The Case of the Lazy Lover (18 page)

Fleetwood glanced appealingly at Lieutenant Tragg. What he saw in Tragg's face was not reassuring.

"All right," Fleetwood blurted suddenly. "I'll tell you the truth, and the whole truth. Then you can see the spot I was in. Allred had a partner in some mining deals, a man named Jerome. Jerome was a pretty tough citizen. In working back over some of the books, I found where Allred h been gypping Jerome. Jerome wasn't the sort of a man you could gyp without having to face a lot of disagreeable consequences.

"I made the mistake of letting Allred find out what I had discovered. First he tried to bribe to silence. Then he tried to threaten me to silence. Then, all of a sudden, he became very nice and suave and started telling me it was all a mistake and that he'd explain it tome by producing some additional evidence, but that that could wait until tomorrow, that I could have dinner with them and that we'd forget about business for an evening.

"I pretended to fall for it like a ton of bricks, because I knew the man was desperate, and I was unarmed. All of a sudden I was afraid of what might happen. I just wanted to get out of there, so I told him I was going to change my clothes, and that I'd be back for dinner. I had managed to get George Jerome on the telephone earlier and told him who was talking, but Allred suddenly became suspicious and started back for the room where the phone was, and I had to hang up in a hurry and pretend I was rummaging around in the files. He finally came to the conclusion I hadn't phoned, but he was suspicious, and very edgy.

"Well, as I said, I started to get out of there, saying that I was going home to change my clothes, and he was all cordiality, patting me on the back and calling me his boy. It was a nasty, dark, rainy night. We'd been working until pretty late. I guess it was about half past seven or so. The Allreds have dinner at eight-fifteen every night. I left the wing of the house where Allred has his offices and started to walk across the patio, walking along the edge of that hedge. And believe me, I kept looking behind me. I was plenty jittery.

"I'd got to the point where the driveway comes in and had reached the end of the hedge when all of a sudden it felt as though fireworks had started going off inside my brain. Of course, I may have been hit by an automobile driven by Patricia Allred, but my own hunch is that Allred smacked me on the head with the blackjack, and probably hit me a couple of times more for luck while I was down.

"I know now what happened. Patricia was coming home in a hurry. Her mother was with her. They saw Allred's car parked so that the rear bumper was almost on the edge of the driveway and did the natural thing. They turned their car suddenly and a little too sharp. The fender on Pat's car went through the edge of the hedge. That was all Allred wanted. He thought he had committed the perfect crime. The only thing was, he hadn't taken note of the thickness of my skull.

"Later on he pretend to be very much concerted about Pat hitting me with the car. Patricia was half crazy with remorse. The minute I started regaining consciousness, I realized I was in a spot. At the time, to tell you the truth, I didn't know very much about Mrs. Allred. I didn't know how much she knew or whether she was in on what had been happening. I just knew that I was sick and hardly able to crawl and in the hands of people who wanted to kill me.

"So I got a bright idea. I pretended that I' d just regained consciousness. I had to. Allred was getting ready to load me in a car and take me to a hospital. I knew what that meant. So I opened my eyes. Then I put on the amnesia act.

"I think, at that, I fooled Allred. He wasn't entirely fooled but it would have been a beautiful way out for him. If I only had had real amnesia and couldn't remember who I was or anything about my associates, I wouldn't be in a position to tell Jerome anything. I wouldn't even remember what I had discovered about Allred's double crossing. And Allred would have a chance to get a deal with Jerome all closed up and be sitting pretty.

"Allred would have killed me if he'd had to, but he didn't want to unless he did have to. He told his wife that the thing to do was to take me some place where I could be quiet. She was to pretend she was my older sister and all that line of hooey."

Fleetwood turned to Mason suddenly and said, "Give me a cigarette."

Mason handed him a cigarette. Fleetwood lit it with a hand that was trembling so he had to steady the match with the other hand in order to get it to the end of the cigarette.

"Go ahead," Tragg said.

Fleetwood said, "Allred was smart. He sent me out with his wife that way, thinking that if I had genuine amnesia, he'd have time to do something about it. But just in case I was putting on an act he started spreading the word around that I'd eloped with her.

"You can see the beautiful position in which that put him. He could catch up with us, kill us both and claim it was the unwritten law.

"Well, Allred was pretending to be my brother-in-law, and I honestly thought that, if I kept up the amnesia act until he'd concluded a deal with Jerome, that would be all there'd be to it. But I hated Allred's two-timing, alai I decided I'd get word to Jerome, if I had a chance, and tell Jerome to get a gun and come out and join us, have a showdown with Allred and take me away with him.

"Well, I never had a chance to get to a phone without getting caught; but I felt I had at least four or five days more. We left Springfield and drove a hundred miles or so north. Then Mrs. Allred got a chance to phone her husband, He evidently told her to come back and go to that Snug-Rest Auto Court.

"Well, we did it. We got to the Snug-Rest and waited there. We had a few drinks. Then Allred showed up. He told us to get our luggage together, because we had to move. Then when we were packed and had the luggage in the car, he suddenly told Lola to climb in the luggage compartment.

"I knew what was up right then. I guess he knew I was wise. He shoved a gun in my ribs, and when his wife tried to grab his arm, he socked her one right in the fate. It gave her a bloody nose.

"Then at the point of the gun, he made her get in the luggage compartment. Then he slammed down the lid on the turtleback and told me to get in the car and start driving. I knew that he had me over a barrel. I drove the car. But, believe me, I was intending to drive it off the road and take a chance on a smashup. But Allred was wise. He wouldn't let me get up any speed. He said, "Put it in low gear and keep it in low gear."' "What did you do?" Tragg asked.

