The ice cold nude

chapter two

I went calling on one of the beauty contest finalists right after I left Lieutenant Schell’s office. I even took his advice and called on Louise Lamont first because I figured it was the strictly logical thing to do, and his description of the dame as being sexy and flamboyant didn’t influence my decision by more than 95 per cent at the most.

Her apartment building was kind of ritzy and, if it had been a cooperative on New York’s East Side, the doorman’s uniform would have cost around a hundred clams a month in maintenance alone. She lived on the sixth floor. Within a couple of seconds automation had delivered me there with a contemptuously efficient hiss. I thumbed the buzzer beside her door and waited, but not for long.

The door was suddenly jerked wide open and a kingsized character stood framed in the open space, glaring at me like I’d just insulted his sister. A guy in his middle thirties, with thick, coarse black hair that fell down almost over his eyes, and an equally coarse face to match. While I was still recovering from the sudden shock of his repulsive features at close range, his massive hands reached out, grabbed the lapels on my coat, and literally lifted me inside the apartment.

“Okay, wise guy,” he grated in a sandblasted voice. “So now I’ll find out who’s been beating Marty’s time with the broad.

16

Out of the comer of my eye I caught a glimpse of a long-haired blonde who looked worth a considerably more detailed inspection, but right then 1 had other things on my mind, like this bum ruining the coat the Brothers Brooks had labored on with such loving care.

“I hope you won’t mind me speaking frankly, even if we haven’t been introduced?” I asked politely. “So take your stinking hands off me before I get rough and pound you down into a small child.”

His shaggy eyebrows lifted, then entwined in loving disbelief above the bridge of his nose. “Listen, punk!” He shook me violently a couple more times for added emphasis. “If you want to get out of here with any teeth left in your dumb head at all, you’d better start talking real fast. You’ve been beating Marty’s time with this broad and I want to hear the whole story. You don’t leave out a thing, understand?”

“Pete!” the blonde snapped in an irritated voice from somewhere out in left field. “I never saw this guy in my whole life before. You must be out of your mind.”

“Shut up!” he snarled at her, then shook me some more. “Did you hear me, punk? I want the works!” “Sure,” I said pleasantly. “I guess you got it coming, pal. You want to hear about the days I spent with her, like on weekends, or just the nights?”

He had the correct automatic reflex like I hoped he would. His right hand let go my lapel while his arm thrust back, ready to let me have a set of bunched knuckles straight between the eyes. It obviously never occurred to him that I might not just stand there and wait for it. I swung my right leg back, then let the toe of my slioe connect just an inch above where his shinbone ended, with enough force to maybe shift his kneecap a couple of inches out of alignment.

Pete let out a ferocious yell and canted sideways as his left leg kind of crumpled. He was still yelping even after I stiff-fingered the apple in his throat, only now there was no sound coming from his wide-open mouth. Anything I hate to see is a guy real confused. I pivoted neatly on one foot, then swung my right arm down in a wide arc so the edge of my hand slammed into the side of his neck.

He sank to the floor like a torpedoed battleship and finished up in a motionless heap, giving a remarkably realistic impression of total disaster.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” the blonde said with immense perception. “Pete won’t like it.”

“Is that any way to talk to the lover-boy who’s been beating Marty’s time with you all these short days and long nights?” I snarled at her.

I smoothed down the lapels with loving care, then took my first real good look at the blonde, and she was worth it. My wild Irish old man had a theory that blondes mostly fall into three main categories, Uke dumb, dubious, and calculating. This one was strictly in the third division, from the cash register that tinkled gently in back of her eyes, defiling their lapis-lazuli innocence, to the carefully calculated, more naked than naked look of the short blue silk beach slip which was something less than a transparent veil hiding the luscious curves of her body.

She shook her head impatiently under my penetrating gaze, and the long blonde hair cascading in graceful waves from the crown of her head to well below her shoulders shone with a sudden iridescent sheen.

“Baby,” I said admiringly, “all you need is a big white horse and you'd be a smash hit as the new Lady Godiva!”

“Huh?” She stared at me blankly.

“She was some English dame from way back,” I explained wearily, “who rode a horse through the streets of Coventry just wearing her hair and nothing else.”

“What for?”

“Because—ah, never mind!” I said tersely. “You are Louise Lamont, right?”

“Sure,” she said, brightening a little now she could dig the dialogue. “Who are you?”

“Danny Boyd,” I told her. “Mr. Elmo hired me to get back his diamond tiara.”

“Oh?” The look on her face said she’d gotten me in return for a couple of cereal box tops and two bits, and right now she wondered if she’d been gypped on the whole deal.

“I wanted to ask you some questions,” I added hopefully.

“I’ve been through that routine with the police already.” Her voice was bored, but a little edgy at the same time. “Anyway, you’d better make it some other time and get out of here while you’ve got the chance. Before Pete gets up off the floor and kills you, I mean.”

“1*11 kick his head in before he even gets close to batting an eyelid,” I said confidently. “So we got plenty of time for the question and answer routine, right?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” she said flatly. “Mr. Machin took me to the store and I wore the tiara while the photographer took my picture—the same as he did with the other two girls—then we left. That’s all there was to it.”

“You didn’t notice anyone act suspiciously or do anything out of the ordinary at all?”

“Not me, buster.” She shook her head with a rapidly growing impatience. “Look! Do me a favor and get out of here before Pete opens his eyes again, will you? It’ll be hard enough explaining to Marty what happened without you hanging around and making things even worse.” “Marty is your boy friend?” I asked, with brilliant intuition.

“Kind of,” she said, shrugging indifferently.

“So what does that make Pete?” I pointed toward the inanimate heap on the floor.

“He kind of looks after Marty’s interests,” she said vaguely. “If you’re gone already when he wakes up, then maybe I can convince him he made a genuine mistake, and if I get real lucky Pete won’t even mention what happened to Marty. But if you’re still here, nothing will convince him he wasn’t dead right about you and me in the first place and then—”

“Okay!” I held up my hand pleadingly to try and stop her running off at the mouth like a waterfall. “You convinced me, baby, so I’m gone already—but I’ll be back.” “You’ll pardon me if I don’t wait up?” Her voice had an arctic quality that didn’t match up to that transparent beach slip and all.

“Sure,” I told her, and headed toward the door. “After all, baby, I know my way around your apartment just fine—remember those wonderful weekends?—so just leave my pajamas over a chair, huh?”

When I got back to the rented convertible my watch said it was almost six o’clock. Considering I’d only arrived in Santo Bahia in the early afternoon, and right off the plane at that, I figured I’d done enough work for one day and deserved a drink.

