The Guilty Are Afraid

I

I moved across the room and came to rest before the model of a matador with his cape extended and his sword in his hand. I moved slowly around it while I watched Donaghue out of the corner of my eye as he came to an abrupt stop at the sight of me.

He was as nervous as a flustered hen. He took two quick steps back towards the doorway through which he had come, changed his mind and came forward with a little rush, paused again to look at me, then took three steps sideways. I could see he couldn’t make up his mind whether to run or stay.

I said to Miss Maddox, “Would this item be a little less expensive?”

“That is three thousand, five hundred dollars,” she said, not even bothering to look at me.

Donaghue started off across the room towards the redhead, who watched him come, her face expressionless.

I moved on to a group of children that was even better than the matador.

Donaghue paused beside the redhead, fumbled in his pocket, took something from it and showed it to her. I saw something small and red in his hand. I didn’t have to be a detective to guess it was a Musketeer Club match folder.

The redhead pulled aside the curtain and Donaghue disappeared through the doorway. I caught a glimpse of a passage before the curtain fell into place.

I began to move around the room, looking for something that was small and modest, but there wasn’t anything. I felt the blonde and the redhead were watching me. I finally came to rest before a model of a poodle, again executed with the same brilliance of the other models. This put me near the curtained door where the redhead was sitting. I took my time while I examined the poodle.

After five minutes or so, Miss Maddox said, with an edge to her voice, “That is seventeen hundred dollars.”

“As cheap as that?” I said, smiling at her. “It’s almost alive, isn’t it? I must think about it. Seventeen hundred dollars: almost giving it away, isn’t it?”

She pursed her lips and stared at me, her eyes now plainly hostile.

The curtain pulled aside and Donaghue slipped out. He gave me a startled stare, his eyes bulging, then he scuttled across the floor and out through the other doorway.

I decided I couldn’t continue to hang around like a heist man casing a joint. I told myself I’d better see what the match folder I had found in Margot’s bag would buy me. I hoped it wouldn’t buy me trouble.

I looked over at the redhead and caught her staring at me. I gave her a toothy smile and advanced on her.

She watched me come suspiciously. I dipped my fingers into my trousers pocket and let her see the match folder. Her mouth tightened, and she looked over at Miss Maddox with an exasperated expression on her face as she leaned forward and pulled the curtain aside.

“Thanks,” I said. “I just wanted to be sure no one was watching me.”

Her blank, frozen stare told me I had said the wrong thing, but as she still held the curtain aside I didn’t try to make matters worse or better. I stepped through the doorway and entered a long passage, lit by strip lighting and decorated in wine red and blue.

I moved cautiously down the passage. The something inside me that works overtime when I am heading for trouble began to nudge me, starting an alarm bell going in my mind. I wished now I had brought a gun with me.

At the end of the passage, facing me, was a door. It had a cut-away panel in it which was closed, a shelf and a bell push. On the shelf was one of Marcus Hahn’s lesser works: a large pink-and-green earthenware bowl.

Moving soundlessly on my crepe soles I reached the door and peered into the bowl. Lying in the bottom of it were about a dozen red paper matches. They were the companions of the matches I had in my folder. Each one of them had a row of ciphers printed on them; each one had been torn from a match folder and all the heads had been burned. The matches had been struck alight, and then immediately extinguished.

I felt this was probably an important discovery if I knew what it meant. I looked over my shoulder. At the far end of the passage the curtain hung in place: neither the redhead nor Miss Maddox were peeping at me.

I decided not to press my luck further. I was tempted to ring the bell on the door to see what happened, but as I wasn’t equipped for trouble at this moment, I decided against it. At least I had found out that there was a definite hook-up between the Musketeer Club and Marcus Hahn’s so-called Treasure House. People paid out big money for a folder of matches to Cordez, then came here and parted with a match at a time: for what?

I turned around and went very quietly back down the passage. I pulled aside the curtain and stepped out, trying to look as flustered and as guilty as Donaghue had done.

The redhead was using a buffer on her nails. She didn’t bother to look up as I passed her. I walked into the outer room.

The party of tourists were through spending their money now. They were being herded towards the exit, most of them carrying neatly packed parcels.

I tagged along on their heels, and as soon as I had passed through the turnstile, I side-stepped them and walked over to where I had left the Buick.

