1954 - Safer Dead

by James Hadley Chase

  ‘If you will wait, I’ll inform Mrs. Van Blake you are here,’ the butler said as if reading from the script of a successful play. He went away as silently and as unobtrusively as an incarnate spirit.

  The first thing that caught my attention when he had gone was a large oil painting of Mrs. Van Blake that hung over the fireplace.

  She was sitting on the balustrade, looking at the distant garden, wearing a pale green summer frock. It was an extraordinarily good likeness, and the detail of the landscape had been worked in with incredible patience and care.

  There was something about the style of the figure that was familiar to me, and moving closer to the picture I saw in the right hand corner the artist’s name: Lennox Hartley. I stepped back and examined the painting with closer attention.

  I had no idea Hartley could paint as well as this. From the sketch of Fay Benson I had seen, I had assumed he was just a competent cover designer, but this painting showed he was a highly skilled artist.

  He had caught the feeling I had had when I had first seen Cornelia Van Blake. Although, in his portrait, she looked as cold and as remote as she had done when I had seen her, there was that suggestion of a flame burning behind the impersonal mask that I had sensed. The picture was alive and compelling.

  Then I saw her standing close to me. She gave me quite a start. She was within touching distance of me before I even knew she had come down the steps and crossed the vast expanse of carpet to where I was standing.

  ‘Mr. Sladen?’

  She was in a topless white evening dress, and around her throat blazed a magnificent collar of emeralds. She really was something to look at. Her big green eyes, that glittered like her emeralds, looked right into mine, giving me an odd creepy sensation of uneasiness.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said, and as she didn’t appear to recognize me I decided not to mention the Golden Apple club. ‘I’m hoping you can help me, Mrs. Van Blake. It’s kind of you to see me.’

  The butler came in with a tray of drinks which he set on a table.

  ‘Won’t you sit down?’ she said. She waved to a lounging chair and sat down nearby.

  The butler asked me what I would drink. I asked for a highball, and while he fixed it, we sat in silence. He gave her a brandy in a balloon glass and then went away.

  ‘What is it you want?’ she asked as soon as he had shut the door behind him.

  ‘I’m a crime writer,’ I said, aware of her hostility. ‘I’m interested in the movements of Joan Nichols. I understand you met her in Paris last year?’

  She looked down at her brandy glass, her face expressionless, then she looked up at me and her eyes told me nothing.

  ‘I meet so many people. I don’t remember anyone called Joan Nichols. Are you sure you’re not making a mistake?’

  ‘You were in Paris in August last year, Mrs. Van Blake?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Joan Nichols was a showgirl, working in Paris at that time. I understand she had dinner with you at your hotel more than once.’

  She frowned and moved impatiently.

  ‘It’s possible. I really don’t remember,’ she said, giving an irritable little shrug. ‘How do you know this?’

  I couldn’t make up my mind if she really didn’t remember or if she were lying. I had an idea that behind the expressionless mask there was tension, but it was only an idea.

  ‘Miss Nichols told her friends she had dinner with you,’ I said, ‘but it isn’t important. I don’t want to bother you with this. I was hoping you would remember, but of course you must meet a lot of people. I can easily check at the Paris hotel.’

  A little of the brandy suddenly jumped out of her glass and made a spot on her skirt. I didn’t see her start, but the splash of brandy was a giveaway. She looked up.

  ‘But you wouldn’t go all the way to Paris to find out if she dined with me or not, surely?’ she said, staring.

  ‘It’s the policy of the magazine I work for to check every fact before we print it. I was hoping you would remember the girl and save me the time of going to Paris, but as you can’t, I’ll have to go.’

  ‘How extraordinary. Why is it so important?’

  ‘I’m trying to fill in the girl’s background. It seems she had a talent for making friends with rich people. I’ve no proof of this. Her friends tell me she claimed to know you and dined with you. That’s quite a story, Mrs. Van Blake. After all she was just an ordinary showgirl, and to have become friendly with you shows she must have had a lot of talent. On the other hand, she may have been lying. If I go to Paris, I might dig up other wealthy people who met her.’

