The glasses were empty again and I filled them, remembering just in time that some water should be used. She leaned close—very close. Under its thin covering of sea-green silk her arm sent out warmth that soaked through my coat sleeve. She smelled like an orchid looks. I bit into my glass to keep from biting into her.
She said huskily, "What do you do on long rainy nights?"
"I'd hate to tell you."
"A scrapbook, I bet. Pasting in clippings on the cases you've solved."
"They wouldn't fill a matchbook folder."
We drank to my lack of clippings. I said, "We'll never find him, this way."
"Do you need two hands to hold one glass ?"
I transferred my glass to the other hand and put my free ' arm around her. A smooth supple waist. My fingers tingled. She leaned against me and breathed deeply. Not half as deeply as I was breathing. I turned my head the necessary , half-inch and kissed her. I kissed her hard enough and long enough to make it count.
We had a drink.
I said, "About your husband . . ."
"Can't it wait?" Her voice was a panther's purr, her breath hot against my cheek. "It's Paul, isn't it?"
"Uh-hunh."
"Kiss me, Paul."
I kissed her. Her mouth came to pieces under mine and her hand slid up and inside my shirt. I let my free hand move around experimentally. Nothing interfered; all the signals were set in its favor.
We had a drink—and the glasses were empty. My hand floated over and picked up the bottle. Dry as the oasis in a mirage. I shook it. Still empty.
She was leaning back, her eyes closed, her mouth slack with desire. Her hair was mussed and smeared lipstick made her mouth misshapen. We were a fine pair. I said, "Party's over."
The long lashes swept up to reveal a blank stare. "What'd you say, Paul?"
I showed her the bottle. "All gone," I said. "Somebody went and drank it."
"The bell cord's next to the fireplace."
I went over to it. I hit my knee against a corner of the coffee table on the way over. The door was opened by a small white-haired man in a dark coat and striped trousers. The footman, I judged. I had the sketchy education in such matters that the movies furnished. I pointed at the empty bottle and he bowed four inches from the waist and said, "At once, sir," and went away. I wondered what he thought of us. About what the French populace must have thought of Marie Antoinette.
By the time I was back to the couch the footman was in again—this time with a copper tray holding two bottles, more ice cubes and another pitcher of water. He shifted them to
the table, cleaned up the debris and left, closing the door like slamming a cloud.
I made two drinks and handed her one and sat down again, this time two feet away. I said, "It's a beautiful afternoon and I'm enjoying every minute of it. Now let's talk about finding your husband."
She was smart enough and experienced enough to keep her true feelings under cover—except for her eyes. They said I was less than one-tenth a man and a damned fool besides. She had every reason to think it, right then.
"Finding Myles is up to you," she said coolly. "I'll tell you what I can, of course."
I said, "I have a strong idea about your husband, Mrs. Benbrook. I think he's around town some place, helping Raymond Wirtz take care of a matter."
She wasn't particularly interested. She drank some of her drink, her hand as steady as Gibraltar on a calm day. Strong drink would never mock her.
"What sort of matter ?"
"A matter of money. Lots and lots of money. Enough money to kill people over."
"Are you saying Myles has killed someone ? That's ridiculous."
I put down my glass and lighted cigarettes for us both. The Scotch was stirring pleasantly under my belt. It was the kind of Scotch that would die easy in you.
I said, "A man died last night, Mrs. Benbrook. This morning, really, about two-thirty. He was a policeman who was hunting Raymond Wirtz."
"Raymond isn't the type to kill people."
"Is your husband ?"
That careful, still look I had noticed the afternoon before veiled her eyes. "I think this is getting out of hand, Mr. Pine.
I want you to find my husband, not accuse him of murder."
I grinned at her. "A minute ago you were calHng me Paul."
"Damn you," she said. And then she laughed. "I'm not through with you yet, mister !"
"What about Myles? Is he as broad-minded as he is rich?"