Back at the hotel I checked the front desk to find out if I’d had any calls from a jewel thief eager to sell back a diamond tiara cheap, but I was out of luck. I told the clerk I’d be in the bar if any calls came in for me, then resented the knowing look in his eyes which said, “Where the hell else?”

It was called the Luau Bar because it served meager, rum-based drinks in an imitation coconut half-shell at twice the price of good honest liquor. I settled for a martini with a twist of lemon, and started to relax. Someplace around the start of the third martini I was getting to be real relaxed, when a gentle voice from in back of me said, “Mr. Boyd?”

I turned my head and saw a brunette standing there—a dame with a good figure that was subdued, if not hidden, by the businesslike black suit and the crisp white blouse underneath. She looked like a girl Friday owned by some tycoon with an efficiency fetish, who spent one weekend a year in Las Vegas for sex.

“They told me at the desk that I’d find you in here.” She smiled nervously. “I am Miss Lamont ”

“Honey,” I said gently, “I already met the dame, and you couldn’t be Miss Lamont in a million years.” Hie nervous smile had gotten to be a fixture. “You mean Louise, of course.” Her fingers fumbled with the strap of her pocketbook. “I’m Patty Lamont, her sister.” “Why don’t you sit down?” I invited her. “Louise never told me she had a sister. What are you?—some kind of family skeleton?”

She nearly blushed as she sat down opposite me. “I’m afraid I don’t have Louise’s glamour, Mr. Boyd. I’m just a working girl.”

“Would you like a drink?” I asked, figuring it might help her nerves a little—mine, too.

“No, thank you.” She fooled around with her pocket-book some more. “You must excuse me coming in here like this, Mr. Boyd, and invading your privacy, but

I read in the newspaper about how you’re working for Mr. Elmo to get back his tiara that was stolen.

“Be my guest,” I said expansively. “If you want to sell it back cheap, we can talk prices.”

“It’s nothing like that!” Her cheeks flamed with a vivid scarlet. “I hoped you might be able to help me. I don’t want to go to the police and—and—” She stopped for a moment, busy fumbling for the right words, and I drank some more of the third martini to take care of the hiatus.

“You see, Mr. Boyd,” she resumed with an intense expression on her face, “it’s my sister, Louise. I’m so worried about her I just don’t know what to do. I—I need help.”

“If helping your sister helps me get that tiara back, honey, I’m your boy,” I told her generously. “Just what is it about Louise that keeps you awake nights?”

“Louise has always been the wild one of the family, you see, Mr. Boyd?” Her voice had a faintly wistful quality. “I’m just the homebody type, I guess. Our parents were killed in an automobile accident a few years back—maybe that’s why I feel so responsible for her, being the older sister. I didn’t want her to enter that beauty contest even, but I couldn’t stop her—and now she’s mixed up with all these dreadful people and I have this feeling that something horrible is going to happen to her!”

Patty Lamont settled back in her chair, obviously glad she’d broken the ice, and her face relaxed back into its natural primness. She should have been beautiful; she had all the basic attributes of her sister with one vital exception. The fundamental spark of natural, inborn, sex appeal was missing. Some got it and some ain’t—like the man said—and it’s a quality a girl can’t acquire like a taste for olives or frivolous underwear.

“You figure she’s somehow gotten herself mixed up in the tiara theft?” I asked hopefully.

“Good grief, no!” She nearly leaped out of her chair at the thought. “I only think she’s keeping bad company, Mr. Boyd. You see, I know something of the background of the beauty contest because I work for Poolside Plastics. I am Mr. Machin’s confidential secretary.” She made it sound jazzier than handmaiden to the high priest of some pagan temple.

“You mean there’s something crooked about the contest?” I grappled desperately to extract some kind of sense out of her words, but it was like wading through a sea of marshmallow.

“Well—” She paused momentarily, choosing her words very carefully indeed. “Louise also worked for them, Mr. Boyd. She had a very good job as confidential secretary to the president himself—Mr. Rutter.”

“And you work for Machin—the publicity manager?” “Director of Public Relations,” she corrected me coldly. “It was about four months back when Louise suddenly resigned—for no reason at all as far as I know—and after that, when they announced the beauty contest, she decided to enter it and now she’s one of the three finalists.” “I guess the prizes are considerable?” I suggested.

“But—as an ex-employee of the corporation?” Patty’s voice was basically disapproving. I started to feel a bond of sympathy with her boss—this Machin character. I guessed she had the kind of blind loyalty that could eventually smother a corporation executive to death.

“Maybe this Rutter guy didn’t care if she was his ex-secretary?” I said impatiently. “He’s the president—he could make his own rules for his own contest.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Patty said determinedly. “From the first day she entered the contest, Louise has been absolutely confident she’ll win it. She hasn’t done a day’s work since she left, yet she always seems to have plenty of money. How would you explain that, Mr. Boyd?”

There was an obvious explanation but I wasn’t about to say it to Patty Lamont. “Maybe she saved—” I started vaguely.

“Not Louise!” she snapped. “She isn’t the saving type. And there’s something I haven’t told you.” The glassy look in her eyes gave me a split second of wild speculation that maybe there was a third sister—the one that nobody talked about, the one with three heads.

“Louise had a dreadful argument with Mr. Rutter the day she left,” she confided in a semi-whisper. “I don’t know what about, but I could hear them screaming at each other—and my office is three away from Mr. Rutter’s suite. She left immediately after they’d had that

dreadful argument and he gave orders she wasn’t to be admitted into the building, even. Then a couple of months later he let her enter the contest.” -

“So maybe he’s the forgiving type of president?” I said heavily.

“Then there’s the other thing,” she said implacably. “I don’t like the men that Louise has been running around with—that dreadful Marty Estell—there’s something sinister about that man, Mr. Boyd!”

“I haven’t met him yet—only his associate Pete,” I said wearily.

“And that Willie Byers,” she continued, blithely ignoring my comment. “There’s something odd about that man —I have the feeling he’s a phony, Mr. Boyd, but a sinister phony!”

I drained the martini glass and looked helplessly around for a waiter, while I tried to figure out just how I could get rid of this screwy, natural-born old maid, to whom every man who looked twice at her sister automatically became a sinister character. It was only after I’d managed to wag an emergency signal with one finger to the waiter that the import of her last remark sank into my consciousness.

“Byers?” I almost yelled at her. “The guy who works at the Elmo jewelry store?”

