I picked Scaife up at headquarters at seven-forty. It was a warm evening and the sky was cloudless. It looked as if we were going to have a nice night for the barrel lifting job.
‘Did you see the Shelley girl?’ Scaife asked as he settled comfortably on the bench seat of the Buick.
‘I did, but I didn’t get much out of her.’ I gave him the gist of our conversation. ‘Do you know if any of your boys took Joan’s fingerprints before she was buried?’
Scaife shook his head.
‘I don’t know. I’d say they did, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Why?’
‘It might be an idea to check to see if she had a record. A girl who is always after money more often than not gets into trouble.’
Scaife nodded.
‘That’s an idea. Okay, when I get back, I’ll see if we have prints. If we have, I’ll get them checked.’
‘She interests me. She’s the only one so far in this setup who doesn’t make sense,’ I said. ‘Rutland could have been Fay’s boyfriend. Hesson and Farmer kidnapped her. Flemming killed her. Do you think Rutland paid those three to do the job? Do you think he’s the guy behind the killing?’
‘I don’t know. It doesn’t pay to make wild guesses,’ Scaife said. ‘I prefer to wait until the facts fall into line. We don’t even know the girl’s dead.’
‘Like to bet she’s not at the bottom of the lake?’
Scaife shook his head.
‘No, but until we find her, I’m keeping an open mind on the subject.’
‘There seems a lot of traffic heading this way,’ I said, slowing down as I came upon a long line of cars moving slowly towards Lake Baldock.
Scaife swore under his breath.
‘I wonder if someone’s talked? My stars! The old man will bust his truss! Look at this mob!’
There was no hope of overtaking the procession of cars ahead of us. We had to follow along behind them. About a quarter of a mile from the lake, the cars slowed to a crawl.
We could see three cops ahead in the road, holding up the traffic.
‘Let me get out a moment,’ Scaife said.
I stopped the car and waited while he spoke to one of the cops, then he came back, scowling.
‘There are about a couple of thousand sightseers around the lake and more coming every minute,’ he said, getting back into the car. ‘We’ve had to call out the reserve to handle them. Someone’s talked all right. We can go through. Mind how you go.’
I edged out of the stream of traffic and drove on until we reached the lake.
Six police cars and a couple of trucks stood under the trees. The ground around the water’s edge swarmed with pressmen and cameramen. There were even two units of the newsreel hawks busily setting up their cameras.
A squad of police was working on three powerful searchlights, directing their white, glaring beams on to the still surface of the water.
Harris was climbing into his frog outfit when Scaife and I joined the group at the water’s edge.
Creed glared at me.
‘Is this your doing?’ he demanded in a voice you could cut ham on.
‘Not guilty, captain. I haven’t said a word.’
‘That’s what everyone is saying. Well, I hope for someone’s sake we find this girl.’
He turned to Harris who was shivering in the still night air and snarled at him to hurry up.
Harris got into the boat; two cops shoved it off, scrambled aboard and began to row to the centre of the lake.
Nearby was a powerful winch, anchored to a tree. At the end of the steel cable was a set of clamps.
Three policemen were loading the clamps into another row-boat. They pushed off, and as they rowed after the first boat, two other policemen paid out the cable.
Scaife and I kept away from Creed. We stood under the trees watching the two boats as they slowly neared the centre of the lake.
A couple of newspaper cameramen tried to put out their own boat with the view of getting photographs of Harris as he entered the water, but a squad of police blocked them off. One of the cameramen went over to Creed to protest, but he didn’t get anywhere. Creed vented his spleen on him, and the cameraman retreated, shaken.
‘If that barrel only contains cement,’ Scaife said out of the corner of his mouth, ‘you’re going to see the nearest thing to an earthquake you’re likely to see. It’s my bet Harris has been shooting his mouth off. There’s nothing he likes better than publicity.’
Harris had gone into the water and the waiting crowd watched, silent and tense. After ten minutes or so he reappeared and waved to the boat that carried the tackle. The oarsmen rowed over to him and lowered the clamps over the side.
