Lay Her Among the Lilies vm-2

by James Hadley Chase

  Willet lit a cigarette. He looked like a hungry man who’s been given a pie and finds nothing inside it.

  “Go on,” he said, and sat back.

  “For some reason or other, a nurse named Anona Freedlander was in the house at the time of the shooting, and she saw the accident. Mrs. Salzer wasn’t taking any chances. She locked the nurse up to make sure she wouldn’t talk. She’s been in a padded cell at Salzer’s sanatorium ever since.”

  “You mean—against her will?”

  “Not only against her will, but for two years they have been pumping drugs into her.”

  “You’re not suggesting Maureen Crosby is aware of this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Willet was breathing heavily now. The thought that a client as wealthy as Maureen Crosby might be charged with kidnapping seemed to shock him, although Anona Freedlander’s predicament hadn’t made him turn a hair.

  “Incidentally, in case you’re working up some sympathy for her,” I said, “we got Anona out of the sanatorium last night.”

  “Oh?” He looked disconcerted. “Is she likely to make trouble?”

  I grinned unpleasantly.

  “I should think it’s more than likely. Wouldn’t you want to start something after being kept locked up for two years just because some rich people are shy of appearing in the newspapers?”

  He fingered his chin and did some heavy thinking.

  “Perhaps we could give her a little compensation,” he said at last, but he didn’t look very happy. “I’d better see her.”

  “No one sees her until she’s ready to see anyone. Right now, she doesn’t seem to know whether she’s coming or going.” I crushed out the cigarette and lit one of my own. “This kidnapping should be reported to the police. If it is, then the whole sordid story will hit the headlines. It will be your job then to hand over the Crosby millions to the Research Centre. They may or may not want you to handle the account: probably not.”

  “All the more reason why I should have a talk with her,” he said. “These things can usually be arranged.”

  “Don’t be too sure about that. Then there’s this little incident that happened to me,” I said mildly. “I was also kidnapped and held prisoner for five days, and also had a certain amount of drug pumped into me. That’s another little thing that should he reported to the police.”

  “Why talk yourself out of a good job?” he returned, and for the first time since I had been in the room he allowed himself a slight grin. “I was about to suggest an extra retainer: say another five hundred dollars.”

  That made my new hat a certainty.

  “That tempts me. We might call it an insurance against risks,” I said. “But it would have to be over and above the fee you will pay for the work we are doing.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Well, perhaps we might leave Anona Freedlander for the moment and go on with the story,” I said. “There’s quite a bit more; it gets better as it goes along.”

  He pushed back his chair and got up. I watched him cross to a cellaret against the opposite wall and return with a bottle of Haigh & Haigh and two small glasses.

  “Do you use this stuff?” he asked as he sat down again.

  I said I used it whenever I could.

  He poured two drinks, pushed one across the desk towards me, tossed the other down his throat and immediately refilled his glass. He put the bottle midway between us.

  “Help yourself,” he said.

  I drank a little of the Scotch. It was very good: quite the best liquor I had had in months. I thought it was wonderful how a big-shot lawyer could unbend when he sees trouble coming towards him with his name on it.

  “According to Maureen, Crosby’s death preyed on Janet’s mind,” I told him. “Maybe it did, but she certainly had an odd way of showing it. I should have thought she wouldn’t have felt like playing tennis or running around at a time like that, but apparently she did. Anyway, also according to Maureen, Janet committed suicide about six or seven weeks after the shooting. She took arsenic.”

  A tiny drop of Scotch wobbled out of Willet’s glass on to his blotter. He said, “Good God!” under his breath.

  “That was hushed up, too. As it happened Mrs. Salzer was away at the time, so Maureen and Dr. Salzer called in Dr. Bewley, a harmless old goat, and told him Janet was suffering from malignant endocarditis, and he obligingly issued the death certificate. Janet had a personal maid, Eudora Drew, who possibly overheard Salzer and Maureen cooking up this yarn. She put on the bite, and they paid her. I got a line on her and went to see her. She was smart enough to fob me off and get on to Salzer, telling him I was offering five hundred bucks for information, and if he liked to raise the ante she would keep her mouth shut. Mrs. Salzer had an answer to that. She sent along an ex-gunman who was working at the sanatorium to reason with her. According to Mrs. S. he got rough and killed her.”

