The Guilty Are Afraid

by James Hadley Chase

  I turned and legged it for the top of the dune, running as I had never run before. Reaching the top, I dived head first down the slope, arriving nearly to the edge of the sea in a cloud of dry sand.

  There had been no shout to tell me if I had been seen.

  For a moment I lay still, gasping air into my lungs. Then I got to my feet and, bending low, I climbed back until I could just see over the top of the dune.

  I looked towards the cabins.

  Standing in the moonlight was a patrolman, his back turned to me. The door leading into the cabin where the dead girl was stood open, and as I watched another cop came out. He joined his companion, and they talked for a few moments, then the one who had been waiting outside started to run back to the promenade.

  It would only be a matter of a few minutes before the whole beach would be crawling with the law. I didn’t have to be told what would happen to me if they found me.

  Captain Katchen would know what to do with a gift like me. He had already told me what to expect. Even if he didn’t ride me into the gas chamber, I’d be in his hands for weeks, and that was something I was going to avoid if I could.

  Keeping below the top of the ridge, I started to run again.

  By the time I had put a mile between me and the row of cabins, I was pretty near bushed, but I was now far enough away to strike back inland, knowing I wasn’t likely to be seen.

  I walked across the sand, trying to control my labored breathing. A flight of steps took me up on to the promenade.

  A few courting couples were dotted along the front, sitting under the palm trees: too busy with their own affairs to notice me. I crossed the road and then began to walk back to where I had left my car.

  It took me close on ten minutes to draw level with the entrance to the bathing station. By that time there was a big crowd, blocking the road, gaping as crowds will gape. I saw three police cars parked along the kerb.

  This was only the beginning. Two murders in one day at the same place was a sensation that would really pack the crowd in once the news got around.

  As I stood there watching, four more police cars came tearing up. I saw Lieutenant Rankin get out of one of them and hurry across the promenade towards the row of cabins.

  I felt I could leave him in charge, and I legged it to my car and then drove along the back street at a steady clip until I reached the Adelphi Hotel.

  I left the car in the hotel parking lot, got a duster from the glove compartment and wiped away all traces of sand I had picked up on the beach. Then I entered the hotel.

  The time was now just after midnight.

  The night clerk, an elderly man with the springy air of a jovial priest, smiled at me as he handed me my key. He said it was a fine night, and had I noticed the effect of the moon on the sea? He was just trying to be friendly, but I wasn’t in the mood. I grunted at him, took the key and headed for the elevator.

  As I waited for the cage to come down, I heard the telephone bell on the desk ring. The night clerk answered it, then as the cage appeared and as I was about to get in, he called out, “Mr. Brandon, a call for you. Will you take it in your room or in the booth across the way?”

  I said I’d take it in the booth.

  Wondering who could be calling me, I went into the booth, shut the door and took the receiver off the cradle.

  “Hello—yes?”

  “Is that Mr. Brandon?”

  A woman’s voice, clear, but low-pitched and familiar.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Margot Creedy.”

  I pushed my hat to the back of my head and blew out my cheeks. How had she found out where I was staying, was the first thought that jumped into my mind.

  “Glad to have you call me, Miss Creedy.”

  “I am speaking from the Musketeer Club,” she said. “I looked in the visitors’ book. Mr. Sheppey’s name doesn’t appear in it.”

  I was surprised, but not too surprised to say, “He could have used another name, of course.”

  “I thought of that. The man on the door tells me no one with red hair has been to the club for months. He is very good at that sort of thing. If Mr. Sheppey had been to the club, he would have remembered him.”

  I tried to recall if the newspaper account of the murder had mentioned that Jack had red hair. I decided it had been mentioned.

  “So it looks as if he didn’t go there.”

  “Why did you think he had?”

  “I found a folder of matches from the club in his suitcase.”

  “Someone, of course, could have given it to him.”

  “Yes. Well, thank you for helping me, Miss Creedy. I really am very . . .”

  The soft click over the line told me she had hung up. I stood for a long moment staring through the glass panel of the booth while I wondered why she had changed her mind about helping me, then I replaced the receiver, pushed open the booth door and walked over to the elevator.

  So Jack hadn’t gone to the Musketeer Club. I saw no reason why I should doubt her word. Greaves had said it wasn’t likely. I had been through Sheppey’s things, and I knew he hadn’t brought a tuxedo down with him. He wouldn’t have got beyond the doorman without wearing a tuxedo if I was to believe what Greaves had said about the exclusiveness of the club.

  Then where had the match-folder come from? Why had Jack kept it? He hadn’t a magpie mentality. He didn’t keep anything unless it was of some use.

  I left the elevator, walked down the corridor, unlocked my bedroom door and entered the room. I shut and locked the door, chucked my hat on the bed and went over to Jack’s suitcase. I got the match-folder from the suitcase and then sat down in the armchair and took a closer look at the folder. It contained twenty-five tear off matches: each matchstick carried the name of the Musketeer Club. The inside back of the folder carried an advertisement for one of those arty pottery shops that spring up like mushrooms wherever there are tourists.

  The advertisement ran:

  You should not miss visiting

  Marcus Hahn’s School of Ceramics

  The Treasure House of Original Design.

