The Saint Goes West s-23

by Leslie Charteris

  "What do the doctors say?"

  "They can't fix it as close as that. You ought to know."

  "I suppose not," said the Saint. "Still, you make it a bit tough for a guy. You want me to have an alibi, but you don't know what time I'm supposed to have an alibi for."

  Condor removed his toothpick, inspected it profoundly, and put it back.

  "I got another time," he announced finally.

  "What's that?"

  "Ufferlitz called the Beverly Hills police station and said he thought someone was prowling around his house, and asked for a patrol-car to come by. That call was received at exactly eight minutes of two."

  A subcutaneous tingle pin-pointed up between the Saint's shoulder-blades-even though he had always been sure that that patrol car had never arrived by accident. But his face showed nothing more than a rather exasperated bafflement.

  "For Pete's sake," he said, "how many more times have you got to cover?"

  "Just that one."

  "But that makes the other time all haywire."

  "Could be. I said, maybe the cook never heard the shot. She went to sleep again."

  Simon consumed his cigarette meditatively for a few seconds. Then he looked at Condor again with a slight lift of one eyebrow.

  "On the other hand," he remarked, "can anyone swear that Ufferlitz made that call? Maybe the murderer made it himнself, just to confuse you. Maybe you ought to be very susнpicious of anybody who has got a perfect alibi for eight minutes of two."

  Condor stared at him for a while with unblinking intentness, and then the barest vestige of a smile moved in under his long drooping features. It literally did that, as if the surнface of his face was too stiffly set in its cast of abject melanнcholy to relax perceptibly, and the smile had to crawl about under the skin.

  "That," he said, "is the first thing you've said that sounds like some of the stuff I've heard about you."

  "So far," murmured the Saint, "you've seemed to want me for a suspect more than a collaborator."

  "I gotta suspect everybody."

  "But be reasonable. Ufferlitz just gave me a job for a thouнsand dollars a day. I don't know now whether I've got a job any more. Why would I kill that sort of meal ticket? Besides, I never met him before lunch-time yesterday. I'd have to have hated him in an awful hurry to work up to shooting point by last night"

  Condor wrinkled his nose.

  "It seems to me," he said, "I've heard you're supposed to 've killed a few people that you didn't have any particular personal feelings about. Something about being your own judge, jury, and hangman. Not that it wasn't all quite legal and accidental, of course," he added, "or it came to look that way in the end; but that's what they say. Well, from what I've heard about Ufferlitz, he's got some things in his record that might save you the trouble of hating him by yourself."

  The Saint sank lower in his chair and for the first time venнtured to look slightly bored.

  "Here we go again," he drawled. "Are you trying to hang something on me or not? Make up your mind."

  "Well..." Condor drew his chin back so that the toothpick drooped from his upper teeth. "I guess I do sound sort of anнtagonistic sometimes. Gets to be second nature. You'll have to excuse me. But I've heard plenty of complimentary things about you too. Maybe you could help me a lot, at that. You've given me one good idea already. I wouldn't like to be a nuisance, but if you wanted to give me any more I'd be honored."

  He was as disarming as a drowsing crocodile. You felt ashamed of yourself for having misunderstood him and put him into a position where he had to defend himself. Your heart warmed with the consciousness of having put him back where he belonged, nevertheless. You felt pretty loosened up altogether. Unless you were Simon Templar.

  "I'm afraid it's a little bit out of my line," said the Saint. "As a matter of fact, I go a little bit nuts over these split-second timetables. They're too confusing. And I don't believe in them, anyway. They're too much like the super-solemn kind of detective story. Nobody outside of a book is ever watchнing the time from minute to minute. And even if they were, their watches wouldn't be synchronised. And as soon as there's any chance of any error, you might as well give up. On top of which there are too many ways of faking, if you've read any mysteries."

  "That's how I feel," Condor agreed sadly. "Personally, I'll settle for anyone who could have been there between twelve-thirty and about two-fifteen, when the patrol found him."

  "What about the other people you've talked to?"