  Willet drew in a long, slow breath. He took a drink like a man who needs a drink.

  “The family butler, John Stevens, also knew something, or suspected something,” I went on. “I was persuading him to loosen up when he was kidnapped by six Wops who work for Sherrill. They got a little tough with him, and he died, but that still makes murder. Two murders. Now we get to the third. Are you liking this?”

  He said in a gritty voice, “Go on.”

  “You will remember Nurse Gurney? Mrs. Salzer admits kidnapping her, only, according to her, Nurse Gurney fell down the fire escape and broke her neck. Mrs. Salzer hid her somewhere in the desert. That’s murder, too.”

  “This is fantastic.” Willet said. “It’s unbelievable.”

  “It’s unbelievable only because of the motive. Here we have two people, Mrs. Salzer and Sherrill, committing three murders between them, to say nothing of kidnapping Anona Freedlander and myself, to protect a girl from newspaper publicity. That’s what makes it unbelievable. I think there’s a lot more to this business than we know about. It seems to me these two are desperately trying to keep a very lively cat from hopping out of the bag, and I want to find out what kind of cat it is.”

  “It’s not newspaper publicity they’re worrying about,” Willet said. “Look at the money that’s involved.”

  “Yeah, but I still think there’s a strange cat we haven’t found yet. I’m going to hunt for it. Anyway, I’ll get on. I haven’t finished yet. The punch line comes last. Maureen told me when she came into her money, Sherrill reverted to type. He turned blackmailer. He said he would circulate the rumour that because she stole him from Janet, Janet shot her father and killed herself. But if Maureen bought the Dream Ship for him, he would keep quiet. She bought the Dream Ship: that’s why she converted the insurance money into bearer bonds. She gave the bonds to Sherrill. Imagine how the newspapers would scream if it got out that Maureen Crosby was the backer of a gambling-ship. Wouldn’t that drop the whole of the Crosby money into the Research Centre’s lap?”

  Willet managed to look green without actually turning green.

  “She bought the Dream Ship,” he said in a stifled voice.

  “That’s what she tells me. She also said she was frightened of Sherrill, and at that dramatic moment Mr. Sherrill made a personal appearance. He announced he was going to put Maureen where no one would find her and dispose of me in the same way. I was beginning to argue with him when someone from behind bent a sap over my head, and I woke up in Salzer’s sanatorium. We won’t waste time going into what happened there. It’s enough that my assistant kidded Lessways he was a well-known writer and got himself invited to the monthly visit to the asylum with the City’s councilmen. He spotted me, and got out and we took Anona Freedlandcr with us. What we have to find out is whether Sherrill has carried out his threat to hide Maureen away. If she doesn’t show up tomorrow, my bet is she’s hidden away: probably on Sherrill’s ship. But if she does show up, then I’ll be inclined to think she’s in this business with the rest of them, and she took me to her house so Sherrill could get
at me.”

  Willet poured another drink with a hand that wasn’t too steady.

  “I don’t believe that’s likely,” he said.

  “We’ll see. If Sherrill is holding her, have you any power to stop her money?”

  “I haven’t any power over her money at all. All I can do is to advise the other trustees that she has broken the terms of the will.”

  “Who are the other trustees?”

  “Mr. Glynn and Mr. Coppley, my chiefs, who are of course, in New York.”

  “Should they be consulted?”

  “Not at this stage,” he said, and rubbed his jaw. “I’ll be frank with you, Malloy. They would follow out the terms of the will without hesitation, and without taking into consideration the girl might be innocent. To my way of thinking the will is over-harsh. Crosby has stipulated that if Maureen figures in the newspapers the money goes to the Research Centre. I imagine he got a little tired of her pranks, but he didn’t realize he was giving an unscrupulous blackmailer a weapon to use against her. And that’s what has probably happened.”

