The Guilty Are Afraid

by James Hadley Chase

  I had liked it fairly well up to now, but I began not to like it There was something wrong with this story. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I had a growing feeling I wasn’t getting all the truth.

  “Who killed them, Thrisby?” I asked, watching him.

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “I’ve been wondering why she went with Sheppey to that bathing cabin. All I can think of is she took up with him after I had dropped her.”

  That was possible, I thought. Sheppey had a way with women. If this girl had imagined she was going to have her first affair with Thrisby and then had been let down, she could have rebounded right into Sheppey’s arms.

  “You have no idea who killed her?”

  He hesitated, then said, “Well, I’ve thought about it. It seems to me it’s possible the killer wasn’t after Sheppey but after the girl. Sheppey might have tried to protect her and got killed instead of her. That would explain why she had left her clothes there. She probably was so scared she bolted for her life.”

  “Then why didn’t she tell the police?”

  “Well, ask yourself. She was a religious kid: it says so in the newspapers. How was she going to explain what she was doing with a man in a bathing cabin meant for a married couple? I think she bolted down to the sand dunes and hid there. The killer, after fixing Sheppey, went after her, caught her and took her some place. Later she was killed and her body brought back to the cabin. That’s my idea, but I could be wrong.”

  “And you think Bridgette killed Sheppey and the girl?” I asked.

  He stiffened, frowning at me.

  “I didn’t say that. I can’t see Bridgette sticking an icepick into Sheppey, can you?”

  I thought about it and decided I couldn’t either.

  “But she could have hired someone to do it: one of her husband’s thugs: Hertz, for instance.”

  Thrisby grimaced.

  “That thug! Yes, she could have done that. It wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t sick him on to me. That would be her idea of levelling scores.” He began to look worried. “Maybe I’d better get out of this town. It might not be safe to stay here.”

  Then I had a sudden idea.

  I took a cigarette from my pack, put it between my lips, then took from my hip pocket the Musketeer Club match-folder. I held it between my fingers so he could see it as I said, “What do you know about Hertz?” I bent one of the matches, tore it out of the folder and laid the head against the scraper.

  I didn’t take my eyes off him.

  His reaction was immediate. He made a movement as if to stop me lighting the match, but checked it. His face was suddenly tense and his eyes stared fixedly at the folder.

  I struck the match, lit my cigarette, flicked the flame out and laid the match in the ashtray, being careful to lay it cipher side up.

  His eyes went to the row of ciphers and he drew in a quick, sharp breath.

  “Anything wrong?” I asked, slipping the match-folder into my hip pocket.

  He got hold of himself.

  “No. I—I didn’t know you were a member of the Musketeer Club.”

  “I’m not. You mean the match-folder? Just something I picked up.”

  “I see.” He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. “Well, I’ve got to be moving. I have a lunch date.” And he stood up.

  “You didn’t answer my question. What do you know about Hertz?”

  “Only that Creedy uses him for his rough stuff. I don’t know a thing about him except that. Well, thanks for walking in when you did. I’ve really got to be going. Do you mind seeing yourself out? I’m late as it is.”

  “That’s okay.” I got to my feet. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  Nodding to him, I crossed the lounge and went through the french doors on to the verandah. The jigsaw pieces were beginning to fall into shape, I thought, as I started across the verandah.

  The Siamese cat raised its head to stare at me. I paused to tickle its tummy. Its paw with the claws out made a quick dab at my hand, but I got it out of reach just in time.

  “Take it easy,” I said to the cat. “You don’t have to be neurotic too.”

  I set off across the lawn, aware that Thrisby was watching me from behind the curtains.

  II

  I drove slowly back to St. Raphael City, my mind busy. There now seemed a reasonable possibility that I had two separate investigations on my hands: Sheppey’s murder and the mystery of the match-folder. It was possible that neither of them had any direct bearing on the other.