  "You mean have they got alibis too?"

  "Yes."

  "Lazaroff and Kendricks were working on a script until about two-thirty. They share an apartment. They have a cleaning woman, but she doesn't sleep there, so there's no one to back them up. But they alibi each other."

  "And Groom?"

  "He was with a dame. He left her at half-past one and stopped in at the Mocambo for a couple drinks. He told me three or four people he spoke to, so he probably did."

  "He could have telephoned, too," Simon observed.

  Condor brooded silently, poking his toothpick about in his bicuspids.

  "There's one thing I'm puzzled about," Simon said presнently. "Ufferlitz must have known quite a few people outнside. Why does it have to be someone from this unit?"

  "It just seems a good place to start. The cook says he never had anybody home except people he was mixed up in business with, except sometimes a girl he was trying to proнmote. Besides, from what I hear nobody else was crazy about visiting him anyway. Then, when he came home to dinner yesterday evening, he said he wasn't in to anyone unless it was from the studio."

  "What about the business he was in before this?"

  "He cut himself off from all those mugs when he got to be a producer. We keep tabs on some of 'em, so I know that. But I don't know any of 'em who 're sore with him."

  "He played square with the racket while he was in it, did he?"

  "He knew what was good for him. You can't chisel those kind of guys and keep healthy. You can only do that with high-class suckers." The detective seemed to derive some morbid satisfaction from the thought. "No-he still sees some of the mob, but he don't ask 'em home. Some of 'em think it's a big laugh, his going high-hat. But they aren't sore. Or I haven't heard about it ... None of it's conclusive, of course, but this still looked like a good place to begin. I've found with most murders you don't have to look awful far. It's usually somebody who's been around pretty close,"

  Simon lighted another cigarette and drew at it for a while. Condor didn't seem to have anything more to say. He began pulling open drawers and browsing through the papers he found in them. Presently Simon got up.

  "Well, I'd better leave you to it," he said. "If I get any more brilliant ideas I'll let you know."

  "Do that," said Condor earnestly. "I'll be seeing you around."

  The Saint strolled out and met Peggy Warden's tentaнtive half-apologetic smile with unruffled cheerfulness. "Quite a business, isn't it?" he said. She nodded.

  "I felt mean about not telling you. But Lieutenant Condor told me not to say anything. I'm glad it didn't get you into trouble."

  "I never get into trouble," said the Saint virtuously. "But I seem to live an awfully precarious life. Have I got a job now, or do I go back on relief?"

  Her eyes strayed to some papers on her desk. "I don't really know," she confessed. "Mr. Braunberg brought your contract back yesterday evening, and Mr. Ufferlitz signed it before he left the office, but you didn't sign anything yourself so I don't know what the position is."

  "Braunberg-he was the attorney, wasn't he?"

  "Yes. I've already spoken to him on the phone, of course, and he said he'd be in this afternoon. I'm sure he'll be able to tell you how you stand legally."

  Simon picked up the contract. It was a standard printed form, about the size of a centenarian's autobiography, covнering every possible contingency from telepathy and revoнlutions to bankruptcy and habitual drunkenness, with a couple of pages o
f special clauses which invalidated most of it. Simon only glanced through it casually, and turned to the sigнnature.

  He had a microphotographic eye for certain kinds of detail, and he had no need to compare it with the note that was in his pocket to know that the note was a forgery-a passable amateur job, but a long way from being expert.

  Unfortunately it would be a great deal harder if not imposнsible to discover who had done it. He was practically resigned to discarding the Hollywood Reporter as a clue. Almost everyнbody in the movie business was a subscriber; and in addition it could be bought at any newsstand within a radius of twenty miles. It was far too much to hope that the sender of the note would be considerate enough to have kept in his possession the mutilated copy into which the Saint's torn fragment could be fitted.

  The decease of Mr. Ufferlitz was a mystery that looked less encouraging every time Simon Templar turned to it.

  He said: "Don't forget, Peggy, you've got a date with me for lunch."

