Show Red for Danger

by Frances Lockridge

  There was light so that anyone who might be watching could see them. It was the milky light of a hazy summer’s night, partly the light from stars, a little the light from the moon’s slender curve. When they reached the top of the path, at some little distance from the Collins house, the house loomed unexpectedly large in the milky light. And the glass of the house darkly reflected light. There was a just perceptible sheen to the house.

  Heimrich stopped and Forniss came up beside him. They stood in rough-mowed grass and looked at the house. There was no sign that anybody was in the house; no light in the house, no car in the turnaround. There was something in the open garage; something glinted there, faintly. That would, almost certainly, be the jeep. They waited; looked and listened.

  Nothing moved in the house or, if there, moved in darkness. Which seemed improbable. There was no sound. Then, far away, a dog barked; then, on the New York Central tracks far below, along the river, a diesel snorted in the night. And there was honeysuckle somewhere.

  “Looks like we got here first,” Forniss said, his voice just above a whisper. “Or,” he added, “nobody’s coming.”

  “Now Charlie,” Heimrich said. “Somebody ought to come.”

  He led the way, not using the little flashlight any longer here on the hilltop, toward the looming house. If somebody was in the house, had been watching the head of the path for just such an arrival as theirs, nothing could be done about it. They circled the kitchen wing, avoiding the entrance terrace, the glass wall of the living room. They found the small door to the studio, and Heimrich used the key.

  Inside the darkness was deeper; just inside, Heimrich stopped and momentarily held his breath and listened. There was the soft humming of the air-conditioning mechanism. And somewhere a faucet dripped. Some time, Heimrich thought, modern science, so intent on sending lonely objects into space, might concentrate on achieving a faucet that didn’t drip. He used the little flash. A needle of light roamed the room.

  It touched the pictured beauty of the dead girl, and the naked body momentarily seemed to glow with life, seemed to move as the needle of light moved. The light searched through the room, found nothing in the room.

  “I suppose,” Forniss said, in a voice not quite as low as before, but low still, “I suppose we’ll have to leave a door unlocked. This? Or the front door? And won’t anybody who comes think that’s a little strange?”

  “Possibly,” Heimrich said. “A chance we have to take, Charlie. Maybe he’ll just think luck’s with him. And—we’ll hear, won’t we? And if he runs—”

  He did not finish, but, using the flashlight sparingly, led the way out of the studio, down the corridor with sliding bedroom doors on one side, the kitchen finally on the other, and turned right into the living room. It was lighter there. Light seeped in through the glass walls, the glass door. Beyond the glass panels the water of the swimming pool was a black mirror, dimly reflecting a tree beyond the side terrace. The glass panels which separated the pool from the terrace were closed.

  Beside the door there were the tumblers of two light switches in a panel. One of them, it was to be assumed—was to be hoped—controlled the floodlight over the garage door. So if someone got suspicious and ran—ran in the right place, of course—the floodlight would reveal him. If one of these switches did control it. There was no way to find out. The one for whom the trap was set might now be approaching it. Nobody walks into a trap which suddenly glares with light.

  Heimrich turned the knob of the front door, releasing the lock. A trap is no good if the quarry can’t get into it. He opened the door slightly and listened to the night. He motioned to Forniss, who came closer, listened too. From some distance, but evidently approaching, there was the irregular putting of a gasoline motor.

  “Scooter, apparently,” Heimrich said.

  The sound continued to approach. It was impossible to do more than guess where the scooter, if it was the scooter, had got to when the sound stopped.

  Heimrich closed the door.

  “Company,” he said, softly, with satisfaction. “The studio’s yours, Charlie.”

  Forniss went across the living room, past the free-standing fireplace, through the door to the corridor, to the studio.

  The living room was a difficult place to hide in, with glass on two sides and part of the third. Heimrich is a large man to hide anywhere. He went to the far side of the fireplace and crouched, so that he could look over it.

  After several minutes, he saw the light from a flash. Somebody was coming up the driveway; coming, obviously, on foot. The light went out. Someone was using proper caution. It went on for an instant, and off again.

  The light was closer to the ground than Heimrich had expected, and he felt a faint disquiet. Of course, the hand which held the light might be at a straightened arm’s length below shoulder, which would explain that. But most people who use a flashlight carry it with the arm crooked, near waist level.

  The light did not go on again. Heimrich urged his eyes; narrowed them a little, which sometimes helps. They told him nothing.

  The quarry, if quarry and not some idly curious boy or girl, was cautious, had stopped to scout. Merely from caution? Or—an automobile cannot easily be hidden. Had theirs been spotted?

  Colonel’s friend wouldn’t play any more. Colonel couldn’t understand it. Things had started out so well, and he, refreshed by the comparative coolness of the night, had felt so much like playing. For once, it had seemed to Colonel that the curse under which he lived had been lifted—a friend had come, and offered play. It had been, for a few moments, almost as if the little god had been returned to him.

  Colonel bellied down on the grass, his hind legs doubled under him; his forelegs stretched out and his great head on massive paws. His head was near his friend’s head, and he whimpered softly, anxiously; invited the resumption of the game.

