terror comes creep

Nine

KARNAK PARKED THE CAR OUT FRONT OF THE FARM-

house and the four of us climbed out. Houston came walking quickly out of the house to meet us.

“Lieutenant,” he said. A flicker of interest showed in his dead eyes for a moment as he looked at me. “Where’s the body?” Greer asked him.

“At the side of the lake,” Houston said. “Pete found her and brought her in. He knew she was dead then, so he thought he’d better not bring her body into the house. He’s still down there, making sure no one touches her.” “Good,” Greer said. “Where are the others?”

“In the house,” Houston said. “They’ve taken it pretty badly as you can imagine. Coming straight on top of Philip’s body being found yesterday.”

“Yeah,” Greer nodded. “Maybe you’d better stay with them until we can move the body.”

“Whatever you say, Lieutenant,” Houston agreed quietly and walked back slowly into the house.

Two more cars pulled up behind us, and the area was suddenly swarming with cops. The medical examiner walked over, swinging his bag briskly.

“We’ve got a sudden homicide boom, Lieutenant?” he said cheerfully. “Old Judge Lindsay offering a discount on murder for a limited season?”

Greer just looked at him and the examiner paled slightly, “So I wisecrack because I’m nervous!” he said defensively. “I still get sick in the stomach every time I see a corpse.”

“Go get sick again,” Greer said bleakly. “It’s down by the lake.”

I tagged along in the middle of the bunch, but by the time we got near the lake, the bunch had thinned out

into a straggling line of walking men. Greer strode alongside me, his hands thrust into his pockets, his face remote.

The last fifty yards down to the lake was through a mess of swampland underfoot and overgrown rushes with slimy stems that left a green smear on the cuffs and legs of my pants.

There were two guys waiting beside the body, not one. Pete had been joined by Galbraith Hazelton. The two of them stood motionless, not looking at the white bundle that lay at their feet.

I lagged behind Greer a couple of paces as we came up to them, figuring it was strictly the Lieutenant’s party and I was only along for the ride. Clemmie Hazelton lay on her back, on top of a dirty slicker I guessed belonged to Pete.

Her eyes were wide open, staring at the sky in mute surprise. The white cotton nightgown clung like a shroud to the firmly molded curves of her body, somehow making her look even younger than she was.

I looked up again, directly into the blazing eyes of Galbraith Hazelton.

“Boyd!” he said thickly. “What are you doing here— you murderer! It’s your fault that she’s dead. I told you —I warned you—if the balance of her mind was any further upset, anything could happen!”

“Mr. Hazelton,” Greer said curtly, “I—”

Hazelton’s face was crimson with hate, the mustache brisding furiously, as he took a step toward me.

“She took her own life!” he snarled. “Sometime during the night she crept out of the house and down here to the lake. She must have just walked straight into the water and—”

His face puckered childishly and he started to cry, hesitantly, like a kid who’s been beaten and doesn’t know why.

“She was alone,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Don’t you see that? How she must have felt? Alone—cut off 80

from every other human being on this earth—so alone that she couldn’t face up to it any more. Rather than face it, she took her own life.” His voice built up to a crescendo again. “You drove her to it, Boyd! The truth is you murdered her just as surely as if you’d shot a bullet into her heart.” He took another step toward me and swung wildly, screaming “Murderer!” over and over until Greer gestured briefly, and Karnak stepped forward and grabbed Hazelton’s arms, pinning them to his sides.

“Take him up to the house,” Greer said thinly, and Karnak led the old man gently away.

The medical examiner knelt down beside Clemmie’s body and opened up his bag.

“You found her?” Greer asked Pete.

“That’s right, Lieutenant,” Pete nodded vigorously. “Seven o’clock this morning. Miss West told me she wasn’t in her room and she couldn’t find Miss Clemmie anywhere inside the house at all. So I said I’d look around outside. By the time I got down here to the lake it was around seven-thirty. Then I saw her, floating face down out there in the center. I went in after her and brought her back to the edge. Then I saw she was dead and there wasn’t nothing I could do for her, so I went back to the house and told Mr. Houston—he said for me to come back here and wait, and that’s what I did.”

