The Guilty Are Afraid

I

Lee Creedy’s estate was built on the far end of a mile-long, narrow peninsula that projected into the exact centre of Thor Bay.

You could get a good view of it from Bay Boulevard. Before I turned off on to the private road that ran the length of the peninsula to the estate, I slowed down and took a look at it.

The house was massive: three stories high with vast windows, terraces, a blue-tiled roof and white walls covered with flowering climbers. The rear of the house appeared to hang over the cliff face. It had a magnificent view of the two arms of the bay.

I was driving the office Buick. The police had left it outside the hotel. There was a bad scratch on one of the door panels and a hub cap was dented. I didn’t know if the police were responsible or if Jack had bumped something on his drive down from Frisco. It was possible that Jack had done the damage. He had never been much of a driver, cutting in too close and taking too many chances. But I was glad to have the car. It would save me the cost of taking taxis, and from what I had been told, the cost of living in St. Raphael City was so high I would need every cent I had.

I turned off Bay Boulevard on to the road to the peninsula. A hundred yards or so further on I came to a big sign that told me that this was a private road and only visitors to the Thor Estate could go beyond this point.

A quarter of a mile further on I came on one of those red-and-white poles you see on the continent blocking the road. Near by was a small white guard house.

Two men in white shirts, white cord breeches, black shiny knee-high boots and peak caps watched me come. Both of them looked like ex-cops: both of them were wearing .45 Colts at their hips.

“I’ve an appointment with Mr. Creedy,” I said, looking out of the car window.

One of them moved over to me. His cop eyes ran over me, and by his curt nod I knew he didn’t approve of the Buick nor, come to think of it, of me.

“Name?”

I told him.

He checked a list he had in his hand, then he waved to the other guard, who lifted the barrier.

“Straight ahead, turn left at the intersection and park your car in Bay 6.”

I nodded and drove on, aware they were both staring at me as if to make sure they would know me again.

A half a mile further on I came to massive gates of oak, fifteen feet high and studded with iron nails, that stood open. I then hit the sanded carriage-way and I drove through woodland, and then past the ornate, magnificent gardens with their acres of close-mown lawns, their beds of flowers, their sunken rose gardens and their fountains.

Chinese gardeners were at work on one of the big beds, planting out begonias: taking their time as the Chinese do, but making a good job of it. Each plant was exactly equidistant from the other: each plant planted at the same level: an exactitude that no other gardener in the world can do as well as the Chinese.

At the intersection I turned left as directed. I came to a vast stretch of tarmac divided by white lines into fifty parking places. Some of the places had signs made of oak with glittering gilt letters.

I left the Buick in Bay 6, got out and took a quick look at some of the signs. No. 1 sign said: Mr. Creedy. No. 7, Mrs. Creedy. No. 23, Mr. Hammerschult. There were a lot more names that meant nothing to me.

“Hot stuff, huh?” a voice said behind me. “Important people: big-shotting themselves to death.”

I looked around.

A short, thickset man in a white guard’s uniform, his peaked cap at the back of his head, gave me a friendly grin. His face was red and sweaty, and as he came closer, I smelt whisky on his breath.

“It takes all kinds to make up the world.”

“Damn right. All this crap though is so much waste of good money.” He waved his hand at the signs. “As if they should care who parks where.” His small, alert eyes travelled over me. “You looking for anyone in particular, buster?”

“Old man Creedy,” I told him.

“That a fact?” He blew out his cheeks. “Rather you than me. I’ve had all I can stomach. This is my last day here and am I rejoicing?” He leaned forward and tapped me lightly on the chest. “Why is it money always goes to the punks? This guy Creedy: nothing ever pleases him. His shoes aren’t shined enough, his car isn’t clean enough, the roses aren’t big enough, his food either isn’t hot enough or cold enough. He’s never happy, never satisfied; always moaning, yelling or cursing and driving a guy nuts. If I had the tenth of his money I’d be as happy as a king, but not him.”

I sneaked a look at my watch. The time was four minutes to three.

