1957 - The Guilty Are Afraid (12 page)

He looked as if he had suddenly bitten into a quince.

“That might be arranged, but we would have to be sure first that this case is connected with Creedy.”

“That’s understood. In the meantime do I get any help from anyone?”

“Rankin knows what I’m arranging with you. If you will contact him at his home from time to time he will let you know what progress he has made. You’ll find him in the book.”

“What’s the name of this Editor you mentioned: the firebrand?”

“Ralph Troy. You can rely on him. Give him the facts and he’ll print.”

“But first I’ve got to find the facts.” I looked at him. “Well, I’ll see what I can dig up. So long for now.”

He offered a limp hand.

“Good luck and be careful.”

No one could say he was a ray of sunshine. I knew I would need some luck and I was certainly going to be careful.

III

O
n my way out I wondered if I was too late to catch a glimpse of Marcus Hahn. I was curious to get a look at him without him getting a look at me.

I asked the desk sergeant where the morgue was, explaining that I wanted a word with Lieutenant Rankin if he were still there.

The sergeant told me to follow the corridor to the rear door, turn left and I’d see the morgue light straight ahead.

I followed his directions.

The entrance to the morgue was across the yard. A blue lamp above the door made a ghostly light. Two windows of the low building showed lights and, moving quietly, I crossed the dark courtyard and looked in through one of the windows.

Rankin was standing by a table on which lay Thelma Cousins’ body, covered to the neck by the sheet. Facing him was a slightly built man with a mass of corn-coloured hair and a chin beard to match. He was wearing a cowboy shirt of blue and yellow checks, black trousers, skin tight at the hips and that belled out around his ankles. On his feet he wore Mexican boots with high heels, and with some tricky inlaid silver work on them.

He was good looking if you could accept the long hair and the beard. He had a good nose, deep-set, intelligent eyes and a dome of a forehead.

While he listened to Rankin, he kept smacking the side of his boot with a thin riding whip.

Maybe if he had had a horse with him he would have been impressive. Without the horse, he looked just another Californian screwball.

Rankin seemed to be doing most of the talking. Hahn just nodded and uttered a word here and there. I could see from Rankin’s expression that he was getting nowhere. Finally he flicked the sheet over the dead girl’s face as a signal the interview was over, and Hahn started across the room for the door.

I stepped quickly back into the shadows.

Hahn came out, crossed the yard with long strides, flicking his leg with his whip. He disappeared through the doorway, leading to the street exit.

I moved around to the entrance to the morgue, pushed open the door and went in.

Rankin was just about to turn off the lights when he saw me and his hard, tight face showed his surprise.

“What do you want?”

“Was that Hahn?”

“Yeah: a phony if ever there was one, but he does all right with his pots. He must be making a small fortune out of the sucker trade.” Rankin suppressed a yawn. “Know what he told me? This will kill you.” He touched the dead girl’s arm. “She wasn’t only religious, but she never went around with men. She hadn’t even a boyfriend unless you can call her priest her boyfriend. He was the only one she went around with, and then only to help him collect for the poor. Doc says she’s a virgin. I’ll talk to the priest tomorrow, but I think we can believe Hahn.”

“And yet she went around with Sheppey.”

Rankin grimaced.

“Was he all that good? Could he have made a girl like her fall for him?”

“I wouldn’t put it beyond him. He had a technique all of his own, but I don’t like it a lot. He didn’t go for the religious type. Maybe he and she were on the level. She might have been helping him: giving him information.”

“Would they go swimming together; sharing the same cabin if it was only that?”

I shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, at least, it doesn’t look as if we’ll have to look for a boyfriend, does it?” He wandered over to the light switch and turned it off. “You playing along with Holding?” His voice came out of the semi-darkness. The light from the outside blue lamp made a silver puddle on the morgue floor.

“I said I would. He tells me I can look you up at your house if I want any information.”

“He didn’t tell you you could look him up at his house, did he?”

“No.”

Rankin moved over to me.

