Safer Dead

I

It wasn’t until Suzy and I had been dancing for some little time and had broken off to go to the bar for a drink that I brought Mrs. Cornelia Van Blake up again as a subject for conversation.

Suzy had discovered I could dance. I haven’t a lot of talent beside concocting a good yarn, but dancing is one of my specialities. Suzy was pretty good herself, and after we had done one circuit of the floor, she unbent enough to say I was good. A second circuit found her unbending even more, and at the end of a particularly dashing tango, she was behaving almost like a human being.

‘Let’s get outside two big highballs,’ I said, ‘then we’ll come back and show them how it really should be done.’

‘Where did you learn to dance like that, Chet?’ she asked, linking her arm through mine.

Chet.

Well, it takes different ways and means to break them down. I wondered under what conditions, if any, Cornelia Van Blake would break down.

‘My dear woman, it’s not something you learn; it’s something you’re born with,’ I said airily.

Suzy giggled.

‘That serves me right. All right, I apologize for being high hat, but the men Hart asks me to take out sometimes are really the limit. You can’t imagine.’

‘Think nothing of it. A girl’s got to keep her dignity if she doesn’t keep anything else.’

She gave me an old-fashioned look.

‘And don’t think because you can dance, there’s anything else to it, because there isn’t.’

I pushed open the bar door.

‘Don’t start screaming for help until you’re being crowded,’ I said. ‘Who said I wanted anything else?’

‘I know an opening gambit when I hear one,’ she returned and climbed up on a stool and flapped her hands at the barman.

‘Two highballs,’ I said, climbing up on the stool beside her.

I took a quick look around the crowded bar in the hope of seeing Mrs. Van Blake again, but she wasn’t in the room.

‘I’ve often thought it would be nice to be a millionaire. If I wasn’t naturally lazy, I’d do something about it,’ I said after I had paid three times too much for the highballs. ‘Take that Van Blake girl. How much did you say she was worth?’

‘I didn’t say. No one knows. Her husband is supposed to have left her five million, but everyone thinks there was more than that. He invented some gadget to do with oil drilling, and they say the royalties on that alone are worth thousands a year. She’s lousy with money. Van Blake put the money up for this club. He had a controlling interest in it, but when he died, Cornelia sold out to Royce. He owns and runs it now.’

‘I wonder what he paid her?’ I said, looking around the plush bar.

Suzy shrugged.

‘Plenty. She wouldn’t part with anything for nothing.’

‘You said her husband died last year?’

‘That’s right. He was murdered.’

I nearly dropped my highball.

‘Murdered? How come? How did it happen?’

She stared at me.

‘The papers were full of it. Why don’t you read them if you have such an inquisitive nature?’

‘Never mind my nature. I bet the New York papers weren’t full of it. Anyway, I have better things to do than bother to read newspapers. I listen to the radio and let it go at that. Who murdered him?’

‘A poacher. Van Blake hated poachers. He used to ride over his estate every morning before seven o’clock, believe it or not and if he caught a poacher after his game, he set about him with his riding whip. Well, he did it once too often. He got shot, and served him right.’

‘He sounds like the Feudal type. What happened to the poacher?’

She shrugged. The subject obviously didn’t interest her.

‘I don’t know. He got away. The police never found him.’ She finished her highball and slid off the stool. ‘Come on; let’s dance. I can’t be too late tonight. I’ve got to pose for Hart tomorrow around noon, and I don’t want to look like a corpse.’

‘That, madam, you could never do,’ I said gallantly, and followed her back to the restaurant.

We danced until one o’clock, and then Suzy said she had to go home.

All the time I had been in the club I had kept my eyes open for Hamilton Royce, but I didn’t see anyone who looked remotely like what I imagined he would look like.

As we were leaving the restaurant, I asked, ‘Isn’t Royce on show tonight? I wanted to catch sight of him.’

‘I haven’t seen him. He’s not always on show,’ Suzy said indifferently. She paused in the lobby. ‘Wait for me here. I won’t be long.’