  The friend, who lay comfortably on the grass, head pillowed on a small outcropping of rock, did not respond. Colonel whimpered further, and then sighed deeply. Things like this were always happening to him, most unfortunate of dogs. Into his large, if cloudy, mind there intruded something which may have been, formlessly, the concept of unfairness.

  The friend had invited play. When Colonel bounded across the terrace toward him, the friend had raised inviting hands. When Colonel, entranced by this reception, had reared high, put great paws on welcoming shoulders, the friend had said Colonel’s name—which Colonel knew very well—and then, in a different tone, something which Colonel did not understand. (“What the—” it had been, and stopped there.) The friend had moved backward under Colonel’s paws, and Colonel’s weight, and then had fallen backward and lain full length on the ground with his head on the outcrop of rock.

  This was, Colonel had supposed, part of the game. It was, to be sure, a new game. The usual game was a brief and friendly wrestling match, with some pretended growling, with human hands clutching canine shoulders and shaking; with, eventually, all four canine feet on the ground again, and the delicious moments of waiting for something to be thrown. (Something to be fetched, if Colonel happened to remember. He is a little inclined to forget, en route, where he is going and why.)

  The game did not include the friend’s lying motionless, breathing harshly. Colonel had nuzzled the friend at first, trying to explain that this was not the way the game was played.

  It was only after some minutes of this, and still no response to this, that Colonel had bellied down beside his friend and whimpered incomprehension into unresponsive ears. “What do you want me to do so that we can play again?” Colonel’s whimper asked.

  It was when he was not answered, after repeated questions, that Colonel sighed. His luck had run out again. It was no more than he expected, of course. It was the way things always happened.

  XII

  Heimrich could only crouch behind the free-standing fireplace and look over it—keep his eyes open, keep his eyes strained, wait out the cautious visitor. He could keep ears open,
too; ears strained, too. But there was little likelihood he would hear anything as long as the visitor stayed outside. The glass walls were thick and tight; the air-conditioning unit hummed gently through the house.

  The visitor might do several things. If for some reason—perhaps the inadequately concealed car—he had grown suspicious, the visitor might merely go away. And with the door closed, Heimrich could not hope to hear the putt-putt of eventual departure. The visitor— the quarry, it was to be hoped; warily approaching, it was to be hoped, the trap—might decide that all was well and cross the turnaround, just beyond which it could be assumed he now lurked, and walk into Heimrich’s waiting hands. He might, alternatively, edge around the house, staying out of sight—which would not be too difficult—and try the door into the studio. And walk into Forniss’s waiting hands.

  There did not seem to be anything especially wrong with it. Not yet, at any rate. If suspicion had been aroused, they had wasted time with their trap, and would have to think of something else. But it was most likely that necessity would, in the end, outweigh caution. Whoever had come up the driveway had felt compelled to come, to chance it. The same compulsion, which must be extreme, might be expected to continue to dominate. I hope, Heimrich thought to himself, and crouched and waited, and watched for movement in the night. He waited for some minutes. He worried while he waited, worried more as he waited longer. He could not determine why, if there did not seem to be anything obviously wrong with it, there was still something obscurely wrong with it. Not the delay. The delay was reasonable. Wary animals sniff around what may prove to be a trap. A wary animal this one almost certainly was; wary and, it could hardly be denied, ingenious. Then—what? That the light had seemed closer to the ground than was to be—

  lt was brief and intangible; it seemed, for an instant, to be entirely in Heimrich’s mind and there indecipherable. The senses had, for the flicker of an instant, responded to something. Sound? Light? Light. That was it. Somewhere, a flash of light.

  The mind caught up with the senses. Light, briefly around him. No—behind him. Light without center, only a momentary pulsation in the room. Or—beyond the room?

  Heimrich, not standing, turned. In the dim light, one of the glass panels between side terrace and pool was moving. He watched through intervening glass, across dark water. The panel was moving almost invisibly; it was only that, at the end most distant from him, a slit appeared in the glass wall—a slit of just perceptibly clearer night.

  He waited. A flashlight had been used, briefly, to find the control button—the button rendered inconspicuous by its housing. Somebody had known where to look, and had needed to look only briefly. Now, still invisible, still outside, somebody waited to see whether the soundless opening of the glass panel was noticed, led to anything.

  Heimrich tried to be as soundless as glass moving in almost frictionless channels. He did not quite manage it as he edged around the fireplace, got it between himself and the inner glass panels which separated living room from pool. But, since those panels were still closed, since the visitor—the wary intruder to the trap—was still outside, he thought he had been quiet enough. And if whoever was coming in used the flashlight to search the living room, Heimrich might be missed. Which was desirable. Let the quarry commit himself. And, it was even possible that there might be bait in a baitless trap. It would be pleasant if their visitor, looking for something which existed only in a policeman’s strategy, found something more actual, and to a policeman useful.

