The Case of the Vanishing Beauty

by Richard S. Prather

  It was light enough now so that the walk back across the grass wasn't so eerie. We made it to the temple and I followed the women inside the front door and into a massive room covered on all four walls with black draperies. The woman I'd followed about half my time here, the one with the round, pixie face, seated me on the floor—no furniture, not a stick and seated herself cross-legged opposite me. I thought maybe she was going to contemplate her navel, yoga fashion, but no such luck. This deal was on a high plane.

  The other woman went through the draperies at the back of the room and disappeared. Maybe it was coincidence, but thirty seconds after she was out of sight, organ music swelled and throbbed in the room.

  We sat in silence relieved by the organ tones for another thirty seconds. I looked at the woman, wondering what I was supposed to do now. Maybe get myself shot.

  I still wanted a smoke.

  On my right, on the floor, appeared a couple of big, black shoes. Above them, hanging down to their tops, was a shirtlike circle of heavy black cloth. I looked up.

  Well, lo and behold. Nards. The old boy was going to handle this part of the caper all by himself. Strike while the iron is hot. I started to stand up but he stuck out a long, thin-fingered hand to indicate that I wasn't to rise. I couldn't, I'd have smacked into his paw. I eased myself back down and looked up at him. With that turban on his head he looked about nine feet tall. His head scraped the lofty ceiling. Eyestrain, huh? O.K., chum, get on with it.

  So far nobody had said a word. Now the woman rose gracefully, faced Nards, and quickly and softly told him who I was and that I was interested in the "Secret Ritual of the Master Plan of the Inner World Society of Truth Believers." She called him Father, but the way she looked at him I guessed she'd rather have been calling him Daddy.

  He said, "Thank you, Loren."

  She skipped over the word "philanthropies" so fast I hardly caught it myself, but you can bet Nards got it. Then she bowed in front of him, the loose robes revealing, as they draped from her shoulders, not much to me, but I'll bet plenty to him. The word to describe what he did with his eyes is "ogle." The look he gave out was hardly fatherly, and not exactly in character, even from where I still sat on the floor.

  She went out and he pulled his eyes away from her and back to me.

  "I am Narda," he said as if he enjoyed it. "What, exactly, is your interest in the Inner World Society, my son?"

  Son, he says. He probably wasn't much over forty himself, if any. A neat trick.

  "I was present this morning," I said. "It was a revelation to me. Beautiful. It is what I have needed since…since the death of my beloved sister. I have been alone till now." I shut up and waited to see if he swallowed it. He'd have swallowed anything that smelled like money. I continued, "I should like to help."

  He nodded solemnly.

  My legs were starting to feel as if I had lumbago, and my neck was getting a crick in it. I took a deep breath and looked up at him, feeling a little dizzy and very damned silly. "I have a great deal of money. I should like to aid in the movement, the Society. I feel that I have been given a new reason for being and I am grateful to you." I almost threw up when I said it, but I didn't want to spoil the play. Not just yet.

  "I am thankful," he said, "to have been the instrument of your salvation, my son. We are, in fact, in dire need of material assistance. Our spiritual wealth is great, but—"

  The front door opened and two men walked in. They still looked like two prints from the same negative.

  The hard-faced gent in front spotted me on the floor. His eyes narrowed, and like a spring uncoiling his left hand leaped to his right armpit and came out with a small, vicious-looking automatic. His lips curled back from his teeth and he drawled, "I'll be gawdamned."

  I uncrossed my legs and started to get up. The twin's face didn't change, but he squeezed down on the trigger of his gun and blasted at me. The slug ripped through the padding of the left shoulder of my coat, and wound up somewhere in the floor behind me.

  I glared at him, starting to burn.

  "Thet wasn't no accident, Scott," he drawled. "Thet's where I was aimin'."

  I got both feet under me and started up again. He sent another slug through the padding on the other side.

  "Set!" he snapped. "Till I tell ya." He looked at me for a moment, then said, "O.K., Scott. You can git up now. Easy-like."

  I stood up and hated him across the room. "You're good," I said. "You must be proud. That's going to cost you just two hundred fish, mister. If you stay alive."