“He wouldn’t. He never takes chances.” He put his hand on my arm. “You want to watch him: you’re not the first guy he’s taken for a ride. He’s been in office now for four years and he hasn’t got there or stayed there without a lot of help. He has a nice, well-developed talent for getting someone else to row his boat for him. He’s the only punk I’ve ever known who hunts with the Administration and runs with the opposition and gets away with it. So watch him.”

He walked out of the morgue, his hands thrust deep in his coat pockets, his shoulders hunched, his head bent.

I stood for a long moment, turning this information over in my mind. Even if he hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have trusted Mr. Holding. He hadn’t been born with the face of a ferret for nothing.

I left the morgue, closed the door and walked quickly down the passage and on to the street.

The time was now twenty-five minutes to two o’clock. I was pretty tired, and it was nice to sink into the upholstered seat of the Buick.

I got back to the hotel as the clock was striking two. The night clerk looked reproachfully at me as I crossed the lobby. I was too tired to bother with him. I got into the elevator, rode up to the second floor, tramped wearily down the corridor to my room. I unlocked the door, pushed it open and turned on the light.

Then I swore under my breath.

The room had been given the same treatment as Sheppey’s room. The drawers in the chest were hanging out, the mattress was ripped open, the pillows were slashed. My stuff had been tossed out of my suitcases and strewn all over the floor. Even Sheppey’s stuff had been thrown around too.

I went quickly to where I had hidden the match-folder.

My fingers slid under the edge of the carpet and I grinned.

The match-folder was still there.

I hooked it out and, sitting back on my heels, I opened it. The loose match that I had wedged in between the others fell out and I had to scrabble among the pillow feathers to find it. If someone had been looking for this folder, I thought, they had gone away without it. But suddenly I stopped feeling pleased as I turned the match over. There were no ciphers along its back! A quick check showed me that there were no ciphers on the back of the other matches either.

I straightened up.

Someone had taken away Sheppey’s folder and had left another, probably hoping I hadn’t spotted the ciphers on the back of the original one.

I sank down on my ripped-up bed, too tired even to care.

Chapter 7

I

I
slept until eleven-fifteen the following morning.

When I had telephoned down to the night clerk to tell him I couldn’t use the room I was in and why, he had promptly called the police, and I had had yet another visit from Candy.

I didn’t tell him about the match-folder. I let him see for himself what had happened, and when he had asked if there was anything missing, I had said, as far as I could see, nothing was.

I then moved into another room, leaving him and his fingerprint men to check for clues. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t find anything.

As soon as I got into bed I went out like a light. It was the hot sun, coming through the chinks in the blind making me uncomfortably hot, that finally woke me. I telephoned down for coffee and toast, went into the bathroom, took a shower, shaved and then lay on the bed, waiting for the coffee.

I had a lot to think about. There were a number of loose ends to this investigation that needed to be followed up.

Was there any connecting link between the Musketeer Club and Hahn’s School of Ceramics? Was this link something that Sheppey had been working on? Did Marcus Hahn figure in the case? Had Creedy hired Sheppey to watch his wife, and had Sheppey stumbled on something quite away from this assignment? What had he been doing in the bathing cabin with a girl like Thelma Cousins?

The coffee arrived before I could attempt to answer any of these questions. While I was drinking it, the telephone bell rang.

It was Rankin.

“I hear you had visitors last night.”

“Yes.”

“Any idea who they were?”

I stared up at the ceiling as I said, “I’d have told Candy if I had. They went through Sheppey’s things, now they’ve given me the same treatment.”

“Watch out they don’t give you an icepick.”

“There’s that.”

“I thought I’d check with you. Candy didn’t find a thing. You have no ideas?”

“Not at the moment. I’m bending my brain on it now. If I come up with anything I’ll tell you.”

There was a pause, then he said, “I’ve talked to the priest. Hahn wasn’t lying. This girl was just what he said she was. She didn’t go out with men, and the priest said she would never associate with any strange man. He’s quite convinced about that.”

“She associated with Sheppey.”

“Yeah. Well, I have work to do. I’m trying to get a line on that icepick.”

“I was going to ask you about that. No prints?”

“No. You can buy a pick like that at any hardware store. I have men asking around. If I get anything I’ll let you know.”