  Thrisby’s theory that Sheppey had been killed by mistake seemed to me to be an acceptable one. Having seen the murderous, uncontrolled expression on Bridgette Creedy’s face, I couldn’t now rule out the possibility that she had hired someone to kill the girl who was taking Thrisby away from her. Sheppey might have tried to protect the girl and had got killed instead.

  I decided it was time to have a talk to Bridgette Creedy, but before doing so I had to make up my mind what line to take with her.

  The time was now half past one and I was hungry. I pulled up outside a small seafood restaurant, left the car and went in.

  I gave myself a nice meal and took my time over it. The food was good, even though the check, when it came, made me look three times to be sure the waiter hadn’t added in the date by mistake. By the time I had left the restaurant, it was close on half past two. I drove over to a drug store, shut myself in a telephone booth and called Creedy’s residence.

  The butler answered. His adenoids were no better nor, come to think of it, no worse. I asked for Mrs. Creedy.

  “I’ll put you through to her secretary,” he said, and after a few clicks and pops a cool efficient, voice said it belonged to Mrs. Creedy’s secretary.

  “I want an appointment to see Mrs. Creedy,” I said. “I met her this morning. I have something that belongs to her. Will you ask her when she can see me?”

  “What is your name, please?”

  “The name doesn’t matter: just tell her what I’ve told you.”

  “Will you hold on, please?”

  There was a longish pause. I looked through the glass door of the booth and admired a blonde girl, wearing a French swimsuit, who came into the drug store, climbed up on a high stool and ordered a hamburger with onions. I was glad I wasn’t going to be the boy to be taking her out this night.

  The cool, efficient voice said, “Mrs. Creedy will see you at three o’clock if that will be convenient.”

  I smiled into the receiver.

  “I’ll be there,” I said, and hung up.

  I walked out of the drug store, got into the Buick and driving slowly, I drifted along the crowded promenade, packed with glittering Cadillacs and Clippers, until I was within sight of the Creedy’s residence. I pulled into a space between two cars, lit a cigarette and let the sun, coming through the open car window, add another layer to my sunburn.

  At five minutes to three, I started the engine and drove along the private road leading to the Creedy estate. The two guards came over as I pulled up before the barrier.

  “Mrs. Creedy,” I said to one of them.

  He looked me over. I could see my rolled-up shirtsleeves and slacks were causing him pain, but he decided against making remarks. He walked over to the barrier and raised it. There was no list to be consulted, no telephoning the house, no nothing. Mrs. Creedy wasn’t important, but ask for her husband and then see the trouble you’d buy yourself.

  I drove up the now-familiar drive, past the massed rosebeds and the Chinese gardeners, who had just finished the third bed of begonias and were sitting on their haunches, staring at the begonias as if willing them to remain on their best behaviour and produce large and continuous blooms.

  I parked the car next to a big black Rolls-Royce, got out and walked up the steps, along the terrace to the front door. The butler opened the door two minutes after I had rung the bell. He gave me his steady, searching stare, said, “Mr. Brandon?” But not in th
e way an old friend greets another.

  “Yes,” I said. “I have an appointment with Mrs. Creedy.”

  He took me down a passage, through a door, up some stairs, along another passage, then opened a door and stood aside.

  “You should buy yourself a Vespa,” I said, as I moved past him. “It would save your legs.”

  He went away smoothly as if he were on wheels, not looking back and with no change of expression. Frivolous remarks were a sprinkle of rain in a desert to him. I walked into a small room, fitted as an office with filing cabinets and a desk. At the desk was the girl I had seen at the inquest. She was wearing the same grey linen frock, set off by white cuffs and a white collar, and, of course, the rimless glasses.

  “Mr. Brandon?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I recognized you.”

  “Oh, yes: we were at the inquest together.”

  She flushed a little and looked pretty and slightly confused.

  “Will you sit down? Mrs. Creedy won’t keep you long.”

