1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead

by James Hadley Chase

  ‘You’ll probably stop his mouth if you pay him,’ Paula said. To her way of thinking money could do anything.

  ‘Yeah. Well, I’ll try him. Then there’s this guy Barclay, been around with Anita, and according to Dana’s report they were acting like lovers. I’ll dig into his background. He may be our man for all I know.’

  ‘If there is a blackmailer at the bottom of this,’ Paula said, ‘I’d pick Bannister. He’s touched everything crooked since he’s been here. Why did Mrs. Cerf call on him the night before last, and what was her urgent business? If we could find that out we might get places.’

  ‘I’ll turn Benny on to Bannister and Kerman on to Anita,’ I said, lighting another cigarette. ‘I’ll get Kerman to dig into Anita’s background. We may turn something up to help us. I’ll go along and have a talk with Natalie Cerf.’

  ‘You’ll have to work fast, Vic,’ Paula said. She was quiet and calm. It took a lot to rattle her. ‘If the police find the killer before we do...’ She pulled a face.

  The front-door bell rang sharply, making us both jump.

  ‘That’s probably the cops,’ I said, getting to my feet.

  ‘More likely Benny,’ Paula returned. ‘I told him to come here as soon as he was through looking Dana’s apartment over.’

  She went to the front door and returned a moment later with Benny, whose usual humorous face was hard and set.

  ‘Can you beat it, Vic?’ he said, closing the door. ‘We’ve got to find the lug who killed her. It’s knocked me. One of the nicest kids I’ve ever worked with.’

  ‘Did you find anything to hook Cerf up with the killing?’ I broke in sharply.

  Benny controlled his feelings.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I found her report book and the duplicates of her last report. And something else. I don’t know what to make of it. It can’t be hers. I found it under her mattress,’ and he fished out Anita Cerf’s diamond necklace from his pocket and dangled it before us.

  II

  Benny and I went over to Finnegan’s bar for breakfast. Although it was only a few minutes after seven-thirty, Kerman was already there, impatiently awaiting us.

  As we sat down at the table, Finnegan, a great lump of a man, his face battered and scarred from innumerable fights in his logging-camp days, came out from behind the bar and joined us.

  ‘Bad business, Mr. Malloy,’ he said, leaning over to wipe the tabletop. ‘I’ve only just seen the paper. We’ll miss her. You got any idea who did it?’

  ‘No, Pat, but we’re going to find out,’ I said. ‘Let’s have some ham and eggs and a lot of coffee. We have work to do.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. His shoulder muscles bulged under his grey flannel shirt, straining the seams. ‘If there’s anything I can do…’

  ‘Thanks. If there is I’ll let you know.’

  When he had gone into the kitchen, Kerman said impatiently, ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘The three of us are going to work on this, Jack. It’s got to be played smooth and fast, and Cerf’s to be left out of it.’

  ‘If Brandon catches up with us it’ll be nice,’ Kerman said, shaking his head. ‘I knew this guarantee of secrecy would land us in trouble one of these days. What do we do?’

  ‘We have enough leads to keep us busy for a day or so. I don’t think Mifflin has a thing to work on, but he’s a lucky cop and may turn up something. We’ll have to move fast. There are a lot of odd angles to this business. The oddest is why Anita’s necklace was under Dana’s mattress.’

  ‘Under her mattress?’ Kerman repeated, looking over at Benny.

  ‘Yeah,’ Benny said. ‘I was poking around. The bed looked disturbed and I lifted up the mattress and there was the necklace. Vic says it belongs to the Cerf frail.’

  ‘Anita called on me last night and she was wearing it,’ I said, and went on to tell them of Anita’s visit. ‘I reckon the necklace is worth twenty grand, if not more. Ed’s going to work on that angle. We’ve got to find out how it got into Dana’s room.’ I broke off as Finnegan came over with plates of ham and eggs.

  ‘I’d like to send flowers, Mr. Malloy,’ he said as he set the places before us. ‘You’ll tip me the time of the funeral, won’t you?’

  Thinking of Dana in terms of a funeral got me, but I knew he meant well. I said I’d tell him and wished he would go away. He began to say something else but Benny gave him a friendly shove and told him to get the hell out of it.