She shrugged and she wasn't laughing any more, "The hell with him," she said recklessly. "I need young men— men with the sap of life in their veins and a good strong back. Myles is too old for me."
I said, "Another woman said almost the same thing to me last night. What's the matter with you dames ? You make a guy afraid of reaching his forties."
She retreated behind her glass. I sipped my drink and puffed on my cigarette and listened to the fire.
I said, "Back to this dead policeman, Mrs. Benbrook. His fellow officers are upset by his murder. They're going to find Wirtz, but soon. When they do, it'll be too bad for him."
"If he's murdered someone," she said indifferently, "anything that happens to him will be deserved, won't it?"
"It goes a little deeper than that. The cops will do some swinging on whoever's been hiding him out. I may be wrong but I think that's where your husband comes in."
She stiffened slightly, and away back behind those lovely brown eyes thoughts were being bom—thoughts that went just so far because they needed more to feed on. I was the guy to feed them.
"You think Myles Is hiding Raymond Wirtz from the po-, lice? Why would he do that? I mean, Raymond and he f weren't such close friends that he would leave himself open to a charge of accessory to murder."
tatt
"I don't think friendship has anything to do with it, at least from your husband's standpoint. I think lie's doing it for gain."
"Why, that's impossible!" A good ripe round sneer went along with that statement. "Myles has more money than he could use in a dozen lifetimes, and Raymond Wirtz is practically a pauper. You're being absurd, Paul."
I said, "Raymond Wirtz came to Chicago w'ith an article worth millions of dollars. And I mean millions. He came here to sell it to the one market that could pay his price. He had a comparable market in Los Angeles, but he had got hold of this article in a kind of unlawful way and was afraid to peddle it so close to home.
"When he reached Chicago, he found the man he expected to deal with was out of town. Wirtz was worried at the delay. He needed a friend to confide in, someone who was wealthy enough not to have designs on this valuable possession. Your husband fitted that description and Wirtz came to him and told his story. He may have borrowed money from him to tide him over the two weeks or so he had to wait.
"When the time came, Wirtz went to call on his market. A deal was made and Wirtz returned to his room. To his horror he found a dead man in his closet. That sent him into a blind panic. He knew then someone else, someone who thought nothing of human life, was after what he had. He ran to your husband, Mrs. Benbrook."
I paused to dampen the dust in my throat with Scotch. Constance Benbrook w'asn't indifferent any longer. She was hanging on every word, and the more I said, the more she was beginning to see what I had thought she would see.
"Your husband decided to help Raymond Wirtz foil his enemies. I say enemies because there were two of them now— the one who had killed Willie Post and, in a body, the police.
HALO FOR SATAN 137
I think he was satisfied Wirtz himself hadn't pushed Post, so in his own mind, at least, he wasn't shielding a killer. But I do think the real reason he was willing to go to such lengths to help Wirtz was because he wanted this valuable article for himself."
I waited while she fixed herself another drink. I still had better than half of my last one. She drank a quarter of it and sank back and nodded. "Go ahead. This is very interesting. I'm not so sure it's true."
"Early this morning," Lsaid, "Wirtz telephoned this man he hoped to make a sale to, asking him to meet him at an out-of-the-way spot to make delivery. This man refused but suggested the article be delivered by messenger. And right there Wirtz said a very significant thing."
I stopped again and took a pull at my glass. Connie Ben-brook sighed. "All right. Enjoy yourself. What did Raymond say?"
"He said there was only one man in Chicago he could trust and that he was beginning to doubt him."
"You think he meant my husband?"
"The evidence points that way, doesn't it?"
She shrugged. "What happened then?"
"I had already been hired to find Wirtz—^which will explain to you how my name happened to be in the paper as the one who found Willie Post. This man called me and asked that I meet Wirtz and pick up the article in question. I kept the date, but instead of meeting Wirtz I met a body, I the body of a man who had been hunting Wirtz for Post's murder. Being a cop he found him, while I was still chasing a long fly to center field. The cop got the business end of a knife for his brilliance. And that brings you up to date, Mrs. Benbrook." ■ "And your deductions, Mr. Holmes ?"