"Well, you know how it is when you're driving a car in low gear. You have lots of control over the car and it's surprising what you can do to a passenger who isn't looking for surprises. We rounded a curve and I stepped on the throttle and the car shot ahead with all the power of the motor in low gear. Allred was thrown back against the cushions. He tried to brace himself, to push himself forward and push the gun forward so it would still be pointing at me; and then I slammed on the brakes.

"Stopping the car that way, right at the time Allred was pushing himself forward, slammed his body forward. His head hit against the windshield. I gave him an elbow on the face and the minute his head hit the windshield, I grabbed the gun and slammed the barrel down on his head hard.

"Allred went out like a light. He slumped down in the corner of the car over against the door on the right-hand side.

"I started to put him out of the car right then. But if I did that I was afraid he'd regain consciousness and tell some story to officers that would get me pinched for stealing the car. I just wanted to get away from Allred and wanted to get out of the whole mess. I decided to leave Allred in the car and get out and walk. However, I didn't want to do that until I was near a town or some place – and that's where I remembered this man Overbrook."

"What about Overbrook?" Tragg asked.

"I hadn't met him, but there had been some correspondence with him that I'd seen in the office. He and Allred had been in a mining deal and, I guess, Allred had trimmed him. But that's neither here nor there. I knew from the correspondence I'd seen that Overbrook had an isolated little ranch up in the mountains and that the road turned off within a few miles of where we had stopped. I got the idea of carrying on my pretense of amnesia. I knew that if it came to a showdown and I had to appeal for help, Overbrook would stand with me against Allred.

"Well, gentlemen, that was all there was to it. I came to the turn-off within a mile, took the dirt road, drove up to within a quarter of a mile of Overbrook's place, and swung off the road.

"What about Mrs. Allred?"

Fleetwood grinned and said, "Believe you me, Mrs. Allred had had all she wanted. She'd managed to work the catch on the inside of the lid of the luggage compartment, probably by using a jack handle. Anyway, she'd managed to get the lid unlatched. The minute I stopped. the car, she raised the lid of the luggage compartment, jumped to the ground, and ran like a deer."

"What happened?"

"I called to her and said, 'It's all right, Lola.' "

"What did she do?"

"She kept right on going." 'Then what?" Mason asked. "Was Allred dead?"

"No, but he was still unconscious. He was breathing, a deep, heavy breathing. You could hear it all over the car as soon as the motor was stopped."

"You had Allred's gun?"

"Yes."

"Why were you so afraid of Allred? If you had the gun, why didn't you simply leave the car on the pavement, get out and start walking and…"

"And where would I have walked?" Fleetwood asked. "It was a cold, misty night with a nasty drizzle. Everything was wet, and up in the mountains it was cold. I wanted a place to sleep and I didn't intend to be wandering around on the highway. And I didn't want to dump Allred out in the rain. I wanted to leave him the car so he could recover consciousness and drive himself home. I just wanted to get clean away from him, but I thought it would be swell under the circumstances if I could keep on with that amnesia gag. I had a girl friend, this Bernice Archer, and -- well, I thought amnesia be a pretty slick thing all the way along the line."

"Hadn't you been making a play for Patricia Faxon?" Mason asked.

"It depends on what you mean by a play. She is a pretty swell dish. I looked her over pretty carefully, and tried to find out if she wanted to play."

"Did she?"

"No."

"Didn't it go farther than that?"

Fleetwood said, "I'm no tin angel. I probably would have thrown Bernice Archer overboard and married Patricia if Patricia had given me the green light. I thought for a while she was going to do that, but she didn't. Patricia has dough of her own, and her mother is lousy with the stuff. The man who marries Pat Faxon doesn't need to worry about wok, and if he knows a little something about mining investments, he can cut himself quite a piece of cake. However, that's neither here nor there. I'm giving it to you gentlemen straight. Bernice Archer was my girl. She still is. She's a sweet kid."

"You've seen her since you've been here?" Mason asked.

"Of course, I've seen her," Fleetwood said. "She came to me first thing when she knew I was here. She was with me for nearly an hour. She's a sweet kid."

"And did you tell her this story?" Mason asked.

"No," Fleetwood said "I kept on with the amnesia gag. I thought it was the best way out of a lot of things."

"Did you fool her?"

"I don't know. You never can be too certain about Bernice that way. She pretended to be fooled."

"You didn't tell her anything at all about what had happened up there?"

"Certainly not. I told her I couldn't remember a thing that had happened from the time I was struck on the head there at Allred's house until I recovered consciousness ust as I was being taken to the police station."

"All right," Tragg said impatiently, "never mind about your love affairs. Tell me the details of what happened. Mrs. Allred jumped out of the baggage compartment. Was the lid of the baggage compartment still up?"

"No. It slammed down when she jumped out. She didn't push it up far enough for it to remain in an upright position."

"And that blood in the baggage compartment?"

"The blood must have come from her bloody nose," Fleetwood said. "That's the only way I can account for it."

"So what did you do?"

"I'd got out of the car. I'd left Allred in it. Allred was still unconscious, but he was beginning to stir around a little bit and show signs of regaining consciousness.

"I knew I was within a short distance of Overbrook's house. I got out and listened. I could hear a dog barking and it sounded pretty close. I walked around the car and when I got in front of the car, I took the gun by the barrel and threw it just as far as I could throw it out into the darlmess. I made a pretty good job of it. It seemed quite a while before I heard it hit the ground. Then I started walking toward the sound of the barking dog. I guess it was about three or four hundred yards before I came to the house. I knocked on the door. After a while Overbrook got up and wanted to know what I wanted. I told him that I guessed I'd been in an automobile accident or something because I found myself walking along the road with no idea of where I was or how I'd got there.