Patty shrugged disdainfully. “I wouldn't know where he works—if he does and I doubt it. I only met him the one time at her apartment, Mr. Boyd. He’s far too old for her in the first place, and in the second place—”

“Tell you what, Miss Lamont,” I interrupted her quickly. “I can see what you mean about your sister being in danger—”

“You can?” Her eyes widened with pleasure. “You really can, Mr. Boyd?”

“Sure,” I gulped. “I think you’re damned right—she’s surrounded by a bunch of real sinister characters and I figure I should start investigating them right away.”

“Oh, thank you!” she said breathlessly. Her eyes shone with gratitude. “You don’t know what this means to me, Mr. Boyd. I’ll be eternally grateful.”

“Don’t give it another thought, honey,” I said hastily. “You run along now and I’ll start in investigating. As soon as I find out anything definitely sinister, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you!” She shook my hand in a firm, emotional grasp. “I’ll never forget you, Mr. Boyd!” She fumbled in her pocketbook and handed me a piece of notepaper. “I wrote my address and phone number down for you.”

“Thanks,” I said absently. I wasn’t interested in Patty Lamont any more. I just wanted her to get the hell out of it so I could have an early dinner and then go call on the diamond expert, Willie Byers, who was also one of Louise’s boy friends. His address would be on the list that Miss Tamara O’Keefe had given me, I remembered. Then I sensed Patty had something else to say, and looked up.

“It’s a funny thing, Mr. Boyd, somehow I felt sure you would help me!” she said gently. Her eyes were moist, like wet olives, as she smiled into my face and I felt my crew cut stand up in stiff revulsion.

Then she got onto her feet, collected her pocketbook, and walked toward the door in a series of small, tight movements, as if she was wired together like a marionette.

chapter three

Willie Byers was a tall, thin guy, someplace in his early fifties, with graying brown hair. His face had a pinched look and a pallid color to match; the overall impression— including his hands which trembled incessantly—was that he still hadn’t recovered from a king-sized hangover. Maybe that was the uncharitable point of view, but he didn’t exactly enthuse when I told him who I was and what I wanted; I almost had to force my way into his apartment.

The living room was elegantly and expensively fur-aished, dominated by the most outrageous—and magnificent—nude I’d ever seen. A massive, flamboyant painting that seemed to cover all of one wall with licentious pink and white flesh tones, along with the wildest curves any artist ever pitched. The subject was a long-haired blonde, reclining full-length on a couch, with her legs crossed de-:orously and her arms stretched langorously above her head. She had a misty look in her lapis-lazuli eyes—it was anyone’s bet if it was caused by regret or desire, and either way it was interesting food for thought.

“You will excuse me if I sit down, Mr. Boyd?” Byers said in perfect English, with only the merest trace of an accent. “I have been sick, you understand—a virus—and I am still weak.”

“Sure,” I said, and sat opposite him in a deep leather armchair. “Mr. Elmo didn’t tell me you were sick when

25

I talked to him this afternoon. Incidentally, you rate real high in M5 book.”

“He is very kind,” Byers said in a tired voice. He seized his nose between a spatulate thumb and index finger, squeezing it hard for a few moments. “It has been my whole life, you understand? There has been nothing else that ever interested me in the slightest degree but precious stones—the handling of them, the delicate craftsmanship involved. It requires both finesse and total absorption in the cutting of a diamond, for example, and where there is a strong element of chance involved, one also needs the recklessness of an addicted gambler.”

“You make it sound real fascinating,” I told him.

He squeezed the tip of his nose even harder, then smiled bleakly. “I do not wish to bore you, Mr. Boyd. Naturally, you have some questions to ask about the tiara?”

“Mr. Elmo said you spotted the fake in the window right off?”

“That is correct,” he said, nodding. “It was a very good copy, but there were a couple of small imperfections. Nothing that could be detected by an amateur eye, of course.”

“But to your expert eye, the fake was obvious, huh?” “Yes.” This time he squeezed so hard it brought tears to his eyes. “I see no reason for false modesty, Mr. Boyd. I am an acknowledged expert in these things.”

“Sure,” I agreed. “But it still takes an expert to spot the fake—so how could anybody have gotten hold of the real tiara long enough to make a paste copy of it?” Byers shrugged. “It would not be necessary to have the original beside you to make a copy.” His voice was pedantic. “The tiara was displayed in the store window for two weeks before it was stolen. It could have easily been photographed with a miniature camera from the sidewalk. An expert craftsman may have studied it four or five times a day for a week, or even longer—until he was sure of the detail. The design and the setting itself, they were not overly elaborate, you understand? The main value of the piece was in the five stones, the diamonds themselves, Mr. Boyd.”

“Don’t you figure it was kind of odd that Elmo didn’t spot the fake himself when he returned the tiara to the window?” I suggested casually.

“Not so strange, Mr. Boyd.” His eyes closed for a long moment, then opened again with an obvious effort of will. “His mind was probably on other things and he was not so familiar with it as I was. It happened to be one of the few trinkets I had amused myself with, you understand?”

“You made it?” I gaped at him.

“There are many times when I get bored with the purely commercial aspects,” he said in a tired voice. “I am still a craftsman at heart and like to keep my hand n on occasion.”

His eyes had a bleak and empty look as he stared at ne directly for a moment. “I am all alone, Mr. Boyd, vith no family to worry about or keep me busy. Only vhen I use my hands again am I truly happy.” A sudden varmth replaced the bleakness in his eyes.

“The fine, delicate purity of platinum between my finders,” he said softly. “The dazzling beauty of a flawless tone that demands a perfect setting so its own perfection nay be fully revealed! These are the compensations of a Dnely man, you understand?”

There was no answer to that kind of jazz, so I took a ittle time out and walked across the room to get a closer ook at that nude fantasy which sprawled all over one /all. This was a different kind of perfection and it stim-ilated my critical faculties like crazy. None of that ab-tract or surrealistic jazz—no dipping grapefruits into . can of paint and throwing them at a canvas. This /as a luscious, flamboyant painting of a luscious, flam-►oyant nude blonde. The kind of art that guys called ^rt—or Danny Boyd—really dig, like from deep down ►asic appreciation. In the bottom right-hand corner was a ignature, all curlicues, which read Willie Byers.

“I see you have a hobby, Willie,” I said appreciatively. And this is the kind of subject matter which appeals to my warm-blooded guy who likes to work with his hands.” “The painting?” He smiled wanly. “As you say—a hob->y—but I’m not a very good artist, I’m afraid.”

“I wouldn’t say that at all,” I told him sincerely.” Maybe in this particular painting the subject did help a lot, but to me its strictly a work of art.”

