“Fine. There's not much more. I—arrgh!"
I did it all again. Carol really seemed to enjoy this spasm and kept looking at me hopefully. But I recovered and continued, although in a weak voice.
“Well, Grant died, and the executors of the estate, in accordance with his wishes, hired a detective named Welch to find the missing daughter. All they could tell the detective was the name of the orphans’ home, and the date the girl had been left there by her mother. Welch checked the home and learned the girl had been named Ilona. So he started hunting up gals named Ilona."
“Ilona?” Carol said gently. “Isn't that odd?"
“The odd part is that you asked me about Ilona Cabot earlier. And I didn't ever tell you that the homely Ilona in my office was named Cabot. I did foolishly admit to you this morning that I was looking for her husband; and you must have heard me talking to Missing Persons on the phone about a missing John Cabot. I mean when you came into my office with that spur-of-the-moment story about thinking it was Dr. Forrest's. I suppose you put one and one together and tonight asked me about Ilona Cabot to make sure that was, in fact, her married name."
Carol didn't say anything. I went on, “Well, to continue, nobody around the late Mr. Grant even knew he had a daughter until the will was read. That's understandable, under the circumstances. Anyway, all his money was left to just three people. Two of them in Fresno—Grant's personal secretary, and his private nurse, both of whom had been with him for years. He had no other relatives, so half his estate went to those two. The other half was to go to his daughter. And that, of course, set up a kind of dangerous situation for this Ilona."
“Oh? I—don't understand,” said Carol.
What she probably didn't understand was why I was still able to yak away, but I went on, “Nobody knew for sure if this Ilona was still alive. If found, she would inherit a couple million dollars. But if nobody found her—or if she were dead—according to the terms of the will the two million would then devolve upon the secretary and nurse. That's an extra million bucks apiece. There's a nice motive for murder—murder for a million. So it looks as if either Grant's secretary or his nurse tried to knock off Ilona. It's really too bad what the hunger for money will do to otherwise nice people."
Carol was looking at me strangely, in apparent puzzlement. I hadn't gasped and gurgled for quite a while, and probably she felt that I was taking a distressingly long time to die. So I went into my dying-horribly act.
Suddenly I gasped twice as loud and gurgled much more musically then anything I'd achieved yet. I sprang to my feet and straightened up, then bent forward like a man doing a jackknife, arms going around my stomach. I spun about, staggering, toppled forward almost at Carol's feet, and continued groaning while writhing on the carpet.
Carol didn't extend a helping hand, didn't say a word, didn't do a thing. In momentary glimpses that I got of her from my rolling eyes, I saw that she had merely put her arms across her breasts, hands clasping her shoulders, and was gently hugging herself. Her narrowed blue eyes were fixed on me, and that tight little smile twisted her soft red lips.
Finally I got to my hands and knees and raised my face so I could stare at her. “You!” I croaked. “You've croaked me!"
Her eyes were bright. She squinted at me, pressing against the divan as if to move farther from me. I said, “It was you, Carol. You killed Welch—and tried twice to kill Ilona."
She got to her feet and started to step around me. This wasn't the way I'd planned it. So, in what must have appeared my final burst of living, I struggled to my feet and staggered toward Carol.
Her eyes widened, a little fright showing in them at last. Because she must have thought I would by now be unable to move with much grace or speed, she spun around to run, too late. I jumped about six feet through the air and grabbed her, turned her to face me, and mashed her tightly against me. “Tell me the truth!” I shouted as we both toppled to the floor.
Her face was only about three inches from mine, and she really looked frightened now. “Yes,” she half whimpered. “I did kill him. I couldn't let him tell where she was. And I tried to kill her—but I didn't, I didn't kill her. Let me go. Let me go!"
I just squeezed her tighter. We were lying on our sides on the thick shag nap of my carpet, and I couldn't very well have been holding her more tightly. Her breasts mashed against me, her thighs pressed mine, and she was after all a very delightfully fashioned female. She was moving a lot, too. And I wasn't really dying. In fact, I was living.