  The Chateau

  Arrow Point

  St. Raphael City.

  I wondered why an advertisement so obviously aimed at the tourist trade should be displayed in a match-folder of an exclusive club that would not tolerate a tourist in any shape or form within its high-tone portals. I wondered if I were on to something or whether it was just one of those things.

  I tore off one of the matches. On examining it I found printed on the back a row of ciphers: C451136. I bent back the other matches and saw they too were numbered and the numbers were consecutive up to C451160.

  I wedged the loose match back into the folder, sat for several minutes wondering why the matches were thus numbered, then coming to no conclusion I put the match-folder into my wallet.

  The time was now twenty minutes to one o’clock. It had been quite a day. There didn’t seem anything else for me to do now but to wait for the morning. With any luck the newspapers would tell me who the girl in the swim suit was. Until then, it seemed a good idea to go to bed.

  As I got to my feet, there came a knock on the door. It was delivered by a set of knuckles that would have no trouble in ramming your teeth down your throat: knuckles that didn’t belong to any member of any hotel staff: knuckles you’d expect to find on the hands of the law.

  I stood still, my brain racing. Had I been spotted leaving the beach? Had I left any fingerprints in the cabin?

  Knuckles banged on the door again and a voice growled, “Come on! Open up! We know you’re in there.”

  I took my wallet from my pocket, took the match-folder out and slid it under the edge of the fitted carpet, then I put my wallet back, stepped to the door, turned the key and opened the door.

  Candy stood there, chewing, his dark eyes hostile. Behind him were two big plainclothes men: their faces stony and their eyes alert.

  “Come on,” Candy said in a flat, bore
d voice. “Captain Katchen wants you.”

  “What for?” I said, not moving.

  “He’ll tell you. Are you coming rough or smooth?”

  I hesitated, then, seeing the odds were against me, I picked my hat off the bed and said I’d come smooth.

  Chapter 6

  I

  The night clerk’s eyes bulged out of his head like organ stops when he saw me come out of the elevator, surrounded by Candy and his two hunks of beef. This was the second time I had been taken away from the hotel by the law, and I had an idea that if I survived this trip, the management would probably ask me to leave.

  But I wasn’t any too sure that I would survive the trip. I remembered what Katchen had said at our last meeting and I had a depressing idea he wasn’t bluffing.

  We went across the lobby, down the steps to the waiting police car. The two plainclothes men got in the front and Candy and I got in the back.

  The car went off with the usual frantic rush and with the usual wailing siren, leaving the kerb so fast the jerk nearly dislocated my neck.

  Candy sat beside me like a rock that has been baked in the sun. I could feel the heat of his body, and although I couldn’t see much of his face in the darkness of the car I could hear the steady movement of his jaws as he chewed.

  “Okay if I smoke?” I said, more or less for something to say.

  “Better not,” Candy said, his voice flat and cold. “I was told to bring you in rough.”

  “What’s biting the Captain?”

  “If you don’t know, how should I?” Candy said, and there the conversation ceased.

  I stared out of the window. I wasn’t happy. There was a chance that someone had seen me on the beach and had phoned in my description. I had visions of being grilled. If Katchen conducted the grilling, I knew I was in for a bad time.

  No one said anything until we pulled up outside the police headquarters, then Candy groped in his hip pocket and produced a pair of handcuffs.

  “Got to put the nippers on,” he said, and I thought I detected an apologetic note in his voice. “The Captain likes everything ship-shape.”

  “Are you arresting me?” I asked, offering my wrists.

  The cold bite of the steel bracelets added to my depression.

  “I’m not doing anything,” Candy said, getting out of the car. “The Captain wants to talk to you—that’s all there’s to it.”

  He and I walked across the sidewalk and up the steps into the charge room, leaving the two plainclothes men in the car.

  The desk sergeant, a big, fat-faced man, looked at me and then at Candy, who shook his head and kept on, through a doorway, up some stairs and along a passage to a door at the far end. I walked at his heels.

  He paused outside the door, rapped once, then turned the handle and shoved the door wide open. He put his hand on my arm and moved me into a big room that contained a desk, six upright chairs, a couple of filing cabinets, Captain Katchen, Lieutenant Rankin and a tall, thin man around forty with straw-coloured hair, rimless glasses and a face of an eager ferret.

  Candy said, “Brandon here, Captain,” then stepped back, giving me the stage.

  I took a couple of steps forward and stopped. Katchen was standing by the window, his massive face dark with congested blood. He looked at me the way a caged tiger might look at a fat lamb that is being marched past its cage.

  Rankin sat on one of the upright chairs, his hat tipped over his eyes, a cigarette burning between his fingers. He didn’t turn his head to look at me.

  The straw-haired man eyed me with the interest and the professional detachment of a bacteriologist confronted with an obscure germ that might or might not be a potential killer.

  “Why is this man handcuffed, Captain?” he asked in a soft, Ivy League voice.

  Katchen suddenly appeared to have difficulty in breathing.

  “If you don’t like the way I make my arrests, you’d better talk to the Commissioner,” he said in a voice that could have stripped rust off any lump of old iron.