“That’s your slicker she’s lying on?” Greer queried. “Sure,” Pete nodded. “I took it off before I went in to get her, and when I brought her out I put her on it because 1 figured it wouldn’t be nice to let her get dirtied up by those rushes.”

The young doctor straightened up, his face pallid.

“Not much I can do until we get her downtown. Lieutenant,” he said hoarsely. “Death by drowning I’d say now. She was in the water a few hours.”

“Yeah,” Greer nodded. “You want to move her, that’s O.K. with me. Let the boys get their pictures and she’s all yours.”

“O.K.,” the doctor croaked, his face turning green at the thought.

“We’ll go back to the house,” the Lieutenant said. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”

“Lieutenant,” I said. “Her nightgown—it’s white.”

“I can see that,” he said.

“No stains,” I said.

“She was in the water a few hours,” the examiner said. He grunted, but there was a question in his tone.

“Those stains don’t wash out,” I told him. ‘Try it yourself and see, when you get home.” I pointed at the green smears across the cuffs of his pants.

He looked down at them for a moment, then dropped to his knees beside the body, studying the nightgown closely without touching it

“The heartbreaking picture of loneliness her old man painted,” I said slowly. “During the night she crept out of the house and down to the lake—then walked straight into the water.”

Greer straightened up, looking around keenly.

“You can’t get nearer than fifty yards to the lake without having to go through the rushes,” he said. “But she didn’t go through the rushes and she got right into the lake.”

“So she flew?”

He nodded. “So she was carried—and that makes it murder!”

“It was what they call the hard sell,” I said.

Greer grinned faintly. “There you go again, pushing it too far, Boyd. You made your point about the stains—a good point. You don’t have to remind me what the old man said about suicide—I remember.”

He looked at Tighe. “You’d better stay here until things are cleaned up and the body’s moved. Then come up to the house.”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Tighe nodded. “I’ll handle it.”

“I want that nightgown photographed from every 82

angle,” Greer continued. “I want all of it to show up just the way it is now—nice and white and no stains.*’

“I’ll make sure they cover it,” Tighe said.

We walked back slowly toward the farmhouse again— the look on Greer’s face said he still didn’t want to talk, so I kept my mouth shut.

“You’d better come inside with me, Boyd,” he said suddenly when we were close to the front door. “But don’t say anything, you understand? No questions, no answers, no observations, no social gossip. While you’re in there, you’re a Rhode Island clam—one word and I’ll have you back inside that cell so fast you won’t even remember having ever been out!”

“Don’t push it, Lieutenant,” I grinned at him. “You made your point!”

The living room was still Early Colonial but nobody cared any more so it seemed to have lost its self-consciousness. Most of the people in the room looked like something out of a Greek tragedy, ten seconds after Doom struck.

Galbraith Hazelton sat slumped in an armchair, gazing dully at the fireplace. Side by side on the couch sat Martha and Sylvia, their faces blank with shock. Houston stood at one end of the couch, blinking calmly through his half-framed glasses.

Karnak stood beside the door looking like a chunk of masonry someone forgot to remove. Greer was in the center of the room, the cold fire burning steadily in back of his eyes, and the remote, contemptuous look on his face. I stood beside Karnak, and if I’d been anybody but me I would have felt embarrassed. That’s one thing about having a perfect profile—it gives you confidence to overcome the embarrassing social situation.

“Miss West,” Greer said so suddenly that she jumped violently. “You were the one who discovered she was missing?”

“That’s right, Lieutenant,” Sylvia said in a small voice.

“She liked a cup of coffee in bed in the mornings before she got up. I took her coffee in and saw she wasn’t there.”

“What then?”

“Well, I didn’t think much about it—she was probably in the bathroom, I thought. So I put the coffee down on the bedside table and went out again. I guess it would be about twenty minutes later when I looked in again and saw the coffee was still untouched—that was when I started to look for her inside the house.”