I said, “You tried to kill her with a car last Sunday, and then by lacing her milk with cyanide this morning. Didn't you?"
“Yes, yes!"
“And you were much surprised when Ilona came out of her house alive. So you followed her to my office this morning, right, love?"
She nodded. All of this wallowing about had sort of upped my blood pressure. After those last two words, Carol hadn't said anything else, but every second she was straining against me, moving frantically, squirming and trying to get away, and it was almost enough all by itself to kill a man. I'm only human. Pretty quick I even forgot what questions I'd been meaning to ask this gal.
And, inevitably, Carol finally got my message. Her face went through a startling array of expressions. First, a queer kind of amazement. A sort of “Can this be?” look, as though it were too soon for rigor mortis to be setting in. And then the expression of a person slowly, and with complete awareness of what was happening, experiencing apoplexy. And then, at last, Carol's much-used sexy look.
She had me pegged. Hell, I had her pegged, too. But she knew what old Shell Scott was interested in. She knew, all right. And she figured, I guess, that she could take advantage of my interest in hers. At any rate, she began speaking to me, softly.
“What if I did kill that detective, Shell? What difference does it make, really? We can have a lot of fun together, you and I. I'll be rich. Shell, rich. Millions, millions of dollars. For both of us..."
She was still squirming, wriggling around there on the carpet. But she wasn't trying to get away. “Once Ilona's taken care of,” she said, “I'll have two million dollars—maybe even more later. We'll have to get rid of her husband, too. I didn't even know until this morning that she was married.” She paused. “Shell, if we can get rid of both of them, there'll maybe be four million later. That's more money than I can imagine—but it was supposed all to be mine. Bill said once that it would all be mine."
For a second or two that “Bill” puzzled me, but then I realized she must have referred to Grant, William Grant as I knew him. Maybe she and Bill had played games on carpets, or had some less unusual arrangement. Carol's face wasn't frightened any longer, it was only an inch or two from mine, and she was smiling again. The smile, though, was still that pulled-muscle operation. She looked not quite all there, as if mentally she were absent, or at least tardy.
She went on, speaking softly, “I know you like me. I can tell when a man likes me."
“Welch, for example? He must have liked you pretty well. You were living with him at those Rancho cottages, weren't you?"
“For a little while, but I had to be close to him so I'd know when he found Ilona. If he found her."
“He didn't know you were Ann Wilson, did he?” I held my breath, but she answered without any hesitation.
“Of course not. I made up a name for him. I managed to meet him in a bar. It's a good thing. He'd even written up his report before he told me he'd finished what he'd been hired to do. That he'd found the girl he was looking for. After I—after he died, I burned the report. That's how I learned where Ilona was."
“And were you the one who shot at me earlier tonight?"
“Shot at you? I don't know what you're talking about."
I believed her. She was quiet for seconds, then she put her cheek against mine and said, in a pleased voice that was almost laughing, “You do like me a lot, I know. And we will have fun together, won't we? You won't tell anybody about me, will you, Sh
ell?"
“Baby, we are off to the clink."
It didn't penetrate for a few moments. Then she pulled back her head and stared at me. “What? What did you say?"
“Honey, that second drink you made me earlier—the one you mixed all by yourself in the kitchenette—had enough poison in it to kill me for sure. I was just another Welch who might upset your plans. Luckily I had only a small sip of the drink, but even so, it affected me a little after I'd left here. I just can't afford to do any more drinking with you, sweet. You must have brought eight pounds of cyanide down here from Fresno."
“Oh, you're imagining things, Shell.” Yeah, she was nuts, all right. “I wouldn't do anything to hurt you.” Man, she was squirming and wobbling around like crazy.
“No, of course not,” I said pleasantly. “I didn't realize quite what was wrong until I saw Welch's body, and the blue tinge of cyanosis on his face. That told me what was wrong with me, my love, and who was responsible for it all. That was the dead giveaway. No, love, I'm afraid I'll have to take you to jail."