  ‘I would like to help you,’ she said, passing her slim fingers across her forehead. ‘Let me think now. I do vaguely remember meeting a girl. She was rather pretty if she’s the one. Yes, I think I do remember her.’

  ‘You did meet her then?’

  ‘I suppose I must have. I don’t recall her name, but I’m not good about people’s names.’ She drank a little brandy before saying, ‘Yes, I’m sure I met her. I can’t remember just how. I was on my own in Paris. I was waiting for my husband. I dare say the girl amused me. I do vaguely recollect asking her to dine with me.’

  It was quite nicely done, but not well enough to fool me. She had remembered Joan Nichols as soon as I had mentioned her. I was sure of that. Why had my bluff about going to Paris suddenly smoked her out?

  ‘What was your hotel, Mrs. Van Blake?’

  She looked up and for a brief flash there was a wary, angry expression in her eyes.

  ‘I stayed at the George V.’

  ‘You don’t remember how this girl made friends with you?’

  ‘I don’t. We probably met in a shop. I believe that was it.’ I could almost hear her thinking. ‘Yes, of course. I do remember. She didn’t speak French and was in trouble with a shopkeeper. I came to the rescue. Yes, that was it.’

  I was sure now she was lying, and I had trouble in keeping my own expression deadpan.

  ‘Did you like her?’

  ‘For goodness sake!’ Her eyes flashed. ‘I must have liked her to have invited her to dinner, Mr. Sladen. I scarcely remember the girl. I meet so many people. Is that all, because if it is . . .’ She got to her feet and stood looking at me.

  I got up.

  ‘I guess that is all. It was just a matter of checking. It was nice of you to see me.’

  ‘Why are you interested in this girl? Didn’t you say you were a crime writer? Is she in trouble?’

  ‘Not now: she’s dead. She was murdered on August 20th of last year: a few days after her return from Paris. The police tell me she was a blackmailer,’ I said, watching her closely, but she didn’t bat an eyelid.

  ‘I see. It just shows how careful one should be in making acquaintances of strangers.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said and as she moved towards the wall bell, I went on, ‘That’s a fine portrait of you. I had no idea Lennox Hartley, could do work like that.’

  For some reason known to herself, this chance remark registered. She turned quickly and her eyes were suddenly as hard as the emeralds at her throat.

  ‘Do you know Mr. Hartley?’ she asked, and I saw her small hands turn into fists.

  ‘I’ve talked to him,’ I said. ‘I can’t say I know him. In my job, I talk to a lot of people.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you do. Well, good night, Mr. Sladen. Jameson will show you out,’ and again she moved to the bell. Then I had a sudden idea and as she rang the bell I acted on the idea without thinking.

  ‘I nearly forgot,’ I said and took out my billfold. ‘I have a photograph of Joan Nichols right here. Maybe you could identify her for me.’

  I took Fay Benson’s photograph from the wallet and handed it to her. She took it and moved to the light, turning her back on me. Although I couldn’t see her face, her reaction startled me. If I had put a hairy tarantula into her hand she wouldn’t have reacted more violently. She dropped the photograph and I saw a shudder pass through her
. For a brief moment, she stood motionless, then with a tremendous effort of will, she pulled herself together, bent quickly and picked up the photograph. She turned and handed it to me. Her face was as white as porcelain. She looked less lovely, older, and the look in her eyes wasn’t pleasant to see.

  ‘I don’t recognize her,’ she said, and the words came out of stiff, bloodless lips. ‘All these showgirls look so much alike. Good night, Mr. Sladen.’

  She turned and walked out of the room, a little unsteadily, but with her head held high.

  She left the door wide open.

  I stood there for a long moment, feeling a surge of triumph run through me. I had got my hook up! I was sure of it. She knew Fay Benson. In some way the hook up was between Fay and her and not as I had imagined between Fay and her husband. Before I could begin to wonder what it was all about the butler came in and escorted me to the waiting cab.