‘Won’t be long now,’ Scaife said restlessly. He lit a cigarette, took an impatient draw, then tossed the cigarette into the lake.
After what seemed an age, Harris’s head again appeared above the water and he waved.
Creed turned to the two men on the winch.
‘Okay, start winding,’ he snapped.
The two men bent to their task. It was as much as they could do to turn the handles and Creed shouted to two other cops to help them.
Slowly the drum turned, winding in the cable. After ten minutes, Creed changed the four men who stood back, sweating and panting.
‘I think we might get back a little,’ Scaife said under his breath. ‘If the old man spots us, he’ll get us to do some of that, and it looks like hard work to me.’
We moved further back into the shadows.
It took more than an hour of slow winding before the barrel broke surface.
A wild, frenzied cheer broke out from the crowd as the four policemen slopped into the water and manhandled the barrel ashore. A beam from one of the searchlights was directed on to it, and there was a rush of cameramen to photograph it.
They wanted Creed to pose beside it, but he wouldn’t do it. I could see he wanted to, but he was scared the girl wasn’t inside the barrel, and he wasn’t taking the risk of making a fool of himself.
A black, closed truck, like an ambulance, edged to where the barrel lay.
‘That’s the mortician’s truck,’ Scaife said. ‘Creed’s not taking the risk of opening the barrel here. Come on, let’s get out of here. We’ll go to the mortuary. That’s where they’ll open it.’
We pushed our way through the excited crowd, and once clear of them, we ran fast to the Buick. I had trouble in turning the car, so congested had the road become. I got the car turned at last, and drove fastback to town.
The mortuary was behind police headquarters. I parked the Buick in the police park, and we walked over to the mortuary building.
A fat little man, wearing a rubber apron and rubber gloves came out of a room as we entered the tiled passage.
‘Evening, sergeant,’ he said, his badly shaven face lighting up. ‘How’s it coming? Did they get it up?’
‘Hello, Joe,’ Scaife said. ‘They got it up all right. They should be along in about half an hour.’
‘Anything in it?’
‘Cement. I don’t know what else. The old man’s opening it here.’
‘The last cement job I did,’ Joe said scowling, ‘was a horror. The guy had been in the water for six months. You should have seen him.’
‘She’s been in for fourteen months. Think there’ll be anything left to see?’
Joe shrugged.
‘It depends on how much of the cement has covered her. If she’s right inside the cement shell, she might be all right. She won’t last long: just long enough to identify her.’
Listening to this talk made me feel a little sick. I wasn’t sure now if I wanted to be present when they opened the barrel.
‘Come into the office,’ Joe said. ‘I’ve got a bottle in there that’ll put you in the right mood. I always have a shot before I tackle a job like this.’
We went into a small office and stood around while Joe got three glasses and a bottle of Scotch from a cupboard.
‘This is Chet Sladen, the guy who writes for Crimes Facts,’ Scaife said. ‘He’s working on the case.’
Joe nodded at me.
‘I’ve read some of your stuff, mister. You should have a good story here. Going to take photographs?’
‘I guess so.’
He beamed and moved over to the light.
‘Maybe you’ll be wanting my picture?’
‘I don’t suppose his camera’s insured,’ Scaife said, grinning.
I took a couple of shots of the little man. The light was poor and I didn’t expect to get good pictures, but as I was going to make a hole in his whisky, I thought it only fair to do something in return.
We had several drinks: taking the whisky straight without a chaser.
I was feeling less squeamish when I heard the truck come into the yard.
Joe hastily put the bottle and glasses away, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and went to open the double doors leading to the morgue.
‘Come on,’ Scaife said. ‘This’ll be a good test for your stomach.’
Creed came in scowling, followed by the Medical Officer.
‘You here already?’ Creed said, glaring at me.
‘Why not? It was my idea you found her,’ I said.
‘Yeah.’ He snorted and turned to snap orders at the squad of cops who were manhandling the barrel on to a four wheel trolley. ‘I had a sweet time shaking off those vultures,’ he went on. ‘If I could find out who talked, I’d break his neck.’