“You couldn’t find her, so you told the others,” Greer nodded. “And Rinkman went outside looking for her?” “That’s correct, Lieutenant,” she said in a low voice. He kept up a steady flow of questions with an effortless machine-precision, but the answers didn’t get him any place. The girls had gone to bed around eleven the night before. Houston and Hazelton had retired an hour later. No one had waked up during the night to hear any strange noises, see any strange people and so on.

“Lieutenant!” Galbraith Hazelton said finally, in a hoarse voice. “Why do you keep wasting time with all these stupid questions! We all know Clemmie took her own life—and we all know why!” He glared at me malignantly. “It was Boyd’s murderous interference into something he didn’t understand—his criminal disregard of my warnings and—”

“Mr. Hazelton,” Greer interrupted him coldly. “Your daughter didn’t commit suicide, she was murdered.” “Murdered? That’s impossible—how could she have been murdered!”

The Lieutenant explained about the rushes and the stains they left on any cloth, but Hazelton had stopped listening long before Greer finished.

“There’s one point that’s clear, Mr. Hazelton,” Greer raised his voice enough to penetrate the old man’s concentration. “Boyd spent last night in a cell, so whoever murdered your daughter, it wasn’t him for sure.”

His mouth opened and closed a couple of times sound-84

lessly, then he slumped back suddenly into his chair with his eyes closed.

Sylvia went across to him quickly and checked his pulse.

“He’s all right, I think,” she said after a few seconds. “It was the strain and nervous shock—he fainted. But he’ll be all right.”

“I guess there’s no reason for us to stay any longer,” Greer said. “None of you are to leave this house until I give you permission—is that clear?”

“Now, wait a minute, Lieutenant,” Houston said evenly. “You can’t go around issuing orders like—”

“Nobody!” Greer repeated coldly. “And that includes you, Houston. If you want to find out the hard way, just try and leave.”

He walked toward the door quickly, “I want a man patroling the outside of the house, and another man on the gate,” he said to Karnak. “Twenty-four hours a day.” “I’ll fix it, Lieutenant,” Karnak told him.

“Boyd!” Greer was already halfway out the door. “You’ve got a cell waiting for you—I wouldn’t want it to get lonely!”

Sometime around three in the afternoon, when I was stretched out on the bunk, half-asleep, Greer came into my cell.

I sat up on the bunk and yawned. “Welcome to my humble abode, Lieutenant,” I said politely. “Of course, it’s kind of small right now, but I’m building on the unit principle. Come back in ten years time and I’ll have a whole jail of my own.”

He lit a cigarette and stared at the wall a foot above my head for a few seconds.

“Your alibi checks out,” he said suddenly. “You’re in the clear on the Philip Hazelton killing.”

“That’s one rap less I’ve been framed for,” I said.

“I’ve been thinking,” Greer said slowly. “That Pete— he’s one energetic guy—smart, too.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like he goes walking around three in the morning just in time to be an eye-witness to a hit-and-run death,” he said. “The perfect witness who does everything right. Then he goes looking for Clemmie Hazelton’s body and finds it right there in the center of the lake where nobody thought of looking. I figure he’s too smart to be a handyman.”

“He’s too smart—period,” I said.

He blew a thin stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “I got a check on Tolvar, too. He nearly lost his license five or six times over the last four years, but they couldn’t get enough positive evidence. Shakedowns, intimidation of witnesses, faked divorce, even the good old badger-game. Tolvar was out to make a buck and didn’t care how he made it—if there’d been any money in it, I wouldn’t mind betting he’d have turned honest!” “Any other good news, Lieutenant?” I asked him. He looked at me for what seemed a long time before he answered.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “That story of yours is just crazy enough to be true. I’ve had all the books concerned with that trust account subpoenaed and they’re being worked over right now.”

“Great!” I said. “You keep going like this, Lieutenant, and I’ll maybe end up with only fifteen years in the pen.” Greer dropped the butt of his cigarette on the floor and trod it out with immense deliberation.