"Simple. You have the same answer already. Either Wirtz killed the cop to keep from being tossed in pokey, or Myles Benbrook did it for him."
She stood up swiftly and put her glass down on the table. "I see that I've made a mistake," she said harshly. "In trying to find my husband I've thrown him into a murder case. I suppose you're going to the police with this?"
"You suppose wrong," I said. "I don't know who killed Post or this cop, and the police are interested only in facts. You're a client of mine, Mrs. Benbrook, and as such you're entitled to know the score. I've just given it to you. My job right now is to find your husband before the police do—if he's with Raymond Wirtz. I think he is. You're hiring me to find him —not what he's been up to."
"You mean you'd protect a murderer ?"
"Not ever, Mrs. Benbrook. But I'm not going to try to prove anyone's a murderer, either, not unless I'm hired to do it."
She gnawed a lip and, still standing, picked up her glass and poured the stufif down her throat. It ended up with a lot of company. "I honestly haven't the slightest idea where Myles is."
"I believe that. Otherwise it would have been pointless to hire me to find him. But we'd better start digging for something that may lead to him."
"Let's go into the library."
I followed her out into the hall and back the way I had come, around the same corner and through one of a double set of doors.
It was a huge book-lined room, with brown leather chairs and divans and a Spanish refectory table as long as a bowling alley down the middle. The west wall was French windows that opened onto a narrow terrace. Gray light from the over-
cast sky did little to relieve the gloom of the dark wood walls.
Over near the windows was a small desk which must have come out of some eighteenth-century monastery. But its drawers were equipped with modern locks. Connie Ben-brook removed a book from a near-by shelf, felt behind it and came up with a ring of keys.
Nothing that meant anything came out of the drawers— until we reached the last one. A brown metal document box was in there. I took it out for her and she found a key on the ring to unlock it. Filled to the brim with papers. Insurance policies, deeds, copies of legal-looking papers, a will consisting of twelve or fifteen pages of single-spaced typing. You need a lot of property to make a will that long.
So far neither of us had said a word since we entered the room. I snapped on the desk lamp, sat down in the leather chair behind the desk and began to sort through those papers. "I'd hoped to find an address book," I said while spreading them out.
"I don't know of one."
"Sit down and relax. This may take some time."
She lighted a cigarette and sat there smoking, watching my every move. I found a blank sheet of paper in one of the drawers and began copying down names and addresses shown on the instruments. The list stretched oiit longer and longer the further down the pile I went.
"I think you're wasting your time, Paul."
"Uh-hunh. That's the way police work goes, Mrs. Ben-"brook. A ton of sand for a grain of gold. I'll sit in my office and run up a telephone bill and probably end up with nothing but a sore ear. But I have to start somewhere."
The third paper from the bottom of the pile was the copy
of a mortgage. A six-room house, brick, seven years old,
i valued when the mortgage was executed at $17,500, includ-
ing the lot. Dated three years and two months before. Payments at $ioo a month, for the full amount. That last made it a little unusual. There should have been some kind of down payment. Purchaser: a Mrs. Irene Taylor. Address of property: 6018 North Rockwell Street. Across the face of the copy was scrawled, Paid itp Full, Myles Bcnhrook. Under that was the date of final payment—a date that showed the life of the mortgage to have been exactly seven months.
I sucked thoughtfully at a tooth. Connie Benbrook said, "What is it, Paul?"
"I don't know. Who is Mrs. Irene Taylor ?"
She was silent long enough to surprise me into looking at her. She was staring at me, frowning. I said, "It means something to you, hunh ?"
"She was Myles's secretary before he retired from the brokerage business." '
Her voice sounded just odd enough to tell me more than her words. I said, "Like that, hunh ?"
She flushed solidly behind what was left of her make-up. "I don't know for sure. And stop saying 'hunh' in that repulsive way!"
