The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  He liked the way she did not press him for explanations, but was content to sit quietly and wait for him to tell her in his own good time.

  “This makes me sound like seven kinds of fool,” he said. “And probably I am. I had just arrived in the city. I had never been there before. I checked my luggage in the station rather than cart it around with me while looking for a place to stay. I’m an unsuccessful architect—one of those visionary guys who build marble palaces and forget the plumbing. My idea was to hit the new Planning Commission for a job. I’ve got a letter to the chairman of the commission.

  “I arrived in the late afternoon, and after trying three hotels and getting nowhere, I went into a sort of steakhouse place to eat. I had a couple of drinks. It was a paneled place, with an orange glow to the lights and a lot of glitter on the backbar and oversized prices on the drinks and food. But I was too lazy to look for another spot.

  “Sitting at the bar was a woman. This probably sounds completely screwy to you, but I never did find out all of her name. Just Cynthia. Long black hair curled in at the ends and when she bent her head over the bar a long strand of it would swing around in front and she’d push it back with an impatient gesture. Maybe you can guess how a man alone will watch a woman who is alone. It’s sort of a speculative procedure. But the milquetoast type, such as myself, never gets past the speculation stage.

  “She had rather coarse lines about her face. Heavy lips, wide across the cheekbones, snub nose, dense black eyebrows. She sat at the bar and from my table I could see her face reflected in the backbar. She had what I call princess eyes. It’s a silly term. They were nice eyes. Straight and true and sensitive. I played a mental game of trying to figure her out.

  “I felt vaguely disturbed when the man moved in on her. Conservative pinstripe, immaculate hands and an air of extreme extroversion. I guessed at once that he’d call all waiters ‘Charlie’ and make a practice of sending food back to the kitchen.

  “When he nuzzled up beside the girl and began to make small talk, I got a look at her eyes. All they seemed to hold was an incalculable weariness and resignation. My chops came and I kept an eye on them as I ate.

  “The man made the mistake of being too big a shot in the drink department. He bought too many rounds. With more conservatism, she might have remained agreeable. But the liquor broke through the crust of self-disgust, and suddenly she began to snarl at him. I saw the anger on his face. He grabbed her arm and she shook him off. He sulked like a little boy. His fingers had made red spots on her arm.

  “She chased him away, but he had a certain grim look that spelled trouble. I had finished eating, and I should have gone off to look for a room, but some hunch made me stay. She should have eaten, but instead she had more to drink. When she walked out, I paid my check and followed her.

  “She walked an invisible tightrope to the door and went out onto the street. The man appeared out of the shadows and they argued. I could only hear the tone of voice. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and tried to wrestle her toward a waiting cab. I turned hero and shoved in on him.

  “He was too easy. I stabbed him in the middle with my fingertips and backhanded him across the mouth when he bent over. Cynthia crowed with laughter. He blundered into the cab and was whirled away. Cynthia wavered toward a red roadster. She was too far gone to drive. I got behind the wheel and she directed me to a small white house on Hillside Street.

  “Halfway to the back door, she collapsed. I got her inside, found the lights, made coffee for her. The house was deserted. After she had the coffee, she locked herself in the bathroom and took a long shower. Then she joined me in the kitchen and we drank coffee and talked. It was a strange talk. We covered psychological and philosophical concepts that were way over our heads. We were impersonal with each other, if you can believe that.”

  “I can believe it,” Doris Logan said quietly.

  “In the small hours of the morning she went to bed. I slept on a couch in the front room, with her permission. It was all very platonic. In the morning she was going to drive me down to the center of the city and I would find a hotel, clean up and make my appointment.

  “She was worn out, I guess. She slept very late and I didn’t want to disturb her. I was up about nine and I debated leaving quietly. I guess I should have. But, I liked Cynthia, and I wanted to say goodby to her properly.

  “It must have been close to noon when she got up. She came out in a coral housecoat, and she looked years younger than she had the night before. We kidded around about the rejuvenating aspects of turning over a new leaf. I asked her while we were eating breakfast whether she would find a job. She said that she had enough money to keep herself for some time, and that most of all she wanted to go to some quiet place.