  6

  "No," she said. "No more cocktails. I've still got to look as if I wanted to keep a job."

  The Front Office offered a choice of steaks, chops, or hamнburger. They had steaks. She sniffed hers ecstatically.

  "Mmm! This was a good idea, I'd almost forgotten what a real lunch could taste like."

  "I heard of a studio once where they had good food in the commissary," said the Saint. "So everybody felt fine and happy every afternoon. Agents came in and sold them everyнthing they had at enormous prices, actors broke down and begged for salary cuts, assistant directors went about their work with a smile, and writers told producers their ideas stank and they ought to go back to peddling trusses."

  "What happened?"

  "The other producers ganged up on them and charged them with unfair trade practices. The Government ordered them to go back to serving the same old dead food as all the other studios, and very soon they were quite normal and in reнceivership again."

  "You've learnt a lot in a little while."

  Simon finished his drink and picked up his knife and fork.

  "How long have you been in this racket?" he asked.

  "Only about six months."

  "Where were you before?"

  "In a real estate office in New York."

  "You didn't know when you were well off."

  "I thought I'd come out here and get educated."

  "Were you with Byron all that time?"

  "No. I started in the stenographic department at MGM. Then an agent took me out of there. Then Mr. Ufferlitz took me away from the agent. Now I may have to go on relief with you. I expect Mr. Braunberg will tell me."

  The Saint nibbled a fried potato.

  "My life with Byron was certainly short and sweet," he remarked. "What sort of a guy was he really?"

  She finished a mouthful carefully before she said: "You must have heard something about him."

  "A few things."

  "Then you must have your own ideas."

  "Not very good ones," said the Saint.

  She shrugged.

  "He was just his own kind of Hollywood producer."

  "He went further than most of them, though, didn't he?" said the Saint. "I mean, he was a rather special kind. That is, if there's anything in the rumors."

  "There's something in most rumors-even in Hollywood."

  "I've been wondering," Simon said, carving himself anнother wedge of sirloin, "what Orlando Flane had on his mind yesterday. You know-during that happy homey interнlude when Byron called him a drunken bum and bounced him off the carpet into my arms. Flane said he could remember as far back as Byron could. Was he referring to some other rumor, or were they just boys together?"

  "It could have been both," she said cautiously.

  He waited.

  After a while she said, reluctantly, as if she would rather have changed the subject if she could have seen herself doing it gracefully: "You've probably heard another rumor that Mr. Ufferlitz is supposed to have been in trouble with the police in New Orleans."

  "Yes."

  "Orlando Flane comes from New Orleans."

  "I see."

  "He won one of those publicity department contests three or four years ago-for somebody to be the New Rudolph Valenнtino, with a touch of George Raft. The story is that he was much more of a real-life George Raft type before he became a glamor boy."

  "Is he really a drunken bum?"

  "I think he's been drinking rather a lot lately. He's supнposed to have been slipping at the box office, so there may be an excuse for him. But it just made the producers cool off faster. He hadn't had a decent part for nearly a year until Mr. Ufferlitz offered him a break just a few weeks ago." Simon raised his eyebrows.

  "Then what on earth had Flane got to beef about?"

  "Flane was going to star in this picture-it was called Salute to Adventure then. Mr. Ufferlitz fired him when he decided to change the story and hire you."

  The Saint concentrated on applying mustard to a piece of steak with the infinite care of a painter of miniatures. His face was impassive, but the series of obvious implications tripped through bis head with the dainty footsteps of a troupe of charging elephants.

  Orlando Flane had good and recent cause to hate Mr. Byron Ufferlitz. Orlando Flane had openly threatened Mr. Ufferlitz with permanent evidence of his dislike. Orlando Flane had a background which in spite of his slightly effeminate facial beauty might have qualified him as a cool tough hombre. And Orlando Flane had a reason to resent Simon Templar enough to be willing to round out his revenge by trying to stage it so that the Saint would take the rap for it.

  Simon looked at Peggy Warden again and said: "Do you think Flane could have killed Byron?"