“You are very kind,” he said tersely.

“There’s something very familiar about that dame,” I went on happily, “and I do mean her face. Somehow she reminds me of a contestant in that Poolside Plastics beauty contest. A girl called Louise Lamont—you know her by any chance?”

“A girl in a beauty contest?” He almost laughed in my face at the very idea. “Me, Mr. Boyd? I only wish I could say I did—it might make for a little excitement in my dull life!”

“It was just a thought,” I said idly. “Anyway, it sure is some painting.”

“Thank you.” He rubbed his forehead sparingly, as if afraid that too much pressure would cause the skin to peel like rusted paint.

“If you don’t have any more questions now, Mr. Boyd, I’d be glad if you would excuse me. I am very tired.”

“I was wondering if you’d have any idea how much that tiara is worth to the thief?” I said.

“You mean how much he could get for it from a—if it’s the right word—fence?”

“Sure. Who the hell else would buy it?” I grunted. “The retail value was around one hundred thousand,” he said slowly, thinking out loud. “Wholesale around seventy. I wouldn’t imagine he’d get anything more than fifteen, most. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“I just remembered the point you made about the paste imitation would need a craftsman to fashion it,” he said, his voice dragging heavily. “So if the same craftsman got hold of the real tiara, he could break up the setting, recut and—or—reshape the stones, then sell them one at a time to legitimate buyers. That way, he’d make considerably more than fifteen thousand.”

I nodded. “Thanks. That’s all the questions right now, Willie—I can see you’re real tired.”

I headed toward the door, and he made no effort to get out of his chair and accompany me. When I reached the door, I stopped and turned my head to look at him for a moment.

“You know something, Willie? That girl, Louise La-mont, the one you never heard of before?”

“Yes?”

“She’s got a sister Patty you never heard of, either. But Patty’s heard of you, okay. She’s even seen you in Louise’s apartment. She figures you for a bad influence on her kid sister—too old for her and all that jazz.”

“She’s mistaken,” he said tautly.

“I’ll find out,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “I figure that painting of yours is too like Louise for it to be coincidental—and I figure you’re the craftsman who made a paste imitation around the same time you made the original tiara. Then you had Louise make the switch when she got the chance to handle it, when she wore it posing for the publicity pictures. How about that?” “It’s nonsense, of course,” he snapped. “You have a mind given to the most absurd fantasies, Mr. Boyd!” “Maybe,” I granted. “But right now I’m on my way to check with the real life version of your own fantasy on that wall!”

During the drive across town, heading back toward Louise Lamont’s jumping apartment, I had plenty of time to think over the theory. It sounded fine, real fine, and that was the only thing about it that had me real worried. It was too damned neat, and too damned easy. Real life—as the guy said when his girl won the Miss Universe contest, then offered him a hundred grand to marry her—is just not like this.

Around thirty minutes after I’d left Willie Byers, I was standing outside Louise Lamont’s apartment, my thumb practically cemented to the buzzer. Either she was out or she just didn’t want company, and I was about to relinquish the whole project and go buy myself a drink, when I suddenly noticed the door wasn’t shut tight by maybe a quarter-inch. I pressed the flat of my hand against it, exerted a little pressure, and the door swung open easily.

The living room was empty—so Pete must have finally recovered anyway—but I had the uneasy feeling that someone was around, and awful close to me at that. I called out “Louise?” a couple of times and got no answer. There was still no answer when I knocked on the bedroom door, so I went into the room and found that was empty, too.

Filmy nylon underwear and stockings were carefully placed on the bed, ready for wear. A wild profusion of cosmetics littered her dressing table and they also looked as if they were ready for use. From the bathroom came the monotonous sound of a running shower, so everything was explained. For around five seconds I figured the percentage in waiting silently until she walked out of the shower to greet the unexpected guest, covered only with naked confusion, then reluctantly realized I couldn’t bet on her reaction. If she screamed loud enough she could have me tossed out of the building before I’d even mentioned Willie Byers’ name.

So I tapped politely on the bathroom door and waited. Nothing happened. I knocked again, louder this time— then I thumped—I yelled real loud and still nothing happened. My thinking aligned itself with Patty Lamont’s— the sound of the steadily running shower began to assume sinister aspects. Louise had to be deaf not to hear all the noise I made, and I knew she wasn’t. So, either she’d gone out and absent-mindedly left the shower running, or she was in there and for some good reason couldn’t answer me at all. I tried the door knob and found it wasn’t locked.

Five seconds later I found Louise Lamont. She was in the shower okay—sitting splay-legged with her back propped against the tiled wall, while the pleasantly warm water cascaded all around her. Her saturated long blonde hair was plastered tightly against her scalp, giving her a peculiarly childish look of innocence. Her mouth was parted in a small O of surprise and blood still flowed in a sluggish stream from the ugly, blackened hole in her forehead.

Perched firmly on top of her head was a glittering diamond tiara which was somehow obscene in its crystalline beauty, making a dreadful contrast with the warm flesh tints of her ripe-rounded body. Nude, she was Willie Byers’ flamboyant painting come to life, except for that bullet hole in her forehead. Now she was an ice-cold Go-diva—or would be as soon as the water was turned off— and the glittering tiara seemed to wink at me lewdly to emphasize the fact.

I turned off the faucets and stepped back out of the shower stall. A bathroom is a lousy place to die in—surrounded by shiny, aseptic cleanliness. Everything’s so goddamned hygienic.

We sat in the living room of Louise Lamont’s apartment and glared at each other for a while.

“I should have known better,” Lieutenant Schell said heavily. “I should have had my head shrunk before I told Elmo to hire you—I should’ve remembered the last time. From the first day you arrived in Santo Bahia, the bodies started to pile up. You should change your name from ‘Boyd Enterprises’ to ‘Corpses Incorporated’!”

This was no time to argue with the lieutenant, I figured. So I tried tactfully to change the subject. “You have any idea who killed her?” I asked him.

“The way I figure it, you walked right in on her while she was taking a shower and she shot herself to death,” Schell said, scowling malevolently at me. “Boyd would represent a fate worse than death to any self-respecting dame!”

“Thank you so much, Lieutenant,” I said bitterly. “I find the body for you while it’s still warm and this is the thanks I get—insults!”

“You’ll get more than that if I can swing it,” he snarled, “like a murder rap, maybe.”

“Anyway,” I said, brightening a little, “you don’t have to worry about any more corpses being discovered. I found the tiara along with Louise, and I’ll be out of your hair just as soon as Elmo gives me his check.”