  “Is this man under arrest then?” the straw-haired man asked, his voice a polite inquiry.

  Even if he had the face of a ferret and an Ivy League accent, he was rapidly becoming my favourite member of this oddly assorted trio.

  Katchen bent his glaring stare on Candy.

  “Take those goddam bracelets off,” he said, his voice muffled with rage.

  Candy came over to me, slid a key into the lock, twisted and the cuffs dropped into his hand. With his back turned to Katchen he allowed himself a slow, deliberate wink at me. He moved away while I went through an elaborate pantomime of rubbing my wrists and looking injured.

  “Sit down, Mr. Brandon,” the straw-haired man said. “I’m Curme Holding of the District Attorney’s office. I heard Captain Katchen wanted to see you so I thought I would see you too.”

  I began to feel less depressed.

  “Glad to know you, Mr. Holding. I feel in need of protection. The Captain has already talked to me once today. So I’m more than pleased to see you.”

  Holding took off his glasses, inspected them and put them back on again.

  “Captain Katchen wouldn’t do anything out of the line of duty,” he said, but he didn’t sound as if he meant it.

  I smiled.

  “Maybe the Captain has a sense of humour. I took his talk seriously, but maybe you could be right. You have only to look at the deep-seated kindness in his face to realize he could be a great little kidder.”

  Katchen made a growling sound deep in his throat and moved from the window towards me. He looked like a gorilla disturbed at feeding time.

  “Will you ask the questions, Captain, or shall I?” Holding said, sudden steel in his voice.

  Katchen paused. His little red-flecked eyes moved from me to Holding, who stared at him with the bored expression of a man watching a very tough gangster movie and finding it phony.

  “Now you’ve got your oar in, you can handle it yourself,” Katchen snarled, biting off each word. “I’m going to talk to the Commissioner. There’s too much goddam interference from your office. It’s time someone did something about it.”

  He went past me, out through the doorway and slammed the door behind him. The room rocked a little under the percussion.

  Sergeant Candy said, “You won’t need me, Mr. Holding?”

  “That’s okay, Sergeant.”

  I heard the door open, but I didn’t look around to see Candy leave. The door closed behind him gently in sharp contrast to the exit made by Katchen.

  “Well, now, Mr. Brandon, would you take a seat?”

  Holding said, and waved to a chair opposite the desk. He got up and took the desk chair.

  As I sat down I met Rankin’s blank stare. I got no information from it: it was neither friendly nor hostile.

  Holding moved a pencil from the blotter to the pen tray and gave me a hard look from behind the screen of his glittering glasses.

  “Captain Katchen is retiring at the end of the month,” he said. “Lieutenant Rankin is taking his place.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  Rankin moved restlessly, fingering his tie. He didn’t say anything.

  “Lieutenant Rankin is in complete charge of this investigation,” Holding went on. “I am, of course, referring to these two murders at Bay Beach.”

  I could see the trap in that.

  If I were going to deny being in the cabin when the girl had died, now was the time to show surprise and ask what other murder had been committed? But I got one jump ahead of that thought fast. For all I knew they had found a fingerprint of mine in the cabin or someone had seen me and had offered to identify me, or they had spotted the Buick parked on the scene. I decided to take a chance and come clean.

  “Now I know the Lieutenant is handling the case,” I said, “I’m ready to make a statement. I would have done so an hour ago, but Captain Katchen’s threats put me off. He warned me to keep out of this business and I didn’t keep ou
t of it. When I found the girl I saw Katchen could pin the killing on me.”

  Holding appeared to relax a little.

  “So you were the man who was seen entering the cabin?”

  “I don’t know about that, but I did enter the cabin and I found her dying.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “No. She died within seconds of my finding her.”

  Rankin said, “Suppose we go over it from the start?” He reached forward and took a notebook off the desk and opened it. “Why did you go down there?”

  “I had no particular reason except I had nothing to do and I wanted to look the place over,” I said. “I know it sounds corny, but my partner was killed there, and your men were all over the place when I went there this morning. I just wanted to have a second look at it.”

  He didn’t seem wildly enthusiastic about this explanation, but he let it go. He asked, “What time did you get there?”

  I told him, and then went on to give him an exact description of what had happened. I told him how I had heard the police siren and how I had realized that if I were caught there, Katchen’s conclusion would be that I had killed her. I went on to describe how I had got away and what time I returned to the hotel.

  Rankin looked over at Holding, then suddenly his hard, tight face crinkled into a smile and he looked quite human.

  “Can’t say I blame you,” he said. “I guess I would have done the same thing. But it’s not the kind of thing I’d recommend you to try again.”

  I said I wouldn’t try it again.

  “You realize how lucky you have been?” he said. “You could have got yourself nailed for murder. But the doc says she was stabbed at least two hours before you entered the cabin. She took that time to die. He could tell by the blood on her and on the floor.”

  “How did your men know she was there?”

  “Some guy spotted you going into the cabin. He was taking a look at the scene of the crime, so he says; he spotted you and called headquarters.”

  “What wouldn’t we do without the great American public?” I said. “No sign of the killer, of course?”

  Rankin shook his head.