  “After we ate, I helped her carry the few dishes to the kitchen sink and she washed them. I was on the far side of the kitchen.

  “There was a sound, and I thought that she had pushed a book off the kitchen shelf and that it had fallen flat on the linoleum. It was that sort of sound. I looked over at her and she was bending over the sink, her face almost touching the faucets. I thought that very strange. There was a funny smell of fireworks in the air.

  “As I watched her, her knees bent and she slid down, falling over onto her back. My mind was working slowly, but when I saw her face and her eyes, I knew she was dead. There was a faint sound off to my right. I turned quickly and something hot and small and hard hit me just over the watch pocket. I staggered back and my heel caught in a throw rug and I fell heavily. Something clattered on the floor.

  “The thing which had hit me gave me cramps. Gasping, I got to my feet. I was bleeding. I looked at the small ugly hole in myself and balled my handkerchief and wedged it under my belt against the hole. The thing which had clattered was a gun. It was nearly under the kitchen table. I walked to the window. The curtains blew in the breeze. There was no one outside.

  “I draw a blank for the next few moments. I was walking toward the city. I can remember funny little snatches. Kids sucking on ice cream. An old guy with a pint bottle. Telling a lie to a cabdriver. I bought a bus ticket to some place called Rockwarren. Now I know that I was silly to run. If you’ll drive me into town …”

  Doris Logan’s wide and generous mouth had a set look about it. “Wait a minute, Paul. This is an illogical world which feels itself to be supremely logical. Let’s play cop for a little while. Man goes home with Cynthia. Cynthia dies. Man leaves. Just for a moment let us assume that there are no prints on the gun, that the gun is not traceable. Also assume that whoever killed the fair Cynthia has a very solid alibi. The newspapers will try you before the court does. It won’t be pretty. And the average person would find it a bit hard to think of you and Cynthia having a good old-fashioned bull session, all very palsy.”

  Paul January felt all the comfort drain out of the morning. He listened to his own story from the viewpoint of a policeman—and found it thin indeed. Thin and more than a bit ridiculous. He saw for the first time that even had he remained at Cynthia’s house and phoned the police, he would have come in for more than a trace of suspicion. And having run away made it far, far worse.

  He glanced at Doris. Her capable hands were resting on the arms of the porch chair, but they were not relaxed. The knuckles were white.

  She got up suddenly and went into the cabin. “Right back,” she said.

  He waited. The morning was quiet. He heard a gasp of pain from inside the cabin. He stood up and went in.

  Doris Logan stood by the kitchen sink, her face pale. Blood ran down her arm from a deep gash just above her elbow.

  “What happened!” he cried.

  She managed to smile. “It was a shade deeper than I wanted to cut,” she said. “Stop jittering for a minute and help me. Pick up that gauze pad by the corner and put it lengthwise along the cut. Fine. Now tear off an adhesive strip three inches long. Right across here. Now another. Three ought to hold it.”

  With the cut bandage
d, she cleaned the blood from her forearm.

  Before he could ask her, she said, “Look here, Paul. I left the bus station and went to a drugstore. I bought a few things. If they traced you to the bus, they might connect the two of us. And that means I need a reason for the purchases I made. Infected arm. See?” She grinned and held out the bandaged arm.

  He took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. Her odd red hair fell across her eyes and she blew it out of the way with a protruding underlip.

  “Fine!” he said. “The boss takes charge. You decide that I’m going to keep right on running. Wouldn’t it have been nice to let me know?”

  Anger faded as he grew conscious of the warmth of her bare shoulders under his hands. He was suddenly impressed with her unusual loveliness. He pulled her close and kissed her.

  He released her, feeling extremely shy. She did not meet his glance. Awkwardness was between them, like the faltering lines in a poor play.

  She broke the tension by saying, “Pretty rigorous stuff for the walking wounded, Mr. J.”