“Maybe that’s something else I can pin on you,” he muttered. “Collecting from Elmo is extortion in anybody’s language.”

“I called him right after I called you,” I said, very casual. “He should be here any minute.”

“You called Elmo?” Schell’s face darkened thunderously. “Who the hell gave you the right to—”

“I figured if I didn’t, some lousy cop might claim he’d found the tiara,” I said nastily. “I’m not mentioning any names but you can figure it out for yourself.”

Before Schell had time to detonate, there was a knock on the door quickly followed by the appearance of a beefy uniformed cop.

“There’s a dame outside says Elmo sent her right over to see this_tBoyd,” he said heavily. “You want I should bring her in here, Lieutenant?”

“Why not?” Schell rasped. “It looks like Boyd is running this damned investigation—not me.”

A few seconds later the red-headed Tamara O’Keefe drifted into the room, instantly transforming the atmosphere into that of a perfumed pleasure room belonging to some sultan’s palace. She wore a short mink jacket buttoned over a black crepe cocktail dress. A silver bangle at her wrist writhed in serpentine glitter under the light, and matching pendent earrings writhed in unison beneath her fantastic hair-do, which seemed even more so tonight.

The tawny eyes calmly absorbed Lieutenant Schell’s blank face with no more interest than they paid to the wallpaper, then they looked questioningly at me.

“Mr. Elmo couldn’t make it right now, so he asked me to pinch-hit for him,” she said in that sultry voice. “You’ve really recovered the tiara?”

“Sure,” I said, then gulped as I felt the hot malevolence of the lieutenant’s eyes. “This is Lieutenant Schell—and this is Miss O’Keefe, Lieutenant.”

“We’ve met before,” Schell said crisply. “Did Boyd forget to mention to Elmo that he found the tiara sitting on top of a corpse’s head, Miss O’Keefe?”

Her eyes widened slightly as she looked at him directly for the first time. “How macabre! And what a dreadful waste of diamonds, Lieutenant. Do I know the corpse?” “Louise Lamont.” Schell stared at her bug-eyed for a few moments. “One of the finalists in Poolside’s beauty contest.”

“Oh?” Tamara thought about it for a little while. “Well, I guess it makes everything a lot easier for the other two finalists, now the Lamont girl’s out of the running, doesn’t it? May I see the tiara now?”

She unbuttoned the mink jacket and dropped it casually onto the nearest chair, then opened her purse and began searching its contents carefully. My eyes got the same bug-eyed look the Lieutenant’s had—the bodice of her dress was very low cut over the tight swell of her breasts, and was kept in place only by two fragile, finger-width, rhinestone-studded straps.

With a numb look on his face, Schell took the tiara out of his coat pocket and gave it to her. At the same time, Tamara extracted a jeweler’s glass from her purse and screwed it into her eye, then examined the tiara with minute and professional care. She studied it for an agonizingly long twenty seconds before she gave it back to Schell, then took the jeweler’s glass from her eyes and dropped it into her purse. A moment later the purse shut with a sharp, decisive snap.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” she asked coldly. “Or more probably Mr. Boyd thought it would be highly amusing?”

“Huh?” Schell gaped at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It was Mr. Elmo’s understanding you had recovered the real tiara,” she said in a steely voice, looking at me like I’d just sprouted another head.

“So what’s that—a mirage?” I croaked.

“In a pig’s eye,” she said inelegantly. “This is the paste imitation.”

“You’re out of your mind!” Schell bellowed at her. “The paste imitation’s locked in a safe at headquarters right now—where it’s been since the day of the theft.”

“Then you both have my congratulations,” she said thinly. “You now have two paste copies.”

“You’re sure?” Schell asked.

“I’m sure,” she snapped. “If you have any doubts you can always check with Mr. Elmo tomorrow morning— not that I advise it—his temper’s worn a little thin already.”

She picked up her mink jacket and buttoned it carefully. “If I may make a suggestion, Lieutenant? The next time Mr. Boyd thinks he’s found the real tiara, don’t bother checking it yourself—just send a couple of men with a restrainer instead? Good night.” She walked out of the room in a wonderful jiggling walk that didn’t even excite me for once. Then the door slammed shut behind her.

“Two paste imitations?” Schell looked at me helplessly.

“Well, the corpse was real, anyway,” I said, trying to console him a little. But from the look on his face as he mouthed short, silent words at me, I could see it didn’t help at alL

chapter four

After a lousy—and lonely—night in my hotel room, I got up reasonably early the next morning and figured I should take a closer look at the people who sponsored the beauty contest and started the whole trouble in the first place. So I drove the rented convertible out into the heat of the morning sun, leaving the top down as a gesture of defiance.

Poolside Plastics, Inc. was situated about twelve miles south of Santo Bahia, on a tidy fifteen acres which had once been an orange grove maybe. It was around eleven when I wheeled the convertible through the open plastic-barred gates and along a wide driveway. There was a magnificent jumbo-sized pool just lousy with inflatable plastic horses, ducks, seals, elephants—and a million other plastic poolside products that possibly included a plastic poolside pool table, for all I either knew or cared.

The front office was a long rectangular building, all plate glass and aluminum, and three stories high. I parked in the slot reserved for executives only because there was no point in giving myself an inferiority complex as a starter. Trim green lawns surrounded the flagged walk across to the front entrance, and the reception area was a plastic dream with just a little cheating on the side.

There was a languid receptionist with chestnut hair that rippled down almost to her shoulders, and she took her

35

own damn time about taking care of me. She was built like a diet-free Italian starlet—like she didn’t jiggle when she moved, she joggled. Her molded orlon sweater and form-caressing gabardine skirt left nothing to the imagination except maybe her age.

“Yes?” She yawned gently, and me and the profile just don’t care for that kind of early brush-off.

“I’m a guy given to quick decisions,” I told her in a grave, thoughtful voice. “Fifteen million for the whole business, including all tangible assets, plant, land—the works. What do you say?—take it or leave it?”

“Huh?” Her mascara muddied a little as she blinked twice.

“But the one thing I always do insist on is loyalty from all my employees—loyalty to the product, I mean,” I continued rapidly. “Are you personally loyal to the product?”

“What’s that?” Her eyes widened a little.

“For example,” I explained briskly, “are you wearing a plastic bra and girdle as of this moment?”

“A plastic bra and—” The muddied mascara turned into a confused swamp. “What are you?” She nearly choked. “A nut, or something?”