  I sat down on an upright chair and tried to look less like a tourist than I knew I looked. I decided I should have gone back to the bungalow and put on my best suit: a shirt and slacks were scarcely the right attire to be in in a place like this.

  The girl busied herself with a typewriter. Every now and then she looked over the top of her glasses at me as if to assure herself she was seeing a man in shirtsleeves and slacks and wasn’t just imagining it.

  At a quarter past three, I decided not to be pushed around any longer.

  I got to my feet.

  “Well, thanks for the chair,” I said, with a wide, friendly smile. “It’s been nice breathing the same air as you. It’s been nice too to see how quick you are on the typewriter. Tell Mrs. C. any time she would like to talk to me I can be found in the bungalow out at Arrow Point.” And I started towards the door.

  I thought that would get some action and it did.

  “Mr. Brandon . . .”

  I paused, turned and looked pleasantly inquiring.

  “Yes?”

  “I think Mrs. Creedy will see you now. Please let me go and ask her.”

  She looked flustered and worried. In spite of her rimless glasses she was a pretty thing and I didn’t want to distress her.

  “Sure, go ahead,” I said, and looked at my watch. “I’ll be out of here in two minutes, so let’s snap it up.”

  She crossed the room, opened the door, went into a room and closed the door behind her.

  She was gone fifty-five seconds by my watch, then she appeared, holding the door open.

  “Mrs. Creedy will see you now.”

  As I passed her to enter the room I gave her a quick wink. It may have been my imagination, but I fancied her eyelid flickered in return.

  Bridgette Creedy was standing in the bay window that overlooked the rose garden. She was wearing a pale green shirt and yellow slacks. She had the figure for slacks and she knew it.

  She turned slowly the way they are taught to turn in Hollywood and gave me a careful, cold stare. This was scene 234 of a heartthrob movie directed by Cecil B. de Mille, complete with the ornate room, rose beds seen through the window and the slightly fading actress who, in the past, has won a number of Oscars and is still considered pretty sound, but possibly slipping.

  “You wanted to see me?” she asked, her eyebrows lifting as she took in the rolled-up sleeves and the slacks. “Isn’t there some mistake?”

  I went over to a lounging chair and sat down. I was a little tired of neurotic women. I had had dealings with them in the past. They run to type. In some ways they are pathetic; in other ways they are a plain pain in the neck. This afternoon I was completely out of sympathy with them, and that went for Mrs. Creedy too.

  “I didn’t tell you to sit down,” she said, drawing herself up and giving me the standard Hollywood freeze.

  “I know you didn’t,” I said, “but I’m tired. I have had too much excitement for one day and excitement always makes me tired. I’ve brought your gun back.” I fished the .38 from my pocket, removed the magazine, shook the slugs into my palm, put the magazine back and offered the gun to her. She hesitated for a brief moment, then took the gun.

  “I suppose you now want money,” she said disdainfully.

  “Well, you haven’t much else to offer, have you?” I said, and smiled at her.

  That really got her mad, as I intended it to. I was glad I had removed the slugs from the gun, otherwise I believe she would have shot me.

  “How dare you talk to me like that!” she said, almost spitting at me. “If you think you can blackmail me . . .”

  “Of course I can blackmail you,” I said. “Stop kidding yourself and stop acting like a 1948 Oscar winner. Sit down and listen to me.”

  She stared at me as if she couldn’t believe her ears.

  “My husband . . .” she began, but I cut her short with a wave of my hand.

  “Don’t throw your husband in my face,” I said. “Even if he is the hot shot of this town, he couldn’t keep this setup out of the Courier.”

  She put the gun down on a table and then moved over to a lounging chair away from me and sat down.

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” she said, steel in her voice.

  “You know what I mean. If I hadn’t happened along this morning when I did, Thrisby would be dead by now. A murder attempt by Creedy’s wife would hit the headlines of every newspaper in the country.”

  “They wouldn’t dare print!” she said furiously.