"Okay. What do you know, even if it isn't for sure?"
"Some of Myles's friends have wives who were thick with the first Mrs. Benbrook. They don't like me. To prove they don't like me, they've dropped a few hints about my husband and his former secretary—all in a helpful spirit, you understand."
"What do the hints add up to ?"
"Exactly to what you're thinking." She threw cigarette ashes on the rug with a sharp movement of her hand. "When he married me that ended it. I'm positive of that. Let's see what you've got there."
I handed her the duplicate mortgage. She looked it over.
m
By the time she was ready to give it back she knew as much as I knew but nothing at all of what I had guessed.
"So he gave her a house." She shrugged one shoulder. "All right. He could afford it. One way of pensioning her off, I suppose. Why should it interest you? Are you thinking he's deserted me for that cheap little divorcee?"
"No," I said. "Your husband isn't interested in women right now, Mrs. Benbrook. I'll check with her, though, just like all the rest on this list."
I wrote down the name and address below the others, just as I did the names and addresses from the remaining two documents left in the pile. Then I pushed the heap together, lined up the edges and replaced them all in the brown metal box. Mrs. Benbrook turned the key in the lock and I returned the box to its drawer.
We sat there a while in the silence and thought our thoughts. The cone of light from the desk lamp winked back from the diamonds in her wedding ring and brought out the color of her hair.
Finally I glanced at my strap watch. "Four o'clock, Mrs. Benbrook. Time I got back to my milk route."
She said softly, "I keep thinking of those two bottles on the coffee table."
I patted one of her hands and stood up. "Uh-hunh. But the ice is probably all melted by now. You can't drink the stuff without ice. Good-by and thanks. I'll keep you informed."
She went with me to the library door and nodded coolly when I said good-by a second time. The butler, his expression as distant as the stratosphere, gave me my hat and raincoat and let me out into the rain.
The Plymouth's interior never looked shabbier and, after all the elegance I had just been exposed to, never more wel-
HALO FOR SATAN
come. I looked at myself in the rear-view mirror and winced. No wonder the butler had held himself alo
of. In his place I would have run for bandages and the iodine.
I scrubbed the stufif off with my handkerchief, ran a comb through my hair and drove away from there.
?!
6018 North Rockwell was one house in a row of houses all apparently off the same drafting board. Red brick, green trimming at the windows and door, a cocky little ' wind vane on the gabled roof. The front and side lawns were neat and the grass seemed healthy. A small porch was set off center at the front, its shingled roof supported by two square concrete posts, with the house number in shiny black metal nailed to the one on the right.
I spent a couple of minutes giving the bell a workout with
no result. A thin white curtain covered the glass in the door.
Not thin enough, though, for me to see through. I rattled 1,he
i knob, but this time there was a lock behind it. I wouldn't
j have gone in anyway.
I left the porch and followed a trim ribbon of cement around to the rear. The back porch was wood, painted the same green as the window trim and a lot more orderly than most back porches. Nobody answered my knock and what I could see of the kitchen revealed nothing more startling than the lack of dirty dishes in the sink. I discovered I was already thinking highly of Mrs. Irene Taylor.
I leaned against the bannister and looked out over the grassy back yard to one of those revolving clotheslines on a post and a rose arbor beyond that. Nobody around except the rain and me. I was beginning to feel on the depressed side. That would be Connie Benbrook's Scotch.
I went out to the Plymouth at the curb and crawled slowly in behind the wheel. It had been a wasted effort, one more
143
in a lifetime of wasted efforts. I wouldn't have made it at all except that a woman very close to Myles Benbrook was living there, plus the fact that 6018 North Rockwell was exactly three and a half blocks from where I'd found the body of Sergeant Frank Tinney.
At five o'clock I ate pot roast and the trimmings at the Ontra. I took a late edition of the Daily News back to the office with me, boosted the window a few inches, turned on the desk lamp and sat down to read Sydney Harris' column.
The Long escape Page 12