"Whole head," said Humphrey. "Whole head...What about the hands? Did you see them?"
"Gloves. Black shiny gloves."
"That's all," said Beulah Porter Cowys, shepherding Melissa into the bedroom and slamming the door.
"Who is that dame?" Humphrey asked. "The old scrawny one?"
"Beulah Porter Cowys," Trent told him.
"Where'd she come from?"
"She lives down the hall. She heard Melissa Gregory scream and came to see what was wrong."
"She did, did she?" said Humphrey. "Does she ever wear slacks?"
"No," said Doan.
"Yes," said Trent at the same time. He looked at Doan, startled. "What?"
Doan said wearily: "Humphrey is going off into another of his dreams. The prowler wasn't Beulah Porter Cowys because I was chasing the prowler."
"Oh, yeah?" said Humphrey. "It could have been her--with gloves to hide her nail polish and a stocking over her noggin to hide her long hair."
"Smoke another pipe," Doan advised.
"Okay, smarty," said Humphrey. "Did you see this prowler? I mean, did you pass a mirror on your way out?"
"No," said Doan, "but I can give you a handy item of information about him. He packs a gun as well as a knife. It's a .22, and it's an automatic, so it's probably a Colt Woodsman. He's very handy with it. If you'll look, you'll find three ejected shells on the other side of the street light north of the building."
"Now you're dreaming. Why would he want to pack a peashooter like a .22?"
"If you can shoot like he can, you don't need anything bigger." Beulah Porter Cowys came out of the bedroom. "You'll have to adjourn this bull session. Melissa is all shot to pieces. Scat."
"Not so fast," said Humphrey. "Just how well do you know Doan, eh?"
"Just as well as I want to," said Beulah Porter Cowys, "and that's hardly at all."
One of the uniformed deputies squeezed through the front door. "The body is there, sir, and so is the car. It's registered in Ames' name. But look what I found back of the seat."
In front of him, balanced like a tray, he was carrying a very large, thick book with a flossy hand-carved leather cover. The deputy was supporting it with the tips of his fingers. On the cover, stamped in gold, was the legend: THE PATHWAY TO PERFECTION--HELOISE OF HOLLYWOOD.
"I peeked in it," said the deputy. "It tells how to get rid of your wrinkles if you're an old dame and got lots."
"Hmmm," said Humphrey. "Did your wife know Ames, Trent?"
"I don't think so," said Trent.
"She did," said Doan. "He was working for her."
"What?" said Beulah Porter Cowys incredulously. "Frank working for Heloise of Hollywood? You're just completely nuts!"
"Not this time," Doan told her. "She's getting together a new advertising campaign. It's going to be all about middle-aged women who had a big influence on history--had poems written to them and lakes named after them and wars started on account of them and all like that. Ames was doing the research for her."
"How do you know?" Beulah Porter Cowys demanded.
"Because Heloise told me so."
"Hmmm," said Humphrey. "Hmmmm. This case is beginning to develop some angles. Now suppose Ames was getting chummy with Trent's wife, and Trent found it out from Doan and hired Doan to hide in that alley and then lured Ames..."
"Here we go again," said Doan.
Humphrey ignored him. "Or suppose Doan told Heloise that her husband was getting chummy with this Melissa Gregory, and Heloise dropped in here to look around. Of course, Doan would cover for Heloise, because he could shake her down for plenty, and this Melissa would try to throw me off because she doesn't want any scandal. And Ames recognized Heloise and tried a little shaking down of his own, and Doan got mad about that..."
"Is this man crazy or something?" Trent demanded.
"He's certainly something," Doan agreed.
The telephone rang in the bedroom, and Humphrey and Beulah Porter Cowys made a simultaneous dash for it. Melissa was lying face down on the bed, her face buried in her arms. Beulah Porter Cowys leaned over her and grabbed the phone.
"Here!" Humphrey shouted. "Give me that! I warn you now--"
"Shut up," said Beulah Porter Cowys, kicking at him. "Get away...Hello...Yes...Is he a fat, pig-faced character with a big mouth?... Yes, he's here." She extended the telephone toward Humphrey. "It's for you."