Leaving the School of Ceramics, I drove fast along the promenade to the Franklyn Arms. I took Margot’s bag from the glove compartment, put the match folder in it, then, leaving the car, I entered the lobby of the apartment block.

I asked the reception clerk to send my name up to Margot, asking her to see me. After he had called her, he told me she would meet me in the bar in five minutes. He showed me where the bar was and I went in and sat down at a corner table.

It was a good ten minutes before Margot appeared. By then the time was a quarter past twelve. The bar was fairly full, but there was no one sitting close to my table.

She came towards me. She was wearing a short beach coat over a swim suit and sandals. Her hair was tied back with red ribbon and she carried her big beach bag.

Most of the men turned and stared at her. She was worth staring at: I stared myself.

I got up as she reached the table and pulled out a chair for her.

“I can’t stay more than ten minutes, Lew,” she said, smiling at me. “I have a lunch date the other side of the town.”

I asked her what she would drink and she said a gin gimlet. I had one too.

“I’d like to tell you, you look wonderful,” I said as soon as the waiter had gone away. “I expect you get tired of being told that.”

She laughed.

“It depends who says it. Did you bring my bag?”

I had it lying on a chair beside me, and I lifted it into sight and laid it on the table.

“I’ll claim the reward for it later,” I said.

Her eyes sparkled.

“And I’ll willingly pay the reward. Thank you, Lew. I’m terribly careless with my things.” She picked up the bag and began to put it in her beach bag.

“Wait a moment. You’d better check to see there’s nothing missing.”

She looked inquiringly at me.

“What could be missing?”

Her mauve black eyes were entirely without guile and that pleased me.

“Margot, there’s a folder of matches in that bag that interests me.”

“Is there?” She looked surprised. “A folder of matches? Why does it interest you?” She opened the bag, pushed aside the handkerchief and took out the match folder. “You mean this?”

“Yes. Where did you get it from?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t even know it was in here. Why, Lew? Why so much interest?”

“I have reason to know that’s the folder I found in Sheppey’s luggage. Later someone ransacked my room, found it and substituted another folder for it. Now it turns up in your bag.”

“Are you quite sure it’s the same folder? I’ve seen dozens like this in the club.”

“Look at it. On the back of the matches you’ll find a row of numbers. They are the same numbers that were on the matches in Sheppey’s folder.”

She opened the folder and bent back the matches and frowned at the numbers.

“It’s odd, isn’t it? Perhaps all the matches in all the folders have these numbers on them.”

“They haven’t. I checked that. Where did you get that folder from?”

“I must have got it from the club last night. I was dining there.” She thought for a moment, frowning. “Yes, that’s right. I remember I had forgotten to bring my lighter with me. I never use matches unless I forget my lighter. I suppose I must have picked up the folder from the tray on the hat-check counter.”

I shook my head.

“You didn’t do that. This is a special folder, Margot. Someone committed a murder for it. It wouldn’t be in any tray.”

She was beginning to look worried.

“I don’t know then. Unless I asked someone for a light, and they gave me the folder.”

“I can’t imagine anyone doing that. Who did you dine with?”

“There was a party: there were five people and myself. Bridgette and Thrisby, a man called Donaghue, Harry Lucas, who I play tennis with sometimes, and Doris Little, a friend of mine.”

“Any of these people could have put the match folder absent-mindedly on the table and you could have picked it up?”

“I suppose so. I just can’t remember picking it up, but, of course, it’s the sort of thing one could do without thinking.”

“I don’t like it a lot. This folder is worth money. I can’t imagine anyone laying it on the table for you to pick up.”

“They might have been under the impression it was an ordinary match folder. The waiters leave them on every table.”

“Maybe. Well, okay. I want the folder, Margot. I’ll have to show it to Lieutenant Rankin.”

Her eyes widened.

“But, Lew, if you do that you’ll mix me up in this,” she said. “I mustn’t get mixed up with the police, darling. Daddy would be livid.”

“I’ll have to tell Rankin. He’ll want to know where I got it from. You don’t have to worry. He’s far too scared of your father to involve you.”

“But, darling, suppose he does? You mustn’t do it. Don’t you see that? He’ll want to know how you found the folder in my bag. You’re not going to tell him what happened last night for heaven’s sake!”

I thought for a moment.