I watched her disappear into the Ladies retiring room. Quite a crowd were leaving by now, and the lobby was pretty congested. I backed against the far wall to get out of their way. To my right was a passage, and at the far end, I saw an oak-panelled door. It was a pretty plush looking door, and it aroused my curiosity. Behind such a door the owner of a nightclub as gaudy as the Golden Apple might conceivably dwell. I had come to the club for the express purpose of getting a look at Mr. Hamilton Royce and so far I had been unlucky.

I didn’t hesitate for more than a couple of seconds. I could always say I thought the door led to the gentlemen’s retiring room.

I looked quickly around the lobby. The receptionist was busy totting up the night’s loot. The hat check girl was surrounded by departing members, all clamouring for their hats. Juan, still flashing the knife blades in his eyes, was bowing to a fat, important looking man, obviously a Senator, who was leaving. Three flunkeys were occupied on the steps of the entrance, whistling up cars.

No one was paying me the slightest attention.

I edged to the opening of the corridor, then walked, not too quickly and as nonchalantly as I could, towards the oak paneled door. I turned the door handle and pushed gently. The door swung inwards as silently as a leaf settling on the ground.

I looked into a big, luxuriously furnished room: a man’s room; a man with plenty of money to spend on his comforts, and who hadn’t missed a trick in satisfying those comforts.

I didn’t let my eyes roam around the room longer than a split second.

The man and woman struggling silently by the fireplace caught and held my attention.

The woman was Cornelia Van Blake. The man was tall and thin and handsome, with an eyebrow moustache and the beautiful tan of a sun lizard.

He had hold of Cornelia, the way Rudolph Valentino used to get hold of his women in the silent movie days. He held her two wrists in one hand, his right arm was around her waist, and he was bending her back while he tried to clamp his mouth down on hers.

She was struggling to break free, and she must have been stronger than she looked for I could see he was having his work cut out to hold her.

When a man forces his attention on any woman it has always seemed to me that he is presenting himself as a target for violence.

I don’t often use violence as I’m too lazy to make the effort, but during the war, when I was unfortunate to get drafted into the Marines, I was the undisputed lightweight champion of my battalion, only because I found it less exhausting than getting on the wrong side of my battalion commander who was a boxing fanatic.

Without considering the consequences, I took two quick steps into the room.

The tall man let go of Cornelia and faced me, his eyes glittering with fury. To ease his embarrassment, I hung a right hook on the side of his jaw. It was a nice punch, and the results on him were devastating.

He shot backwards, thudded against his desk, swept some costly gewgaws to the floor and slid down on top of them.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t appear sooner,’ I said to Cornelia who was adjusting the top of her topless dress that had slipped a few inches during the in-fighting.

She didn’t even thank me.

I’ve seen angry women in my time, but never one as angry as she was at this moment. She was as white as a fresh fall of snow and her eyes blazed like red hot embers as they say in Victorian novels.

She looked at me as if I were transparent, then looked at the tall man who was still lying on his back, although he was shaking his head and trying to get life back once more into focus, then she went out of the room, and as she passed me I felt scorched by the white-hot blast of her rage.

I sought relaxation by dipping into the gold cigarette box on the desk. I took a cigarette and lit it. One drag sent a tremor up to my memory. Egyptian Abdulla. I looked at the cigarette to make sure, then I looked at the tall man who was by now dragging himself to his feet. I remembered Bernie’s description of the mysterious Henry Rutland: over six foot, lean, sun-tanned, eyebrow moustache and a gold link bracelet on one wrist and a gold strap watch on the other.

This guy had a gold bracelet on his left wrist and a gold strap watch on his right. Even without the gold ornaments, the description fitted him like a glove.

But this seemed scarcely the time to step up, shake him by the hand and say, ‘Henry Rutland I presume.’

This seemed to me to be the time to ease myself out of the room, turn my discovery over in my mind at leisure and decide how best to make use of it.

As Royce staggered to his feet, clutching on to the desk for support, I took two steps towards the door, then paused.

The door had opened silently. Standing in the doorway, his swarthy, cruel face hard and set was Juan. In his right hand he held a .38 automatic and it was pointing at me.

II

For a long moment we stared at each other, then he stepped into the room and closed the door, setting his back against it.