  ‘I know how you gentlemen feel,’ Finnegan said dolefully.

  ‘I feel that way myself. She was a fine girl.’ And he went back to the bar where he stood watching us, shaking his head from time to time and getting on our nerves.

  ‘I want you to check on Dana’s movements,’ I said to Benny, turning my back on Finnegan so I couldn’t see him.

  ‘Right up to the time she was shot. Have a word with the commissionaire at L’Etoile. He may have seen her, but don’t let on anything about Mrs. Cerf. Any idea how Dana was dressed?’

  ‘I checked her wardrobe while I was there,’ Benny said with his mouth full. ‘That blue coat and skirt thing she was always wearing wasn’t in the cupboard. I guess she must have had that on.’

  Kerman poured himself out a cup of coffee, pushed the pot over to me.

  ‘What have you done with the diamonds?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve locked them in the office safe for the moment. I’m going to use them as a lever to make Cerf talk. I’m seeing him this morning.’

  ‘What do you want me to do, Vic?’

  ‘Get after Leadbetter. According to Mifflin the guy’s a nut: a Peeping Tom. He may have seen more than he’s told the police. Have a go at him. If you think a little folding money will loosen him up, go ahead. I don’t care what this costs. I want results.’

  ‘Right,’ Kerman said. ‘I’ll see the guy, but I can’t help feeling there’s something wrong with this setup.’ He pushed his empty plate aside and lit a cigarette. ‘Up to now this Cerf frail has been blackmailed for thirty thousand bucks. That’s a lot of money, and all because she’s light-fingered. But if we accept that, and maybe if a dame can’t control her fingers she would be willing to pay that amount of dough to keep it quiet, why did the blackmailer kill Dana?’

  ‘Maybe he was preparing for a big take. He started off asking for five thousand, then raised the ante to ten and then fifteen. Maybe he was going to shake Anita down for some real money when Dana happened along.’

  ‘But why kill her?’ Kerman repeated, frowning. ‘Dana couldn’t interfere with him unless she gave Anita away. There’s no point in killing her. That’s what foxes me.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, suddenly thoughtful. ‘That’s right. I think you’ve got something there, Jack.’ I pushed back my chair, took one of Kerman’s cigarettes and lit it.’ Maybe there’s another angle to it. Look, if Barclay and Anita were lovers and Dana found out about them while checking up on the blackmail setup, Barclay might have silenced her so she shouldn’t give them away. That might make sense.’

  ‘But it doesn’t,’ Kerman said. ‘Why kill her? This guy Barclay has money, hasn’t he? If they meant business all Anita had to do was to get Cerf to divorce her and marry Barclay. Barclay doesn’t have to shoot Dana for that.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said and stared at him, frowning.

  ‘We’re jumping to conclusions,’ Kerman went on. ‘Because Dana was ·watching Anita and is suddenly found murdered we assume she was shot because of something she found out in connection with Anita. The killing may have had nothing to do with the Cerfs at all.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ I exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe that. Why else should she be murdered? She hadn’t an enemy in the world. Why was she out on those dunes unless she was watching Anita?’

  ‘What makes you so sure Anita was out there?’ Benny asked.

  ‘I told you. She came to see me around ten-thirty. Dana was found a mile from my place. My idea is Anita went to that sp
ot after seeing me to meet the blackmailer. I think Dana was watching her although Anita was confident she had given her the slip. You know how Dana worked. She wasn’t easily shaken off. I think she followed Anita to her rendezvous and ran into the blackmailer who lost his head and shot her.’

  ‘Has it occurred to you that Anita might have shot her?’

  Kerman asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t favour the idea. A woman doesn’t like a gun as big as a .45. I don’t think Anita could have handled it, and besides, she’s not the killer type.’

  Kerman blew out his cheeks, shook his head and shrugged.