“Okay, I’ll handle it myself. I’ll go and talk to Thrisby before I see Rankin. Maybe I can get a line on it from Thrisby.”

She handed me the match folder.

“Please don’t involve me, Lew. If the newspapers thought I was mixed up in this...”

I patted her hand.

“Relax. I’ll keep you out of it. Between now and the next time I see you, will you think very hard and try to remember how you did get hold of the folder? If you do remember, will you call me, Margot? It’s important.”

“Of course.” She looked at her watch. “I must fly. I’m late already.” She got to her feet. “Are you going to see Thrisby now?”

“I think so. It might be a good time to catch him in.”

“You know how to get there? Take Franklyn Boulevard, go right to the top and turn right on to the mountain road. It’s about five miles up. You’ll see a signpost saying The Crest.” She gave me her small smile. “I’ll be seeing you soon, Lew.”

“You bet.”

I watched her hurry across the bar lounge, and mine weren’t the only eyes that stared after her. Her long brown legs were the focal point of every male eye in the bar.

I snapped my fingers at the waiter and, after the inevitable wait, he came over and gave me the check. I paid, waited for my change, then got up and went out into the sunshine where the Buick stood.

I drove up Franklyn Boulevard, not hurrying and enjoying the hot sunshine while my mind turned over the bits and pieces of information I had collected. At the moment the problem was in a state of flux. It was like when you begin to work out the bits and pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. At the moment there was no picture, but I did have a number of pieces that I felt pretty sure would make up into a picture reasonably soon.

At the top of the wide boulevard I turned right and came immediately to a very steep mountain road. A mile further on I came to a signpost which pointed encouragingly upwards and said, “The Crest”.

Half-way up the road which had climbed steeply all the way, I pulled into a lay-by to look at the view.

Far below me I could see St. Raphael City. To my right was the big Casino, the miles of glittering sands, the palm trees, the luxury hotels and the swarms of people on the beach. I could see Creedy’s estate with the blur of red, yellow and white of the massed rose beds, and along the drive I could see a Rolls moving swiftly towards the barrier where two ant-like figures stood guard.

My eyes shifted to the snake-back road below me: the road on which I had come up, leading from Franklyn Boulevard.

In the mid-morning heat of the sun the white road was deserted of traffic. I seemed to be the only one using the road, and it gave me a feeling of isolation to be up here, looking down at this rich, gangster-ridden town.

I hunched my shoulders, then started the engine, shifted into drive and continued on my way up the twisting road.

II

The White Château was at the end of a side road that cut sharply away from the mountain road and went down three hundred yards to an open tarmac just wide enough for a car to turn. There was a freshly painted sign at the head of the road announcing this was a private road and parking was forbidden.

There was a convertible Cadillac standing on the tarmac; a glossy thing of pale blue with dark blue nylon upholstery and glittering chromium. I parked the Buick beside it, got out and looked towards the house. It was screened by flowering shrubs and palm trees. I could just see the overhanging roof of green tiles but no more.

I walked to the wooden gate on which was written the name of the house. I pushed open the gate and walked up a path bordered on either side by a neatly clipped hedge, then I came to a stretch of lawn and to the house.

It was a small, chalet type of building with green shutters, white walls, a wide verandah, window-boxes with begonias in them under each window and a bright creeper climbing over the front entrance with a red-and-white, bell-shaped flower I had never seen before.

French doors stood open on to the verandah. A Siamese cat lay in the sun on the balustrade of the terrace. It lifted its head and its blue eyes stared without interest in my direction, then it laid its head once more on the hot stone and went off into its Valhalla of dreams.

I walked across the lawn and up on to the verandah. The front door was to my left: a green, neat affair with chromium fitments and a pull-down bell.

As I moved towards it, a man’s voice, coming from the open french doors said, “Well, if you don’t want a drink, I do.”

I paused.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t start drinking now, Jacques,” a woman said. “I want to talk to you.”

“And that, darling, is exactly why I must have a drink. Do you imagine I can sit here listening to you unless I do have a drink? Be reasonable, please.”

“You’re a bit of a swine, Jacques.”

The note in the woman’s voice was ugly to hear. I moved quietly along the hot verandah and paused just outside the french doors.

“I suppose I could be called that, but it shouldn’t bother you, my pet,” the man said lightly. “You should be used to swine by now, surely.”