Royce sat down behind his desk. His fingers touched the side of his jaw. His eyes brooded death.

‘Find out who he is,’ he said.

Juan held out his left hand.

‘Wallet,’ he said, ‘and snap it up.’

I took out my wallet and handed it to him. He found he couldn’t examine it and keep me covered by the gun, so he lowered the gun which was a foolish move. He also took his eyes off me. He was either full of confidence or a bonehead. I didn’t pause to inquire. I hung a right hook on his jaw. I don’t think I’ve ever hit a guy as hard as I hit Juan. The jar that ran up my arm as my fist connected pained me a lot more than it pained him.

He went out like a light and I just managed to grab the gun before he hit the carpet.

I turned the gun on the tall man and smiled at him.

‘We seem to be having an exciting evening, don’t we?’ I said.

He looked at me, his face tight with rage.

‘Get out of here!’ he snarled.

‘I’m on my way. I’ll leave the gun with the guy at the gate. I’ll feel safer with it until I get clear of this joint,’ I said, scooped up my wallet and backed to the door.

He sat motionless, his hands on the desk, his face pale under the sun-tan. What with one thing and the other, he couldn’t have had much of an evening.

I opened the door, edged into the corridor and walked quickly to the lobby.

Suzy was waiting for me.

‘Where have you been for goodness sake?’ she said impatiently. ‘I was about to go home without you.’

‘That’s just what you are going to do,’ I said. ‘I haven’t time to explain why. Get one of the flunkeys to grab a taxi for you. I’m not even waiting for my hat.’

I stepped past her and went to the entrance and down the steps, leaving her gaping after me, too surprised even to speak.

‘Your car, sir?’ the doorman asked sharply.

‘It’s okay. I’ll collect it myself,’ I said, shoved past him and ran down the avenue to where I could see a row of cars.

I didn’t know how long it would take Mr. Royce to come into action, but the quicker I was past the guards at the gate, the safer it would be for me.

I located the Buick, gave the attendant a buck and got in. As I drove fast down the drive I took the gun from my pocket and tossed it through the open window into a clump of laurels. I was remembering what Creed had said about being caught with a gun on me without a gun permit.

It was a sound move for as my headlights picked out the main gates I saw they were shut.

The two guards, plus a tall, beefy looking man in a slouch hat, stood silent and still, waiting for me to arrive.

I slowed down, honked on my horn in the hope they would open the gates, but they didn’t.

The headlights of the car lit up the man in the slouch hat. He had cop written all over him. His red, coarse face was a mass of brutality. If you took a lump of brick-red clay, squashed it into the vague shape of a face, stuck a lump on it for a nose, carved a slit in it for a mouth and stuck two match heads in it for eyes you would have a fair portrait of this guy.

An inch or so over six foot, there was a massive power about him in the way he stood, his hands in his trench coat pockets, his great legs apart, his head a little on one side.

I wondered if this was Sergeant Carl Lassiter, who, according to ex-Captain Bradley, was the toughest cop on the Tampa City police force. If he wasn’t, then I didn’t want to meet Lassiter. This guy was tough enough.

I pulled up.

The two guards moved forward, their hands resting on the butts of their guns. They came each side of the car and opened the doors simultaneously.

‘Keep your hands on the wheel!’ the guard nearest me rapped out.

‘What’s the idea?’ I said, not moving so much as an eyelash. ‘What do you think you’re up to?’

‘Get him out,’ the cop said. He had a husky low voice that came strangely from his bull-throat.

The guard on the off-side now had his gun in his hand.

‘Get out,’ he said, ‘and keep your hands still.’

I slid out.

‘You guys crazy?’ I said. ‘I’m a temporary member.’

‘Shut up!’ the cop snarled. ‘Look in the car,’ he went on to one of the guards; to the other, he said, ‘Get him inside.’

The guard with the gun jabbed my spine.

‘Move,’ he said, and I walked around the car and into the lodge by the gates; into a large room with a desk, and a rack of rifles, two chairs and an unlit coke stove.

The cop followed me in and looked me over in the harsh light. He took a police badge from his pocket and flashed it, then he said, ‘I’m Sergeant Lassiter. Who are you?’