“That’s the way it is,” I said. “Just one of those things. I’d like to continue this theme, but I’m due to meet him at three and I’m told he takes it badly if he’s kept waiting.”

“He certainly does, but don’t kid yourself that being punctual will mean you’ll see him when he’s fixed for you to see him. I’ve known guys wait three or four hours before they get to him. Well, you’re welcome. I’d rather have a meeting with a dose of cholera.” He pointed. “Up those steps and to the left.”

I started off, then I had a sudden idea and I turned back. “Would you have anything to do around six o’clock to-night?”

He grinned.

“I’ll have plenty to do around six o’clock to-night. I’m celebrating. I’ve been with this old punk for twenty months. I’ve got a lot of drinking to get in to soothe the pain out of that stretch. Why?”

“I’ve some celebrating to do myself,” I said. “If you’re not tied up with anyone, maybe we could do it together.”

He stared at me.

“Are you a drinking man?”

“On special occasions: this could be one.”

“Well, why not? My girl doesn’t approve of me drinking. I was planning to have a lone bender, but I’d as soon have a guy with me. Okay. Where and when?”

“Say seven. You know a good place?”

“Sam’s Cabin. Anyone will tell you where it is. The name’s Fulton. First name, Tim. What’s yours?”

“Lew Brandon. Be seeing you.”

“Sure thing.”

I left him, took the steps three at a time, turned left, walked the length of an ornate terrace to the front entrance.

I had a minute in hand as I tugged at the chain bell.

The door opened immediately. An old man, four inches over six foot, thin and upright, wearing the traditional clothes of a Hollywood butler, stood aside with a slight bow and let me walk into a hall big enough to garage six Eldorado Seville Cadillacs.

“Mr. Brandon?”

I said he was right.

“Will you come this way, please?”

I was led across the hall, out into the sunshine that blazed down on a patio, through french doors and along a passage to a room containing fifteen lounging chairs, a carpet so thick and soft it made me think I was walking in snow, and a couple of Picasso paintings on the wall.

Six weary-looking business men, clutching despatch cases, sat in some of the chairs. They stared at me with that numbed indifference that told me they had been waiting so long they had not only lost their sense of time, but also their sense of feeling.

“Mr. Creedy will see you before long,” the butler said, and went away as quietly and as smoothly as if he had been riding on wheels.

I sat down, balanced my hat on my knees and stared up at the ceiling.

After the others had gaped at me long enough to satisfy their curiosity, they went back into a coma again.

At three minutes past three, the door jerked open and a youngish man, tall, thin, with one of those high-executive chins and a crew cut, wearing a black coat, grey whipcord trousers and a black tie came as far as the doorway.

The six business men all straightened up, clutching at their despatch cases and pointed the way a setter points when he sights game.

His cold, unfriendly eyes ran over them and stopped at me.

“Mr. Brandon?”

“That’s right.”

“Mr. Creedy will see you now.”

As I got to my feet, one of the men said, “You’ll pardon me, Mr. Hammerschult, but I have been waiting since twelve o’clock. You said I would be the next to see Mr. Creedy.”

Hammerschult gave him a bleak stare.

“Did I? Mr. Creedy thinks otherwise,” he said. “Mr. Creedy won’t be free now until four o’clock. This way,” he went on to me, and, leading the way down the passage, he took me into a smallish lobby, through two doors, both lined with green baize, to another massive door of solid polished mahogany.

He rapped, opened the door, looked in, said, “Brandon’s here, sir.”

Then he stood aside and waved me in.

II

The room reminded me of the pictures I had seen of Mussolini’s famous office.

It was sixty feet long if it was an inch. Placed at the far end between two vast windows, with a fine view of the sea and the right arm of Thor Bay, was a desk big enough to play billiards on.

The rest of the room was pretty bare apart from a few lounging chairs, a couple of suits of armour and two heavy, dark oil paintings that could or could not be original Rembrandts.

Behind the desk sat a small, frail-looking man, his horn glasses pushed up and resting on his forehead. Apart from a fringe of grey hair, he was bald and his skull looked bony and hard.