  ‘Well, I haven’t seen her,’ he said. ‘All right, what else have we got? What was Dana doing with the necklace? We haven’t got around to that yet. Any ideas?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s only an idea. Suppose that necklace was planted in Dana’s room? Suppose someone wanted the police to know Anita had something to do with Dana’s death? Wouldn’t that be a way of doing it? The necklace could be easily traced. If Ed hadn’t found it the police would have, and they’d’ve been on to Anita fast enough as soon as they had traced it to her.’

  ‘That’s an idea. Natalie Cerf, huh?’

  ‘Maybe. It’s only an idea, but as soon as Benny told me he had found the necklace I thought of her. It smells of a plant, doesn’t it? Natalie hates Anita, and I can imagine it’d give her a bang to tie Anita to a murder rap.’

  ‘But she’s a cripple, isn’t she?’ Benny protested. ‘How could she get to Dana’s apartment? It’s on the fourth floor and there’s no elevator.’

  ‘I’m not saying she did it herself. Maybe she got someone to do it for her. It’s no more than an idea, but it’s worth thinking about. Find out, Ed, if anyone was seen entering Dana’s apartment between eleven and three last night. It can’t be before then because Anita was wearing the necklace when she called on me.’

  ‘If we can find that dame and persuade her to talk,’ Kerman said, ‘half our work’s done.’

  I stood up.

  ‘I’ll have a crack at Cerf. In the meantime you see Leadbetter. He may have spotted Anita out there or even the killer. Ed, you know what to do. Get out to Dana’s apartment, but don’t start nosing around if the police are there. We’ll meet here for lunch and see how far we’ve got.’

  We said so long to Finnegan, and then went across to the parking lot for our cars.

  ‘It’s early yet, Vic,’ Kerman said, consulting his wristwatch. ‘You’re not going to see Cerf now, are you?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Paula had him out of bed at five this morning. He’ll be up and about. Besides, the less time I give him to get his second wind the easier he’ll be to handle. I’m going to sock into him this time. Paula hadn’t anything to hit him with. I have the necklace.’

  ‘Rather you than me,’ Benny said, getting into his vintage Ford. ‘Millionaires have a habit of hitting back. Give me a dame if I have to get tough with someone.’

  ‘Me too,’ Kerman said with feeling.

  III

  A guard lounged outside the main entrance of the Santa Rosa Estate. The big wrought-iron gates were closed, and it didn’t look as if visitors would be welcomed this day.

  The guard was a middle-sized youth, very dapper in his bottle green uniform and peak cap with a glossy black chinstrap which he held between his teeth and chewed at in a bored, meditative sort of way, like a cow ruminating on the cud.

  He was very blond, and his eyes were almost colourless, either a grey or a blue, you could take your choice. There was a look of studied insolence and confidence on his pale, handsome face that I didn’t like. He was around twenty-two, but experience that couldn’t have been good for him had doubled his age. There was something about him that said he had kicked around a lot in his young life, touched bottom where the dirt was, and a lot of it still clung to him. He wasn’t the kind of lad you’d expect to see playing ping-pong at the Y.M.C.A., or the type you’d introduce to your girlfriend unless you were there all the time with a shotgun within reach.

  I stopped the car a couple of yards from him and let him look me over. His pale eyes missed nothing. By the way his top lip curled off his small teeth he didn’t think much of what he saw.

  I cut the engine and got out of the car.

  ‘Can I drive in or do I have to walk?’ I asked in a let’s-get-together-and-be-friends tone of voice.

  The sun glittered on his double row of chromium buttons.

  His patent-leather gauntlets reflected patches of white cloud. His knee boots sparkled, and I could see part of my face in the neat, square toecaps: a very bright boy this; bright and as genuine as a five-dollar diamond.

  ‘What’s that again, Mac?’ he said languidly. His voice sounded like a file biting on steel.

  ‘I said do I drive in or do I walk,’ I repeated.

  He chewed his chinstrap thoughtfully, while his eyes ran over me.

  ‘You don’t do either,’ he said, leaning up against the wall as if the night had been a long one and had kept him busy.

  ‘You take it away, Mac: you and the heep.’

  ‘Not this morning,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I have a little business to discuss with your boss. The name’s Malloy. Snap into it, sonny, and break the news to him. He’ll see me.’