An impeccably dressed guy, somewhere around thirty-five, came up to the desk and noted the expression of traumatic shock on the girl’s face. Then he stared at me with insolent disdain. “You wanted something?” he asked in the kind of voice that strongly doubted it was possible.

“Well, sure,” I said plaintively. “This is the joint where they make those plastic gizmos, right?”

“You could call it that.” His voice gained added confidence from the slight wheedling tone I’d injected into my own, and a condescending smile began to spread his lips. “Don’t tell me you actually want to buy something?”

“It’s like this,” I confided in a confidential, but penetrating whisper. “I’m a sea captain, mister. I spend most of my lousy life making lonely voyages to Long Beach, so I wondered if your outfit maybe makes any of those plastic women—like life-size—I could take along for company. You just don’t have any idea how empty a small sea cabin can get”

I looked around for inspiration and found it in the pallid glassy-eyed stare of the receptionist. “I’m looking for something with a whole lot of foam padding,” I added helpfully, “like her?”

The square cut of the guy’s shoulders visibly crumpled, while his mouth opened and closed slowly a couple of times. Surrounded by a circular glass bowl—and fed a straight diet of ants’ eggs—who could tell him from any other goldfish? Around the time he started in making faint gobbling sounds, I figured the gag had gone about as far as it could go, so I told him who I was and that I was working for Elmo.

It took him a little time to absorb the information, and it looked like it would take the receptionist a little longer —like six months maybe—if the way her generous bosom had suddenly slumped was any indication.

“I’d like to talk with Mr. Rutter, the president,” I said cheerfully.

“He’s not in today,” the guy said vaguely.

“How about Machin, the publicity manager?”

“I am he.” He cleared his throat a couple of times and brought his voice back from a high-pitched squeak down to its normal baritone level. “Maybe we should go up to my office?”

His office was on the top floor, full of extruded plastic intrusions. It looked like a pool-lover’s dream that had suddenly multiplied into a nightmare one night when he wasn’t looking. Machin sat himself behind a magnificent desk and looked at me cautiously, like he figured I could produce a banana boat out of my hip pocket any moment.

“I don’t think I can help you much, Mr. Boyd,” he said finally, after a lot of thought. “I told Lieutenant Schell at the original investigation that I noticed nothing out of the ordinary happen during the whole time we were in Elmo’s jewelry store and the girls were modeling the tiara.” He shook his head dismally. “And now this dreadful murder of Louise Lamont! This is a shocking thing to happen, Mr. Boyd. Anyone would think there’s a curse on the Poolside contest. First the tiara is stolen— and now one of the finalists has been killed.”

“The way it looks, Louise Lamont must have been mixed up some way in the tiara theft,” I said, “and that’s why it figures the beauty contest could have been rigged to get at that tiara.”

“I don’t get it.” He looked at me expectantly.

“The contest was your idea in the first place, right?” I snarled at liim.

“No—funnily enough it wasn’t. The original idea came from Mr. Rutter himself.” Machin gave a self-deprecatory smile. “The tail wagging the dog, you could say, Mr. Boyd? I have to admit 1 resented it though—it sounded like a damned good idea, and I wished I’d thought of it first.”

“Does your president come up with red-hot publicity ideas very often?” I asked.

“That’s the only one so far—and I hope he doesn’t get any more, either!” he said fervently. “My guess is— after what’s happened now—there’ll be a six-inch fall of snow in Santo Bahia before he dreams up another publicity stunt.”

“Patty Lamont is your secretary?” I prodded.

“Sure, but she’s not in the office today.” His face sobered. “I called her as soon as I heard about the murder. She’s heartbroken naturally—they were very close, I believe, even for sisters.”

“They even worked for the same corporation, at the same time once,” I added helpfully.

“Yes,” Machin nodded. “Louise was Mr. Rutter’s personal secretary and she only left a couple of months back.”

“After she had a violent fight with him, right?”

His eyebrows rose a fraction. “Who told you that?” “Her sister—but it’s true, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is.” Machin shifted in his chair, a slight look of embarrassment on his face. “But don’t quote me, Mr. Boyd!”

“What was it all about?”

“I wouldn’t know. I only heard them yelling at each other, then she left—he fired her on the spot.”

“But later on he let her enter the contest and get to be a finalist even?”

“That’s right,” Machin said in a very neutral voice. “Why?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Boyd.”

I glared at his expressionless face for a while, then shrugged helplessly. “I guess I should be talking to Rutter, huh? I’m sure as hell wasting my time here talking with you.”

“You know how it is, Mr. Boyd?” he said smoothly. “You just stopped by to visit and ask a few questions—I work here all the time.”

“And Rutter is the president of the company?”

“You have a gift for putting things concisely, if you don’t mind me saying so.” He grinned weakly.

“Then maybe you could give me his home address— if that isn’t top secret around here,” I grunted. Tamara had given me only the office address for the Poolside characters—sort of like giving the service entrance.

“Sure, my pleasure.” He wrote it down on his desk pad, then tore off the leaf and handed it to me across the desk.

“Thanks.” I put the piece of paper into my wallet. “Just one more question before I leave: the idea of tying in the contest with that tiara in the jewelry store— who dreamed up that one?”

“I did,” Machin said promptly. “It looked like it was too good an opportunity to miss.”

On my way out past the receptionist’s desk, the chest-nut-haired, foam-padded receptionist gave me a dubious smile.

“I’ll be thinking of you, honey,” I said gallantly. “Nights, when my ship rolls gently in the cradle of the Pacific, I’ll—”

“Maybe plastic could give a girl good uplift,” she said, knitting her eyebrows in concentration, “but wouldn’t it be kind of hot in summer?”

“Not if you take a long sea voyage,” I assured her.

I left her still thinking about it, and I could tell she was thinking hard because of the disturbing thought waves that rippled the front of her orlon sweater. Back in the car, I checked Rutter’s address, which was south of Santo Bahia, and that meant at least an hour’s drive from the Poolside plant, which was due north. I stopped off for lunch on the way at one of those chintzy inns which specialized in nothing but pancakes, and the waitresses were all blue check gingham and adenoids.

It was around one-thirty in the afternoon when I reached the Rutter house—a split-level perched thirty feet above the road with a magnificent view of the coastline and Pacific. The sun shone radiantly from a cloudless blue sky and the breeze was a gentle zephyr off the ocean—a typical California day straight out of a tourist folder. I climbed the forty steps that led up to the house, figuring it would be just my luck to get a coronary on a day like this.

