be tempted to walk out on one of his films and she knew how superstitious he was about tempting providence.

A man with a deep sore on his chest appeared on the screen and this picture revolted her. She touched Floyd’s hand.

“Darling, do you mind? I think I’ve about had enough of this,” she said softly.

In the semi-darkness she saw his look of surprise, then because he loved her and treated her like a child, he nodded, patting her hand.

“Yeah. You skip, honey doll. I’ll have to stay with this thing, but you go. Have a swim or something.”

His eyes were drawn back to the screen as the camera tracked up to a close-up shot of the sore.

She brushed his cheek with her lips.

“Thank you, darling,” she murmured and then slipped past him into the aisle.

The nine hundred odd men and women in the cinema observed the kiss and enviously watched her leave.

Sophia sighed with relief as she left the dark auditorium. She glanced at her wrist-watch. The time was ten minutes to four o’clock.

She would return to the hotel, get her swim-suit and then drive down to the bathing station by the Casino, away from the activities in front of the Plaza and have a bathe in peace.

Floyd would be tied up with that ghastly film and then with the discussion that would inevitably follow until six o’clock, so she had plenty of time.

She walked from the cinema to the Plaza, along the crowded pavement, smiling at the people she knew and once stopping to exchange a few words with a famous Italian star who Floyd was anxious to sign up but who was showing temperament and demanding an outrageous sum for his undoubted talents.

The Italian star caressed her body with his eyes and conveyed to her by his direct, insolent stare that he would be amused to have her in his bed.

Sophia, long accustomed to this kind of approach, said the right thing, smiled the right smile and kept out of reach of the star’s wandering hands and then moved on, hoping the greasy little beast would be more amenable when Floyd’s casting manager approached him again.

The lobby of the Plaza hotel was as usual crowded with celebrities as Sophia made her entrance.

Over in a corner was Georges Simenon, pipe clenched tightly between his teeth while he listened to Curt Jurgens discussing his latest movie.

Eddie Constantine, his peak cap at a rakish angle, waved to Sophia and pantomimed that he would like to join her only he was tied up with a producer who seemed determined to talk him into something.

Michele Morgan and Henri Vidal were arguing amiably while photographers stalked them with their cameras.

Jean Cocteau in his short dark cloak swept through the lobby and out into the sunshine without paying attention to anyone.

Henri Verneuil, the famous French director, was listening with a broad smile to the gentle cajolings of Marese Guibert, who was trying to persuade him to make an appearance on the Monte Carlo television.

Sophia moved through the crowd to the reception desk. The hands of the wall clock stood at four o’clock as she asked for the key to suite 27.

“Mr. Delaney junior has it, Madame,” the clerk told her. “He went up a few minutes ago.”

This surprised Sophia, but she thanked the clerk and then made her way across the crowded lobby, smiling and nodding and giving her left hand the way the Italians have to show special intimacy, but not stopping.

The elevator whisked her to the second floor and she noticed as she stepped out of the cage that the hands of the wall clock now stood at seven minutes past four.

She crossed the corridor, turned the handle of the door to suite 27, then frowned as she found the door locked.

She rapped sharply.

“Jay! It’s Sophia,” she said and waited.

There was a long pause of silence and with a little movement of exasperation, she rapped again.

She had been Floyd’s wife long enough now to have acquired the veneer of a millionaire’s wire and to be kept waiting in a hotel corridor was insufferable to her.

“Jay — please, for heaven’s sake!”

Again the silence and this time, becoming angry, she rattled the door handle and rapped again.

“Excuse me, Madame.”

The floor waiter had come from the still room.

“Have you a key?” she asked, controlling her irritation and smiling at him. “I think my step-son must be sleeping.”

“Yes, Madame.”

She moved aside and the waiter unlocked the door with his passkey and pushed the door open. Sophia thanked him and walked into the big lounge, closing the door sharply behind her.

The first thing she noticed was a perfume in the air that was unfamiliar to her.

She came to an abrupt standstill, sniffing at the fragile, almost imperceptible perfume, her lovely blue eyes narrowing.

Their suite was strictly private. Floyd made a point of never having anyone up there, so the unfamiliar perfume meant that there had been an intruder in the room.

Was it possible that Jay had brought a girl up here? Sophia wondered. Had she walked in on some sordid sexual adventure?

Floyd had told Jay that they would not be back to the suite until after six. Had the boy dared to take advantage of this to brine to their suite one of those ghastly, half-naked little morons who paraded in the lobby of the hotel like lost souls in search of financial salvation?

