The Blue Hammer

VIII

I left my car where it was and walked toward the hospital. I hoped to get some further information about Fred from Mrs. Johnson. The night was almost fully dark, the streetlights scattered sparsely among the trees. On the sidewalk ahead of me I noticed a spillage of oil drops that became more frequent as I moved along.

I dipped my finger in one of the spilled drops and held it up to the light. It had a reddish tinge. It didn't smell like oil.

On the grass beside the sidewalk ahead of me someone was snoring. It was a man lying face down. I ran to him and got down on my knees beside him. The back of his head was dark and lustrous with blood. I moved him just enough to look at his face. It was bloody, too.

He groaned and tried to raise himself in a sad and helpless parody of a push-up, then fell on his face again. I turned his head to one side so that he could breathe more freely.

He opened one eye and said, "Chantry? Leave me alone."

Then he relapsed into his broken-faced snuffling. I could see that he was very badly hurt. I left him and ran to the emergency entrance of the hospital.

Seven or eight adults and children were waiting inside on collapsible chairs. A harassed young nurse behind a counter was manning it like a barricade.

I said, "There's an injured man just up the street."

"So bring him in."

"I can't. He needs an ambulance."

"How far up the street?"

"Next block."

"There's no ambulance here. If you want to call one, that's a public phone in the corner there. Do you have a dime?"

She gave me a number to call. In less than five minutes an ambulance pulled up outside. I got in with the driver and directed him to the bleeding man in the grass.

His snoring was less regular now, and less loud. The ambulance attendant turned a flashlight on him. I took a closer look. He was a man of sixty or so, with a pointed gray beard and a lot of bloody gray hair. He looked like a dying sea lion, and his snoring sounded like a sea lion's distant barking.

"Do you know him, sir?"

I was thinking that he fitted the liquor-store proprietor's description of the art dealer Paul Grimes.

I said, "No. I've never seen him before."

The ambulance men lifted him gently onto a stretcher and drove him to the emergency entrance. I rode along and was there when they carried him out. He raised himself on his arms, almost overturning the stretcher, and looked at me from his blind broken glistening face.

He said, "I know you, Chantry, you bastard."

He fell back and lay still. The ambulance men rushed him into the hospital. I waited outside for the inevitable police.

They came in an unmarked car, a pair of youngish detective-sergeants wearing light summery clothes and dark wintry faces. One went into the hospital, and the other, a Sergeant Leverett, stayed with me.

"You know the injured man?"

"I never saw him before. I found him on the street."

"How did you happen to call an ambulance for him?"

"It seemed like the logical thing to do."

"Why didn't you call us?"

"I knew somebody would."

Leverett reddened slightly. "You sound like a smart bastard. Who in hell are you, anyway?"

I swallowed my anger and told him that I was a private detective doing a job for the Biemeyers. Leverett knew the name and it altered his voice and manner.

"May I see your identification?"

I showed it to him. He asked me to stick around, if I would be so good. I promised that I would.

Interpreting my promise loosely, I wandered back into the next block and found the place on the sidewalk where the drippings of blood had started. They were already drying in the warm air.

Parked at the adjacent curb was an old black convertible with a ragged top. Its key was in the ignition. A square white envelope was stuck between the black plastic seat and the back cushion. On the shelf behind the seat were a pile of smallish oil paintings and a white sombrero.

I turned on the dashboard light and examined the square envelope. It was an invitation to cocktails addressed to Mr. Paul Grimes, on Mrs. Richard Chantry's stationery, and signed "Francine Chantry." The party was tonight at eight o'clock.

I looked at my watch: just past eight. Then I examined the stack of paintings behind the seat. Two of them were framed in old-fashioned gilt, the rest unframed. They didn't resemble any of the Chantrys I had seen.

They didn't look like much of anything. There were a few seascapes and beach scenes, which looked like minor accidents, and a small portrait of a woman, which looked like a major one. But I didn't entirely trust my eye or my judgment.

I took one of the seascapes and put it in the trunk of my own car. Then I started back toward the hospital.

Leverett and the other detective-sergeant met me on the way. They were accompanied by a captain of detectives named Mackendrick, a heavy powerful-looking middle-aged man in a crumpled blue suit that went with his crumpled face. He told me that the man I had found was dead. I told him who the man probably was.

Mackendrick absorbed my information quickly and made a few scrawlings in a black notebook. He was particularly interested in the fact that Grimes had mentioned Richard Chantry before he died.

I remember Chantry," he said. "I was a rookie when he pulled his big disappearance."

"You think he disappeared deliberately?"

"Sure. There was plenty of evidence of that."

He didn't tell me what the evidence was. I didn't tell him where I was going.