by Basil Copper
He grinned sardonically.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’d take it as a favour.’
He smiled again, this time at Tucker. ‘Have you ever met anyone like this character? He can smell a corpse like dogs with aniseed. It beats all.’
He went on out to wash up.
‘If you don’t want me, Dan, I’ll get along,’ I said to Tucker.
‘Certainly, boy,’ he rumbled. He was busy with his third apple in twenty minutes. I figured he probably had a contract with the city market.
‘Keep in touch,’ he said as I went out.
The lights burned harshly behind the Venetian blind as I left Alloway’s yard for the last time in my life. I sat in the Buick and switched on the dash light. A uniformed man got out of a patrol car parked up ahead and peered at me suspiciously. He put a flash on my face and the car interior. By this time I had my licence in the plastic holder and waved it in front of him. He put the light out.
‘Sorry, Mr Faraday. Just checking.’
He saluted and went on back to his car. I figured he must be one of the newer boys. The only saluting done by the uniformed branch to P.I.’s is usually with a night stick. When I heard his door slam I put the small piece of paper I’d gotten out of Alloway’s filing cabinet under the dash light. If it hadn’t been more or less what I’d expected I’d have been disappointed. The paper was the top part of a piece of headed stationery for a firm of plumbing and sanitary engineers. I wouldn’t have given it a second glance normally. Except that the address was at a place called Knoxtown.
I put the paper in my pocket. It seemed to burn a hole in the lining. I started the motor and drove on home. It was time to hit the sack.
*
‘Better check on this character Rex Beale,’ I told Stella. She nodded and went on filing her nails. I smoked on and looked out of the window. I hadn’t gotten to the office until eleven this morning, and the thin, cold rain which patterned the glass wasn’t calculated to improve the view. When I got up I packed a small overnight bag just in case and broke out the Smith-Wesson. It was my favourite weapon and even though comparatively bulky, it made a nice friendly bulge against my shirt as I shifted in my chair.
Stella put down her cuticle stick, snapped her handbag shut and got out her scratch pad. For the next few minutes there was no sound in the office except the noise of her pencil on the paper. Then she put down the pencil and stood up.
‘You want some more coffee before you go?’
I grinned. ‘And just why do you think I’ve been hanging around here so long this morning?’
She smiled. ‘And I thought all the time it was because you liked being with me.’
She went over to the alcove at the side of the office and switched on the small stove. ‘You staying on in Knoxtown?’ she asked.
‘I’ll ring in tonight,’ I told her. ‘Let you know.’
‘Sure,’ she said.
A few minutes later I drank the coffee, picked up the bag and left. The elevator wasn’t working again so I walked down the stairs to the street. The air hit cold and damp but I could still smell Stella’s perfume, where her cheek had rested against mine. I ran for the Buick, with the wind whipping at my heels, dumped the bag on the back seat. The traffic was heavy like always on the freeway and I let it take me out. When I got off on to the old turnpike I started letting her go. I had nearly two hundred miles to cover. I had a feeling things would soon be popping in L.A. and I wanted to be back for the fireworks.
*
It was a long, wet drive, and it was about five in the afternoon before the frame houses and water-logged front lots of the Knoxtown suburbs started coming up. It was a typical summer place that would have been pleasant in the season or even in the fall but right now was just plain ugly.
It was still raining, of course. Thin, persistent stuff, that was more insidious than a good honest downpour. It made the roads greasy too, without shifting the thin layer of mud that seemed inseparable from this part of the country. Days of rain must have washed it down from the hillsides above.
I saw the fork that led off to Salamanca Heights, but I wasn’t interested in that today. I skirted the fringe of the lake with its deserted, boarded-up beach houses. A sign said; BEARCAT LAKE. Fishing Licences. I turned off the lake drive and drifted down small side-streets in the dusk, melancholy with the rain and the thin whisper of falling water on wet leaves. I didn’t have too much trouble in locating Amaryllis. 2614 was about halfway down; a white frame house set back from the road, with black-painted shutters that flapped in the rising wind. I didn’t need the shingle nailed to a post on the front lawn to see that it was the doctor’s place.
