"I'll see what I can do. Go slow on this, Malloy. I don't want any blow-back. You understand?"
"I'll watch it."
"What's your next move?"
"I've got to do something about Nurse Gurney. I liked that girl. If she's alive, I'm going to find her."
When I left him he wasn't looking like the Graven Image any more. He was looking like a very worried, much-harassed, middle-aged lawyer. At least, it showed the guy was human.
II
The desk sergeant said Mifflin was free and for me to go on up. He looked at me with hopeful eyes, and I knew he was expecting me to name the winner of to-morrow's races, but I had other things on my mind.
I went up the stone stairs. On the landing I ran into red-headed Sergeant MacGraw.
"Well, well, the Boy Wonder again," he said sneeringly. "What's biting you this time?"
I looked into the hard little eyes and didn't like what I saw in them. This was a guy who would enjoy inflicting pain; one of those tough coppers who would volunteer when there was a softening job to be done, and how he would love it.
"Nothing's biting me," I said. "But if I stick around you long enough something may."
"Smart—huh?" He grinned, showing small yellow teeth. "Keep your nose clean, Wonder Boy. We're watching you."
"Just so long as you don't shoot me through the head," I returned, pushed past him and went on down the corridor to Mifflin's office.
I paused before I rapped and looked over my shoulder. MacGraw was still standing at the head of the stairs, staring at me. There was a startled expression on his face, and his looselipped mouth hung open. As our eyes met, he turned away and went down the stairs.
Mifflin looked up as I entered his office and frowned.
"You again. For Pete's sake don't keep coming to see me. Brandon doesn't like it."
I pulled up a straight-back chair and sat down.
"Remind me to cry when I have time. I'm on official business. If Brandon doesn't like it he can go jump in the ocean."
"What business?" Mifflin asked, pushing back his desk chair and resting his big hairy hands on the desk.
"One of the nurses attending Miss Crosby has vanished," I said. "Brandon should be interested because this nurse is employed by Salzer."
"Vanished ?" Mifflin repeated, his voice off-key. "What do you mean—vanished?"
I told him how I had called on Nurse Gurney, how the front-door bell had rung, how she had gone to answer it and hadn't returned. I gave him the details about the fat woman in the empty apartment opposite, the plum stone on the escape and how simple it would have been for a strong man to have carried Nurse Gurney down the escape to the waiting car.
"Well, that's a damned funny thing," Mifflin said, and ran his fingers through his shock of black hair. "About a couple of years ago another of Salzer's nurses disappeared. She was never found."
"Did you ever look for her?"
"All right, Vic, you needn't be that way," he said angrily. "Of course we looked for her, but we didn't find her. Salzer said he thought she had run away to get married. Her father wasn't struck on her boy friend or something like that."
"Salzer hasn't reported Nurse Gurney is missing?"
He shook his head.
"He'd scarcely have had time, would he? Besides, she might have remembered something and gone out to get it. There must be any number of reasons why she left the apartment."
"Without shoes and stockings and in the middle of a conversation? Don't kid yourself. This is kidnapping, and you know it."
"I'll go over there and talk to the janitor. You better keep out of this. I'll tell Brandon the janitor reported it."
I shrugged.
"Just so long as something's done. This other case interests me. Who was the nurse?"
Mifflin hesitated, then got up and went over to one of his many filing cabinets.
"Her name was Anona Freedlander," he said, pawed through a number of files, selected one and brought it to his desk. "We haven't a lot of information. Her father's George Freedlander. He lives at 257 California Street, San Francisco. She disappeared on 15th May of last year. Salzer reported to Brandon. Freedlander came to see us, and it was his idea she had run off with this boy friend, a guy named Jack Brett. Brett was in the Navy. A couple of weeks before Anona disappeared he deserted. Brandon said we needn't look too hard; we didn't."
"Did you ever find Brett?"
"No."
"I wonder how hard you are going to look for Nurse Gurney."
"Well, we'll have to be convinced she has been kidnapped. Brandon won't act on your sayso. It'll depend on Salzer."
"This damned city seems to be run by Salzer."
"Aw, now, Vic, you don't mean that."
I got to my feet.
"Find her, Tim, or I'll start something. I liked that girl."
"Just take it easy. If she has disappeared we'll find her. You're sure that horse Crab Apple's okay? I don't want to lose five bucks."
"Never mind Crab Apple. You concentrate on Nurse Gurney," I said and stamped out of the room.
I drove back to Orchid Buildings. Paula was waiting for me in my office.
"We go ahead," I said, and sat down behind my desk. "I've seen Willet, and he'll finance an investigation, but he wants to keep his firm well in the background."
"Plucky of him," Paula said scornfully. "You take all the risks, I suppose?"
"He seemed to expect to pay a little extra," I said, and grinned. I told her about my visit to Headquarters. "This guy Salzer seems in the habit of making his nurses vanish. You note the date? May 15th: the day Janet died. No one's going to convince me her disappearance doesn't somehow tie up with Janet's death."
Paula studied me.