‘Well, you should be able to find out; you’re a cop,’ I said, needling him.
Scaife nudged me, shaking his head warningly.
We all trooped into the mortuary behind the truck.
Joe and two of his assistants, also in rubber aprons and gloves, stood waiting.
‘Get going,’ Creed said. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’
He waved the four policemen who had wheeled in the truck, out of the room.
I moved back against the wall, and fitted a flashlight bulb into the flash socket. My hands were unsteady and I nearly dropped the bulb.
It didn’t take Joe and his assistants long to strip off the outer casing of the barrel.
While they worked, Creed said to me, ‘It’s the barrel Sperry sold to Flemming. Do you see the strawberry plant holes? She must be in it!’
Joe forced the last of the sodden lathes out of the iron hoop that bound them together. The block of cement, shaped like the barrel, looked gruesome in the hard light.
‘Whoever fixed this, did an expert job,’ he said, stepping back to wipe his forehead. ‘Get me a couple of wedges, Tom.’
I took a flashlight photograph of the cement block as Tom fetched the wedges.
‘Let’s take it easy,’ Joe said, and the two of them began to drive the wedges into the cement.
Ten minutes of steady hammering cracked the cement.
Joe peered into the crack.
Creed shoved him aside, looked into the opening, grimaced and stepped back.
‘It’s her,’ he said. ‘I can see the spangles on her get-up. Okay, Joe, get it open.’
A few more blows with the hammers caused the cement suddenly to fall apart the way an Easter egg will open. I took one look and turned away.
I heard Creed say, ‘She’s all yours, Doc: what’s left of her.’
I was on my way out by then. I have a pretty good stomach, but what I had seen turned me sick. I went into the office, took out the bottle of Scotch and gave myself a big shot.
‘Me too,’ Scaife said, coming in. He took the bottle and half-filled his glass. ‘Phew! I wouldn’t be a croaker for all the money in the world. Well, that settles it. It’s her all right.’
After a few minutes, Creed came in.
I made him a drink; he took it silently and went to sit on the desk by the window. He drank some of the liquor although he didn’t look as if he needed it. His eyes were alight with excitement and satisfaction.
‘Well, at last we’re getting somewhere,’ he said. ‘You two stick around. I’m going to talk to the press. There’s no doubt it’s Fay Benson. The body in there’s got a crooked little finger and so had Fay.’ He finished his drink. ‘Now, we’ll have to find out why she was killed.’
He went out to where a gang of pressmen were waiting impatiently in the yard.
Scaife lit a cigarette.
‘We’re heading for some hard work,’ he said gloomily. ‘We’ve got to find this guy Rutland.’
I reached for the telephone and put through a personal call Bernie in New York. After a ten-minute delay, I got Bernie on the line. The time was now twenty minutes past midnight and I was surprised to catch him in.
‘I can’t stay long,’ he said. ‘Clair’s throwing a party, and I’ve got to keep feeding these vultures with my best whisky. What’s cooking?’
‘Get your notebook,’ I said. ‘I’ve got something hot for you so snap it up.’
‘Won’t it wait until tomorrow morning?’ he asked plaintively. ‘Clair doesn’t like me to leave our guests. Guests, did I say? That’s funny! They’re more like wolves.’
‘Listen, you drink-sodden baboon; get your notebook and pin your ears back! We’ve found Fay Benson!’
‘You have? Well, that’s something. How is she?’
‘Wet, cold and very dead. Get your notebook!’
After an infuriating delay, he came back on the line again.
‘Clair’s livid with me,’ he said. ‘For the love of Mike, hurry up.’
‘Shut up about Clair!’ I exclaimed. ‘Listen to what I’m going to tell you.’ I began dictating the story. One of Bernie’s major accomplishments was being able to take down in his own peculiar shorthand, dictation at an incredible speed. I gave him the facts and told him I was putting more photographs on the morning plane. ‘Get someone to meet the plane. This stuffs going to be sensational,’ I concluded.
‘I’ll fix it. I’ll have the whole thing doped out by tomorrow. Nice work, Chet.’
