1958 - Not Safe to be Free

by James Hadley Chase

  It mustn’t be bungled, he thought. He could hear footsteps and voices as people passed the door of the suite, going to their rooms. She mustn’t have a chance to scream.

  “So if I agree to those conditions, Sophia,” he said, “then you won’t give me away?”

  She got to her feet and put the scarcely touched brandy on the table.

  “I’m tired now, Jay. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. I’m going to bed.”

  He got up casually and strolled over to the desk.

  “You haven’t finished your drink,” he said, his fingers closing over the paperweight.

  “I don’t want it. Good night, Jay.”

  He glanced at her.

  She had reached her bedroom door.

  She must be nervous, he thought. She hasn’t once turned her back on me.

  “I’m sorry about all this, Sophia,” he said. He began to move slowly across the room towards her, the paperweight held down by his side, out of sight. “I wish I hadn’t done it now. At the time it seemed important. I’ll get straightened out. I’m relying on you to help me.”

  He felt his anger rising against her as she didn’t react in any way to this.

  She stood in the doorway of her bedroom, watching him, her expression alert.

  “Good night, Jay,” she said and before he could reach her, she stepped into the room and abruptly closed the door in his face. He heard the key turn in the lock.

  For a second or two he remained motionless, then he moved silently to the door leading to the outside corridor and turned the key. Would she forget to lock the door between her room and his father’s room?

  Moving softly, he crossed the lounge and opened the door into his father’s room. Leaving the door open so he could see where he was going, he crossed the room to the door that led into Sophia’s room. He listened, his head against the door panel. He could hear Sophia moving about in the inner room.

  He looked at his watch: the time was now ten minutes to one. His margin of safety was running out. He put his hand on the door handle and began to turn it very slowly. It seemed to take a long time before the handle fully turned.

  Had she locked this door?

  He pulled gently and as he felt the door move towards him, he stopped pulling and his lips curled into a triumphant grin.

  Again he listened.

  He heard Sophia clear her throat and then put something down on the dressing table.

  He eased the door open a crack, his right hand gripping the paperweight so tightly his knuckles turned white.

  He could see into the room now.

  Sophia had taken off her evening dress and was peeling off her stockings.

  Jay measured the distance between them. It was too great.

  She would have time to start to her feet and scream before he could reach her.

  He watched her slip on a wrap, then undo her suspender belt and toss it on a chair, then she walked into the bathroom.

  He heard the bath water running.

  Better wait for her to get into the bath, he thought. He remembered she would be sitting with her back to the door once she was in the bath. All he would have to do then was to move in silently and hit her before she even knew he was in there.

  He waited, his breathing fast and hard, his heart thumping.

  He glanced at his watch. It was now three minutes to one.

  The margin of safety was narrowing.

  He stiffened when he heard the bath water stop running and then he heard the unmistakable sound of splashing.

  She must be in the bath!

  His lips moved into his meaningless smile as he opened the door and moved silently across the bedroom to the bathroom door.

  He reached for the handle, turned it and pushed gently.

  The door swung silently open.

  III

  Never before in the sordid history of the Beau Rivage hotel had the hotel been so quiet and dark as when Inspector Devereaux drove up in his car.

  A small crowd stood outside the entrance, held back by three sweating gendarmes.

  Guidet stood just inside the dark entrance and came across the pavement to meet Devereaux.

  “Why in darkness?” Devereaux asked, staring up at the dark outline of the building.

  “The lights have fused. As soon as we put in a new fuse, it blows.” Guidet sounded exasperated. “I’ve got an electrician checking the wiring. In the meantime we have candles.”

  “So he is dead?” Devereaux said, walking into the lobby.

  “Yes, he’s dead,” Guidet said. “He hanged himself.”

  On the reception desk were five flickering candles that threw a yellow circle of light on Madame Brossette’s gross body lying where it had fallen at the foot of the stairs.

  “Hello!” Devereaux exclaimed, coming to an abrupt stop. “What happened here?”

  “My guess is she found Kerr, rushed downstairs to call the ambulance and fell,” Guidet said indifferently. “The stairs are dangerously steep. Anyway, it’s saved her getting into trouble with us. She deliberately lied when we asked her if Kerr was here.”

  At this moment the Medical Officer, Dr. Mathieu, came in.

  He went immediately to the body and made a quick examination.

  “Her neck is broken,” he said, looking at Devereaux. “A woman of such a weight . . . such a fall . . .” He shrugged his shoulders.

  “And Kerr?” Devereaux asked.

  “Upstairs.”

  Guidet turned on a powerful electric torch and guided Devereaux up the narrow stairs.

  “So he was here all the time,” Devereaux said as he walked into the room beyond the broom cupboard. “No wonder we didn’t find him.”

  Lemont was in the room, lighting more candles.

  Guidet threw the beam of his torch on Joe Kerr.

  Joe hung from the scarlet cord that was fastened to a hook on the back of the door. His long, bony legs were curled up so that the weight of his body had tightened the running noose of the cord. His raddled face was a pale mauve colour; his lips were drawn off his teeth in a snarl of terror.