‘My name’s Sladen,’ I said. ‘What’s the big idea?’

He held out a hand the size of a bath chap.

‘Wallet.’

I gave him my wallet. He took it over to the desk, hooked one huge finger inside it and shot out the contents.

He sat down at the desk, shoved his hat to the back of his head, and went through my papers slowly and with police thoroughness.

After he had gone through everything, and there wasn’t much except my business cards, some money, my driver’s licence and a list of my expenses I had jotted down on an odd scrap of paper, he shoved the lot back to me.

While I returned the papers and money to my wallet, he sat staring at me. His scrutiny was the most uncomfortable experience I have ever had.

I put the wallet back into my pocket and looked up and met the granite hard pig-eyes.

‘Satisfied?’ I asked.

‘You a peeper?’ he asked, biting off each word as if he hated them.

‘I’m a writer.’ I took out one of my business cards and put it down in front of him. ‘Haven’t you heard of Crime Facts? We co-operate with most police forces.’

‘Must be nice for them.’ He heaved his bulk out of the chair and came around the desk.

I’m not exactly a midget, but his height and size made me feel like one.

The second guard came in at this moment and shook his head at Lassiter.

The sergeant stared at me.

‘Let’s have the rod,’ he said and held out his hand.

‘What rod?’ I asked blankly. ‘What do you mean?’

His coarse brutal face went a deep purple and his eyes gleamed.

‘Lift your arms.’

I did so, and he ran his hands over me quickly and expertly. It was like being patted by a sledge hammer.

‘Where did you dump it?’ he snarled.

‘Dump what?’ I asked, trying to keep the blank expression on my face.

He reached out his huge hand and took hold of my shirtfront. He breathed garlic and whisky fumes in my face.

‘Where did you dump it?’ he grated, and gave me a little shake. He nearly broke my neck.

I kept still. I knew if I gave him the slightest excuse he would start some rough stuff, and I wasn’t fool enough to imagine I could handle him.

‘I haven’t a gun; I’ve never had a gun. Isn’t that clear?’

He lifted his left hand and slapped me across the face. It was like being whacked with a baseball bat.

I very nearly hit back, but just stopped myself in time. I might have taken him if he had been on his own, but not with the other two guys to step in and hold me while he worked over me.

‘Go on — hit me!’ he snarled into my face. ‘What are you waiting for?’

‘I don’t want to hit you,’ I said. ‘You crazy or something?’

He gave me another shake that loosened most of my wisdom teeth, then he let go of me.

‘What are you doing in this town?’

‘Having a look around. Trying to pick up material for a story. Anything wrong in that?’

He hunched his huge shoulders as he glared at me.

‘What material?’

‘Anything that might crop up,’ I said. ‘What are you getting so excited about? Can’t a writer visit a town for background material without the cops getting tough?’

A look of exasperated disgust came over his face.

‘We don’t like peepers in this town,’ he said. ‘Watch your step. I won’t tell you a second time. Now get out and keep away from this club. Understand?’

I shrugged myself back into my coat.

‘Okay, sergeant,’ I said. ‘I understand.’

‘Beat it!’ he snarled. ‘Go on — get out of my sight.’

I went to the door.

I half expected it, but I didn’t think a guy of his size could move so fast. Before I could dodge, his great boot caught me on my tail and lifted me out of the hut and sent me sprawling on hands and knees in the drive.

Lassiter came out slowly and stood looking at me, his teeth showing in a snarling grin.

‘Write about that, peeper,’ he said. ‘And I’ll give you something more to write about if I see you again.’

I could have killed him: I would have killed him if I had had the gun on me.

I got slowly and painfully to my feet.

The two guards opened the gate.

Lassiter swung his great boot and caught the fender of the car a kick that dented it and flaked off the paint.

‘Get this heep out of my sight too,’ he said.

I got in the car and drove away.

I was shaking with rage.

I was still shaking when I got back to the hotel.

III

Around ten o’clock the following morning, after I had had a late breakfast, I borrowed a telephone book from the reception desk and turned up Mrs. Cornelia Van Blake’s number and address. The address was simply: Vanstone, West Summit.

I asked the clerk how I got to West Summit.