  She stared at him as though the idea stunned her.

  "Flane?" she repeated.

  "Yes."

  "But-he's an actor," she said weakly.

  He chuckled.

  "Most murderers have some other spare-time job, darling. Comrade Condor seems to think it could easily have been somebody from the studio. You must have heard our converнsation. If it could have been a writer, a director, or me, it could have been an actor. Byron is dead. Somebody killed him."

  She nodded in a bewildered way.

  "Yes. I suppose so. It just doesn't seem real. I mean-I can't imagine Orlando Flane as a real murderer."

  "He had the best motive I've come to yet."

  "But a lot of other people didn't like Mr. Ufferlitz."

  Simon nodded. It was true, of course.

  "I hear that Jack Groom didn't like him either. Do you know why that was?"

  She shook her head.

  "I haven't any idea."

  "Was it on account of April Quest, by any chance?"

  "I don't know." The girl studied him shrewdly. "Are you rather interested in that?"

  "Very much," said the Saint calmly. "It's the only other angle that doesn't seem to have been gone into yet, and it's a good traditional motive. What sort of a guy was Ufferlitz with women?"

  She hesitated for a few seconds before she met his eye, but then her gaze was steady and direct.

  "I believe he was quite a swine," she said.

  "Who with?"

  "I wouldn't know that. I didn't have anything to do with his private life."

  "He didn't ever take a shot at you?"

  Her face chilled for barely an instant, and then she laughed a little without smiling.

  "I'm a good secretary," she said, "and that's harder to find."

  Simon conceded that. But on second thought he added to himself that she might also not have been Mr. Ufferlitz's type. His guess was that Byron Ufferlitz's quarry would have been either ingenuous and trusting or tough and cynical. The dumb innocents could be swept off their feet by Mr. Ufferlitz's self-created grandeur and overwhelmed with the old line of what he could do for them in pictures, and the hard-boiled mercenaries could be talked to in their own language and handled as they expected to be, thereby reducing the shooting
schedule. But to a man of that type Peggy Warden's natural honesty and clear-eyed composure would be highly disconнcerting. She could so obviously deflate baloney or bullying with equally devastating simplicity.

  Simon liked her for those same qualities. It occurred to him with a sort of rueful inward humor that he really met quite a remarkable number of girls he liked. He must have posнsessed an inexhaustible human sympathy; or else he was very lucky. In twenty-four hours, to have drawn two out of the bag like Peggy Warden and April Quest...

  He frowned. April Quest-there was someone that Byron Ufferlitz might easily have seen as a good prospect. And the Saint remembered that she had made no secret of what she expected Mr. Ufferlitz's intentions to be and what she thought of him.

  He was getting nowhere at an impressively steady pace.

  "Do you get headaches?" Peggy Warden asked, several minutes later.

  "Headaches?" The Saint came back a few thousand miles with a start.

  "Yes. You keep your brain working so hard."

  He grinned, and pushed away his plate and lighted a cigaнrette.

  "It's a bad habit," he said. "I'm sorry."

  The gray eyes were still inquiring.

  "Are you really taking a professional interest?"

  "You heard what Condor said. If I get any brilliant ideas, he wants to hear them."

  "But why should you be interested?"

  Simon meditated over his cigarette. It was a question that he had been about ready to ask himself.

  "Partly because I don't have anything much else to do just at this moment," he said at length. "And this is pretty much in my lap. Partly because the guy who bumped off Byron has probably cheated me out of an amusing experience-not to mention an interesting amount of dough. Partly because it's a rather fascinating problem, in a very quiet way. A murder without clues and without alibis-so beautifully simple and so beautifully insoluble. There has to be a catch in it someнwhere, and I collect catches."

  "But you aren't a policeman. You're supposed to have very unconventional ideas about justice. Suppose you deнcided that the murderer had a thoroughly good reason to kill Mr. Ufferlitz?"

  "I'd still want to know who did it. It's like having to know the answer to a riddle."