I killed the motor and sat on for a moment, breathing in damp air and listening to the restless fingers of the rain rattling on the car hood. I could smell wood-smoke somewhere far off in back of the house, where someone had been optimistically trying to burn the garbage of winter. I got out of the car and slammed the door. It made a heavy, clogging sound that reminded me of earth falling on coffin lids. Except that this was a case without coffins. I wondered if Stan Alloway would be going to Sunset Gardens. I guessed not. From the last I’d seen of him he was beyond repair.
I pushed open the white picket gate and walked up a crazy paving path that wound between shrubs clipped for decorative effect. They looked fussy and uninspiring. I rang the bell on the porch and stood admiring the rain and the wilting hedges. I was about to hit the button again when the white-panelled door opened suddenly. A tall, plumpish man stood in the doorway. He wore thin gold spectacles that looked like they had been welded on to the bridge of his nose and his sharp eyes searched me up and down. Two stainless steel teeth showed in a corner of his mouth when he smiled.
He didn’t do that often so I had to be content with the quick flash. The smile was about an eighth of an inch wide and he killed it before it had a chance to reach the corners of his mouth. He was so nervous it had got to be a tic.
‘Dr Hauser?’ I asked.
‘That’s what the board says.’ He licked dry lips.
‘You’re living on your nerves, doc,’ I said. ‘You should try to relax more.’
‘Just state your business, young man,’ he snapped. ‘I’m quite capable of looking after my own health and half the town besides.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Can we talk inside? It’s kinda wet in the porch.’
He flushed and shot a sidewise glance into the gloom behind him. ‘I guess it’ll be all right,’ he said at last. ‘My housekeeper’s away at the moment.’
‘You’ll be safe enough,’ I told him. ‘’Sides, you’re far too old for me.’
He made out he didn’t hear that one and led the way through a thickly carpeted hallway. He pressed the light switch and showed me into a parlour. It was comfortable in an old-fashioned sort of way. Pile rugs, oak-block floor, heavily stuffed armchairs. He moved a mound of books off a chair and sat down. He sat with the books helplessly in his hand and finally put them on the floor. He didn’t ask me to sit so I pulled over a ladder-backed chair opposite him at an oval table. That was piled high with books and medical magazines too. The place looked more like his own waiting room than his house. He cleared his throat with a noise like a buzz-saw.
‘Nasty throat you’ve got there,’ I said. ‘You ought to take something for it. This damp weather … ’
‘Never mind my health, sir,’ he said with a sort of desperate gravity, as though the situation was getting beyond him. ‘Kindly state your business. My time is of some importance.’
Hysteria was gnawing at the edges of his voice. I got out the photostat copy of my licence and flipped it over to him. He looked at it like it was worked in raffia on a gold background and his throat moved a few times. His face was the colour of yellow mud. I didn’t help him any. I got out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. The scrape of the match seemed to irritate his nerves. I blew out a big cloud of smoke and studied a line drawing of a ballet dancer which hung over the fireplace. It w
as a cheap reproduction of a Degas and a bad one at that.
‘You might have asked,’ he said reproachfully, handing back the folder.
‘I might,’ I agreed.
Some of the acid had gone out of Dr Hauser’s voice but he looked at me cunningly over his spectacles. The corners of his mouth twitched once or twice. I couldn’t see how he had gotten such a good reputation around Knoxtown. It certainly wasn’t his bedside manner. I put the photostat back in my wallet and glanced around for an ash-tray. He fished in the junk on top of the oval table and came up with a glass one. It was half full of stubs and the bottom had white lettering advertising a brand of Scotch whisky. I figured he had lifted it out of some hotel.
‘What can I do for you, Mr Faraday?’ he said guardedly. He folded his hands in front of him on the edge of the table and studied his fingertips. I noticed his nails were scratched and none too clean.
‘I understand you signed the death certificate on old man Whipfuddle,’ I said, using a sledge-hammer.