‘Glad you think so. Keep close to the telephone. I’ll have something more for you in a little while. We’re waiting for the doctor’s report.’
‘Don’t call me up any more tonight,’ Bernie said, alarm sounding in his voice. ‘Clair...’
‘I know: Clair won’t like it. Phooey to her!’ I snarled and hung up.
Creed came into the room, looking pretty pleased with himself.
‘This is just the story those ghouls like,’ he said, sitting down. ‘We’re going to hit the headlines all right. Doc been in yet?’
Scaife shook his head.
We had to wait another ten minutes before the Medical Officer came in. He looked completely unperturbed as he began to fill his pipe and he shook his head when I offered him a drink.
‘She was killed by a blow on the back of her head. I’d say she was struck by the butt of a revolver: I’ve got nothing else for you. She’s been in the water too long to tell us much. She was dead when the cement was put in.’
Creed got to his feet.
‘Thanks, Doc.’ He looked over at Scaife. ‘Come on; we’ve got work to do.’
As the M.O. followed them, I reached for the telephone and called Bernie again.
I looked in to see Creed the next morning soon after eleven o’clock. I had paid my bill at the Shad Hotel, packed my bag and was now ready for the two hundred mile run to Tampa City.
Scaife told me Creed was tied up, but he wanted to see me before I left.
‘He won’t be more than twenty minutes. Come in my office. I’ve news for you.’
When I had sat down, Scaife said, ‘You were right. Joan Nichols had a record. She served two years in 1948 for blackmail.’
‘Any details?’
‘It was a particularly mean type of blackmail. One of the girls she was working with in a show had a brother who was in a criminal asylum. His background was pretty grimy and Joan found out about it. She threatened to tell the other girls if this girl didn’t pay her five dollars a week. That was about all the girl could afford as she was keeping her mother. The girl paid up. It went on for six months, then her brother died, and she went to the police. Joan Nichols collected two years.’
‘That’s interesting,’ I said. ‘I wonder if she was blackmailing Fay.’
‘More likely she was blackmailing Rutland. Maybe she and Fay were working together to put the bite on Rutland and he knocked them off.’
I shook my head.
‘I don’t see it that way. Joan’s death was accidental. So was Farmer’s. Following your argument, why wasn’t Fay’s? Why was it so important to get rid of her body so no one would ever find it? You don’t go to the trouble of giving a body a cement overcoat unless it’s urgently necessary for the body not to be found. Why shouldn’t her body be found?’
Scaife stared at me. He hadn’t thought of this angle.
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ he said. ‘They could have knocked her off accidentally just as easily.’
The buzzer on his desk sounded and he got up.
‘That’s the old man. Come on, I know he wants to see you.’
Creed was sitting at his desk, chewing on a cigar. He didn’t look as happy as he had the previous night after he had told the pressmen what a smart guy he was. He was scowling, and he stared at me as if he wasn’t sure if he liked me or not.
‘You’ve certainly started something, Sladen, with your ideas. I’m hanged if I know if I can finish it.’ He waved Scaife out of the room. ‘Okay, we’ve found the body; we’ve killed the killer, but where does that get us? Even the press can see Flemming was hired to kill her, and in a day or so, they’ll begin to put some pressure on me. I’ve got no lead now.’
‘I might turn one up in Tampa City. I’m off right now.’
‘In a way I hope you don’t. It won’t get us anywhere,’ Creed said. ‘I’ve already told you: we have no jurisdiction in Tampa City. We can’t send our men in there. Doonan isn’t co-operative. Ever since he’s been there, Tampa City has been used as a sanctuary for criminals. You wouldn’t believe a town of two hundred and fifty thousand people could be so law-abiding. Fifty percent of their convictions are motoring offences. The rest of them are for pilfering, shoplifting, stuff like that. There hasn’t been one major robbery or murder there for four years; just small time stuff among the lower working class: the folk who can’t afford to buy protection. Even if you get a lead, you’ll have to be careful how you use it.’
‘It can’t be as bad as that,’ I said. ‘If I get direct proof that the guy who hired Flemming is in Tampa City, surely we can put pressure on Doonan to pass him over to you?’