He had a pinched, tight face: small features and a very small, tight mouth. It wasn’t until I encountered the full force that dwelt in his eyes that I realized I was in the presence of a big man.

He gave me the full treatment, and I felt as if I were under X-rays and that he could count the vertebra of my spine.

He let me walk the length of the room and he kept the searchlight of his gaze on me. I found I was sweating slightly by the time I reached his desk.

He leaned back in his chair and eyed me over the way you would eye a bluebottle fly that has fallen in your soup.

There was a long pause, then he said in a curiously soft, effeminate voice, “What do you want?”

By then, and by his reasoning, I should have been completely softened up and ready to fall on my hands and knees and rap my forehead on the floor. Okay, I admit I was slightly softened, but not as soft as he would want.

“My name’s Brandon,” I said, “of the Star Inquiry Agency of San Francisco. You hired my partner four days ago.”

The thin, small face was as dead pan as the back of a bus.

“What makes you imagine I would do that?” he asked.

From that I knew he wasn’t sure of his ground, and he was going to probe first before he took the hoods off his big artillery.

“We keep a record of all our clients, Mr. Creedy,” I said untruthfully. “Sheppey, before he left our office, recorded that you hired him.”

“Who would Sheppey be?”

“My partner and the man you hired, Mr. Creedy.”

He placed his elbows on his desk and his finger-tips together. He rested his pointed, bony chin on the arch thus formed.

“I must hire twenty or thirty people a week to do various unimportant jobs for me,” he said. “I don’t recall any man named Sheppey. Where do you come in on this? What do you want?”

“Sheppey was murdered this morning,” I said, meeting his hard, penetrating gaze. “I thought you might want me to finish the job he was working on.”

He tapped his chin with his finger-tips.

“And what job would that be?”

Here it was: the dead-end. I knew sooner or later it might come to that, but I had hoped I might flush him out of his cover by bluff: it hadn’t worked.

“You’d know more about that than I do.”

He sat back in his chair, drummed on the desk for about four seconds, his face still dead pan, but I knew his mind was busy. Then he reached out a bony finger and pressed a button.

A door to the right of the desk opened immediately and Hammerschult appeared. He appeared so quickly he had to be waiting just outside the door for the summons.

“Hertz,” Creedy said without looking at him.

“At once, sir,” Hammerschult said and went away.

Creedy continued to drum on his desk. He kept his eyes lowered.

We waited in silence for perhaps forty-five seconds, then a rap sounded on the door. It opened, and a short, thickset man came in. His right ear was bent and crushed into his head. At some time in his career someone must have hit him either with a brick or possibly a sledge-hammer: no fist could have caused that amount of damage. His nose was boneless and spread over his face. His eyes were small, and had that wild light in them you might see in the eyes of an angry and vicious orang-outang. Black hairs sprouted over the top of his collar. He wore a pair of fawn flannel trousers, a white sports coat and one of those razzle-dazzle, hand-painted ties.

He moved up to the desk silently and swiftly. He was as light on his feet as any ballet dancer.

Creedy pointed his chin at me.

“Look at this man, Hertz,” he said. “I want you to remember him. It may be I will want you to take care of him. It’s unlikely, but he may be a bigger fool than he looks. Just make certain you will know him again.”

Hertz turned and stared at me. His cruel little eyes moved over my face, his own smashed-up, ruined face was expressionless.

“I’ll know him again, boss,” he said, his voice husky and soft.

Creedy waved him away and he went out, closing the door silently behind him.

There was a pause, then I said, “What is he supposed to do to me — turn me into butter?”

Creedy took off his glasses, pulled out a white silk handkerchief and began to polish the lenses, staring at me.

“I don’t like inquiry agents,” he said. “They seem to me to be shabby little men who have tendencies to become blackmailers. I haven’t hired your Mr. Sheppey nor would it cross my mind to do so. I would advise you to get out of this city immediately. A man in my position is often annoyed by people like you. It saves time and irritation to bring Hertz on to the scene. He is an extraordinary character. He is under the impression that he is in my debt. I can say to him this man is annoying me and he makes it his business to persuade the man to stop annoying me. I have never inquired how he does it, but I have never known him to fail. That is the position, Mr. Brandon. I don’t know your Mr. Sheppey. I didn’t hire him. I don’t wish to have anything to do with you. You may go now unless you wish to say something that might be of value.”