He jumped like he’d been stung by a horse-fly. ‘That is correct,’ he said stiffly. ‘Though I fail to see how it concerns you.’
‘You don’t have to answer my questions, Doctor Hauser,’ I said. ‘But you might find it helpful to do so.’
‘Meaning what?’ he said in a sneering voice. He had a better colour now. He only looked pale yellow.
‘Meaning that you might find it easier to deal with me than the police.’
He continued to study the tips of his fingers but I could see his hands constrict on the edge of the table to stop his fingers trembling. ‘What is your business, Mr Faraday; blackmail?’ he asked after a long moment.
‘Call it what you like, doc,’ I said. ‘I’m just asking a few simple questions.’
He nodded. ‘Yes. I signed the certificate. All was in order. You are, I presume, acting on behalf of Mr Beale?’
‘Assume what you like, doc,’ I said.
‘If there is some doubt as to the validity of the certificate there was other medical opinion involved,’ he said in the old sneering manner.
‘I haven’t said a word about any irregularities and I’m not alleging any,’ I said. ‘I just thought we’d have a nice chat. It breaks the monotony on these wet afternoons.’
He stirred in the chair and made a clucking noise in his throat. ‘I’m a busy man,’ he said. ‘I can’t sit here listening to you talk nonsense all day.’
‘You said that once already,’ I told him. ‘I’d like some information about Mr Whipfuddle’s last days. You know, his state of mind, that sort of thing.’
He started again so that the glasses almost fell off his nose. His voice sounded like crackling paper when he spoke. ‘I really shall have to speak to Beale about this,’ he said. ‘I will not put up with this intolerable persecution.’
I thought he was going to throw a fit. I wasn’t getting anywhere with my questions but I figured if I riled him up a little he might let something drop. What he might have said became academic a few moments later. A bell sounded somewhere in the house before I got my next question out. He got up with a worried expression on his face.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, vaguely. ‘I’ll be back.’
He went out through another door at the end of the parlour. I got up and went quietly over the room. I might have saved my time. There wasn’t anything in the place of interest. It was very still in here, apart from the thin tapping of the rain. It was quite dark outside.
Hauser seemed gone a long time. I thought I could hear the faint hum of conversation from behind closed doors. A board creaked in the quiet. I killed my cigarette in the hotel ash-tray. Presently I heard his footsteps coming back. He opened the door and came down the room with nervous steps.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Faraday,’ he said with prim firmness. ‘I’ve been called away. A patient, you know.’
‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ll call back some time more convenient. There are a lot of questions I wanted to ask.’
His face changed colour again. We walked to the front door and I paused in the porch. His face was a blank mask in the dim light out here.
‘Thanks for all the information,’ I said.
‘It won’t be any use coming back,’ he said, the note of hysteria in his voice again. ‘I’m going away.’
‘Abroad?’ I said.
His open mouth made a big hole in the middle of his face. He put out his hand to the side of the door to support himself. I didn’t offer to shake it. I went down the crazy pathway laughing to myself in the night and the rain. When I looked back he had closed the door. I went to the Buick and switched on the main beam. I got in the driving seat and started the wipers. Then I saw something I hadn’t noticed before.
There were new tyre-tracks on the grass where a car had been parked just in front of mine. They hadn’t been there when I came. I felt sure of that. I looked up and down the street which was now dimly lit by old-fashioned style lamps. The smell of wood-smoke still hovered on the damp air. I reversed the car and drove off down the street.
*
Einar Janssen’s shop wasn’t very hard to find. There were only about four streets in the Knoxtown business section. The plate-glass windows were brilliant with light and filled with refrigerators and electrical equipment. A buzzer sounded softly somewhere as I went in over a heavy rubber mat wet with the tread of many feet. Looked like Einar had a busy day. A blonde woman of about forty-five with fine breasts and a good figure still, gave me a faded smile. I saw the clock over the counter stood at a quarter after six.
‘Sorry sir, we’re closed really. I should’ve locked the door, but I forgot.’