There was a double garage to one side of the house, flanked by a concrete drive, and I could see the shimmering blue surface of a back-yard pool, half hidden by a corner projection of the house. A carefully polished antique brass bell tolled loudly when I pulled the rope, startling a somnolent bee into hurried flight. The scent of hibiscus was heavy in the air. I leaned against the porch, lit a cigarette, and waited happily, with all the time in the world right there in the palm of my hand. Two, maybe three, peaceful minutes drifted by.

“I’m sorry,” a lazy voice said out of nowhere. “It’s the maid’s day off and I was out at the pool.”

I turned around real slow, nervous that the illusion the voice had created would vanish when I saw its owner, but one fast look was enough to make me stop any worries whatsoever. A tall, brown-skinned brunette was standing there, watching me with sloe-eyed detachment. She wore a blue-green satin swimsuit, softly shaped to flatter a tautly-curved figure that was in no need of flattery. Her legs were slender bronze pillars, supporting a beautiful temple to Venus, created in living flesh.

Her knowing eyes watched my reactions, lazily acknowledging the worship that was their due. They flickered once as they noted the profile with approval, then returned to a timeless contemplation of their own temple’s perfection.

“I am Myra Rutter,” she said. It was more an announcement, with trumpets playing someplace in the background, than a statement. “Are you something interesting, like an escaped sex maniac? Or merely dull, like a salesman?”

“I’m Danny Boyd,” I told her. “I’m something fascinating, like a private eye and—before I met you—I wanted to talk with your husband.”

“James had to go out to the airport or something,” she said coolly. “Why don’t you talk with me, Mr. Boyd, instead? I’m sure you have plenty to talk about—I can see the ego oozing out of your ears. I could possibly even offer you a drink as a bribe?”

“A drink would be the icing on the cake,” I said gallantly (D. Boyd is not above messing up a metaphor in times of stress). “Just the view from where I’m standing right now is bribe enough.”

She shook her head in wry amusement, and her long glossy black hair shone with myriad lustrous highlights. “Nobody can have everything,” she said, almost to herself. “With that profile, I guess it wouldn’t be fair to hope for sophistication, too. Let’s go around back to the pool.”

I followed her obediently, my gaze riveted on the rhythmic undulations of those impudently rounded, blue-green satin buttocks.

“Would you mind not panting quite so loud, Mr. Boyd?” she asked in a mocking voice, without bothering to turn her head. “I know it’s a wonderful view up here, but after a while you’ll find you get used to it.”

We came around the side of the house to where a wide concrete patio encompassed a free-form pool, which gave the impression it had been designed by some latter day Pythagoras during a bad attack of delirium tremens. A couple of chairs were set up at the edge of the pool beside an outdoor table, and within reaching distance was the fanciest drink wagon I ever did see. It was all chrome and rubber wheels, littered with a profusion of bottles; it obviously manufactured its own ice and—I wouldn’t have been real surprised—spoke four foreign languages while it mixed a martini.

“We call it home,” Myra Rutter said as she relaxed comfortably into a chair. “I guess because that’s as good a four-letter word as any. Make yourself a drink, Mr. Boyd, and while you’re at it you can make me a stinger, very, very cold.”

I made her the stinger and gave it to her, then made myself a bourbon on the rocks and sat down facing her.

“You have a very nice setup here,” I said approvingly, “but there’s one thing missing.”

“You’ll have to wait for the sun to go down before we can show the stag movies,” she said indifferently. “Or did you have something else in mind?”

“No plastic gizmos?” I shook my head sadly. “It’s not the Poolside spirit, Mrs. Rutter. I’m surprised at you— the president’s wife—not having the whole pool just loaded with plastic ducks and elephants and rafts and boats and—”

“The rest of the crap?” she said crisply. She recrossed her knees so her right kneecap had its chance to worhip her left. “I just remembered that I read something about you in last night’s paper, Mr. Boyd, only it’s not a distinct memory because the cook was wrapping the garbage at the time. Something about Mr. Elmo hiring you to recover his stolen tiara?”

“You must read fast,” I said admiringly. “That’s the size of it, as the man said.”

“And you’re from New York, and all. My!” The dark eyes glinted with derision. “What do you think of California, Mr. Boyd? I love New York, of course, it’s a wonderful place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. Have you seen Disneyland yet?”

“I had it on my agenda,” I told her amiably, “but now I’ve seen you, I'm beginning to wonder if I need to make the trip south?”

“Danny Boyd?” She savored the words for a moment, like a doubtful oyster in her mouth. “I don’t like it much. We’ll shorten it to Danny so it’s only half-bad.”

“Gee! and Gosh!” I gurgled. “You mean I can get to call you Myra, Myra? I’d like that a whole lot. Myra sounds much better—Myra Rutter sounds like something that got chewed up in the garbage disposal unit.”

She laughed at that—full red lips pulled back over white, predatory teeth—and I wondered if her husband was out of his mind leaving a dish like this alone in the house for even five minutes.

“All right, Danny,” she said finally. “Tell me about the tiara. I’m fascinated, I really am. Are you hot on the trail of a heist mob—or maybe this is a lone wolf? I’ve got it!

A gentleman thief, and he wears a white silk scarf and suede shoes all the time?”

“If you want the truth,” I said reluctantly, “he’s a mad scientist who discovered a secret cream he rubs all over himself. It makes him invisible and gives him the advantage of being able to walk straight through walls at the same time. Fortunately I found a jar of the cream in his laboratory he must have overlooked.”

“How will that help you catch him?”

“Catch him?” I looked at her scornfully. “Are you out of your mind? I’m going to join him!”

She studied me in silence over the rim of her glass for a few moments before she spoke again. “This mad scientist doesn’t have the name Rutter, by any chance?”

“Not unless you know something I don’t,” I said. “Then why did you want to talk with my husband, Danny?”

“The beauty contest was his idea,” I said easily. “One of the three finalists was murdered last night, and coincidentally, he happened to be his ex-confidential secretary.”

“Louise Lamont,” Myra said tightly. “The bitch! She sure had it coming.”

“You knew her?”

Myra shuddered disdainfully. “No, with my devout thanks to a benevolent Providence, I only knew her.as a voice on the phone. A simpering slut who sweetly informed me she was sleeping with my husband, and if I didn’t want the fact made public I could take care of it with a lump of hard cash—ten thousand dollars, to be exact.”

“She tried to blackmail you?”

“Sweet innocence at eventide!” she snarled. “What the hell else would you call it?”

“Did you pay?”