And this time she believed me. She hauled off and hit me with everything she had—that is, everything she hadn't already hit me with. Arms, elbows, head, knees and so on. She even tried to bite me. I finally had to tie her arms and legs with electrical cord from one of the living-room lamps.
11
The police had taken Ann Wilson, alias Carol Austin, away from my apartment an hour before, and I was just knocking at the door of apartment 12 in the Franklin. While waiting for the police to arrive, the Franklin's desk clerk had phoned to earn his twenty bucks, and report the arrival of Cabot and his wife. So I had come straight here as soon as I could; this would wrap the case up. But I hated the thought of what the truth was going to do to Ilona. Johnny wasn't going to be happy, either, so I took out my .38 Colt and held it in my hand as I waited.
Footsteps sounded inside, then the door opened part way. Johnny Cabot blinked sleepily at me and began to speak. But then his eyes snapped open, he started to slam the door as a swear word burst from his throat.
“Hold it, Cabot!” I shoved the gun toward his sharp nose, and he froze. He stared at the gun, inches from his face, and I said, “Ask me in, Cabot. The party's over."
“What the hell's the idea? I've had about—"
“Shut up. You going to ask me in?"
He glanced again at my coat pocket, then stepped back. I walked in and looked around. The door into the next room, the bedroom, was ajar. From the bedroom Ilona's voice called, “What is it, Johnny?"
“I'll—be right in,” he said, then looked at me.
I spoke softly, “Get her and bring her out here, Cabot. I'll do this much for you, though I don't know why—you can tell her if you want to; or I will. You can have your choice."
He licked his lips. “Tell her what?"
“Come off it. You're washed up. I know all about William Grant, your bride's inheritance, the works."
He sighed, then shrugged. “Well,” he said finally, “you can't blame me for trying. You—uh, you better tell her, Scott. She is pretty much of a mess, but—well, I don't want to tell her."
“I didn't think anything would bother you, Cabot.” He shrugged, and I said, “Tell her to come out. But you keep in my sight. I'd hate for you to come back with that forty-five in your mitt."
“What forty-five?"
“The one you shot at me with earlier tonight."
He started to deny it, but then walked to the door and told Ilona to put on some clothes and come out. Then he shut the door, walked over and said to me, “I guess there's no point in trying to make it work now. Sure, I shot at you—or at your car. Don't kid yourself, mister. If I'd wanted to plug you, I wouldn't have missed by three or four feet. I just wanted to scare you off me and Ilona.” He paused. “Maybe I should have shot you—but I'm not a murderer."
This time I believed him. I put the .38 in my coat pocket but kept my hand on it and said, “I figured you were for a while. Cabot I found Welch's body tonight—"
“He's dead?” Honest surprise was in his voice.
“Several days. Poisoned. I thought you might have done it, but under the circumstance you'd have been nuts to kill him. You wanted him alive—at least long enough to report to Fresno that he'd found Ilona. But because you'd told me at the Westlander you wouldn't use cyanide to kill somebody, I figured you must've slipped the cyanide into your wife's milk."
“You're way off,” he said. “The minute after you talked to me at the Westlander I called Ilona, asked her what the score was. She told me about bringing the milk to your office, cyanide and all. She told me."
“Uh-huh. That's the way it figured to me."
“Welch's been dead several days? You mean they don't know Ilona's here in L.A.” He grinned wryly. “Not that it makes any difference to me now."
He was almost likeable for a second there. Cabot talked freely enough, now that he knew the game was over.
As I had guessed, he'd first talked to Welch on the 15th when the detective came into the Westlander Theater to check on Ilona the Hungarian Hurricane. Cabot had learned enough from Ilona and Welch himself that he stuck to Welch like a leech. They'd visited the Grotto, where Welch had interviewed Neptuna—and Cabot had got an eyeful that almost knocked him off his feet.
He and Welch had planned to have dinner the next night, but Welch had phoned to say he'd found the girl he was looking for and thus couldn't make it.