“You owe me five bucks,” he said.

“Huh?”

“I put up your bail,” he said shortly.

I stared at him for a moment. “I never knew you had a sense of humor, Lieutenant,” I said finally.

“I don’t! I figured you should get bail and for once they listened to me. I said one dollar, but they figure inflation’s caught up in Providence.”

I got to my feet slowly. “You’re not kidding me?”

86

“You stay here any longer, we’ll start charging you rent,” he said.

“I’m on my way,” I told him happily.

“Not yet,” he said coldly. “Some facts first, Boyd.’* “I’m listening.”

“If you try to leave town, I’ll throw the book at you,” he said fiercely. “I’ve stuck my neck out so far to swing this, that one flick of the fingers will cut it clean in half! You don’t forget that, not for one single second.”

“I promise,” I said. “Private eye’s honor!”

He sucked his teeth derisively. “They’re all lying,” he said, “every one of them out on that farm. Not one of them will tell the truth. Why, do you figure, that is?” “Some can’t afford to, and some are too scared,” I said.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “So we won’t get anywhere asking questions and getting the same old lies back as answers. I figure we need a catalyst—you know what that is?” “Sure,” I said. “It’s halfway between a cat and a kitten.”

“So maybe I am out of my mind to do this,” he muttered. “So you’re the catalyst, Boyd. I figure to drop you right in the middle of them and see what happens.” “Maybe I’ll get my head blown off—or wind up face down in the lake?” I said.

“Think of the legal fees you’ll save,” he grunted. “I got the medical report on Clemmie Hazelton. She died of drowning all right, the lungs were full of water. But there was a small contusion on the back of her head. Looks like she was slugged first, then carried down to the lake and tossed in.” He shrugged his shoulders, shrugging off responsibility for the world and its sins at the same time. “Maybe somebody held her head under the water long enough to make sure?”

“It makes a great cure for insomnia, just to think about it,” I said. “How do I catalyst this deal?”

“That’s your problem,” he said. “I already put up the bail.”

“How about my car?” I asked hopefully.

Greer shook his head. “That stays right here—as evidence. That hit-and-run rap is still waiting for you; the only way you’ll ever beat it is to prove your self-defense story. Don’t think of taking it easy when you get out of here, Boyd, you don’t have the time.”

“I dig,” I said. “You’re a nice guy, Lieutenant, I think; I just wish I had a little more faith, that’s all.”

“I want to clean up a double murder, that’s all,” he said irritably. “Morals are for juries—me, I keep the books neat and up to date.”

“I’ll try to dig up a couple of new entries for you,” I told him. “This playing catalyst is going to be tough enough— but do I have to play cops and catalysts, too?”

“What the hell are you—uh, I get it.” He grunted a couple of times while he thought it over. “I guess not. I’ll have the stake-out on the house lifted right away.” “Don’t forget the guy on the gate,” I prodded.

“Him, too,” Greer said. “You got anything special in mind? No—don’t tell me, I got enough troubles, already!” “O.K.,” I said. “So long, Lieutenant.”

He let me get past him into the corridor, then his right hand clamped painfully onto my elbow.

“I knew it had to be a pipe dream,” I said. “So you’re just a sadist, huh?”

“There’s one little thing you forgot,” he said. “Fix it, and you can get the hell out of here as fast as you like.” “What little thing was that?”

He extended his hand, palm up, under my nose. “Five bucks,” he said coldly. “Remember?”

I RUSHED OUT INTO THE WONDERFUL FREE AIR IN THE

street. On the way back to the hotel I stopped at a car 88

rental agency, produced the right credit card, and drove the rest of the way in a convertible.

Back in my hotel room I put a call through to the office and spoke with Fran Jordan. I gave her a quick rundown on what had happened since I got into Providence.

“Sounds like you’ve got troubles, Danny,” she said casually when I’d finished. “Are you going to give the client her money back?”

“Give Martha Hazelton back that two thousand?” I yelped. “Why the hell should I do that?”