Sophia felt hot, indignant anger surge through her.

“Jay!”

She heard a movement in Jay’s bedroom and then the door opened.

Jay came into the lounge and very carefully closed the bedroom door. He was wearing his heavily tinted sun-glasses. This habit of his, wearing sun-glasses indoors, always irritated Sophia.

The glasses made a barrier between them. She never knew of what he was thinking or how he was reacting to what she said to him. When speaking to him she always had the impression that she was talking over a high wall to a voice that answered her from the other side.

But this time, although his face was, as usual, expressionless, she was immediately aware that he had brought into the room an atmosphere of extreme tension and she also noticed that his upper lip glistened with tiny beads of perspiration.

“Why, hello, Sophia,” he said and his voice was just a shade too casual. “You’re back early, aren’t you?”

Had he got a girl in his bedroom? Sophia wondered with a feeling of disgust. Was there some wretched little slut trapped in there, listening against the door panel to what she was saying?

“Didn’t you hear me knocking?” she asked and because his tension made her uneasy she spoke sharply.

He moved further into the room and she noticed that he kept between her and his bedroom door.

“I did think I heard something,” he said, “but I didn’t imagine it was you.”

He took out his gold cigarette-case she had given him and as he lifted his left arm, she saw on the inside of his forearm three ugly red scratches, one of them bleeding slightly.

“You’ve hurt yourself,” she said. “Be careful: it’s bleeding.”

He glanced at the scratches, then put the cigarette-case on the table and took out his handkerchief and wiped the blood away.

“There was a cat in the corridor,” he said. “It scratched me.”

The stupid, transparent lie made her very angry.

She bit back a sarcastic retort and moved away from him, crossing to the window, turning her back on him. Should she accuse him of bringing a girl up here? Her position as his father’s third wife made such an accusation difficult. He might well tell her to mind her own business. Also she might have made a mistake, although she was sure she hadn’t. Perhaps she had better tell Floyd and let him deal with the boy.

“Wasn’t the movie any good?” Jay asked.

“No.”

There was a pause, then he asked, “Where’s father?”

The anxious note in his voice tempted her to say his father was on his way over. If there was a girl trapped in the bedroom, the idea of his father walking in might frighten him enough not to dare do such a thing again, but she resisted the temptation.

“He’s still in the cinema.”

Impatiently, she pushed aside the right-hand curtain that was hanging loose, looking for the curtain cord to fasten back the curtain.

She saw the cord was missing.

“Are you looking for something, Sophia?” Jay asked and his voice sounded very gentle.

She turned quickly.

His handsome young face was still expressionless. He was smiling, but it was a meaningless smile of a shop-window dummy.

She could see the twin reflections of herself like miniature snapshots in the lenses of his sun-glasses. She noticed how very still she stood and how tense she seemed.

“There’s a curtain cord missing,” she said.

“How observant you are I” he said and pulled from his hip pocket the scarlet cord. “You mean this? I forgot to put it back. I’ve been amusing myself with it.”

She didn’t know why, but this remark had an oddly sinister sound.

“What do you mean?” she asked sharply.

“Oh, nothing. I was bored. I was just fooling with it.”

He began to move slowly and deliberately across the room towards her. The scarlet cord hung limply in his hands and it formed a noose.

There was something about his silent approach that suddenly alarmed her. It seemed stealthy and somehow threatening.

She moved away from the window, her heart beating fast and she stepped around the table that stood in the middle of the room so that it was between him and her.

Jay paused, looking at her across the table, the cord still held in a loop between his slim brown fingers.

Sophia realized that she was beginning to be frightened. She felt instinctively that something had happened in this room. The smell of the unfamiliar perfume, the scratches on Jay’s arm, the loop made by the curtain cord formed a pattern that she couldn’t bring herself to analyse.

She wanted now badly to run out of the room, but she controlled the impulse. This was absurd, she told herself. Nothing had happened. Why should she be suddenly afraid of Floyd’s son?

She forced herself to remain where she was, aware that her heart was now thumping and she was slightly breathless.

“Jay — have you brought a girl up here?” she demanded and she was surprised to hear how harsh her voice sounded.

Jay released one end of the cord and let it swing like a scarlet pendulum. He continued to stare at her.

“Did you hear me?” she said, raising her voice.

“How did you guess?” he said. He waved his hand towards his bedroom door. “You are quite right. As a matter of fact — she’s in there now.”