“I told her fortune—for free,” she said in a satisfied voice. “I told her about her father and why he always wore a fur coat—it’s obligatory for all chimpanzees—and her mother, who once made ten dollars in a single week, and, at a nickel a time, that’s good going. Then I told her about herself and—”

“Like if I can cut the autobiography short,” I interjected hastily, “you didn’t pay?”

“When I was all through with her, I called James,” she snapped. “Five minutes after I hung up, she went out of the office on her ear!”

The bourbon was the real good stuff, straight out of Tennessee, and I sipped it appreciatively.

“But he allowed her to enter the contest,” 1 said finally, “and get to be one of the three finalists, even?”

“I didn’t know that until recently,” she said. “Then I asked James about that. There are times when he can be very uncommunicative.”

“He didn’t give you any reason?”

“He just hit me across the mouth,” she said casually. “There is never a dull moment in the Rutters’ lives— many sordid, but none dull.”

It was the kind of comment that didn’t call for an answer, and I didn’t try and dream one up. I drank some more bourbon instead, and felt the sun steadily getting hotter on the back of my neck. I loosened the knot of my tie and unbuttoned my shirt collar.

“You’re not dressed for sunbaking,” she observed. “Why don’t we go inside the house? It’ll be cooler there.” “Fine,” I told her.

We stood up together and suddenly we weren’t going any place. Her sloe eyes seemed transparent as she stared at me, her lips slightly parted, and I could see the well-banked furnace that burned steadily in back of them. She took the two steps it needed to cut down the distance between us to maybe a decimal point. “Danny?” Her voice was husky and triumphant at the same time, and there was no real question there at all. Her hands reached up and seized my earlobes painfully with each thumb and index finger pinching tight, pulling my head down toward hers. Those pouting lips pulled back again into a smile and a moment later the sharp white teeth clamped firmly into my lower lip. She hung on long enough for me to be in two minds whether to whoop or merely scream, then let go abruptly.

“Make us a fresh drink, Danny,” she said softly, “then come on into the house.” She turned away from me without waiting for an answer, and I was lost again in the torrid vision of those undulating satin clad curves as she walked toward the house.

I watched until she had disappeared inside, then made the fresh drinks with my hands shaking a little and twenty different—though allied—thoughts pulsating through my mind at the same time. Then I carried the jiggling glasses slowly, because I didn’t want the liquor all spilled by the time I got there, and it seemed to take a hell of a long time before I reached the open door.

The open glass door led off the terrace into a vast, strictly modem living room—and another door took me into the hall. I stood there for a moment, feeling a vague kind of empathy with Goldilock’s trauma in the bear house, then I heard Myra’s slightly muffled voice call, “Danny? I’m in here.”

“Here” figured to be the guest room, air-conditioned and the shades drawn, with pink broadloom on the floor and little fat cherubs depicted in gold on the walls. A blue-green satin swimsuit lay on the carpet, clashing with the color scheme. Myra stood beside an oversized couch, her arms raised above her head, stretching luxuriantly. Two horizontal strips of white across her nude body made a startling contrast with the deep bronzed tan that covered the rest of her. Her raised breasts, the nipples hard and pointed, were an arrogant challenge to the virility of all mankind—and I was mankind’s elected gladiator, I realized with a sudden surge of vitality.

She dropped her arms to her sides, then sauntered across and lifted her glass out of my hand. “You certainly took your own damn time about making fresh drinks,” she said casually. “What kept you?—stage fright?”

I reached out with my free hand and ran it slowly down across the swelling curve of her flank, then exhaled softly. “I heard about Venus rising out of the sea,” I said wonderingly, “but who’d believe a plastics outfit would come up with something like this?”

She smiled lazily. “It’s all real, Danny. You’ll find out!”

The bourbon I didn’t need right then, so I put the glass down on the bureau, and stripped off my clothes. By the time I’d finished, Myra’s empty glass stood beside my full one, and she lay on the couch, her head cradled in her hands, watching me with approval.

“Just don’t talk, Danny,” she said in a soft voice. “If I want sweet music when I make love, I can always switch on the radio.”

“What’s to talk about?” I asked hoarsely as I advanced ; toward the couch. “California weather is all the same the ¹ whole year round, right?”

One time when I was in a poker game with four other guys and it had gotten kind of dull, we started swapping embarrassing experiences—like the time one guy had try- j ing to explain to his wife he was sure it was her looking for a lost earring under the bed, with only her legs sticking out, and that playful tweak of his fingers was meant as an expression of his love for her, not the maid, but his wife never did believe him. Although, he’d allowed, he’d had a hell of a time with the maid for the next six weeks.

Right then I suffered the kind of embarrassing experience that’s just too painful to recount, even to a bunch of old buddies over a poker game. I was bent—well, crouched even—over the couch when it happened, and that’s a hell of a position to be in with no clothes on. A door slammed suddenly someplace in the house, achieving the effect of freezing me rigid in that stooped-over position. Then the sound of tramping feet came rapidly closer, the door of the guest room was flung open, and for a couple of seconds that lasted longer than eternity there was a dreadful silence.

“So sorry,” a cold masculine voice said. “Should 1 apologize for having gotten home too early—or too late?”

I managed to unfreeze my aching back muscles and straighten up painfully. All I wanted right then was a jar of vanishing cream from my mythical mad scientist friend.

Myra turned her head and stared over my shoulder at the source of the interruption. “You’re very gauche, James,” she said and yawned. “You could at least call before you come home unexpectedly!”

“I’ll remember it the next time,” the male voice said icily. “Would you care to introduce me to your naturalist friend? He’s apparently suffering from some kind of seiz-* ure at the moment.”

“Of course.” Myra smiled gently, then raised herself on one elbow. “This is Mr. Boyd, and he’s a private detective hired by Elmo to recover the stolen tiara.” “Indeed?” The male voice registered polite interest. “I must say he appears to be dedicated in his search—leaving no woman unturned, as it were?”

“Danny”—Myra smiled sweetly at my frozen face— “this is my husband James. I don’t think a handshake is necessary, but it would be polite if you turned around and gave him another viewpoint, don’t you think?”

“The introductions can wait, Myra,” Rutter said crisply. “I think we should go into another room and leave Mr. Boyd to dress.”

“All right,” she said indifferently. She swung her feet onto the floor, then stood up. “I’ll freshen up the drinks while we wait, Danny.”

Right then I would have liked to say something—anything at all—but my vocal chords were still completely paralyzed along with the rest of me. I heard the faint rustle as Myra picked up her swimsuit and I heard them walk out of the room. The door closed after them, and all was silence except for the sound of my knees knocking together. Then I suddenly came to life in one convulsive tremor, and made a dive toward my clothes.