‘I didn’t want to buy anything,’ I said. ‘I really wanted a word with Mr Janssen if it’s possible.’
She shook her head. ‘He went home at four today. Could you come back tomorrow?’
‘I’m just passing through,’ I told her. ‘Can I have his address?’
She hesitated a moment, sizing me up. Then her eyes cleared and she smiled again. ‘Guess it’ll be in order,’ she said. ‘He lives over on Maple. Number 22, a white house with a monkey-puzzle tree out in front.’
I thanked her and asked her how to get to Maple. She told me and I went towards the door. I looked back to the counter. The woman was staring after me.
‘You won’t be coming back, I suppose?’ she said in a wistful voice.
I shook my head.
‘They never do,’ she said. ‘It’s that sort of place.’
The buzzer made the same soft sound as I went out. I glanced back once more as I got into the driving seat of the Buick. She was standing stock still at the counter, looking out into the darkness like it had the answer to some problem which troubled her. I knew that problem. I’d come from a small town myself.
I found Maple without much effort. The monkey-puzzle tree was where she’d said it was. I went up on to the stoop and rang the bell at the front. There was no sound except the fretful brushing of the rain on the leaves of the bushes. I hit the bell again. Light shone from behind the windows. I tried the door. It was locked.
I walked around the side of the house. There was a concrete path here. I followed it alongside a smooth lawn. There was a hedge in a right angle at the corner of the house. Another flight of steps led up to the screen door of a kitchen. Lights shone brightly from the kitchen window. The curtains were drawn back and I could see clear through. There was no-one inside.
I knocked on the screen door. I waited and tried again. The moist patter of the rain was beginning to get on my nerves. I opened the screen and tried the inner door. It opened inwards with a slight click. I went on into the kitchen. It had nice black and white tiles on the floor and pale blue walls. One end of the room was walled in grained wood with burnished copper pots hanging on hooks. All the kitchen fittings and working areas were in stainless steel. One of the taps dripped. The small impact every ten seconds drilled a hole in the silence.
There was another door standin
g open at the far end of the kitchen. There were black scrape marks on the tile flooring too, like someone had scuffed the heel of their shoe. I went down the kitchen, walking lightly on the tiles. I was beginning to feel glad I’d packed the Smith-Wesson this trip. I got it out of the holster and held it, fanning in front of as I gum-shoed down the room. There was a light switch inside the door. I edged over and put it on, using the barrel of the gun.
The room was a type of annexe, with rough-plastered walls. A sink stood at one side with a metal bucket on the draining board. Some chicken feathers were scattered on the drainer; there was a cleaver leaning against the side of the sink. There was blood and feathers on it. A set of six steel meat-knives with hickory handles glistened in a rack over the sink.
One side of the room was tricked out for business use; there was a rough kitchen table with an old-fashioned typewriter hooded on it; a blotting pad; some files; a pre-historic duplicating machine. It wouldn’t have gained a place in the Business Efficiency Exhibition. A metal wastebasket had been overturned and there was paper on the floor. I didn’t waste my time. I knew already that any files there might have been wouldn’t be there now.
At the far end of the annexe was a metal door secured with metal latches. The dark scuff marks went across the tiled floor and stopped in front of it. It looked like a deep freeze store. I went over and put my ear to the door. I couldn’t hear anything except the low hum of the freezer unit. I got out my handkerchief and used it to lift the latch. It was heavy and the cold came out from the metal facing. The light in the freeze chamber came on as I got the door open. It took all my strength. The door was so heavy the hinges made a sharp grinding noise. A blast of frosty air came from the freezer. Ice crystals glistened on the metal walls and racks and on the sides of meat which hung from the racks.
Glistened too on the hair and cheeks and sightless eyeballs of the man hanging behind the freezer door. It reminded me somehow of Sunset Gardens. Except that the prong of a blued steel meat-hook protruded through the muscles of the neck and supported his weight. Someone with a good build and a steady nerve had hung him up behind the door like a side of beef. I mentally crossed Mr Einar Janssen off my list. It couldn’t be anyone else.