I said, “How much did Welch tell you? Did he actually say the Ilona he'd found was going to inherit a couple million? Did he tell you where she lived?"
Cabot shrugged. “No, he just said she was going to get some money from the estate of a guy named William J. Grant—he didn't tell Ilona that; his job was only to find her. I knew Welch was from Fresno, checked recent Fresno papers and learned this Grant had been loaded. The next day when Welch phoned me, I asked him where he'd found the girl and he said in an insurance office on Hill. I didn't ask him to narrow it down. The rest of it was just a little checking here and with Fresno.” He shrugged again. “A couple million bucks was worth a good try."
“What I can't understand is why you took off Monday night and didn't come back."
“Well, you've seen my ... wife. And you've seen Ilona Betun. I thought I could get away with it."
That was a good enough answer. Cabot told me that he'd kept his job at the burlesque house because he wasn't supposed to know his Ilona was going to inherit any money, and it would later have looked funny if he had quit his job as soon as they'd met. Besides, he added dully, they really did need the money.
The door opened then and Ilona Cabot came in. Wearing her husband's robe, and with no makeup, her hair almost straight, she didn't look good at all. Not pretty, at least. She still had that air of mousy sweetness about her.
Her face brightened with a smile when she saw me. “Mr. Scott. What are you doing here?"
“Hello, Mrs. Cabot. You'd better sit down."
We all found seats, me in a chair and Ilona with Johnny on the couch. She grabbed his hand and held it. Johnny was starting to look very uncomfortable.
Just to be positive, I asked her if she'd spent the first half dozen years of her life in the Bunting Orphanage, and if a detective named Welch had talked to her a couple weeks ago about that. After a little hesitation she admitted it, but expressed her puzzlement.
I said, “Well, Mrs. Cabot, you're an heiress. I mean, you'll soon inherit about two million dollars."
It went right by her. If I was talking about two million dollars, I couldn't possibly be talking about her. It took me five minutes to partially convince her that she was actually going to get money, and explain enough so she could believe it. When she finally got it through her head, all she did was turn to Cabot and say, “Johnny, isn't it wonderful?"
I broke in quickly, “Wait a minute. That's not all of what I've got to tell you. The other part is about your husband. About Johnny."
She smiled. “Yes?” She
looked at Johnny Cabot. She beamed at him.
I remembered how she had lit up in my office when I'd asked her to describe her husband. This was the same kind of look. A bright, happy, everything's-wonderful look. It wasn't a very new expression, not original, just the look of a woman in love.
But it was, of course, new for Ilona.
I hated to think of how she was going to look when she knew that Johnny Cabot had found out about her from Welch, learned from Welch about her inheritance, found her and rushed her and married her, just for whatever part he could grab of that two million bucks. I didn't like the thought of what was going to happen to her already plain and homely face.
I said, “You see, Mrs. Cabot, this detective, Welch, who talked to you—well, he talked to some other Ilonas first, before he found you. During his search for you. Two million dollars is an awful lot of money, and...” I stopped. It was difficult to find the right words. It was going to hurt enough no matter how it was told, but I wanted to find the gentlest way to break it to her, if I could.
But then Cabot said slowly, “Let it go, Scott. This is something I ... Well, maybe I better tell her.” He chewed on his lip for a moment, then turned to her. “Honey, it's like this. When I met you, I—well, I—"
Ilona was looking up at him, sort of smiling. And it seemed to me that she didn't look plain and almost ugly—not when she was looking at her husband. Her face seemed to get bright and warm, as if it were lighted from happiness welling up inside her, and I thought that all the hunger and trampled-down love and affection she must have been saving for years was right there on her face. It was there in the brightness of her eyes, and in the curve of her lips. It was so frank and honest and open that it didn't seem quite right for me to be looking at her then.
Johnny had taken a deep breath, and now he said, rapidly, not looking at her, “Honey, when I met you I told you I was crazy about you, you remember, but the real reason I bumped into you was because I knew all about—"
“Wait a minute. Hold it, just a minute."
Three's a Shroud (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 11