  III

  In the cab there was a faint but persistent smell of hundreds of other fares who had been driven to unknown destinations and who had left in the cab a thin strata of their presence to keep me company on my way back to the Beach Hotel.

  I sat in a corner, a cigarette between my fingers, and I thought about my discovery. The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle were falling into place. They didn’t make sense yet, but I had a feeling they soon would.

  For some reason or other Hamilton Royce and Fay Benson had left Tampa City and had gone to Welden. There someone had paid Hank Flemming to kidnap and murder Fay, and Royce had returned to Tampa City on the day she died.

  I liked him for the role of the man who had paid Flemming to kill Fay, but until I found out why she had been killed, I could take no action against him.

  Then suddenly out of the blue Cornelia appears in this so far motiveless drama. According to ex-Police Captain Bradley she was his suspect No.1 for Van Blake’s murder. If she had murdered her husband even by proxy she would be wide open to blackmail. She had dined twice in Paris with an unsuccessful showgirl, and that showgirl had been a blackmailer. Blackmail could be the only reason, so far as I could see, why Cornelia had met Joan Nichols twice. It would explain too why she had hesitated to admit knowing her, and why she was anxious that I shouldn’t go to Paris to stir up more trouble for her. But where did Fay Benson fit in? Why had her photograph been like the cold finger of a ghost on Cornelia’s conscience? People don’t show fear the way she had done unless there was a pretty powerful reason.

  I had wanted a hook up between Fay Benson and the Van Blakes and I had got it. Now I had it, what was I going to do with it? My time was running out. I couldn’t continue the investigation with a flock of police on my heels.

  I was still brooding over the problem when the cab pulled up outside the Beach Hotel. I paid off the driver and walked up the steps and into the lobby.

  The time by the clock above the reception desk was twelve twenty-two. There was no sign of the thickset cop who had been sitting in the basket chair when I left the hotel. The reception clerk handed me my key. He looked past me, remote and distant, as if I hadn’t settled my account for the past six months.

  As I crossed the lobby to the elevator the house dick materialized from behind a pillar.

  ‘Have they gone home or are they waiting for me in my room?’ I asked him out of the corner of my mouth.

  ‘They’ve gone home,’ he told me. ‘They’ve put a tap on your telephone line. This hotel has got a reputation. I guess you’ll want to move out tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you want my room?’

  ‘I don’t, but the manager does.’

  ‘Okay, so I move out.’

  I rode up in the elevator, unlocked my door and turned on the electric light. I was a little jumpy and wouldn’t have been surprised to find a couple of tough cops waiting for me, but the room was empty. I shut the door, crossed over to the bottle of Scotch and poured out two fingers of liquor. I took the drink to the armchair and sat down. There was no point in trying to find another hotel. I wouldn’t be allowed to stay. The pressure was on. I was being firmly eased out of town. If I bucked, I would run into trouble.

  The memory of Sergeant Lassiter’s methods of persuasion made me feel lonely. I wished Bernie was with me to give me some moral support. I spent a hide time nursing my drink and turning the situation over in my mind. I finally decided to leave town in the morning and sneak back when it was dark. Bradley had said Sam Benn would hole me up if I wanted to go underground, and that seemed my best bet. I couldn’t hope to get anywhere if I worked in the open. From now on, I would have to do my investigating the hard way.

  The sudden clamour of the telephone bell made me start so violently I slopped my drink. I reached for receiver.

  ‘This is Sladen,’ I said.

  ‘There you are,’ a voice I recognized said. ‘Suzy gave me your telephone number. If you’ve got nothing better to do, old fella, come out here and have a drink. I’ve a theory that might interest you.’

  I had a mental picture of a hard-faced cop straining to catch every word, and I said sharply, ‘Don’t mention your name, and don’t say anything more. I’ll be out right away.’

  ‘What’s the excitement?’ Lennox Hartley asked, mildly interested. ‘Is someone listening on the line?’

  ‘Could be,’ I said. ‘I’ll be right over,’ and I hung up.