  He reached for her again. She put her hands against his chest and pushed. Firmly. “Don’t let my self-mutilation go for nothing. We are going to make you a woodsy nest. You and your suitcases. Off in the brush. And then I am going into town and find out the current status.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  DE WOLFE HAGGARD

  When he thought of himself, which was frequently and with delight, he became the lean, suave and sober district attorney who not only shows the humble police the error of their ways, but concocts a courtroom boomerang that fells the mighty. The big trouble was that the police, notably that vulgar Lieutenant Krobey, insisted on treating him as though he were a frail substitute trying to make the first team.

  Whenever De Wolfe thought of Krobey, he flexed his muscles and imagined a series of violent gestures ending in Krobey falling backward across a table to lie huddled and silent on the floor. It was too bad that there was no way to prove Krobey guilty of a crime. Also it was too bad that Krobey was so—muscular.

  Take the way Krobey had acted with that beautiful Doris Logan. Anyone could see that she was not, of all things, a liar. What if someone had seen her talking to the suspect on the bus? Was Doris Logan the type to make a cheap pickup the way Cynthia Darrold did? Of course not!

  It was infuriatingly stupid the way Krobey had made her repeat her story over and over again. When De Wolfe shut his eyes he could still see her intent face.

  “Yes, Lieutenant, I spoke to him on the bus. He asked me how long it would take to get to Rockwarren. He was quite drunk. No, his face was shadowed. I really couldn’t tell you what he looked like. He was young and I think his face was plump and his hair was blond.”

  “But Mrs. Morgantine said the man had a lean face and dark hair.”

  Doris Logan had smiled. “Possibly we are talking about two different people.”

  “How about the person who swears they saw the young man getting into your car, Miss Logan?”

  “I can’t explain that. But the gas station man told you that when I passed his station I was alone in the car. The young man tried to follow me in the darkness when I went back to get into my car. And then he disappeared. I don’t know where he went.”

  “How about those purchases you made?”

  “I wanted to treat my own infected arm, Lieutenant. Is there a law against that? After all, Lieutenant! You people searched my camp and found no trace of any man being there. This whole inquisition is getting a bit ridiculous, isn’t it? The murder was committed the day before yesterday. The murderer must be a thousand miles away by now. And you waste good police time asking me silly questions. I’ve told you all I know.”

  De Wolfe scowled as he thought of how Krobey had reacted. The stupid man should have at least apologized. Instead he had smiled placidly at Miss Logan and had said, “We’ll be talking some more. If we want you, we’ll send a sedan up to the camp and bring you back.”

  “I may stay in town for a few days. You have my apartment address.”

  De Wolfe Haggard picked up a fresh yellow pencil, tested the needle point with a pink thumb. He sat at his desk in the outer office and stared at the blank sheet of white paper in front of him. The blank sheet became a movie screen. A drama was being enacted.

  De Wolfe Haggard, district attorney, stood in the crowded courtroom and pointed to the defendant who had taken the stand. The defendant was Doris Logan. De Wolfe Haggard, with voice of booming bronze, pointed a dramatic finger at the defendant and said, “Would you believe this fair and innocent creature to be capable of the foulness imputed to her by my learned …”

  No, that wasn’t right. He would have to be the prosecutor.…

  He glanced toward the doorway. He shook his head to remove the mirage standing in the doorway in a green dress. The mirage stayed, came walking toward him.

  He got up so eagerly that he tipped his chair over. He picked it up, moved another chair eagerly into position and said, “Do sit down, Miss Logan. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about the … indignity of the questions you were asked.”

  Doris Logan sat and gave him a warm smile. “I knew you felt that way, Mr. Haggard. It’s so nice to feel that someone is on your side. That—that horrible attitude of suspicion.”

  “I know. I know,” he said soothingly. “How can I help you?”

  “I may seem to you, Mr. Haggard, like a very foolish girl. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever been mixed up in this sort of thing. I don’t believe I’ve ever had my picture in the papers before. As a nurse, the notoriety isn’t good for me. Surely you realize that.”