“She hired you because she thought her brother had been murdered, and she didn’t want it to happen to her sister,” Fran said mildly. “Well—it happened, didn’t it?” “If I ever earned a fee, I’ve earned this one!” I said coldly. “You realize I’ve still got this hit-and-run rap hanging over my head?”

“Danny,” she said patiendy. “Did you call me from Rhode Island just to have a fight?”

“No!” I shouted. “I want you to get hold of Jimmy Regan and tell him about the hit-and-run. If they do hit me with it, I want him to come up here and start some action.”

“Jimmy Regan,” she repeated. “Who’s he—one of your gangster friends?”

“He’s an attorney,” I said in a strangled voice. “One of the best in New York.”

“I’ll find him,” she said. “Anything else?”

“I guess not. . . . How’s the Midwestern investment project coming along?”

“His wife wondered what was keeping him so long in New York,” she said. “So she arrived last night to take a look—now she’s taken over the investment project as well.”

“Tough,” I sympathized. “Have we got any new clients?”

“No—but the same old one came around again this morning for the office rent. Something I meant to tell 89

you. Danny, you didn’t need that complicated alibi about playing poker with the boys last Sunday night. Any time you need an alibi, just say you spent the night at my apartment. I’ll always back it up."

“Fran,” I said wonderingly, “that’s damned nice of you.”

“It’s nothing,” she said calmly. “I think I should reciprocate in these things. Any time I want to stand up a date I always use the same excuse—I’m spending the night in your apartment. So it’s only fair to give you the same rights, don’t you think?”

I was still gurgling helplessly when she hung up. There was an antidote I remembered finally, and room service could provide it.

Half an hour later I’d finished the “Clean-up-Boyd-Week” effort and felt a lot better in clean clothes, the Magnum’s weight resting coihfortably in its harness under my coat. Room service had provided a bottle of cognac and some ice, and life would have been pleasant if I didn’t keep on remembering a guy called Lieutenant Greer.

Then there was this catalyst jazz—I made another drink and sat down with it to try and think what the hell I was going to do. Fifteen minutes later I had a brilliant and detailed plan of operation. I’d drive out to the farm, knock on the door, walk right in and see what the hell happened. Thinking it over, I couldn’t see much wrong with the plan—there wasn’t much right with it either but I was stuck with it.

There was a gentle knock on the door so I walked across and opened it. Sylvia West stood there, with an uncertain smile on her face.

“Danny,” her voice was hesitant. “The police told me you were free, isn’t that wonderful news!”

“Sure,” I said. “How’s your memory coming along, honey-chile—still getting those blank spots here and there?”

‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Danny,” she said in a low voice. “Please, may I come in?”

She wore a black cashmere sweater over a white sharkskin skirt, and if she didn’t have straw in her hair, the memory was still with me all right.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m glad you remembered my name, anyway.”

When she was sitting in one of the armchairs, I asked her if she drank cognac and she did, so I made her a drink and freshened up my own, then sat down opposite her.

“I know I lied to the police when I told that Lieutenant I didn’t remember anything about us taking a look at the pigpens, Danny,” she said. “Believe me, I'm sorry, but I didn’t dare tell him the truth.”

“Why not?”

“I was too scared.”

“What of—the truth?”

Sylvia shook her head slowly. “Of what might happen if I told the truth.”

“I don’t get it,” I said truthfully.

“You don’t know what it’s been like in that house the f last twenty-four hours,” she said in a tense voice. “It’s a house of fear!”

‘Tune in next week for another gripping installment,” I sneered. “What is this, the big blue eyes and hold me | close I’m scared routine? You must have a better reason why you didn’t tell Greer the truth?”

She shrugged her shoulders listlessly. “All right, Danny, then don’t believe me. I’m sorry I bothered coming here at all.” She got up from the chair and walked toward the door slowly.

“O.K.,” I said. “Relax. I guess I can listen to your story, anyway.”

“Don’t bother!” she said frostily. “I’d hate to bore you with it.”