I smiled at him. I had got over his searchlight gaze, the big room and the awe-inspiring atmosphere. I was more angry now than I had ever been before in my life, and that is saying a lot.

“Yes, I have something to say,” I said, resting my hands on his desk and staring him in the face. “First, Mr. Creedy, I thought you would be smarter than you are. I didn’t know for certain that you had hired Sheppey, now I do. It so happened Sheppey wrote your name down on his blotter: that was the only clue I had to work on. I thought it was possible someone had mentioned your name to him and while he was talking to this someone he had doodled your name in the rather senseless way he had. Now I know different. When I called this afternoon, I was pretty sure you wouldn’t see me. A man with your money doesn’t grant an interview to a small-time inquiry agent unless he either wants to employ him or else he has something on his mind that is keeping him awake at nights. By giving me priority over six important-looking business men, one who has been waiting three hours, told me the thing on your mind was not only keeping you awake nights, but was giving you inward jitters in no mean way. You obviously couldn’t wait three minutes to hear just how much I knew. When you found out how little I knew, you called in your tame gorilla and waved him in my face. You hoped I’d be so scared that I would rush back to my hotel, pack my bag and get the hell out of here. Not very smart, Mr. Creedy. You should know by now that some men don’t scare easily. I happen to be one of them.”

He leaned back in his chair, his expressionless face telling me nothing, his bony fingers still busy with his handkerchief and glasses.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“Not quite. I am now sure that you hired Sheppey. While he was working for you, he turned up something that someone didn’t like so he got killed. For all I know you hold the clue that could lead the police to his killer, but not unnaturally you don’t wish to be involved in a murder case. You know if you did become involved you would have to come out with the reason why you hired Sheppey. From my experience, when a millionaire takes the trouble to hire an agent who lives three hundred miles from the millionaire’s home ground, the millionaire is asking him to dig into something pretty smelly that he wouldn’t want the local agents to know about. Sheppey is dead. He was a good friend of mine. If the police can’t find his killer, then maybe I can. Anyway, Mr. Hertz or no Mr. Hertz, Mr. Creedy or no Mr. Creedy, I’m going to have a damn good try.” I straightened, pushing myself away from his desk. “That’s all. Don’t bother to call your flunkey, I can find my own way out.”

I turned and started down the long room towards the door.

Creedy said in his soft, effeminate voice, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Mr. Brandon.”

I kept on, reached the door, opened it and tramped into the lobby where the butler was waiting.

As he conducted me to the exit, Creedy’s last words banged around inside my skull like demented ping-pong balls.

III

It took me forty minutes to get back to my hotel. For one thing I was in no hurry, and for another the afternoon traffic was heavy.

I was satisfied now that Creedy had hired Sheppey, but I still didn’t know if Sheppey had been murdered because of something he had turned up while working for Creedy or because he had been fooling around with some cut-throat’s girl. I mentally cursed his weakness for women. It made the job of finding his killer that more difficult.

I was glad now I had made a drinking date with Tim Fulton. Very often a dissatisfied employee could give away some useful information, and that was something I needed badly.

As I pulled up outside the hotel, I saw a prowl car parked a few yards ahead of me.

I got out of the Buick.

The door of the prowl car swung open and Candy appeared. He came towards me, moving heavily, his jaw working as he chewed.

“Captain Katchen wants to talk to you,” he said, when he was within a yard of me. “Let’s go.”

“Suppose I don’t want to talk to him?” I asked, smiling at him.

“Let’s go,” he repeated. “I can take you in smooth or rough — please yourself.”

“Did he say what he wanted?” I asked, moving with him to the prowl car.

“If I needed proof that you were a stranger in this town, that dopey remark would have clinched it,” Candy said, sliding his bulk into the back seat.