  “He hanged himself with the missing curtain cord,” Guidet said. “I’ve been through his pockets. In one of them I found a blue bead.” He went over to the bedside table and pointed to the bead. “It’s from the girl’s necklace.”

  Devereaux glanced at the bead, then back to Joe.

  “No confession or suicide note?”

  “No.” Guidet picked up the half empty bottle of whisky. “Looks as if he had been drinking heavily.”

  “Well, there doesn’t seem much doubt that he killed the girl and in a drunken fit of remorse, he hanged himself,” Devereaux said.

  While he was speaking the lights went on.

  “Ah! That’s better,” Guidet said. “I’ll have the body photographed and then taken down.”

  Devereaux nodded. He was feeling tired, but satisfied. The case had cleared up nicely.

  “I wonder why he did it,” he said. “You know, Guidet, this seems almost too simple, but it often happens this way. Just when one thinks one has a difficult case on one’s hands, the thing solves itself. Still, we’d better be on the safe side. Take his fingerprints. Let’s see if they check with the print we found on the other bead.”

  Guidet shrugged his shoulders.

  “All right, but I don’t think there’s any doubt about it—he’s our man.”

  Lemont, who had gone downstairs to fetch the police photographer, now returned, followed by the photographer.

  Devereaux moved out into the passage to give the photographer room in which to work.

  A man, carrying a metal toolbox, came out of a room at the head of the stairs. He paused when he saw Devereaux.

  “The blown fuse was caused by this, monsieur,” he said and handed Devereaux a ten franc piece. “It was screwed into the light socket in that room.”

  Devereaux thanked the man. When the electrician had gone, Devereaux beckoned to Lemont.

  “Did th
e lights go out before or after you heard the woman fall?”

  “Some minutes after. They went out when I was examining the body. I imagine one of the men caught here fused the lights in order to get away. As soon as the lights failed, there was a rush for the exit. Farcau had no chance of stopping anyone.”

  Devereaux grinned.

  “I can’t say I blame them.”

  He dropped the ten franc piece into his pocket.

  Dr. Mathieu came up the stairs.

  “Another customer for you, doctor,” Devereaux said. “Take a look at him. I don’t think there’s any doubt he’s the one who killed the poor girl.”

  Dr. Mathieu nodded and went into the room beyond the broom cupboard. The photographer had completed his work and Guidet and Lemont got Joe’s body on to the bed.

  Ten minutes later Mathieu came out into the passage, a puzzled frown on his face.

  “Well?” Devereaux asked. He was leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette, thinking longingly of his bed.

  “I’ll arrange to have him taken to the mortuary, Inspector. I want to check him over much more thoroughly. There are a couple of points that puzzle me. He has a bruise in the middle of his back. It’s a recent one and I’m wondering how he got it. I’ve seen a bruise like that before and it is consistent with a knee being forced between the shoulder blades.”

  Devereaux stiffened.

  “You mean he didn’t commit suicide? That someone strangled him?”

  Mathieu shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t know, but the bruise worries me.”

  “And the second point?”

  “You remember I told you I found skin under the girl’s fingernails indicating that she badly scratched her killer? This man has no scratches on his body.”

  Devereaux made a movement of exasperation.

  “You are sure she scratched her killer?”

  “There’s no doubt about it.”

  “And there’re no scratches of any kind on this man?”

  “None.”

  Devereaux exchanged glances with Guidet.

  “The fingerprints?”

  “They’re being checked now.”

  As Dr. Mathieu moved down the stairs, Devereaux took the ten franc piece from his pocket and stared at it, then he called Lemont.

  “You were watching outside the hotel. Did you see a man enter on his own?”

  Lemont shook his head.

  “No, Inspector. Every man who came here had a woman with him.”

  The fingerprint expert came out into the passage.

  “The print we found on the bead in suite 30 of the Plaza hotel doesn’t match any of Kerr’s prints.”

  Devereaux swore softly under his breath, then he thought for a moment.

  “Go into that room,” he said, pointing to the room at the head of the stairs,” and check the prints on the electric light bulb.”

  The fingerprint expert went down the corridor and entered the room in which Jay had hidden.

  There was a long pause while Devereaux continued to lean against the wall, smoking, his face set in a heavy scowl. Recognizing the scowl as a danger sign that the Inspector was testy and tired, both Guidet and Lemont kept quiet.

  A few minutes later, the fingerprint expert came out of the room.

  “A good guess, Inspector. There’s a print on the lamp bulb that matches the one on the bead. No doubt about it.”

  Devereaux dropped his half-smoked cigarette on the floor, then stepped viciously on it.

  “So we haven’t solved the case,” he said. “I had an idea it was too simple. Well, all right. We’ll start again. At least we know whoever made that print is our man. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find him.” He beckoned to Guidet. “Come with me. We’ll go to the Plaza hotel and we’ll make a fresh start.”

  Lemont watched the two men walk down the stairs, then he took out a packet of cigarettes, lit a cigarette and gratefully inhaled the smoke.

  Chapter Twelve

  I

  With her back against the wall, Sophia watched the bathroom door swing silently open.