  On my way down to the lobby, I wondered why he had called me at this hour. It was quite a run out to Cannon Avenue. I decided to take the Buick. If the police tailed me I stood a better chance of losing them if I did my own driving.

  The garage was at the back of the hotel. A solitary light in the rafters made a yellow halo that was surrounded by shadows and darkness. The garage attendant came out of his office, sleepy eyed and surly. He told me where I could find the Buick, then went back to his disturbed doze. I drove out of the garage with only the parkers on and headed along the beach road. I drove for a half a mile, my attention focused on the driving mirror. No headlights came after me. I turned off the beach road and drove into the town.

  The traffic was light now. A few nightclubs, an all night movie house and several cafes still showed signs of activity. The clock on the dashboard showed ten minutes past one. I drove aimlessly around, keeping to the back streets, until I convinced myself no car was following me, then I headed out to Cannon Avenue.

  As I drove up the long, sedate avenue, the lights in the houses I passed told me night life in Tampa City was spent at home. There were cars parked outside most of the houses and the night air was full of the sound of dance music from overworked radio sets.

  I reached the end of the avenue, made a U-turn and drove slowly back, passing Hartley’s Swiss chalet. No lights showed from the windows, but that didn’t mean anything. I had noticed on the two occasions I had been in his lounge that the window drapes were thick and heavy.

  I stopped the Buick behind a Packard convertible, parked outside the house next to Hartley’s. I got out and walked back, pushed open his gate and walked up the drive-in.

  When I came to rest before the front door, I paused to look back over the dark garden. The only sounds I could hear now were from the distant radio sets down the road. I lifted the bear’s head and knocked. I felt the door move. I pushed and the door swung open. I looked into darkness and silence.

  Steadying the door, I knocked again. Nothing happened. The darkness moved out towards me. I leaned against it, listening, suddenly uneasy.

  ‘Anyone in?’ I asked and moved forward, my fingers groping in my pocket for my cigarette lighter.

  The busy ticking of a clock nearby was the only sound I could hear. I got my lighter out and snapped it alight. The small yellow flame showed me a light switch near the door and I turned it on. I closed the front door, crossed the hall and peered into the dark lounge. As I reached forward to grope for the light switch I heard a sound that made me spin around: the sound of slow, dragging footfalls that came from above; sounds that made the hair on the nape of my neck bristle and
my heart skip a beat.

  ‘Is that you, Hartley?’ I said, stepping into the light and looking up. My voice sounded little better than a hoarse croak. Only the sound of the dragging footfalls answered me, then I saw a small figure come out of the darkness and stand motionless at the head of the stairs. It was Hartley’s Filipino houseboy. His hand clutched on to the banister rail. A bright red trickle of blood ran down his chin from the corner of his mouth. There was a patch of blood about the size of my fist on the left side of his white coat.

  I stared up at him, my mouth turning dry.

  His small yellow face tightened, his legs went rubbery, his knees hinged, his hand slid off the banister rail.

  Then he fell.

  He hit the middle stair with his shoulder and slithered the rest of the way on his back to land at my feet.

  I didn’t have to touch him to know he was dead.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I

  Outside and nearby a car door slammed and a car engine started up. A man shouted, ‘It’s been a wonderful evening. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in years.’

  I stared down at the dead yellow face. It hadn’t been a wonderful evening for him, I thought, aware that my shirt against my back felt damp and cold.

  The car drove away; its noisy roar dwindled into the distance and silence came down on this dark, still house. There was nothing I could do for the Filipino and I backed away from him. My mind jumped to Lennox Hartley: had he been shot too?

  I moved across the hall to the lounge, reached for the light switch and turned it down.

  For a brief moment I thought the big room was empty, then I saw a foot in an elegant doe skin sandal protruding from behind one of the lounging settees.

  I went around the settee.

  Lennox Hartley lay on his face, his fingers hooked and sunk into the pile of the carpet, a little patch of blood showing on the gay yellow silk dressing gown he wore: a patch in the centre of his back.