I caught up with her at the door the moment before 91

she reached for the knob, put my hands on her shoulders, and spun her around to face me.

“You still wear those cute fancy garters?” I asked her solemnly.

She tried not to giggle and didn’t make it. I walked her back to her chair, picked up her empty glass and made her another drink.

“So tell me about the house,” I said when we were , both sitting down again.

Her face looked sober again. “You know why Mr. Hazelton hired me in the first place?”

“Sure—to look after Clemmie.”

“I mean, why he thought she needed a nurse?” “Oh, sure!” I said. “You told me the story yourself, j and so did he. The streak of insanity—comes through his wife’s side of the family—and he was worried about , his daughters.”

“That’s it,” she nodded. “You never knew Clemmie j very well, Danny, there wasn’t time before . . . but didn’t you notice it?”

“Notice what?”

“Her violent alternation of mood—one moment she’d be deliriously happy, bubbling over with all kinds of lighthearted energy, and the next moment she’d be sullen and morose, not saying a word to anyone.”

“Maybe,” I said cautiously. “But not as bad as it sounds the way you put it.”

“I was with her all the time, the last two months,” she said mildly. “And I had to watch her professionally, Danny. My guess, if she’d lived, is she’d have been committed within the next two years. I’ve seen too many of them, not to know the sure signs.”

“So I bow to your professional judgment,” I said. “But if it was Clemmie—what’s scaring you now—her ghost?” “Clemmie never scared me, Danny,” she said softly. “I knew her too well, we were friends, she trusted me. Even if she had gotten suddenly violent, I was sure she’d never try to hurt me.”

I “Then who are you scared of?”

! She bit her lip gently. “I know you’ll laugh when I tell you.”

I “Honey-chile, T never laugh at frightened people— Jike biting the hand that feeds me!”

I “It’s Martha.”

“Martha!”

Sylvia gestured helplessly with her hands. “You didn’t (laugh, you just didn’t believe me and that’s even worse.” “Martha scares you?”

“Not only me,” she said stonily. “The others, too.” “Like Pete?”

“I don’t know about Pete, I’ve never known about Pete—except the way he looks at me sometimes, but Greg is scared of her and—”

“Greg?”

“Sorry, Mr. Houston.”

“I never figured that electronic computor would have a Christian name,” I said, “just a machine number.” “Martha’s a paranoiac,” Sylvia said dully, “an advanced paranoiac with all the cunning and deadly viciousness they sometimes have. They don’t have any normal standards, you understand. If they think the easiest way to get rid of somebody who’s become a nuisance is by murder, then they do just that.”

“Are you trying to say Martha killed Clemmie?” I asked the obvious question.

“I’m sure of it,” she said with quiet conviction, “as sure as I am that she killed Philip Hazelton, too.”

“If anybody’s crazy in this setup, you’re the favorite candidate,” I told her. “Why would she kill them—her own brother and sister?”

“I told you a parnoiac doesn’t think the same way as a normal person—but there’s no point in trying to convince you, Danny, you’ve made your mind up I’m wrong before I even start.”

The trouble when you’re talking to a dame is that she’s a dame. The rise and fall of the luxuriant curves

93

beneath the black cashmere, the skirt ridden a couple of inches higher than it should be, exposing the dimple in back of the knee and the deep outward curve of the thigh that was tantalizingly hidden after the first few inches. . . . You listen to what she says, but your real concentration is a couple of places elsewhere.

I made a hell of an effort and looked at her face. “I don’t have my mind made up,” I said. “I’ll listen seriously. 1 know Martha has one hell of an arrogant attitude, but I figured she gets that from her old man. It’s not unique.”

“It’s symptomatic,” she said steadily. “And she does have a reason for killing both of them—a good reason. Mr. Houston told me about the trust fund their mother left. The three of them would have shared equally in it. Now there’s only Martha left, the whole lot will go to her!”

“Go on,” I told her.