"You think Janet was murdered, don't you?"
I lit a cigarette and put the match carefully in the ashtray before replying.
"I think it's possible. The motive's there: all that money. She certainly didn't die of heart failure. Arsenic poisoning, among other poisons, produces heart failure. An old goat like Bewley might easily have been deceived."
"But you don't know! "Paula said. "Surely you don't think Maureen murdered her sister?"
"The incentive is pretty strong. Besides collecting a fortune of two million dollars there's also the little insurance item. I don't say she did it, but that kind of money is a big temptation, especially if you are in the hands of a blackmailer. And another thing, I'm not entirely satisfied that Crosby himself wasn't murdered. If there had been nothing wrong about the shooting why didn't Salzer call in someone like Bewley to sign the death certificate? Why sign it himself? He had to square Lessways, the coroner, and probably Brandon. It was either suicide or murder. I'm willing to bet it wasn't an accident. And as Willet pointed out, if a man owns a revolver he isn't likely to shoot himself with a shot-gun: so that leaves murder."
"You're jumping to conclusions," Paula said sharply. "That's your big failing, Vic. You're always making wild guesses."
I winked at her.
"But how I do enjoy myself."
III
As a form of relaxation I do jig-saw puzzles. Paula gets them for me from a legless hero she goes along and talks to on her afternoon off. This guy spends all his time cutting jig-saws from railway posters Paula gets for him. They make terrific puzzles and one takes me about a month to do. Then I pass it on to a hospital and get another off Paula's pal.
From long experience in doing these puzzles I have found the apparently small and unimportant-looking piece is very often the key to the whole picture, and I'm always on the look-out for such a piece. In the same way, when I'm on a job I'm always on the look-out for some insignificant trifle that appears to have no bearing on the case, but very often has.
I had been sitting in my office for the past hour, brooding. The time was a few minutes past seven. The office was closed for the night. Only the whisky bottle remained.
I had jotted down a number of notes that looked impressive, but didn't add up to much. And on
reading through the list of likely clues I paused at Douglas Sherrill's name. Why, I asked myself, had Janet suddenly broken off the engagement a week before Macdonald Crosby's death? This fact didn't appear to have any bearing on the case, but it might have. I couldn't be sure until I found out just why the engagement had been broken off. Who could tell me? Douglas Sherrill, obviously, but I couldn't go to him without tipping my hand, and I wasn't ready to do that at the moment. Then who else was there? I consulted my notes. John Stevens, Crosby's butler, was a possibility. I decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to see what kind of a guy Stevens was. If he looked as if he could be trusted it might pay me to take him into my confidence. Martha Bendix had said he now worked for Gregory Wainwright.
No time like the present, I thought, and turned Wainwright up in the book. I put through the call, and after the second or third ring a stately voice said, "This is Mr. Wainwright's residence."
"Is that Mr. John Stevens?" I asked.
There was a pause, the voice said cautiously, "Stevens speaking. Who is that, please?"
"My name is Malloy. Mr. Stevens, I would like to talk to you about an important and private matter. It has to do with the Crosbys. Can you meet me some time tonight?"
Again that pause.
"I don't understand." It was an old man's voice, gentle, and perhaps a little dull-witted. "I'm afraid I don't know you."
"Maybe you have heard of Universal Services."
Yes, he had heard of Universal Services.
"I run it," I said. "It is important to me to talk to you about the Crosbys."
"I don't think I have any right to discuss my last employer with you," he said distantly. "I'm sorry."
"It won't hurt you to hear what I have to say. After I have explained the position you may feel inclined to tell me what I want to know. If you don't there're no bones broken."
The pause was longer this time.
"Well, I might meet you, but I can't promise . . ."
"That's all right, Mr. Stevens. At the corner of Jefferson and Felman there's a cafe. We might meet there. What time would suit you?"
He said he would be there at nine.
"I'll be the guy wearing a hat and reading the Evening Herald," I told him.
He said he would look out for me and hung up.
I had nearly two hours to wait before I met him, and decided to pass the time at Finnegan's. It took me a few minutes to lock up the office. While I was turning keys, closing the safe, and shutting the windows, I thought about Nurse Gurney. Who had kidnapped her? Why had she been kidnapped? Was she still alive? Thoughts that got me nowhere, but worried me. Still thinking, I went into the outer office, looked around to make sure the place was bedded down for the night, crossed the room, stepped into the passage and locked the outer door behind me.
At the end of the corridor I noticed a short, stockily-built man lolling against the wall by the elevator doors, and reading a newspaper. He didn't look up as I paused near him to thumb the bell-push calling the elevator attendant. I gave him a casual glance. He was dark skinned, and his blunt-featured face was pock-marked. He looked like an Italian; could have been Spanish. His navy-blue serge suit was shiny at the elbows and his white shirt dirty at the cuffs.
The elevator attendant threw open the doors, and the Wop and I entered. On the third floor, the elevator paused to pick up Manfred Willet who stared through me with blank eyes and then interested himself in the headlines of the evening paper. He had said he wanted secrecy, but I thought it was carrying it a little far not to know me in the elevator. Still, he was paying my fee, so he could call the tune.