‘You know the Golden Apple club?’ he asked.

I said I knew the Golden Apple club.

‘You go past the club, along the sea road and you’ll come to a finger post. West Summit covers the whole of the cliff-top to the San Francisco highway.’

I thanked him, collected the Buick from the garage, paused at a florist to send Suzy a half a dozen orchids and a note apologizing for my hasty retreat, then I drove down to the promenade.

The Golden Apple was fast asleep when I drove past. The gates were shut; the door of the guard house was shut. No one took a pot-shot at me.

I kept on along the lonely beach road that climbed steadily to the cliff top.

A finger post with West Summit on it showed up at a fork and I turned left, leaving the sea road and climbed steeply up a wide, snake-back road that brought me up on the cliff-top.

Vanstone was the last of the estates down the broad tree-lined avenue. It partly overlooked the sea and its grounds sloped away at the back into wooded country and then, I assumed, down to the Frisco highway.

I knew it was Vanstone because of the name-plate on the high wrought-iron gates. High walls, heavily guarded by wicked looking spikes, arranged along the top of the walls like vicious daggers, their points heavenwards, hid the house. A guard house by the gates told me there was no question of just driving up the carriageway, ringing on the bell and asking for Mrs. Van Blake.

When one becomes a millionaire, one has to take precautions. A lot of spontaneity must go out of one’s life, I thought.

I drove past the gates and turned left, following the wall. After a mile or so, the road dipped and I could see the Frisco highway a half a mile ahead of me.

I stopped the car, got out and took off my shoes. Then I climbed up on to the roof of the car. From this vantage point I could see over the wall and had a good view of the garden and house.

It was everything that a millionaire’s place should be; with set gardens, lush, billiard-table lawns, masses of flowers, a sanded carriageway and a regiment of Chinese gardeners working in the sunshine.

The house was big and white with a green roof, green sun shutters and a magnificent terrace, equipped with sun blinds that stretched either side of a flight of stone steps that led down to the carriageway.

Apart from the gardeners, there was no sign of life, no one taking a constitutional on the terrace or even looking out of the windows.

To me it looked a lonely house; a house I shouldn’t care to live in on my own.

I got off the car roof, put on my shoes and climbed into the driving seat. I wasn’t ready to call on Mrs. Van Blake just yet so I drove back to the hotel for lunch.

Before going into the restaurant I called up Captain Bradley and asked him if I could see him that evening.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve been wondering how you’ve been getting on. Don’t leave your car outside, will you?’

I said I’d take care of that, and I’d be around after nine o’clock.

After lunch I went up to my room to write a report for Bernie. As soon as I opened the bedroom door I knew someone had been in there while I had been out.

I shut the door and looked around.

My suitcase that I had left on the luggage stand was now on the floor. My overcoat that I had left in the cupboard was tossed on my bed.

I went over to the bureau, pulled open a drawer. Some big hand had stirred up my shirts and socks and hadn’t bothered to put them back as he had found them. Other drawers also showed signs of a quick frisk. Whoever it was who had been poking around didn’t care if I knew it or not.

I guessed my visitor was Lassiter, but I had to be sure. I crossed the room to the telephone and asked the reception desk to send the house dick up.

He came after a short delay: a fat, stolid man with a hangover moustache and cold, fishy eyes.

I had a five-dollar bill on the table where he could see it, and he saw it before he even saw me.

‘The cops been here?’ I asked and moved the bill a couple of inches towards him.

I could see he had been told not to talk, but the bill proved too much for him. After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded.

‘Sergeant Lassiter?’ I asked.

Again he nodded.

I handed him the bill.

‘Sorry to have brought you up.’

He slid the bill into his hip pocket, nodded again and drifted out of the room: the strong, silent, corruptible type.

Well, Lassiter hadn’t discovered anything that would tell him why I was here. I had no notes on the Benson case with me. I had put nothing down on paper. He must be still wondering what, if anything, I was up to.

