Long Live the Dead (5 page)

“He’d what?”

“He—well, he said he’d kill her. But he was just talking like that, of course. They were going it hot and heavy, and he was excited.”

“Where does this chap work?” Bill frowned.

“Why, I don’t know. She has a picture of him somewhere, though. Maybe I can find it.”

The woman looked through two chiffonier drawers and found the picture in the third. Bill took it, glanced at it, thrust it into his pocket. He took the girl’s photo, too, and the cheap prints on the wall. “Thanks,” he said. “Got a phone here?”

“We’ve a phone downstairs.”

Bill walked downstairs and dropped a nickel in the slot. He called Jay O’Brien. He said with his mouth close to the tube: “Listen, guy. Tell this one to Macy and watch his eyes glitter. The girl was posing in the nude for an artist bird by the name of Jules Valliers. Ever hear of him? Yeah, I thought so. Good-by, sweetheart.”

Jules Valliers was a thin, ascetic-faced foreigner with raven hair and shifty black eyes. He was, Bill decided after casual scrutiny, the type commonly known as pansy. Women might think him ultra.

Valliers built a church and steeple with his hands and said jerkily: “I quite understand your point, Mr. Evans. She was working for me. But I assure you she left my studio yesterday afternoon precisely as usual. I know nothing of her home life. She was merely an employee.”

“In the nude,” Bill shrugged.

“But an artist attaches no significance to that, Mr. Evans.”

“She posed for you in the nude,” Bill said, “and she was found in the nude.”

“But surely you don’t think—”

“Cops don’t think. All I know, Valliers, is that she was murdered and thrown in the drink. Outside of the murderer—assuming you’re not him—you’re probably the last man saw her alive. What time’d she leave here?”

“Shortly after five o’clock,” Valliers said precisely.

“M’m. Know where she was going?”

“No. Yes—wait a moment. She had a gentleman friend. I believe she intended to meet him.”

“Who?”

“Krauss was the man’s name. Edwin Krauss.”

“Ever meet him?”

“Yes. He has been here on several occasions. You see—” Valliers fingered the crease in his trouser leg—“he is employed in the shop which supplies most of the er—live pets for my work. I have been doing a series of covers—”

“Yeah. I know. What shop?”

“Matthew Fern’s Pet Shop, just below
here
,” Valliers said. “Krauss is Mr. Fern’s assistant.”

“Did the girl ever tell you,” Bill demanded slowly, “that her boy friend, Krauss, threatened to kill her if she didn’t cut posing in the nude.”

“Good heavens, no!”

“No. She wouldn’t. When’d you last see Krauss?”

Valliers did mental arithmetic. “This is Thursday. He came Tuesday morning to bring”—he smiled sheepishly—“some goldfish in a bowl. I needed them for a new picture.”

“Let’s see ’em.”

“What?”

“Let’s see ’em.”

“Why, certainly. But surely a bowl of goldfish—” Valliers walked to the door, opened it. “My studio is at the rear of the house.” He proceeded down the corridor, taking two short mincing steps to Bill’s one.

The studio was a junk shop with three huge windows. Valliers switched on light and said womanishly: “I’m afraid I ought to apologize for the condition of the room.” He led the way through an array of easels and canvas squares, switched on another light, and said: “There it is, Mr. Evans.”

The model stand was low on the floor, draped with black velvet. The goldfish bowl stood front center. Bill stepped sidewise to the unfinished canvas and saw the same layout reproduced in oils, with Rose Veda added. She was nude, lying on her stomach and elbows with one leg kicked up. She was apparently smiling down at the goldfish.

Bill strode to the stand and stood scowling. He walked around it to the rear, put his hand on the knob of a door, and said to Valliers: “Where’s this lead to?”

“To the back stairs,” Valliers said. “I keep it locked.”

Bill tried it, found it locked, and turned away. He stopped, scowled, stooped slowly to pick something like seeds up off the floor, then straightened and put his hands in his pockets.

“Well, I guess that’s all.”

“If you care to see anything else, Mr. Evans—”

“Later. How do I get out of here?”

Valliers said: “This way,” and walked to the head of the carpeted stairs. “If there is anything at all I can do, please feel free to call on me.”

“Thanks. I even might.”

Bill descended the stairs alone and stopped in the lower hall to light a cigarette. He heard Valliers walk back along the upper corridor; then a door slammed. Then a woman’s voice behind him said: “Please. May I speak to you?” and he swung around sharply.