  He laughed. He jerked his head at the other twin. "Git his gun, Paul."

  Narda looked as if he'd bet on four aces and was staring dismally at a small straight flush. "What…what…" he sputtered.

  I took a good look at him. Now that I was on my feet, he wasn't nine feet tall. Without the turban, he would have stood three or four inches shorter than me, which would make him about five-ten or five-eleven—a little less than six feet—and in the heavy black robe that hung nearly to the floor, the only garment he wore other than the turban, he looked pretty stocky. But his face was thin, and filled with bewilderment now.

  I said, "You should have looked into the future, Narda. It was all there."

  "Shet your face." The twin with the gun waved it at me. He spoke to Narda out of the side of his mouth, barely moving his lips. "This jerk's a shamus. A private dick. He's playin' you for a sucker, Narda. He's workin' for the Martin dame."

  Narda recovered his composure. He snapped his head around to me, then said to the gunman, "Take care of him, Peter. You know where to put him. Hold him there." Peter said, "I got a better idea."

  "Hold him," Narda said quietly. He turned and went stiffly out of the room as if he was walking on eggs.

  The twin called Paul walked up to my side, reached under my coat, and lifted out my revolver. I looked down at him, at the padded, extremely draped suit, the tight mouth, the cold blue eyes, and the dark wavy hair, carefully combed and pushed into place. I looked back to Peter.

  "Which one of you guys has the Toni?"

  I didn't see it coming. Paul had my gun clutched in his left hand. He threw up his arm and slammed the gun hard against my jaw.

  I stumbled on still cramped legs and went flat on my back. I lay there a moment trying to get a grip on the rage building inside me. It didn't hurt, but when I put my hand against my jaw I brought it away with a spot of blood in the palm. I wiped my hand on the smooth tan gabardine of my coat; it was ruined, anyway. So was my jaw, probably.

  "You bastards play rough."

  "Be nice. We wouldn't hurt you, pal. We like peepers." It was the twin called Paul, the first time he'd spoken. He even sounded like his brother.

  I said, "That's what I figured," and got up.

  Paul turned to his brother and said, "Shall we kill him here? How about it?"

  "Naw. Let's do it someplace else. Let's do it right."

  They were having a kick for themselves. From what Narda had said, though, I didn't think I was supposed to be cooled. Not right now, anyway. I hoped I was right.

  They didn't scare me, but they brought up a question. I said to Peter, "Tell me, sharpie. Just what are two hired gunmen doing working for a religious organization? You two the Inner World missionaries? You go out and cram your particular slogans down the chosen throats?"

  Peter made a clucking sound with his tongue. "You talk like a unbeliever, Scott. Too bad. A unbeliever. Why, we send unbelievers to hell, Scott."

  "Funny thing," I said, "but you make me sick. You can put your plaything away. Why, you're so good you'd draw and plug me before I could move an inch."

  "You want some more work on your jaw, pal?"

  I shut up. I'm not so tough…

  They took off the blindfold and Peter said, "Here you are, pal. See, we didn't even hurt you much."

  I didn't say anything. We'd come around in circles and wound up in a hall on the second story of a house somewhere. That's about all I could figure, but I
didn't think we were far out of town.

  The twins pushed me up to a door and one of them—I couldn't tell them apart now that they were mixed up—pulled a key out of his pocket. He pushed open the door and the other twin, with a gun stuck in my back, gave me a shove inside.

  "Keep it quiet, pal," he grated. "We'll be around."

  The door slammed shut behind me, and I took my first look at Tracy Martin.

  Chapter Eight

  YES, SIR. That's how you find a girl. Go down to the gas and light companies. See if she's put in for a change of service. Same for the phone company. Check the post office for a change of address. Dig into the marriage files and see what home town she put on her marriage license, who her folks are, where she was born. Go talk to folks at her church. Check charge accounts, automobile registrations.

  Or go get yourself slammed on the jaw and tossed into a room with her.

  She was sitting in a squat wooden chair, the only piece of furniture in the room, and she looked up at me as the door slammed shut. She was the sweetheart in the pictures and she looked like the girl you were out with on your first real date when you were very young, and very much in love. She was grown-up now, more mature, more womanly, but the same girl.