  De Wolfe nodded sagely.

  “I wondered if there is any way I could help the authorities. If I could take an active interest, then possibly that horrid Lieutenant Krobey wouldn’t …”

  Her voice trailed off. De Wolfe stared at the yellow pencil. He felt very alive and very reckless. He lowered his voice. “Actually, Miss Logan, I should discourage you. But you seem to be a person of high intelligence. Suppose you assist me in this case.”

  “How exciting!” Doris said.

  “If we could meet outside the office we can go over my case notes on this whole affair. Say about four? The cocktail lounge at the Hotel Rogers?”

  She stood up, held out a cool hand. “Thank you so much, Mr. Haggard. I’ll be there.”

  “Could you call me De Wolfe?”

  “And you must call me Doris.” She held his hand tightly. “After all, we are working together, aren’t we?”

  As soon as the outer door had closed behind her, De Wolfe Haggard walked twice around his desk, smacking his fist into his palm and saying jubilantly, “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy …”

  He felt the sere and aged eye of the chief female clerk upon him. He gave her a frosty and metallic look and sat down. He stared at the sheet of white paper and slowly another courtroom scene began to materialize. Krobey was the accused. Doris Logan was a juror. He leaned over the jurybox railing and talked directly to her. Her lips were parted and her warm admiring eyes were on him.…

  She sat at his side, so close to him that, if he moved another inch, their shoulders would touch. He moved a half inch. When the drinks were before them, he took out his notebook and placed it on the table. Together they leaned over it.

  “You see,” he said proudly, “one of my methods is to put the name of each person concerned at the top of a sheet and put under that name all the facts we have. Here are five names of men who have been seen with Mrs. Darrold. The police have cleared each one of them. Mr. Darrold has been cleared also. Thus our Mr. X is obviously the man.”

  “How do you go about ‘clearing’ someone? Take Mr. Darrold, for example.”

  “Wait a moment. I can barely read my own writing. Ah yes. The home offices of the company he works for are in Barnston, fifty miles or so east of here. A Mr. Daniel Walker, bookkeeper at the home office, put Mr. Darrold on the Empire City headed east from Barnston at noon the day of the mur
der. Mr. Darrold could not possibly have returned here to kill his wife in the time allowed.”

  “And I suppose they checked at the other end of his trip?”

  “Oh, yes. Mr. Darrold was in Richfield that same evening, all right. No doubt about it.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MAYLA BARAN

  Really, she thought, Dan is getting to be a horrid bore. She lay on her side on the wide windowseat, her head cradled on her arm, a glass on the floor just under her hand. The windowseat was padded in white leather, with red cording. Mayla liked white and red. She was a small girl with very white skin. She had a petulant mouth, eyes set into her head at a roguish tip-tilt, hair the color of the heaviest cream.

  She had a predatory quickness of movement, thin, greedy little fingers, and a trick of slowly widening her eyes whenever she looked at a man. Her tiny body was superbly fashioned, and she never sat, walked, stood or reclined without a definite attempt to display its most pleasing lines.

  Yes, Dan was becoming definitely a bore. She watched him as he paced. He walked from the white fireplace over to the far red couch and back again. There was a disgusting stubble of beard on his jaw, and discolored pouches under his eyes. The hair, which usually was carefully combed to cover the maximum area of a balding head, was in disarray, and a lank lock fell almost to his cheekbone.

  “For heaven’s sake, sit down!” she snapped, in her high, childish voice.

  “Shut up, Angel,” he growled.

  She pouted. There was one good way to take Dan’s mind off his troubles. She said, “Today I’m going to order the terrace furniture.”

  He whirled on her. “Angel! What furniture? How much?”

  “About three hundred dollars. That terrace stuff is battered, Dan. Horribly battered.”

  He stood over her. His eyes were strange. He frightened her a little, as in the old days before she had found that he would obey a gesture or a whistle, like a well-trained dog.