"Hello!" Humphrey bellowed. "Who are--Who?... Yes, sir... Yes, sir... Yes, sir... T. Ballard Bestwyck and the mayor and the president of the Chamber of Commerce and the district attorney--all of them? But Doan doesn't know them... Yes, sir. I know they know you... Yes, sir... Yes, sir... But there's been a murder, and Doan is involved--Yes, sir... Yes, sir... At once, sir."
Humphrey handed the phone back to Beulah Porter Cowys. He looked a little wilted. He went back into the living room and stared at Doan with his shoulders hunched and his lower lip stuck out.
"Hello there, Humphrey," said Doan.
Humphrey grunted. "Take the cuffs off him," he said drearily.
The deputy who wasn't carrying the book unlocked the handcuffs.
"Give me my gun," Doan requested.
Humphrey nodded reluctantly, and the deputy handed over the Police Positive. Doan put it in his waistband.
"I don't know yet how you got all that big noise to front for you," Humphrey told him bitterly, "but, oh, you just wait. There'll come a day. And in the meantime--"
Humphrey spun around suddenly and kicked viciously at the spot where Carstairs had been sitting an instant before. Carstairs wasn't there now. Humphrey's foot went through the space he had been occupying and hit the wall hard.
"Oooh-woooo!" Humphrey bellowed.
Carstairs looked out from behind Doan's chair and regarded him with an air of polite inquiry.
Melissa appeared in the bedroom doorway, holding on to both sides of it for support. "You get out of my apartment--all of you!"
Humphrey was standing on one foot, holding the other with both hands. "Now wait a minute. I've got to look for clues--"
"Get out of here!"
Eric Trent said, "I don't think you should stay alone--"
"Shut up, you! Get out!"
Beulah Porter Cowys said, "I'll stay with--"
"Beulah, no! I don't want anyone here! I Just want everyone to leave me alone! Now, go away! Go home! All of you! Get out!"
"Let me leave Carstairs here," Doan said. "He won't bother you, and he won't let anyone in you don't want in."
"All right, all right, all right!"
Doan pointed his finger at Carstairs. "You stay. Do you hear? No one comes in unless she says so."
Carstairs was leaning against the wall again, dozing. He didn't open his eyes.
Trent said: "I still don't think--"
"Get out, get out, get out!" Melissa screamed.
She ran at them and pushed and shoved indiscriminately. They all bumbled and stumbled out into the hall, and she slammed the door and locked it and then propped a chair under the knob.
She sighed shakily, then. Her knees didn't feel like they belonged to her. She went into the bedroom, dragging her heels, and began to undress.
She was unhooking her brassiere when there was a sudden loud and juicy plop from the direction of the kitchen. Melissa stiffened rigidly, feeling her heart inflate like a balloon, and then she whirled around and ran through the living room to the kitchen doorway. She snapped on the light.
The refrigerator door was wide open, and on the floor in front of it there was a large glass bowl of potato salad, wrong side up. Carstairs was regarding this last phenomenon with an air of incredulous amazement.
"You--you!" Melissa shouted. "You thief! You food robber!"
She slashed at him with the brassiere. He dodged that with negligent ease. Melissa's knees gave out entirely, and she sat down and began to bawl, pounding the floor with her fists. Carstairs stared at her, aghast at this unseemly display of emotion, and then stalked into the livin
g room, picking up his feet queasily.
After awhile, Melissa's sobs tapered off in to whimpering sniffles. She got up wearily and picked up the potato salad and wiped the floor.
Shutting the refrigerator door, she went back into the living room. Carstairs was nowhere in sight. Melissa went into the bedroom.
"You!" she shrieked. "Get off that bed! You're not going to sleep--Get off! Get out!"
Carstairs retreated into the living room.
"On the floor!" Melissa shouted. "That's where you're going to sleep! Lie down!"
Carstairs bent his legs slightly and then let himself go and hit the floor hard enough to rattle the windowpanes. He rolled over on his side and commenced to snore instantly.
"Oh," said Melissa. "Oh, dear."
* * *
Melissa slept without the hindrance of pajamas or nightgowns or other such impedimenta, and consequently she was in the best condition possible to get the full benefit of Carstairs' nose when he placed it precisely between her shoulder blades. She came out of the dim, pleasant shadows of her private dream world in one hair-raising leap.