The woman stood in a doorway, beckoning. She wore dark green and she was exceptionally good looking with a severely slender body and precise features. Perhaps twenty-five years old, not more. She stepped backward into dining-room as Bill walked towards her. Closing the door, she put her hand furtively on Bill’s arm and said quickly: “I heard what you and Mr. Valliers said. I listened deliberately. He was lying.”

“Was he?”

“He didn’t tell you all that happened.”

“I didn’t expect him to, little one,” Bill scowled. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Katherine Mitchell, his housekeeper. That is, I’m everything. I’m a secretary of sorts and a maid and—well, everything.”

“And what didn’t he tell me?” Bill said.

“Yesterday—it was about four o’clock—I was in my room writing some letters, and I heard a girl scream upstairs. I ran out of my room and up the stairs, and the studio door was open. Mr. Valliers was bending over the model stand and I could see Rose Veda lying there. Then Jules—Mr. Valliers—saw me and slammed the door shut.”

“And after that?” Bill said quietly.

“I—I went back to my own room, and a little while later I heard Mr. Valliers go out. I was curious, so I went up to the studio to ask Miss Veda what had happened, but she was gone, too.”

“Thanks,” Bill said. “That’ll help. Anything else?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Okey.” Bill put his hands in his pockets and paced to the door. Frowning, he turned back again. “You said you heard a scream and ran upstairs and the studio door was open. Does he usually leave it open when he’s working?”

“No,” the girl faltered. “But—”

“Left it open so you’d be sure to catch him at his dirty work, eh?” Bill said casually. “Thoughtful of him.” He strolled down the hall, opened the front door, and closed it softly after him.

O
utside, the rain was a cold drizzle and the clock in the Park Street Church began to boom nine while Bill slopped across Vernon to Charles. He pushed into a corner drug-store and pawed through the yellow pages of a phone book, looking for the address of Matthew Fern’s Pet Shop. He found it and scribbled it on the back of an envelope. Five minutes later he hammered on the door of the shop itself, three streets distant. The place was closed up.

Sucking a wet cigarette, Bill took a cab to a hotel in Park Square, saluted the doorman, and used a phone in the lobby. He called Jay O’Brien. He said, grinning:

“Listen, sweetheart. I got enough to give Macy a nightmare. Hot and how. You and him going to the fights tonight? Okey. See you ringside and tell you the whole works. What? Me dine with you? Listen, flatfoot, I’m only three steps from the sweetest little waitress in this man’s town. With you along, she wouldn’t see me with sunglasses. Nope, I dine alone. As Ritoli the clam man would say: ‘Yez, zir, mizter.’” By now.”

M
acy, large of fist and small of brain, rubbed moist palms together and said importantly: “It’s a cinch. It’s open and shut. What I don’t get is why you passed it up when it was right in front of your face.”

Macy paced the floor. Jay O’Brien used a pencil to draw pictures on the butt-scarred headquarters desk. Bill sat on the desk with his legs crossed.

“The girl says she heard a scream,” Macy argued. “She ran upstairs and found Valliers leaning over the dead body. Valliers slammed the door in her face. Couple of minutes later he left the house and took the body with him.”

“The point is,” Bill said, “that he slammed the door.”

“Huh?”

“He slammed the door in his secretary’s face. Get it? The door was open.”

“Well, what of it?”

“You’re dumb, Macy.”

“Yeah? I’m dumb? Well, I’ll have Valliers here in an hour, see? And he’ll talk. He’s been in a jam with dames before. I’m dumb, am I?”

Bill said: “Yeah, you’re dumb,” and scooped up his hat. The hands of the wall clock pointed to ten after ten. Halfway to the door Bill turned and said to Jay O’Brien, grinning: “So Schaaf wouldn’t last three rounds, hey? Twenty bucks you owe me. Yez, zir, mizter. Don’t let it slip your memory.”

“Where you goin’?” O’Brien demanded.

“To look at canaries.”

“What?”

“Three rounds,” Bill grinned. “Tsk, tsk. You and Macy should be in business together, selling gold bricks.”

Outside, the sun was shining for the first time in two days. Bill took a cab to the South End, walked up Charles Street, and entered Matthew Fern’s Pet Shop. The shop was small, musty, full of noises and queer smells. Matthew Fern himself, shabbily dressed, near bald, eagle-eyed, was arguing with a fat Italian woman who talked with her shoulders and brandished a box of bird seed in one hand. A thin, worried looking young man came from the rear and said to Bill: “Yes, sir. Can I help you?”

Bill said: “I guess you’re Krauss.”