I sat down, took a pack of notepaper from the desk and wrote Bernie a long letter, bringing him up-to-date on the case so far. The effort nearly killed me, but it had to be done. It took time, and it was around six o’clock before I had finished. I went downstairs and walked to the corner of the street to post the letter. I wasn’t taking any chances on the hotel mail box. On my way back across the lounge I spotted a thickset man in a basket chair, reading a newspaper. He had cop written all over him.

As I passed the house dick, who was decorating the reception desk, looked at the thickset man and then at me, then he closed one eyelid slowly. He raised two thick fingers to scratch his neck and looked at me again, slightly nodding his head towards the street.

That told me there was another of them outside. The five bucks was earning its living. For a man who could tell a story without words, this house dick was in a class of his own.

I returned his wink and took the elevator up to my room. I put a phone call through to Suzy. There was a very faint click on the line just before Suzy’s receiver was lifted. That told me that someone was listening in on my line. Suzy’s maid said Suzy was out, and she wouldn’t be back until late. I thanked her and hung up.

I wondered how long the line had been tapped, and tried to remember if I had heard the click when I had called Captain Bradley. I didn’t think I had, but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe Lassiter had only just got around to tapping my line; I hoped so. I didn’t want him to know I was calling on Bradley this night.

With two trained cops waiting for me downstairs, my trip to Bradley’s house wasn’t going to be easy. I decided to make a start now to be sure I had plenty of time in which to lose them before I reached Lincoln Drive.

I had a shower and changed. My strap watch told me it was ten minutes past seven as I let myself out of my room and walked to the elevator.

I gave up my room key to the desk clerk.

‘Will you be in for dinner, sir?’ he asked as he took the key.

‘No, I’ll eat out,’ I said, loud enough for the thickset man to hear. He still sat in the basket chair near the revolving doors.

I crossed the lobby, pushed my way through the doors and paused at the top of the steps. I looked at the crowded promenade, but I couldn’t spot the other dick.

‘Cab, sir?’ the doorman asked.

I shook my head and strolled down the steps and along the promenade. I walked for some minutes, then turned off into the town. I went into a bar and ordered a highball.

The bar was nearly empty. The barman looked intelligent so I leaned forward and said to him in an undertone, ‘My wife’s having me tailed. Any way out the back way, pal?’ and I showed him a dollar bill.

He grinned cheerfully.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Go through that door. It’ll take you to the back entrance on Dorset road.’

The buck and I parted company. I was throwing Fayette’s money away like a drunken sailor.

‘Thanks,’ I said, finished the highball at a swallow, then walked quickly across the bar, opened the door he had indicated and stepped into a passage.

On the right was a big cupboard. Ahead of me was a door. I opened the cupboard. It contained brooms and mops, but there was room enough for me, and I stepped inside, closed the door and waited.

I didn’t have to wait more than a few seconds. I heard the door leading from the bar jerked open and heavy feet pound down the passage.

I opened the cupboard door a crack and peered through.

The thickset cop, his face red and his eyes gleaming, was opening the street door. He stepped outside, looked up and down, then started off to the right.

I leaned against the wall of the cupboard and waited. I was in no hurry. There was the second cop to think of. He might be covering the bar. I waited twenty long, weary minutes, before I opened the cupboard door and peered out.

Hearing nothing, I tiptoed over to the street door and eased it open.

Right opposite me was a cab. The driver was lighting a cigarette before moving off. I jumped across the sidewalk, jerked open the cab door and got in.

‘Take me to the station,’ I said, ‘and snap it up.’

He drove me to the railroad station that was on the far side of the town: Captain Bradley’s side. When I saw the station ahead of me, I told him to stop and I paid him off.

I looked at my watch. I still had an hour before I could call on Bradley. A movie theatre nearby offered the solution. I went in and sat in the back row and watched Jane Russell display her curves for the next three quarters of an hour.

When I came out, it was dark. As far as I could remember Lincoln Avenue was only a five minute walk from the station. I started off keeping my eyes open. Fifty yards from the movie house I spotted a patrolman, and I ducked into a tobacconist store to let him pass. I bought a pack of Camels, took my time getting out a cigarette and lighting it, then I went out on to the street again.

A four minute quick walk brought me to the corner of Lincoln Avenue. I paused and examined the long road before starting down. It was as deserted and as silent as a graveyard at midnight.