  Minutes passed, and the light was not used again. A very cautious quarry, a very worried small animal. Small? Why had he thought “Small?” The light carried low. That, of course, was it. But this animal would not be small; not if Heimrich’s hunch had any validity. Not if—

  The visitor was, on that instant, a black shadow in the narrow oblong of clearer night. Black—entirely black. And—small. Still indistinguishable; a figure all in black, with a blurred face which seemed to float above shadow. Tight black sweater, close black slacks, black sneakers—that would be the costume. Not, certainly, a costume of innocence.

  The shadow moved, the deeper blackness moved. Moved beside the pool at the far end; moved quickly, with assurance, needing no light. Heimrich watched. He swore, without sound. A woman, obviously. A young woman, obviously. The movement was female movement; the sure-footed grace was youth’s grace. Undoubtedly the rubber-soled sneakers made a soft padding sound on the tile of the ledge which surrounded the pool. Heimrich could not hear the sound, with the inner panels closed.

  She knew where she was going, and now Heimrich also knew. She was making for the door which led to shower and dressing room between the pool and the studio. So—heading for the studio. Where Forniss waited. Waited, Heimrich was afraid, too openly. He could not think of anything in the studio which would give even as much concealment as the fireplace behind which he himself crouched. Unless Forniss could manage to hide himself behind canvas. Or, conceivably, behind the easel. His legs would show, but—

  The girl went through the door, still no more than a moving shadow, still unrecognizable. Not that there was much doubt. Reconsideration was called for. Heimrich could not argue that his hunch had included surreptitious entry by Miss Chris Waggoner, rather extremely costumed for the task. All very well here, now that she was here. But she had had to get here and must have been, on a scooter, on a warm evening, conspicuously got up for something.

  The costume, certainly, was in character. Only—this was not. Never before that he could remember had Captain M. L. Heimrich found so much difficulty in making the character fit the crime. Well, he had guessed wrong, evaluated wrong.

  There was no longer any sufficient reason to crouch uncomfortably behind the low pedestal of the fireplace. Heimrich started to stand up.

  And as he stood, the room was flooded with light. He dropped again, but doubted whether he had been quick enough. Not if this new visitor, the headlights of whose car glared through glass into the room, had had his eyes open. And Heimrich was still on the wrong side of the fireplace. He was on the floor—full on the floor, now. Did one of the chairs partially screen him? He twisted to look. Very partially.

  On the other hand, this new visitor had clearly approached with mind unwary. There was nothing surreptitious about this arrival. So, perhaps, there had been no concentration on what headlights showed.

  Then, as abruptly as the room had come alive with light, it died in darkness. The headlights had been switched off. Heimrich moved around the fireplace to the far side, and looked over it, and was in time to see a large shadow get out of the car. A man, this one was. He, also, seemed to be wearing dark clothing. His face, too, was only a pale blur in milky light. He came toward the door openly enough, and reached for the glass knob. He did not seem surprised when it turned in his hand. He came into the room.

  He came in and, without pause, without hesitation, rushed at Heimrich. He had some distance to come across the room; he came with reckless determination and almost absurd confidence. It was evident that he had not only seen Heimrich when the headlights picked him out, but memorized his position in the room. And planned to do something very definite about it.

  The charging man’s hands were empty. That much Heimrich saw, as he came up to his feet, set himself. He would hardly, in any case, have had time to draw his gun from its shoulder holster.

  The big man—and now he was close enough so that Heimrich could see his face, and see it with some surprise—did not say anything. He merely ran at Heimrich, with hands formed into fists. Heimrich thought, in the instant before they met, that the man did not recognize him, although he recognized the man.

  “Hold—” Heimrich said, loudly, and had meant to add “it” but did not have a chance.

  The man was there. The man swung. Explanation, if any was available, would have to wait.

  Heimrich moved, and the blow—which might well have knocked him half across the room—grazed his face.

  Heimrich’s answering le
ft moved only inches, and did not graze anything. The charging man came to a halt, but swung again. Heimrich used his right, this time—used it with solid pounds behind it. And the man staggered.

  “You damn—” Heimrich said, and blocked a roundhouse right. Strong and agile the man was, but not up to this sort of thing. Heimrich had always supposed that boxing was something—like dancing and, presumably, riding horses—that all actors had to learn. Apparently not, Heimrich decided, and, with some reluctance, knocked George Latham sprawling on the tile floor. He slid on the floor. He slid into a table and knocked it over.

  Physical combat is a hazard of the policeman’s trade. Heimrich, like most policemen, was prepared for it. It was a little hard on the knuckles.

  “Now Mr. Latham,” Heimrich said, as Latham began to scramble to his feet, set himself to charge again. “What on earth is all this—”

  Latham put his hands down. (Then he raised one of them to rub his jaw.) He said, “You?” loudly, in a tone of complete astonishment. “What are you doing here?”

  “Working,” Heimrich said. “And what are—”

  He did not finish. Feet pounded in the corridor, pounded down from the studio. Forniss to the rescue, Forniss to join in. The table had banged loudly on the tile floor. Latham had not fallen silendy. But Forniss wouldn’t leave the—

  Forniss came into the room with his gun ready. He stopped abruptly.

  “You won’t need it, Charlie,” Heimrich said. “Mr. Latham isn’t—where’s the girl, Charlie?”