  She was tense and her face was hard and pale and she was breathing rapidly, but she was much more curious than afraid.

  She had sensed the sudden change in Jay while they had been talking and she had a feeling that he intended to silence her. She felt she had to find out just how dangerous he was and, if he turned out to be as dangerous as she suspected, then she would no longer hesitate: she would tell Floyd and take her chance about getting into trouble with the police.

  Her experience as a prostitute had equipped her to deal with all kinds of neurotic men and there had been several occasions when her clients had turned out to be dangerous, but in each case she had been able to quell them.

  She didn’t think for a moment that she couldn’t handle Jay and she deliberately left the door between her room and Floyd’s unlocked to see if Jay dare come into her room. To make sure of her own safety, she had taken with her into the bathroom the .25 automatic that Floyd had given her when they had been filming in the Mau-Mau country during the early part of the year.

  Sophia had no experience of guns, but Floyd had made her fire the gun several times to get her used to handling it, but she didn’t like the noise and had put the gun away, saying that, as she didn’t intend leaving Floyd’s side while they were in the jungle, he could do the shooting and she the screaming.

  She carried the gun around with her on their travels because she liked its appearance. It had a mother-of-pearl handle and her initials let into the butt in gold. She took the gun into the bathroom, not because she thought she would need it, but as a precaution. If Jay dared to come into her room, she was confident he would quickly come to heel when she turned the broadside of her tongue on him.

  Sophia hadn’t forgotten how to tongue lash a man, although it was now some years since she had had to use her startling vituperation.

  Jay came to an abrupt standstill when he found himself face to face with Sophia. He stood motionless in the doorway, his right hand hidden behind his back, his head cocked a little on one side, his left hand holding on to the door handle.

  For a second or so they confronted each other, then Sophia said in a cold, hard voice: “What do you think you are doing in here?”

  The tip of Jay’s tongue came out and moved over his lips.

  The movement made Sophia think of a snake.

  “I’m sorry, Sophia,” he said softly and the tone of his voice was so menacing that it made her stiffen. “I promise you it won’t hurt and it will be very quick. You shouldn’t have been so interfering.”

  She then saw it had been a mistake to have put this to a test. The bleak expression on his face, the twitching muscle near his right eye, the thinness of his mouth made him a frightening stranger to her.

  “Get out!” she cried. “If you don’t get out at once, I’ll tell your father!”

  The thin lips moved into their meaningless smile.

  “I don’t think so, Sophia. I don’t think you will tell anyone.”

  He moved silently into the bathroom and it was then she saw the heavy paperweight in his hand.

  “Jay! I’m warning you! If you don’t get out I’ll shoot you!” Sophia exclaimed and lifted the gun and pointed it at him.

  He paused, staring at the gun.

  “Go on! Get out!”

  Then he began to move forward again, his shoulders hunched, the paperweight balanced in his hand.

  “Jay!”

  He was almost within reach of her now. He seemed to be paying no attention at all to the gun she was pointing at him. He was muttering under his breath. She caught the words.

  “I’m sorry . . . locked away in a home . . . a mistake . . .”

  Then she realized with a shrinking feeling of horror that she would have to shoot him. She lifted the gun to point at his shoulder and her hesitation was fatal.

  He suddenly sprang forward as she pulled the trigger.

 
; In that split second of terror, she realized she had forgotten to take off the safety catch on the gun. She saw Jay’s hand flash up. She tried to get out of his way, but her movements were much too late.

  A blinding light exploded inside her head as the paperweight caught her on the temple. Her knees buckled, the gun dropped out of her hand and she slid to the floor at Jay’s feet.

  Moving swiftly, Jay put the paperweight down on the toilet table. He reached over Sophia’s still body and picked up the gun, which he thrust into his hip pocket.

  He felt calm and elated and very sure of himself. Quickly, he rolled up his sleeves, then he bent over Sophia and stared at the broken, bruised skin by her temple. He rolled her over on her face, then stripped off her wrap.

  He kept thinking to himself that this was so easy. Nothing could stop him now. Once she was dead, he would be completely safe.

  He dragged Sophia’s naked and unconscious body over to the bath, which was half full of tepid water. Bending over her, he lifted her and slid her down into the water, being careful to have her head towards the taps.

  She stirred slightly and moaned.

  He stepped quickly to the other end of the bath, reached into the water and took hold of her ankles. His lips were drawn into a tight, fixed smile as he lifted her ankles, pulling her forward so that her head and face went under the water.

  Immediately he felt her legs stiffen and he had to grip tightly to keep her in this position.

  It was while he was holding her like this that he heard a sudden movement in the suite. The sound was unmistakable.

  Someone had entered the suite and had pushed against a chair or some other heavy object.

  His heart gave a great bound in his chest. It seemed to stop beating and then began to race so violently, he felt suffocated.

  How could anyone have got in? He had locked the door!

  Who was it—his father?

  The reflex twitching of Sophia’s legs had ceased. The little air bubbles that had escaped from her mouth no longer disturbed the water.

  She must be dead now, he thought frantically. She had been under the water for at least three minutes!

  Then he heard his father’s voice.