Creed lifted his shoulders.
‘It’ll depend on who the guy is and how much protection he can pay. But it’s my bet you’ll never get the evidence. You’ll be thrown out of town long before that.’ He took his cigar from between his teeth and tapped ash into the ash-tray. ‘I’m not kidding, Sladen. I’ll tell you something: six months ago, a private eye resident here worked on a divorce case. The wife he was watching went to Tampa City. He followed her and kept after her. She had a lot of dough. It’s my guess she went to Doonan and complained. I wish you could see what they did to that guy. His wife has to shove him around now in a wheel-chair. He doesn’t know who beat him up. He doesn’t care, anyway. He’s slap happy. After a little trouble — he doesn’t talk so well now — I managed to get from him that three men cornered him an alley. He couldn’t see what they looked like. He didn’t have much time before they slugged him unconscious. I spoke to Doonan about it. He said he would get after the three guys. He even promised to have them for me in a week. I still haven’t got them, and I never will.’
I stared at him, feeling a sudden chill run up my spine.
‘They wouldn’t treat me like that, would they?’
Creed smiled grimly.
‘If I sent Scaife to snoop in their territory, they would do it to him: why not to you?’
‘I represent Crime Facts,’ I said, but with no confidence.
Creed laughed.
‘Tell that to Doonan. It might amuse him.’
‘Maybe I’d better keep away from Tampa City.’
‘Please yourself. I wouldn’t ask you to go there, but if you want to get a story as badly as you seem to, that’s where you may find one. It’s up to you.’
I laughed uneasily.
‘You sound like my editor, only he would order me to go there. Okay, I’m a sucker: I’ll go, but I’ll take care to be cautious.’
‘Have you that gun I lent you?’ Creed asked, holding out his hand. ‘I want it. You need a permit from Doonan to carry a gun in his territory, and if they catch you with one without his permit you’ll spend six months in one of the toughest jails in the country.’
I reluctantly handed over the .45.
‘I was hoping to hang on to that,’ I said. ‘No one would put me in a wheel-chair if I had that gun to show them.’
‘You’re safer without it. You can’t pull a gun on a cop. You should know that.’ He picked up an envelope lying on his desk and tossed it over to me. ‘That’s a note to Don Bradley, Tampa City ex-police captain. He and I used to be old friends. I haven’t seen him for a long time: too long. He’s a good guy. He might be able to steer you right. Anyway, he’ll bring you up-to-date on who to see and who to avoid. Go talk to him as soon as you hit town. He’ll tell you where to stay, and he’ll give you the geography of the place.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, put the envelope in my pocket and stubbed out my cigarette. ‘I’ll also go along and see Lennox Hartley and find out what he knows about Fay Benson. Any other letters come in about the girl?’
‘Sure, we’ve had a couple of dozen new ones. They don’t mean much. The writers only think they recognize her. None of them is as sure as Hartley seems to be. None of them come from Tampa City anyway. We’re working on them, and if we turn up anything, I’ll let you know. As soon as you’re settled in, call me, and give me your address.’ He stared thoughtfully at me. ‘I hope you stay long enough in town to get an address.’
‘So do I,’ I said, feeling he wasn’t encouraging. ‘Well, I’ll get off.’
He shook hands.
‘So long, Sladen, and good luck.’
He said it as if he thought I needed a lot of luck.
‘Thanks,’ I said and left him.
Scaife was still in his office as I passed and I put my head around the door.
‘I’m off to Tampa City. Be seeing you,’ I said.
He looked long and seriously at me.
‘You know I think your pal Low’s got a lot more sense than you have,’ he said, pushing back his chair. ‘Maybe you are the brains of the combination, but he’s got the sense. Me... I wouldn’t go to Tampa City if my wife was dying there — if I had a wife, which I haven’t.’
‘I’ve not only got the brains,’ I said with dignity, ‘but I have also the courage.’
As I walked down the passage to the exit, I heard his mournful hoot of laughter. It wasn’t an inspiring sound.