  “It’s occurred to you we are covering up three murders?” I said, helping myself to another drink. All this talk made me dry. “So far Brandon isn’t digging too deep because he’s scared of the Crosby’s money, but if the facts turn out that Maureen’s hooked up in these murders, he’ll have to forget about her money and take some action: then you and I will be out on a limb.”

  “We’ve got to give her the benefit of the doubt,” Willet said uneasily. “I’d never forgive myself if by acting too previously we caused her to lose her money unfairly. How about this Freedlander woman? How long will it be before she can talk?”

  “I don’t know. Some days from the look of her. She can’t even remember who she is.”

  “Is she in hospital?”

  I shook my head.

  “My secretary. Miss Bensinger, is looking after her. I’ve called in a doctor, but there’s nothing much he can do. He says it’s a matter of time. I’m going to San Francisco to-day to see her father. He may help her memory.”

  “We’ll pay any expenses involved,” Willet said. “Charge it up to us.” He lit another cigarette. “What’s the next move?”

  “We’ll have to wait and see if Maureen turns up. If she doesn’t, I’ll go out to the Dream Ship and see if she’s on board. There are other angles I’m looking into. At the moment I have a lot of loose strings that need tidying up.”

  There was a tap on the door and the platinum blonde came in and swayed her way to Willet’s desk.

  “Mrs. Pollard is getting impatient,” she murmured. “And this message has just come in. I thought you should see it at once.”

  She gave him a slip of paper. He read what was written on it and his eyebrows shot up.

  “All right. Tell Mrs. Pollard I’ll see her in five minutes,” he said. He looked at me. “Miss Crosby won’t be coming tomorrow. Apparently she is going to Mexico for a trip”

  “Who phoned?” I asked, sitting forward.

  “He didn’t say who he was,” the platinum blonde told Willet. “He said he was speaking for Miss Crosby, and would I give you the message right away.”

  Willet raised his eyebrows at me. I shook my head.

  “All right, Miss Palmetter,” he said. “That’s all.”

  I fished up my hat from under my chair and stood up.

  “Looks like a visit to the Dream Ship,” I said.

  Willet put the Scotch and the two glasses away.

  “You’d better not tell me about that,” he said. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

  “You’ll be surprised how careful I will be.”

  “She may have gone to Mexico,” he went on doubtfully.

  I gave him a little grin, but he didn’t grin back.

  “Be seeing you,” I said, and went into the outer office.

  A fat, over-dressed woman, with pearls the size of pickled onions around her neck, sat breathing heavily in one of the lounging chairs. She gave me a stony glare as I picked my way past her to the door.

  I looked back at the platinum blonde and tried my grin on her.

  She opened her eyes very wide, stared emptily at me and then looked away.

  I went out, my grin hanging in space, like an unwanted baby on a doorstep.

  II

  Jack Kerman was demonstrating to Trixy, my switchboard girl, how Gregory Peck kisses his leading ladies when I tramped in. They came apart a little slower than a flash of lightning, but not much. Trixy whipped to her seat and began to pull out plugs and push in plugs with an unconvincing show of efficiency.

  Kerman gave me a sad smirk, shook his head sorrowfully, and followed me into the inner room.

  “Do you have to do that?” I asked, going over to my desk and yanking open a drawer.

  “Isn’t she a mite young?”

  Kerman sneered.

  “Not by the way she was acting,” he said.

  I took out my .38 police special, shoved it in my hip pocket and collected a couple of spare magazines.

  “I have news,” Kerman said, watching me a little pop-eyed. “Want it now?”

  “I’ll have it in the car. You and me are going to ‘Frisco.”

  “Heeled?”

  “Yeah. From now on I’m taking no chances. Got your rod?”

  “I can get it.”

  While he was getting it I put a call through to Paula.

  “How is she?” I asked, when she came on the line.