  “Don’t be too sure about that.”

  She controlled her anger, and for a long moment she studied me.

  “Well, all right: how much do you want?”

  “I’m not another of your boyfriends, Mrs. Creedy, looking for money. I want some information out of you.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “What information?”

  “I understand you hired my partner to watch Thrisby.”

  She stiffened, her silver fingernails like claws on her knees.

  “If Jacques told you that, he is lying. I did nothing of the kind!”

  “He says you did.”

  “He is and has always been a liar,” she said fiercely. “It’s a lie! I didn’t hire anyone to watch him!”

  “Did you hire Sheppey to watch anyone?”

  “No!”

  “Did you know Thrisby was going around with a girl named Thelma Cousins?” I asked.

  Her mouth tightened and I saw her eyes flinch.

  “No.”

  “Did you see Thelma Cousins and warn her to keep away from Thrisby?”

  “No. I’ve never heard of the woman!”

  “You can’t kid me to believe that. She was found murdered yesterday. It was in the papers with her photograph.”

  “I tell you I’ve never seen nor heard of her,” she said and I could almost hear her heart beats as she glared at me.

  I stared at her for a long moment and she met my gaze, her eyes smouldering. I could see I had come up against a wall of resistance I wasn’t going to penetrate. She had plenty of nerve, and she must have realized that I had no proof except Thrisby’s word.

  “You would have no objection if I told Lieutenant Rankin what Thrisby has told me?” I said. “If you didn’t hire Sheppey and you know nothing about the girl you would have nothing to worry about if I did tell him, would you?”

  Her eyes flickered and I thought for a moment she was going to lose her nerve, then she snapped, “You can tell him what you please, but I warn you if you start trouble for me I’ll sue you out of existence, and don’t imagine I can’t do it: I’m not listening to any more of this rubbish, so please go!”

  I played my last card. I took out the match-folder.

  “Is this yours, Mrs. Creedy?”

  I was watching her closely, but she gave no sign of surprise nor of tenseness as Thrisby had done.

  III

  On my way out I was surprised to be asked to step
into Mr. Creedy’s office.

  “Were you seeing my wife?”

  “I should ask her if you are all that interested,” I said. “Is that all you want to see me about? If it is I must be running along. I have my living to make and time presses.”

  He studied me for some seconds, then picked up a sharp letter opener and studied it with lifted eyebrows as if he had never seen it before.

  “I have been making inquiries about your agency,” he said, not looking at me. “I learn that you are solvent, that you have a reasonably profitable business and your assets are worth three thousand dollars.”

  “They are worth more than that,” I said, smiling at him. “That’s what they are worth on paper. Personality and goodwill are the backbone of a business like mine. I have the goodwill and I am cultivating a personality. Three thousand isn’t a fair estimate.”

  “I’m interested in buying a going concern,” Creedy said, suddenly staring at me. His eyes went through me like twin bullets through chiffon. “I’m prepared to take over your agency. Shall we say ten thousand dollars to include the goodwill and what there is of the personality?”

  “And what happens to me if I sold you the business?” I asked.

  “You carry on, subject to my supervision, of course.”

  “I don’t supervise easily, Mr. Creedy: not on an offer of ten thousand dollars.”

  “I might be prepared to raise the purchase price to fifteen thousand dollars,” he said, and began to puncture holes in his snowy blotter with the letter opener.

  “I take it I wouldn’t be encouraged to continue to investigate my partner’s death?”

  He pursed his lips and did more damage to his blotter.

  “That is a police matter, Mr. Brandon. You are not getting paid to investigate your partner’s death. I think it would be reasonable, if I bought your business, to expect you to exert your talents on something that made a profit.”

  “Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m sorry. Thanks for the offer. I appreciate it, but I’m solving this case, profit or no profit.”

  He laid the letter opener down, placed his fingertips together and rested his chin on them. He stared at me the way you might stare at a spider that has dropped into your bath.