The sound of a siphon hissing told me he was mixing a drink. I moved another few inches closer and that allowed me to get a sight of the room.

It seemed, from where I stood, the room was over large. There was a pale blue fitted carpet on the floor and the furniture was of light oak. There were plenty of lounging chairs and two enormous settees.

Sitting in one of the lounging chairs was a woman of around thirty-six or seven. She had silky hair dyed a warm apricot colour, and she was beautiful in the way movie stars are beautiful without character in the face that gives interest. She was wearing a bikini swim suit that revealed a lot of sun-tanned flesh, just going a little soft and losing its first elasticity of youth. She was stacked well enough, but it wasn’t the kind of body that made me want to look twice: maybe ten years ago it would have done, but not now.

She was wearing open-work sandals and her toe-nails were painted silver. She wore white coral ear-rings and a white coral choker around her sun-tanned throat.

I didn’t have to guess who she was. I immediately recognized her. This would be Bridgette Creedy, ex-movie actress, Lee Creedy’s wife.

Jacques Thrisby moved into sight. He was just what I expected him to be. A big hunk of glamorous beef, heavily sun-tanned with dark curly hair, blue eyes, a hairline moustache and a handsome face. He was wearing a white singlet, dark red shorts and sandals. In his right hand he carried a highball and between his full, sensual lips hung a cigarette.

“Where were you last night, Jacques?” Bridgette asked, looking at him, her face set and hostile.

“My dear pet, how many more times? I told you: I was right here watching the fights on T.V.”

“I waited two hours for you at the club.”

“I know. You’ve already said that at least five times. I’ve said I’m sorry. Do you want me to pour ashes on my head? Our date wasn’t definite. I simply forgot.”

“Our date was definite, Jacques. I telephoned you and you said you would be there.”

He drank from his glass and put the glass down on an occasional table.

“Yes, you are quite right. You did telephone and I still forgot. I’m still sorry.” He yawned, putting his hand before his mouth. “Must we go over all this again?”

“You weren’t watching the fights, Jacques. I telephoned here and there was no answer.”

“I don’t always answer the telephone, Bridgette, darling. It’s so easy for some bore to trap me on the telephone. I heard the bell and I didn’t answer it.”

Her nostrils flared out.

“Am I a bore then?”

He smiled.

“You mustn’t jump to conclusions. You know as well as I do how easy it is for some bore to call up and trap you.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

He studied her, his smile remaining fixed, a meaningless thing.

“You are being a bore right now, darling,” he said at last. “I have told you what happened last night. I was here watching the fights. I heard the telephone bell ring I ignored it, and when the fights were over, I went to bed. I just forgot our date, and I’m very, very, very sorry.”

She sat up abruptly in her chair: her eyes smouldering.

“You’re lying! You weren’t here! I came out here and found the place in darkness and your car wasn’t in the garage. How dare you lie to me! What were you doing?”

His fixed smile suddenly went away and his face hardened. He was no longer the handsome playboy. The smooth veneer of his polish suddenly slid off him, showing the hard, unscrupulous man that lay below the surface.

“So you came out here, did you? Just how cheap are you going to make yourself, my pet? First, you hire a private dick to watch me, then when he gets murdered, you do your own spying. I’ve had enough of this. Let’s cut it out, shall we? I’m fed to the teeth if I may say so with all of it.”

She placed her silver-tipped fingers on her bare knees and squeezed. Her long thin fingers looked like claws.

“Who was the woman?”

He finished his drink and stubbed out his cigarette.

“I guess that will be all for to-day,” he said. “I’ve things to do even if you haven’t. So let’s break it up, shall we?”

“Was it Margot?” The hate in her voice was ugly to hear. “Have you started with her again?”

“Just because Margot is better looking than you and at least ten years younger, it doesn’t follow she means anything to me,” he said. “Between you and me, I find the Creedy women a drug on the market right now.” His smile widened. “If the truth must be told they are both over-sexed, too possessive and utter bores. Now, would you mind very much running along, my pet? I have a lunch date.”

“It was Margot, wasn’t it? She’s still in love with you, isn’t she? She’s determined to take you away from me,” Bridgette said, her voice shaking.

“Look, don’t let’s have a scene,” Thrisby said, and he moved out of my view. I heard the sound of a cork being twisted from a bottle. “Will you please go away now, Bridgette?”