  We clicked like new dice rolling up a seven. You know what I look like: the busted nose and clipped ear, the screwy eyebrows—face a little off center. You know what I mean. Well, she was a little bit the same way. Her face wasn't quite right. It wasn't a face you'd see on magazine covers or featured at premieres. Not that kind of face. You figured she'd look better without that mole at the side of her mouth, but after you'd been with her an hour you wouldn't have had her any other way. Her eyebrows were a little too full and a little too straight, but she did have a nice mouth. Warm. Full lips. Red, kissable. The upper lip was too short, but it was cute. And the eyes were really beautiful. Green and deep and cool. Everything added up to a gal that wasn't a glamour-puss, but she was nice just the same. Wholesome. She looked as if she'd be fun to talk to.

  "Friend or enemy?" she asked casually in a small, quiet voice.

  "Friend."

  "Thanks for coming. I was lonesome."

  "Forget it. It was nothing. Nothing." I grinned at her and started walking around the room, looking it over.

  "It's not going to do you any good," she said. "I've been all over it fifty times. The only way out is the way you came in. No windows, the door's thick, and it's locked. Period."

  I walked over to her and squatted down beside the chair. "Doesn't look so good, does it, Tracy?"

  Her eyes opened wide in surprise. "How did you know my name? And who are you?"

  It hit me with a kind of sickening shock that she must not know her sister was dead. Murdered. She'd been cooped up in here, probably since Friday.

  I said, "It's a long story, Tracy. I'll tell you all about it in a little while. We've got lots of time."

  "I suppose. Golly, I've been in here so long I could scream. I haven't even been out once. What are they keeping me here for? I haven't done anything." She shook her head slowly. "I can't understand why. Is it still Saturday? Or is it Sunday? I'm mixed up on what day it is."

  "It's Sunday. Sunday morning. Almost seven o'clock."

  "Golly. Dad and Sis must be worried sick."

  "I talked to them yesterday."

  "Oh?" Her eyes lit up. "How are they? They must be looking all over for me. Say, you haven't told me who you are or anything. What's going on, anyway?"

  "My name's Shell Scott, Tracy. I'm a private detective."

  "Detective?"

  "Uh-huh. Your sister hired me, She came to my office yesterday and told me you were missing. She wanted me to help her find you. But there was more to it than that. Frankly, she acted a little strange, and I'm not sure just what all she wanted—besides you, of course. I'm sure there was more. Maybe if you can tell me how you wound up here, the whole thing, I can make some sense out of it. O.K.?"

  "I guess so. You said you talked to Dad. What did he say?"

  I shook my head. "Uh-uh. You first." She was taking the mess she was in like a little trouper. But it was obvious she didn't really know the kind of jam she was in—that both of us were probably not long for this world. Maybe I should have been more worried myself. I hated the thought of telling her what we were up against. And the truth about Georgia.

  She smiled. "Me first? That how detectives work?"

  "That's how this one works."

  "Well, all right." She looked into my face, then at my clothes. She frowned. "Golly, what happened to you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, your face. And your clothes. Did you get in a fight?"

  "Oh. Yeah, sort of. Those nice guys that tossed me in here. They wanted some laughs. Never mind that. You were going to spin me a story."

  Her face sobered. "Where'll I start?"

  "How'd you get here? How come you're here at all?"

  She shook her head. "I'm not sure, really. It's something about Sis, I guess. That's what started it, anyway. She got to acting so funny it worried me. You want to know all this, Mr. Scott?"

  "Shell. Yeah, all of it."

  "Well, about a month back, maybe two, Sis got to acting so mean and snippy I got worried. It wasn't like her. Sometimes she'd be all right, then sometimes she'd yell at me and tell me to leave her alone, not to bother her. I couldn't figure it out. Well, she'd always been a little wild." She smiled shyly. "Not like me. Ready for anything. I thought maybe she was in some kind of trouble. Then I remembered she'd just started running around with a new fellow. I thought maybe she was having man trouble, you know." She dropped her eyes, then looked back at my face again. She went on seriously, "A couple of weeks ago I decided I'd find out what was wrong, try to at least. She was still seeing this man. Guess who."