"What--what--what--"she gabbled, sitting up and kicking frantically at the covers.
Carstairs backed away from the bed. The sun was pushing bright, inquisitive fingers through the half-closed slats of the Venetian blinds.
"You!" said Melissa. "I'll break every bone--Oooooh!" She felt the side of her face in a gently experimental way. Her jaw was hot and puffed and sore. It felt awful. Her mouth didn't taste at all good, either.
"Oh--oh--oh," said Melissa miserably. She dug at her eyes with her fists and then squinted painfully at the little Spanish clock. "Ten minutes of seven! What do you mean by waking me up at the crack of dawn, you stupid brainless monstrosity?" Carstairs continued to regard her with an air of urgency. "What's wrong with you?" Melissa demanded. Carstairs lifted one forefoot and then the other in a painfully anxious way.
"Oh!" said Melissa. "You want to go, don't you! And the door downstairs is closed... Oh, damn! All right, all right. Wait until I get dressed."
She went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror and nearly frightened herself to death. Her cheek was inflated ludicrously, and along the lower side it was beginning to exhibit an interesting tinge of purple.
Carstairs whiffled from near the front door. "All right," said Melissa, hurrying.
She put on some slacks and moccasins and a sweater and swiped at her hair with a comb and then went out into the living room. Carstairs was standing with his knees bent and his nose pressed against the front door.
Melissa opened it for him, and Carstairs shot down the hall and raised rumbling echoes on the stairs. He was waiting unwillingly at the front door of the building when Melissa got there. She opened the door for him. Carstairs slipped through and dove gratefully into the shrubbery that circled the building.
Melissa sat down on the steps. She found a cigarette and a match in the pocket of her slacks. The cigarette tasted like underdone steel filings.
It was one of those spring mornings in Southern California that are so incredibly beautiful they seem indecent in some vague way. The sun was just clearing the last of the night mist out of the sky, and the palm trees--like king-sized, upended feather dusters--nodded and dipped in polite unison at the urge of a softly caressing breeze.
Carstairs peered out the shrubbery to make sure Melissa was still waiting for him and then disappeared again. The door clicked in back of Melissa, and the Aldrich twins appeared. They looked at Melissa, taking in the slacks and the cigarette and the straggling hair and the swollen cheek. They smiled in a patient, forgiving way.
"Good morning," they said.
"Morning," said Melissa.
"It's a nice day."
"Is it?" Melissa asked.
Carstairs came out of the shrubbery and sat down on the steps beside Melissa with a luxurious, replete sigh.
The Aldriches said, "That is the large dog which belongs to the plump, pleasant-spoken man who rooms with Mr. Eric Trent."
"Yes," Melissa admitted. "His name is Doan. The man's. The dog's name is Carstairs."
"Mr. Eric Trent is very handsome," said the Aldriches.
"So they say."
"We understand that he is married."
"I understand that, too."
"Hmmm," said the Aldriches. They watched her for a moment, and then they looked at Carstairs. "Mr. Doan intimated that we might pet him."
"Go right ahead," Melissa invited.
"Here, Carstairs," said the Aldriches. "Here, nice dog."
Carstairs watched them for a moment, obviously weighing alternatives. Finally he got up and stepped over to them. He permitted them three pats each, and then he went back and sat down with the air of a person who has done his duty.
"We must go now," said the Aldriches. "We always walk before breakfast. Early to bed and early to rise, you know."
"I know," Melissa agreed.
They went down the steps and along the walk. They were exactly the same height, and they walked in step.
The door clicked again, and Beulah Porter Cowys came out.
"Are they gone for good?" she asked. "They're a little too plural for me at this hour."
"What are you doing out so early?"
"I've got to set up the lab for my 1-B class. I was too busy to do it last night. I'm sorry about Frank, Melissa. Were you going to marry him?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"He wasn't very grown up--I mean, in the head. He used to quote me poetry--Herrick and Lovelace and that sort of stuff."
"They're good poets."