“Yesterday morning, when I first discovered Clemmie was missing,” Sylvia said in a low voice, “I went into Martha’s room and told her. She was still in bed, and she looked at me and smiled—I’ve never seen a smile like that in my whole life before. It was terrifying, Danny, the way it kind of crept slowly across her face. She knew already, that was the awful part. She knew what had happened to Clemmie and she was enjoying the knowledge—enjoying the worry on my face because she knew there was a lot worse to come.”

“You sure this thing hasn’t worn down your nerves and you need a vacation?” I asked.

“Danny!” She leaned forward fiercely in her chair. “It’s not just me that feels it—so does Mr. Houston— and Pete. We tried to tell Mr. Hazelton but he won’t listen, that’s why we can’t do anything. She watches the rest of us like a hawk the whole time—I feel if I say one word too many, she would kill me as easily as she killed the others. That’s why I didn’t tell the police about the pigpens—I was frightened to let Martha know that I’d

94 known about the body being buried there, and how she

must have moved Sweet William into another pen and_”

“How could she have moved that lump of bacon before the cops arrived—she was in New York then,** I said.

She stared at me for a long moment, her mouth dropping open.

“I forgot that,” she said slowly. “Then—it must have been Pete who put Sweet William into the other pen!”

“So if it was Pete, where does that leave Martha?” “He must have helped her kill Philip—he’s her accomplice!” she said excitedly. ‘That makes sense, doesn’t it?” “Not much,” I answered.

“Danny!” there was an impatient edge to her voice. “You just reminded me Martha was in New York, so it couldn’t have been her—so who else could it have been but Pete!”

“There’s one other candidate?”

“Who?”

“You.”

Her eyes widened as she jumped up to her feet excitedly and took two steps toward me.

“You don’t seriously think I had anything to do with the murders! You must be out of your mind as well, if you think I’d . . . What reason could I have for killing either of them? What—”

“Take it easy,” I told her. “It’s only another theory.” Sylvia glared wildly at me for a moment, then relaxed her shoulders and smiled slowly. “I’m sorry, Danny. I guess it shows just how shot my nerves are—maybe you’re right about that vacation!”

“What made you come into town this afternoon, anyway?” I asked.

“Lieutenant Greer called Mr. Hazelton and told him you were cleared of any suspicion over Philip’s murder, and you’d been released on bail on the hit-and-run charge. Mr. Hazelton thinks it’s a travesty of justice or something—he told us all about it anyway. Afterwards, Mr. Houston talked to me alone and it was his idea I

95

should come and see you.” Her eyes warmed slowly, “Not that 1 didn’t think it a good idea, too,” she added’ softly.

“Why did Houston figure it a good idea?”

“He thought you might listen to me about Martha,”

* Sylvia said frankly. “He didn’t think you’d believe it, although it’s the truth, but at least you’d listen. Then he suggested you should come to the house and stay there for a while—see for yourself. He said, Tell Boyd I’m not asking him to believe it, just to see how things are for himself.’ ”

“It’s kind of nice for Houston to ask me to be his guest,” I said, “but it’s not his house. You know how Old Man Hazelton thinks about me—he’s going to have some- ; thing to say when I stick my profile around his front door.”

“Mr. Houston said you’ve got the perfect excuse— Martha is your client and you could insist you wanted to be close to her—to make sure nothing happens to her the way it has to the others.”

“That’s smart thinking,” I said. “There’s only one snag —from a professional viewpoint, I mean—no client ever paid a private detective for getting them convicted of murder yet!”

“Mr. Houston—”

“I know!” I interrupted her. “Mr. Houston figured that one out, too. He’ll be glad to compensate me if I discover my client’s a murderer after all.”

Sylvia nodded silently, then the warm look in her eyes started to glow. She moved even closer to where I stood, until we touched at a couple of points of vital contact. ^ “Danny?” she said sofdy in a wheedling voice. < “Please do it—for my sake, if nothing else!”

Her arms crept around my neck and she lifted her face invitingly to be kissed, so I kissed her. She kind of melted and flowed all over me—I figured she had a fortune in merchandising a brand-new nursing technique, a kissing