  “About the same. Dr. Mansell’s just been in. He’s given her a mild shot. He says it’ll take a long time to taper her off.”

  “I’m on my way to see her father. If he’ll take her over it’ll let us out. You all right?”

  She said she was.

  “I’ll look in on my way back.” I said, and hung up.

  Kerman and I rode in the elevator to the ground floor, crossed the sidewalk to the Buick.

  “We’re going out to the Dream Ship tonight,” I said as I started the engine.

  “Officially or unofficially?”

  “Unofficially: just like they do on the movies. Maybe we’ll even have to swim out there.”

  “Sharks and things, ugh?” Kerman said. “Maybe they’ll try to shoot us when we get aboard.”

  “They certainly will if they see us.” I edged past a truck and went up Centre Avenue with a burst of speed that startled two taxi-drivers and a girl driving a Pontiac.

  “That’ll be something to look forward to,” Kerman said gloomily. He sunk lower in his seat. “I simply can’t wait. Maybe I’d better make a will.”

  “Have you anything to leave?” I asked, surprised, and braked hard as the red light went up.

  “Some dirty post-cards and a stuffed rat,” Kerman said. “I’ll leave those to you.”

  As the light changed to green, I said, “What’s the news? Find anything on Mrs. Salzer?”

  Kerman lit a cigarette, dropped the match into the back seat of the Pontiac as it tried to nose past us.

  “You bet. Watch your driving, this is going to knock you sideways. I’ve been digging all morning. Know who she is?”

  I swung the car on to Fairview Boulevard.

  “Tell me.”

  “Macdonald Crosby’s second wife: Maureen’s mother.”

  I swerved half across the road, missed a truck that was pounding along and minding its own business, and had the driver curse at me. I edged back to the near side.

  “I told you to watch it,” Kerman said, and grinned. “Hot, isn’t it?”

  “Go on : what else?”

  “About twenty-three years ago she was a throat and ear specialist in San Francisco. Crosby met her when she treated Janet for a minor complaint. He married her. She kept her practice, over-worked, had a nervous breakdown and had to quit. Crosby and she didn’t hit it off. He caught her fooling with Salzer. He divorced her. When he moved to Orchid City, she moved too, to be near Maureen. Like it?”

  “Well, it helps,” I said.
We were now on the Los Angeles and San Francisco Highway, and I had my foot hard down on the gas pedal. “It explains quite a lot of things, but not everything. It accounts for why she took a hand in the game. Naturally she’d be anxious her daughter should keep all that money. But for the love of Mike! Imagine going to the lengths she’s gone to. It’s my bet she’s crazy.”

  “Probably is,” Kerman said complacently. “They were cagey about her at the Medical Association. Said she had a nervous breakdown and wouldn’t enlarge on it. She chucked a dummy right in the middle of an operation. One nurse I talked to said if it hadn’t been for the anesthetist she would have cut the patient’s throat: as bad as that.”

  “Salzer any money?”

  “Not a bean.”

  “I wonder who promoted the sanatorium: probably Crosby. She’s not going to get away with Nurse Gurney’s death. When the police find the body I’m going to tip Mifflin.”

  “They may never find her,” Kerman said. He had a very low opinion of the Orchid City police.

  “I’ll help them, after I’ve seen Maureen.”

  We drove for the next ten minutes in silence while I did some heavy thinking.

  Then Kerman said, “Aren’t we wasting time going to see old man Freedlander? Couldn’t we have telephoned?”

  “You get bright ideas a little late, don’t you? He may not be anxious to have her back. A telephone conversation can be closed down too easily. I have a feeling he’ll need talking to.”

  We crossed the Oakland Bay Bridge a few minutes after three o’clock, turned off 3rd into Montgomery Street, and left into California Street.

  Freedlander’s place was halfway down on the right-hand side. It was one of those nondescript dwelling-houses: six storeys of rabbit warren, blaring radio and yelling children.

  A party of kids came storming down the stone steps to welcome us. They did everything to the car except puncture the tyres and drop lighted matches into the petrol tank.