Melissa shrugged. "They're more in the Aldriches' style. You know, they're sort of an interesting pair. They're identical siblings. That's why they talk and even think alike. It seems that the one fertilized gene splits--"
"Pah!" said Beulah Porter Cowys. "That's Shirley Parker and her Freudian interpretation of biology again. I can recognize her touch. The Aldriches talk and think alike because they've lived within arm's reach of each other for sixty years, and that's the only reason. I'll see you later, Melissa. Keep your chin up."
She walked down the steps, and Carstairs leaned over and growled confidentially in Melissa's ear.
"What do you want?" Melissa demanded.
Carstairs licked his chops.
"Oh, dear," said Melissa. "Do I have to feed you, too? What on earth do you eat for breakfast? Orange juice, oatmeal, bacon and eggs?"
Carstairs tilted his head back and bayed joyously.
"Stop that!" Melissa ordered. "You'll wake up the whole town! Can't you wait until I finish this cigarette?... Stop it, I said! I'll feed you... Yes, right now. Come on."
CHAPTER THREE
THE STUDENTS WERE BEGINNING TO stir when Melissa walked diagonally across the Old Quad with Carstairs tagging dutifully along behind her. The students gathered in cackling flocks or walked alone brooding upon the pitfalls in academic life, as is their wont. Strangers are apt to be disconcerted by their odd mannerisms, but Melissa was accustomed to them and knew that all they needed was to be ignored.
Eric Trent was sitting on the front steps of Old Chem. He stood up quickly when he saw Melissa and Carstairs and then, realizing that they had already seen him, sat down again reluctantly and stared into space.
"Hello," said Melissa.
"How do you do," Trent said warily.
"I'm tired," Melissa told him. "Will it distress you if I sit here on the steps?"
"Not at all," said Trent.
Carstairs sat down, too, and regarded Trent in a speculative way. He received no signs of recognition in return, and after a moment he snorted once, loudly, and then lay down and went to sleep.
There was a prolonged and weighty silence, and then finally Trent said:
"I'm very sorry about last night. About your own experience, and about the death of your friend."
"Thanks," said Melissa.
"In regard to your apartment. Doan spoke to my wif
e about getting a larger one. He has to sleep on my chesterfield, and he says it gives him bad dreams. My wife knows T. Ballard Bestwyck. She arranged things with him. I had nothing to do with it at all. I didn't know anything about it. Of course, I'm not going to appropriate your apartment. Doan can get himself a hotel room if he doesn't like my chesterfield."
"That's very sweet of you, sweet and generous," Melissa said and she looked at him with eyes that shone. "Maybe you aren't a bad guy after all--that is, not as much of a dope as I believed you to be at first after reading those sticky-icky things your wife said about you in her advertisements... However, before I can be sure, I'd like proof."
"What kind of proof?"
"Proof of how really sweet and generous you are. For instance, if you gave me back my office as well as my apartment, then I could believe some very fine things of you--practically any fine thing you wanted me to believe."
Trent regarded her with a puzzled frown. There was guile in her face but there was also sincerity. "Well," he said in a relenting tone. "Well..." But then he stopped relenting and lifted his chin with the air of a man who's been taken in by a female before and has no intention of being a two-time sucker. "No," he said firmly. "You don't need that particular office and I do."
"Hmmph," said Melissa, "so that's the way it is. And I'll bet I know why. You think Doan would figure you for a sissy if you gave in to a woman."
"That's not so."
"It is too. I know it is. Why do you put up with Doan, anyway? I mean, tagging you around and sleeping on your chesterfield and all that?"
"There's no way I could prevent him from following me around. There's no law against it. So I thought I might as well make the best of it. As a matter of fact, I like Doan. He's very good company. He's very adaptable. If I want to talk, he listens. If I want to study or work or read, he goes to sleep. Apparently he can sleep anytime, anywhere. Of course, there's always Carstairs. He's a bore."
Carstairs mumbled to himself.
"Why don't you assert yourself?" Melissa asked. "I mean, why don't you tell Doan you'll sock him in the eye if he doesn't go away?"
Trent looked at her. "Doan? That wouldn't have the slightest effect. He's not afraid of violence at all. In fact, I think he enjoys it. I think that's why Carstairs likes him. Everyone else is afraid of Carstairs--at least, a little. Doan is not--not a bit."
The Doan and Carstairs Mysteries Page 38