There was a uniformed cop at the wheel. He turned to look me over.

I got in beside Candy and the car took off as if it were answering a four-alarm fire call.

“You mean the Captain doesn’t tell his subordinates why he wants anything, only that he wants it?”

“Now you’re being bright,” Candy said. “If you don’t want to come out of headquarters a permanent cripple, you’ll watch your step, speak only when you’re spoken to, answer all the questions quickly and truthfully, and generally behave as if you were in church.”

“Which would suggest that the Captain has a hasty temper.”

Candy smiled sourly.

“I think that’s a fair statement. I’d say Captain Katchen is a little quick tempered, wouldn’t you, Joe?”

Joe, the driver, spat out of the window.

“No more than a bear with a boil on its ass,” he said.

Candy laughed.

“Joe talks like that all the time, except when the Captain’s around, then he never says a word, do you, Joe?”

Joe spat out of the window again.

“I like my food. I’ve only eight good teeth in my mouth as it is.”

“See? A comedian.” Candy took out a cigarette and lit it. “So watch out. Don’t go sounding off.”

“Have you found the killer yet?” I asked.

“Not yet, but we will. In the past ten years we have had five homicides in this town, and we haven’t found one killer yet. We must break that record sometime and this could be the time. What do you think, Joe?”

“It depends,” Joe said cautiously. “It’s not as if we haven’t the men because we have: good, bright, clever detectives who know a clue when they see it, but there’s a bottle-neck of bad luck somewhere. I wouldn’t bet my salary we’ll find the killer, but we might.”

“There you are,” Candy said, smiling at me. The smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Like Joe says, he wouldn’t bet his salary, but we could crack it.”

“Captain Katchen think so?”

“No one ever asks what Captain Katchen thinks. He’s a mite touchy about sharing his thoughts with anyone. I wouldn’t ask him if I were you.”

We rode on for a fast half-mile before I said, “Did you find the ice pick?”

Candy shook his head.

“No. The Lieutenant thinks the killer took it with him. He’s probably right, but I wouldn’t bet Joe’s salary on it. It could have got buried somewhere. There’s a whale of a lot of sand on that beach.”

“You didn’t find the girl’s body?”

Again Candy shook his head.

“No, and I didn’t expect to. We looked because there was a slight chance she got knocked off too, but the Lieutenant thinks she slid out of the picture just before your pal got stuck.”

“Maybe she killed him.”

Candy blew out his cheeks.

“The pick was driven home with a lot of force. I doubt if a woman could have done it.”

“Women aren’t all that frail. If the pick was sharp enough and she was angry enough it wouldn’t be so tough.”

Candy flicked his cigarette out of the window.

“Don’t bet your salary on it.”

The car swerved to the kerb and pulled up outside the police headquarters. We got out, walked up the steps, through double swing doors and along a stone passage that gave off the usual smell that all police headquarters have.

“Watch your step,” Candy said. “I’m telling you for my good rather than yours. The Captain gets into a rage easily, and it’s bad for us all when he does.”

He paused outside a door, rapped and waited. A voice as musical as a foghorn bawled, “Wadja want?”

Candy gave me a weak smile and lifted his shoulders. He turned the door knob, opened the door and walked into a small, drab office full of cigar smoke.

“Lew Brandon, sir.”

A mountain of a man sat behind a battered desk. He was getting on in years, but he was still in hard physical shape, and there wasn’t much fat on him. His thinning grey hair was slicked down in a cow’s lick over his low forehead. His face was massive, leathery and brutal. He rested two enormous hairy hands on his desk and glared at me while Candy closed the door as if it were made of eggshells and moved silently behind me and leaned against the wall.

“Brandon?” Katchen said, reached out and viciously stubbed out his cigar. “Huh: the shamus. Yeah, the shamus.” He rubbed his face while he continued to glare at me. “To think we gotta have beetles like you crawling around our streets.” He leaned forward, screwing up his small eyes. “When are you getting out of town, shamus?”

“I don’t know,” I said mildly. “Within a week I’d say.”