I thanked him. At least I was getting more cooperation from him than I had expected.

He reminded me I would have to attend the inquest on Sheppey’s death that would be held in the late afternoon, then he hung up.

I finished my coffee, then called Ella at the office. I asked her how Sheppey’s wife had taken the news. She said she had had a bad time with her, but she thought she would be over the shock by now.

“She’ll have my letter this morning. Keep the cash box locked, Ella. It’s my bet she’ll be around asking for some dough before long. Tell her I’ll be mailing her a cheque tonight.”

Ella said she would do that.

We talked business for a few minutes. Two cases had come in: both of them sounded lucrative and interesting but I wasn’t even tempted.

“See if Corkhill will handle them on a fifty-fifty basis,” I said. “I’m staying here until I’ve cracked this one. Can you manage?”

“Of course.”

And I knew she would manage. She was as sharp and as smart as anyone I could hope to have working for me. We talked some more, then I said I’d call her in a day or so and hung up.

By now my room was unpleasantly hot.

I still felt a little under the weather and decided I’d go down to the beach, take a swim and then plan out a campaign with the sun to inspire me.

I got dressed, dug out my swimming trunks from my bag and stuffed them into my pocket, then I took the elevator to the ground floor.

Brewer, the fat reception clerk, took my key.

“Mr. Brandon,” he said, looking confused, “I’m afraid that . . .”

“I know: don’t tell me,” I said. “You have a sudden rush of business and you could use my room.” I smiled at him. “I don’t blame you. Okay, I’ll find somewhere else. Just give me until tonight.”

“I’m sorry, but we are getting a lot of complaints.” He actually looked sorry. “We have had the police here four times in twenty-four hours since you’ve been here.”

“Yes, I know. I can imagine how you feel about that. I’ll move out tonight.”

“That’s very nice of you, Mr. Brandon.”

I went out to the Buick and drove down to the beach. By then it was just after twelve noon, and the beach was crowding up. I managed to find a place to leave the Buick, then I made my way to a bathing station. The umbrellas were out. The boys and girls were already at play: some were throwing the medicine ball, some swimming, some starting on the round of before-lunch cocktails from silver flasks, some were just lying and letting the sun burn them up.

I changed into my trunks, stepped over muscular, brown bodies, picked my way past blondes, brunettes and redheads, wearing the minimum, before I could get to the sea.

I swam out for about a quarter of a mile at my fastest clip. I felt in need of the exercise. Then I turned around and came back more leisurely. The sun was hot now, and there were even less places on the beach.

I came out of the sea and paused to look around, trying to find a place where I needn’t rub shoulders with anyone else, but it wasn’t easy. Then I saw a girl, sitting under a blue and white umbrella, waving at me.

She was wearing a white swimsuit and she had on a pair of doughnut-sized sun goggles. I recognized her silky blonde hair and her shape before I recognized what I could see of her face.

Margot Creedy was inviting me to join her.

I picked my way over the bodies until I reached her.

She looked up at me, her lovely face wearing a slightly cautious expression, and she gave me the same small smile she had given me when we had first met.

“It’s Mr. Brandon, isn’t it?” she said, and she sounded slightly breathless. “It is Mr. Brandon?”

“Well, if it isn’t, someone has stolen my skin,” I said. “Is that Miss Creedy behind those big, big goggles?”

She laughed and took the goggles off. Make no mistake about this fact: the girl was quite a dish. Apart from her shape which, in that swimsuit, was sensational, there wasn’t a flaw in her.

“Won’t you sit down or are you tied up or something?”

I dropped down on the hot sand right by her.

I said I wasn’t tied up or anything, and went on, “Thank you for being helpful last night. I wasn’t expecting you to do that for me.”

“I just happened to be at the club.” She hugged her knees, staring over the top of them at the sea. “Besides, I was curious. There’s something intriguing as well as morbid about a murder case, isn’t there?” She put on her goggles again. I was sorry because they were so big they blotted out half her face. “I was quite sure when you asked me if your friend had been to the club that he hadn’t. I just had to check to see if I were right. It is very difficult now for a non-member to get in.”