  "I couldn't guess."

  "Peter Seipel."

  "Who's Peter Seipel?"

  "He brought you in here—one of those awful twins."

  I heard it, and I digested it, and I goggled at her, and I didn't like it. "One of the twins?" The pattern was getting nuttier.

  "Uh-huh. Anyway, I got an idea. I figured he might be the reason for Georgia's acting like she was, and I figured if I got to know him, maybe I could find out what was wrong. Georgia wouldn't tell me anything."

  I got a cold chill up my spine thinking about this sweet little kid trying to pump an obvious gunman who played games that included shooting holes in my coat—and probably me a little later.

  "That's real fine," I said. "So?"

  "So I managed to run into him 'accidentally' and acted like I thought he was just too marvelous. He loved it."

  "He would."

  "He took me out three or four times, and then last Thursday—no, Friday—I was supposed to meet him in the afternoon. I met him and we went to a bar. I'm not supposed to drink in bars—I'm not old enough. Besides, I don't drink. But I thought maybe I could find out more if he drank some."

  I shuddered again.

  "Well," she went on, "I started asking him questions, what was the matter with Georgia, what was wrong and so on, and he got real quiet. Then when we left he took me to a big house like a palace out by Silver Lake Reservoir. He left me in a room. There wasn't any place to sit down, and I had to just stand there. Anyway, Peter came back in with a man in a kind of black cloak and a turban. He looked so funny I almost laughed. But he asked me what was wrong and asked me a lot of questions and finally I got mad and told him I wanted to know what was wrong with my sister and what business was it of his and a lot of things. I told him something was awful funny and why had Peter brought me there, anyway.

  "Then he turned and glared at Peter and Peter mumbled something I couldn't hear. Then they started saying, 'What are we going to do with her?' and so on, just like I wasn't there. That's about all. Then both those twins brought me here."

  I thought it over for a minute and asked, "Nothing else? Before you were brought here did you hear anything else or see any
one? They bring you straight here?"

  She frowned and fingered the mole at the side of her mouth. "Let's see. First they started to take me upstairs there someplace. We got up to the top of some stairs and I was so mad and a little scared, I—" she paused, embarrassed—"I started to cry a little. Just about then a door right opposite the stairs opened and someone looked out and then slammed the door shut."

  "Who was it? What did he look like?"

  "I don't know; I couldn't see. My mascara was running all over my face. I must have looked awful."

  "What then?"

  "A man's voice behind the door yelled, 'Peter!' and he went over to the door and talked through the crack a little, and then came back and took me downstairs. Then they brought me here."

  I tingled a little. I leaned forward on the balls of my feet and put a hand on the chair Tracy was sitting in. "That voice, Tracy. Could it have been a woman's voice? A deep voice, but a woman's?"

  She fingered the mole again. "I don't know. I suppose so. I was all excited. But I suppose it might have been."

  I digested it, all of it. Then I asked, "Tracy, did you know Georgia had been drawing a lot of money out of the bank recently—the last few weeks?"

  She frowned. "No, I didn't know that. Was she?"

  "Uh-huh. You know of anything she might have bought? Or any way she might have spent a lot of money?"

  "No. She didn't buy anything that I know of. Just the usual little things. She got a mink coat about a month ago, but Dad paid for that. That's sure funny."

  "I thought so, too. Now, Tracy, think about this one. Is there any chance anybody could have been getting money from her? That is, blackmailing her? Do you know of anything she might have wanted kept quiet? Wanted it badly enough to pay somebody for keeping it quiet?"

  She frowned at me, pulled gently at her short upper lip, then shook her head. "Not a thing. Like I told you, Mr. Scott, she was a little wild and all, but I know there couldn't have been anything. Not anything I know about, at least."

  I chewed on that a while. I was still chewing when she said, "Your turn."

  "What?"

  "Your turn."

  I got that sick feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. "Yeah. Look, Tracy. Let's skip it for now. Let me try to figure a way out of here."