I bought an Evening Herald at the bookstall, giving Willet a chance to leave the building without falling over me. I watched him drive away in an Oldsmobile the size of a dreadnought. The Wop with the dirty shirt cuffs had collapsed into one of the armchairs in the lobby and was reading his newspaper. I walked down the corridor to the back exit and across the alley to Finnegan's bar.
The saloon was full of smoke, hard characters and loud voices. I had only taken a couple of steps towards my favourite table when Olaf Kruger, who runs a boxing academy on Princess Street, clutched hold of me.
Olaf was not much bigger than a jockey, bald as an egg and as smart as they come.
"Hello, Vic," he said, shaking hands. "Come on over and get drunk. Haven't seen you for weeks. What have I done?"
I pushed my way towards the bar and winked at Mike Finnegan as he toiled under the double row of neon lights, jerking beer.
"I've been to the fights pretty regular," I said as Olaf climbed up on a stool, elbowing a little space for himself with threatening gestures that no one took seriously. "Just didn't happen to see you. That boy O'Hara shapes well."
Olaf waved tiny hands at Finnegan.
"Whiskies, Mike," he bawled, in his shrill, piping voice. "O'Hara? Yeah, he shapes all right, but he's a sucker for a cross counter. I keep telling him, but he don't listen. One of these days he's going to meet a guy with the wind behind him, and then it's curtains."
We talked boxing for the next half-hour. There was nothing much else Olaf could talk about. While we talked we ate our way through two club sandwiches apiece and drank three double whiskies.
Hughson, the Herald's sports writer, joined us and insisted on buying another round of drinks. He was a tall, lean, cynical-looking bird, going bald, with liverish bags under his eyes, and tobacco ash spread over his coat front. He was never without a cigar that smelt as if he had found it a couple of years ago in a garbage can. Probably he had.
After we had listened to three or four of his long-winded, dirty stories, Olaf said, "What was that yarn about the Dixie Kid getting into a shindig last night? Anything to it?"
Hughson pulled a face.
"I don't know. The Kid won't talk. He had a shiner, if that means anything. One of the taxidrivers on the pier said he swam ashore."
"If he was thrown off the Dream Ship, that's quite a swim," Olaf said, and grinned.
"You two guys talk to yourselves," I said, lighting a cigarette. "Don't mind me."
Hughson hooked nicotine-stained fingers into my breast pocket.
"The Dixie Kid went out to the Dream Ship last night and got into an argument with Sherrill. Four bouncers are supposed to have tossed him overboard, but not before he's supposed to have socked Sherrill. There's a rumour Sherrill's going to bring an assault charge. If he does, the Kid's washed up. He's over his ears in debt now."
"It's my guess Sherrill will bring a suit," Olaf said, shaking his bald head. "He has a mean reputation for that kind of thing."
"He won't," Hughson said. "He can't afford the publicity. I told the Kid he was safe enough, but even at that, the little rat won't talk."
"Who's Sherrill, anyway?" I asked as calmly as I could, and crooked a finger at Finnegan to refill the glasses.
"You're not the only one who's asking that," Hughson told me. "No one knows. He's a mystery man. Came to Orchid City about a couple of years ago. He took a job selling real estate on commission for Selby & Lowenstein's. I believe he made a little money; not much, but enough to buy himself a small house on Rossmore Avenue. Then, somehow or other, he got himself engaged to Janet Crosby, the millionairess, but that didn't last long. He dropped out of sight for about six months, and then suddenly reappeared as owner of the Dream Ship: a three-hundred ton schooner he's converted into a gambling-den which he keeps anchored just outside the three-mile limit. He has a fleet of water taxis going to and fro, and the members of the club are as exclusive as an investiture at Buckingham Palace."
"And gambling's not the only vice that goes on in that ship." Olaf said, and winked. "He's got half a dozen hand-picked girls on board. It's a sweet racket. Being three miles outside the city's limit, he can thumb his nose at Brandon. I bet he makes a pile of jack."
"What foxes me," Hughson said, reaching for the whisky I had bought him, "is how a heel like Sherrill ever found enough money to buy a goddamn great schooner like the Dream Ship.
"
"They say he floated a company," Olaf said. "If he had come to me and offered to sell me a piece of that ship, I'd have jumped at it. I bet whoever owns shares in her makes a packet, too."
I listened, thinking what a marvellous thing it was to meet two guys in a bar and hear the very thing I wanted to hear without even asking.
"That ship sounds fun," I said casually. "I wouldn't mind being a member."
Hughson sneered.
"And you're not the only one. You haven't a hope. Only guys in the White Book stand a chance. Every member is hand-picked. If you haven't got dough Sherrill doesn't want you. The entrance fee is two hundred and fifty dollars, and the sub works out at five hundred a year. He caters for the big boys, not the proletariat."
Lay Her Among The Lilies Page 10