The young man stared, stepped backward, and said in a low voice: “What do you want?”

“Talk to you.”

“I’m only the assistant here,” Krauss said quickly. “Mr. Fern will be through in a minute and he’ll—”

“Never mind Fern. Want to talk to you. Private.”

Krauss licked his lips. “Yes, sir.”

“Got a back room here?”

“Yes, sir. Yes.”

“That’ll do. Let’s go.”

Krauss glanced furtively at Matthew Fern, turned, and walked quickly to the rear. He opened a door and said: “There’s a step here.” His thin fingers groped along the wall for a light switch.

Bill trailed him inside and sat in an old rocker. The room was small, low ceilinged, choked with piled-up boxes, floor covered with oily black dirt and cigarette butts. There was a window, but the lower half of it was painted black. Bill sucked a pipe and began to crumble tobacco in his left palm. Krauss, breathing heavily, sat in a straight-backed chair, leaned forward, and said: “Well, what do you want? Who are you?”

“You’re in a jam, Krauss.”

“Why? Why am I?”

“I guess you know why.”

“I didn’t do it!” Krauss said. “If you think I did it, you’re crazy. I’ll admit she was my girl friend, but—”

“Well?”

“I guess I better keep still. I’ll only get myself in worse.”

“How’d you know she was dead?” Bill said casually.

“I—I had a date with her last night. She didn’t show up, so I went over to her house. I was sore. I talked to Mrs. Vail—she’s the woman who runs the house and she told me what’d happened.”

“And she, I suppose, got it from friend Macy.”

“What?”

“Never mind, never mind. Some guys are born dumb.” Bill pulled his mouth out of shape with the stem of his pipe. “You didn’t like the idea of your girl posing naked; did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Had some pretty strong arguments about it, didn’t you?”

“Well—yes.”

“Maybe you even threatened to kill her if she didn’t cut it out, hey?”

“I didn’t mean it,” Krauss faltered. “I only told her that because I was sore; that’s all. You’d be sore yourself if the girl you were going to marry was posing—”

“Yeah; I know. Don’t think much of Valliers, do you?”

“No, I don’t. He’s no good. He’s got a rotten reputation with women.”

“Ever talk to him about Rose?”

“No.”

“But you went to his house a few times?”

“I—yes, but I went on business. I had to take some stuff over from the store, and—”

“All right,” Bill said. “That’s all.”

He knocked his pipe out on the arm of the rocker and stood up. Krauss stood up, too. Suddenly Krauss took a step forward.

“You don’t think I did it, do you? You don’t think I’d kill the girl I love, just because—”

“You’re in a jam,” Bill shrugged. “What I think won’t get you out of it.”

He opened the door, scowling. In the store the fat Italian woman was still talking with her shoulders and Matthew Fern was mopping his bald head with a handkerchief. Outside, Bill hailed a cab and said to the driver: “Hello, Ricki. I’m having tea with Jay O’Brien. Three Rounds O’Brien.” He stretched his six foot-two bulk-in the seat and laughed softly. “And with Macy. Dear old Macy, the Great Brain. Don’t hurry, Ricki. Take your time.”

T
hree men were in the back room at headquarters when Bill strolled in. Macy, the Great Brain, was striding from wall to wall, both hands wedged in his hip pockets, words growling from his mouth. Jay O’Brien sat sidewise on a table, pensively studying the shaft of smoke from a fat cigar. Jules Valliers cringed in a straight-backed chair, feet braced, eyes wide, hands rigid in his lap. Macy was saying:

“You’ll talk. Yes, sir, you’ll talk. There’s ways and ways. Well put the screws to you, mister. Tighter guys’n you have opened their traps. What’d you kill her for?”

Valliers said shrilly: “I didn’t. I don’t know anything about it.”

“You know, mister. You know, all right. You’ll tell what you know, too. You’ll come clean or you’ll sit here and rot.”

Bill closed the door behind him and said softly: “My, such language.” Macy jerked around and said: “You’re just in time, guy. Have a seat, ringside.”

Jay O’Brien said: “Greetings, gorgeous. When did school let out?” Bill found a chair near the wall and sat down with his feet sprawled in front of him. He said: “Go ahead. Don’t mind me.” He took a match from his vest pocket, stuck it corner-wise in his mouth, and stared across at Valliers. Valliers’ hands were kneading imaginary dough.

“Now get this straight,” Macy growled, standing stiff-legged. “You’re gonna talk, see? You’re gonna talk if it takes all night. You killed the girl, didn’t you?”