  He took off one of his gauntlets, undid the flap of his top right-hand pocket and pulled out a solid gold combined cigarette case and lighter. He selected a cigarette, lit it, stowed the case away and took a drag at the cigarette, letting the smoke roll down his thin, pinched nostrils. There was a faraway look in his pale eyes, and a dreamy kind of smile on his thin mouth.

  ‘There’s no one home,’ he said, eyeing the distant ocean as if he was surprised to find it still there. ‘Get in your heep, Mac, and fade.’

  ‘Important business,’ I said as if I hadn’t heard him. ‘Tell your boss it’s either me or the police: as important as that.’

  That seemed to hold him for a moment. He flicked at his cigarette with a well-manicured thumbnail. Then as he didn’t seem to get any satisfaction from that, he tapped the ground thoughtfully with the toe of his elegant boot. But that didn’t get him anywhere either.

  ‘The old man left about an hour ago,’ he said at last.

  ‘Don’t ask me where he’s gone. I don’t know. Maybe he’s going on a trip. Now be a nice guy and fade. I like a little quiet in the morning.’

  I had no reason not to believe him. Anyway I could tell that nothing short of a tank and machine-gun unit would persuade him to open the gate. I would be only wasting time to argue with him.

  I got back into the car and trod on the starter. He watched me make a U-turn, then as I drove away he opened one of the gates, locked it behind ‘him and disappeared into the guardhouse.

  I followed the long wall of the estate until I came to a corner, then I swung the wheel, drove a few yards down the lane that led along the side of the wall so the car would be out of sight from the main entrance, cut the engine and got out.

  The wall was about eight feet high. You didn’t have to be an acrobat to scale it. I swung myself up and over all in one movement and landed on soft yielding soil of a flowerbed.

  It was nearing nine o’clock by now, and I didn’t have a lot of hope of running into Natalie Cerf. She hadn’t struck me as the type who dabbled her toes in the dew, but I thought while I was here I might as well have a look around. There was always a chance that Anita might be still here; it was as good a hiding place as any.

  It seemed a long walk to the house. I took my time, and every so often I looked back over my shoulder. I had no great yearnings to run into the bright boy at the gate. I had a feeling he might be a difficult proposition to stop once he got started.

  I passed a swimming pool big enough to hold a regatta on.

  It looked very wet and lonely, but that was something I couldn’t do anything about and I went on towards the house.

&nb
sp; The way was along a rubber-covered path, laid down, I suspected, for swimmers to reach the pool without bothering to put on shoes, up some steps to the esplanade that encircled the house.

  Keeping out of sight behind a big rhododendron shrub I surveyed the front of the house for any signs of activity.

  Row upon row of shiny glass windows stared back at me.

  No one looked out. The house was as quiet and as lifeless as a chorus girl at getting-up time.

  I moved out of the shrubbery and on to the esplanade. On its broad, naked vastness I felt as conspicuous as a man shouting ‘Fire!’ at a firemen’s convention. There were no cars on the tarmac, no Filipino chauffeurs to sneer at me, no regal butlers to take my hat. I plucked up enough courage to walk on tiptoe the length of the esplanade to the loggia and look in.

  She was sitting in her wheel chair, decked out in a blue kimono and quilted mules trimmed with ostrich feathers on her feet, a tray across her knees. She was munching buttered toast and staring blankly before her, and had that lonely, unhappy look people who are left on their own for long stretches of time get when they don’t think anyone is around.

  My shadow fell across her feet. She didn’t look up immediately. A wary expression chased away her depression, her neatly made-up mouth tightened, and she put down the piece of toast. Then without moving her head, she lifted her eyelids and her eyes swivelled in my direction.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, taking off my hat. ‘The name’s Malloy. Remember me?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded and sat up, taut as a violin string, her eyes angry.

  ‘I looked in to see your father,’ I said, leaning against the doorway where I had a view of the esplanade in case reinforcements should come galloping up. ‘Would he be around?’

  ‘Did Mills let you in?’ she asked. It was extraordinary how hard her eyes were for a girl of her age.

  ‘Is Mills the bright boy lounging at the main entrance? The one with the pretty buttons?’