“I’m not going until I know who the woman is you were with last night!”

“All right. If you must know she was a little blonde, very cute and young and fresh, I found on the promenade who happened to be lonely. You should know by now, Bridgette, that lonely women are utterly irresistible to me.” He came back into view with another highball in his hand, his smooth veneer back in place. “So out of the kindness of my heart I had to console her, and I was agreeably surprised by her enthusiastic response.”

“You rotten swine!” Bridgette said, her voice harsh. Her face had suddenly become pinched-looking and her glittering eyes seemed to have sunk into their sockets. “You’re lying! It was Margot!”

“Well, if you won’t go, then I must,” Thrisby said, and smiled. “Never let it be said I throw my ex-mistresses out of my house. Make yourself at home, my pet. Don’t drink too much of my liquor. I hope I find you gone when I come back.”

“So we’re through for good, is that it?” Bridgette asked.

“My dear, that is really brilliant of you. I’ve been saying that for the past ten minutes, and now you tell me. Yes, Bridgette, we’re through for good. We’ve both had a lot of fun, and now it is better for us to go our ways.”

She leaned back in her chair: her expression wasn’t pleasant to see. She seemed to have grown older during the past minutes: her near nakedness now was an embarrassment.

“All right, if we’re going to part for good, Jacques, you’d better settle up your debts,” she said in a cold, flat voice. “You haven’t forgotten you owe me some money, have you? Thirteen thousand dollars to be exact.”

His smile widened.

“Is it as much as that?” He picked up his glass, looked into it with lifted eyebrows and drank a little of the whisky. “I suppose you have it all written down in a leather-bound book?”

“I have kept an account. I want the money.”

“I dare say you do. Your elderly husband isn’t over generous, is he? I’m afraid you will have to wait for it. I haven’t got thirteen thousand dollars: nothing like it. It has cost quite a lot to take you around and amuse you. I’ll let you have it when I can, but you must make up your mind to the dismal fact that it will be a long, long wait.”

“I want it now,” she said tonelessly.

“So sorry. Well, I must be running along. Shall I see you to your car?”

“I said I want the money now,” she said, raising her voice.

“Well, of course, if you insist, then you will have to sue me.” His smile broadened. “I’m quite sure your husband will advise you how best to set about it. Of course, he’ll probably divorce you when he hears that you have given me so much money. After all, he is a man of the world, and he will realize that a man like me wouldn’t get money out of you unless I gave something in return. But never mind, you are possibly as tired of him, my beautiful pet, as I am of you.”

She studied him for a long moment. There was an expression in her eyes that would have worried me, but it didn’t seem to worry him.

“I don’t think you are fit to live,” she said finally. “I must have been out of my mind to have ever had anything to do with you.”

“I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that,” he returned. “You were an unsatisfied woman and I supplied your need. It’s something you must expect to pay for. We have had fun, now it’s time for us to part. Be sensible, Bridgette; don’t let’s part on an unpleasant note. There are plenty of other guys as good-looking as I am, and as big and as strong. You won’t have any trouble in finding someone to replace me. Think of the fun you will have breaking in a new lover as you tried to break me in. I never did quite toe the line as you wanted, did I? But, never mind, you might find someone who will. In a few weeks you will have forgotten all about me.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then she reached down by her side and lifted into view a big beach bag that was a little like the one Margot carried around with her. She opened it and began to hunt around in it, reminding me of the way Margot had hunted around in her bag.

Thrisby watched her, his eyebrows lifted, his fixed smile in place.

She looked up, her hand still out of sight in the bag and said, “You really mean this, Jacques? We really are through?”

He ran his fingers through his hair in a movement of exasperation.

“Yes,” he said, his voice suddenly harsh, “how many more times do I have to tell you?”

“We don’t ever meet again?” she said, still watching him, her eyes glittering.

“All right, if you want it the hard way, you can have it,” he said, leaning forward to glare at her. “Get the hell out of here. I’m sick to death of the sight of you! Now get out or I’ll damn well throw you out!”

She smiled at him: a tight, spine-chilling grimace.

Then she said, “I’m going to kill you, Jacques. If I’m not having you, no one else is.”

From the bag she pulled out a 38 automatic and pointed it at him.