“Would you? And what the hell are you going to do in this town for a week, shamus?”

“See the sights, swim, take a girl out and relax generally.”

He wasn’t expecting this and he hunched his shoulders.

“Yeah? You weren’t planning to stick your snout into this murder case, were you?”

“I’ll watch Lieutenant Rankin’s progress with interest,” I said. “I’m sure he can get along fine without my help.”

Katchen leaned back in his chair, making the back creak.

“That’s pretty white of you, shamus.” He glared at me for maybe twenty seconds, then went on, “I don’t like a beetle around the place. If I catch up with him I put my foot on him.”

“I can imagine that, Captain.”

“Yeah? Don’t kid yourself, shamus, you can pull a fast one on me. You start interfering in this case and you’ll wonder what’s hit you.” He lifted his voice into a bellow and yelled at me: “Understand?”

“Yes, Captain.”

He showed his teeth in a big, sneering grin.

“Not a gutty beetle, are you, shamus? Okay, don’t say you haven’t been warned. Keep your nose clean, keep away from me and you might possibly survive. If you ever come into this office again, you won’t forget the experience. Remember that. You put one foot wrong and you’ll be brought in. We have ways of softening beetles, shamus.”

His little eyes glittered.

“Okay, now you’ve been told and remember you ain’t going to be told again. One step wrong, and in you come, and, shamus, if you do come in, the boys will certainly give you a work out before they kick you into a cell.” He looked at Candy. “Take this yellow-gutted beetle out of here and lose him,” he snarled. “He makes me sick to my stomach even to look at him.”

Candy pushed himself away from the wall and opened the office door.

Katchen lifted a huge finger and pointed at me.

“Keep your snout out of this case or else...”

I took a step to the door, paused and said, “Could I ask a question, Captain?”

He ran the tip of his tongue over his thick, rubbery lips.

“What question?”

“Did Lee Creedy call you up and ask you to talk to me?”

His eyes narrowed and his great hands turned into fists.

“What does that mean?”

“Mr. Creedy hired Sheppey to do a job for him. While doing it Sheppey got killed. Mr. Creedy is anxious to keep that bit of information quiet. He reckons he would be called as a witness and he would have to tell the court just why he hired Sheppey. So he had a little talk to me himself. He produced a thug called Hertz and tried to scare me with him. I was curious to know if Mr. Creedy was losing confidence in his thug and had asked you to strengthen the threat to make sure it would stick.”

I heard Candy draw in a quick breath.

Katchen’s face turned the colour of a damson plum. Very slowly he got to his feet. Standing, he looked larger than life: a kind of Boris Karloff nightmare.

He moved away from his desk and advanced slowly towards me.

I waited, not moving, my eyes on his.

“So there is a little life in you, shamus,” he said, and the words seemed to come through clenched teeth. “Well, here’s something to go on with.”

His open hand came up and exploded against the side of my face. I saw it coming and rolled with the slap, taking some of the weight out of it, but it was hard enough to make my head ring and send me staggering.

He waited for me to straighten up, then he thrust his dark, blood-congested face into mine.

“Go on, shamus,” he said in a low, vicious whisper, “hit me!”

I was tempted to hang one on his jaw. Very often a guy of his build can’t take a punch on the jaw, but I knew he wanted me to hit him. I knew if I even threatened to hit him I’d be in a cell in seconds flat with three or four of his biggest men to keep me company.

I didn’t move. The side of my face where he had hit me burned hotly.

We stared at each other for a long moment, then he stepped back and yelled at Candy, “Get this punk out of here before I kill him!”

Candy grabbed my arm and swung me out of the room and pulled the door shut. He let go of me and stepped back, his red, weathered face angry and scared.

“I told you, didn’t I, you damned fool?” he said. “Now you’ve really started something. Get the hell out of here!”

I touched my face.

“I’d like to meet that ape up a dark alley. So long, Sergeant. At least I don’t have to work for him.”

I walked down the passage, through the double swing doors and on to the street.

It was nice to see the sun was still shining and the men and women coming back from the beach were still looking like human beings and still acting like them too.