1955 - You Never Know With Women

by James Hadley Chase

  “Give me a cigarette and I’ll tell you.”

  While she was lighting the cigarette, I could see she was thinking, then with a sudden shrug of her shoulders she began to talk. It had happened, she said, just the way Gorman had told me. She had gone to Brett’s place to do her act and Bien had shown her the dagger. If ever she was worried or upset she walked in her sleep; she had done so ever since she’d been a child. Brett had forced his attentions on her and she had fought him off. She was worried he wouldn’t give her her fee and she went to sleep worried. She had taken the dagger in her sleep and left the compact in its place. So far her story and Gorman’s matched. She left the next morning, knowing Brett was going to San Francisco. When she had got home she found the Cellini dagger at the bottom of her bag and her compact missing. She guessed what had happened and was scared out of her wits. Gorman was the only person she could think of to get her out of the mess and she went around to see him. She told him the story and showed him the dagger. He laughed at her. There was nothing to worry about, he said, he’d call Brett and explain what had happened. Brett would be so glad to get the dagger back he wouldn’t think anything of how she had taken it. It was while Gorman was trying to get Brett on the telephone that Dominic Boyd walked in. The dagger was on the table and he recognized it. He heard the story.

  If Veda and Gorman wanted to make a little money, he told them, now was the time. He wanted the dagger. Brett had beaten him by a short head in his search for it. Neither of them must do anything hasty until he had thought of how he could keep the dagger without getting anyone into trouble.

  Veda didn’t like this, but Gorman handled her. After a while Boyd had worked out his idea. Someone would have to get the compact. That was the first thing. As Brett hadn’t opened the safe he didn’t know the dagger was missing or that the compact was there. Someone would have to put a bomb in the safe so when it went off Brett and the police would assume that was when the robbery had taken place and to give Veda a water-tight alibi she should be at a night club when the bomb went off. It was left to Gorman to find a sucker to get the compact and plant the bomb. He picked on me.

  “You see,” she concluded, “if the compact was found, Brett would know I’d taken the dagger and Boyd knew I’d give him away in a showdown. Now he had the dagger he wasn’t going to part with it and that’s why he wanted the compact so badly. It was the only thing that connected me with the dagger, and he knew he couldn’t rely on me if the police questioned me. Then when you acted smart and pretended the compact had been destroyed I got scared. Boyd knew you had the compact. If he couldn’t get it from you, the simplest thing would be to get rid of me, and I didn’t like the way he began to look at me. He’s crazy, and I felt he might do anything. That’s why I helped you escape.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me all this before? Why did you invent the phoney story about the compact being valuable to Brett?”

  “Because I’d promised Boyd not to give him away. I was scared of him. But now you’ve found out who he is, it doesn’t matter, does it?”

  I turned the story over in my mind, and I couldn’t find any fault with it. This time, I was pretty sure, she had told me the truth.

  “So there’s no money in the compact?” I asked, giving her a mercenary look.

  “Of course not. It belongs to me. Naturally I want it back.”

  “And so you shall. Maybe I’d better call Brett. I’m going out there tonight and I don’t want to run into any more of his tough guards or tougher dogs.” I fished out the card he had given me, frowned at it. Then I turned it over and found printed on the other side his name and telephone number. I reversed the card again, frowned some more. Written on the back of the card in a small, neat fist were the unexpected words: For Alma from Verne. “A man’s best friend is his wife.”

  “Now that’s a damn funny thing for a man like Brett to write on a card,” I said and tossed the card into Veda’s lap. As she picked it up, I went over to the telephone, called Brett’s number and got my connection almost immediately.

  The same nice musical voice with the lilt in it announced, “This is Mr. Brett’s residence.”

  “This is Floyd Jackson. Will you tell Mr. Brett to expect me at ten o’clock tonight? Tell him I have what he wants.”

  “Why, yes, Mr. Jackson,” she said, then added, “I’m so pleased.”

  “That makes two of us,” I told her wondered if she was as pretty as she sounded and reluctantly hung up.

  Veda was mixing two highballs. With the light behind her there was no doubt about the transparency of her pyjamas. Before giving them my undivided attention I picked up Brett’s card again and frowned some more at it.

  “Would you say a man’s best friend is his wife?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t know.” She brought me the highball and looked at me. There was a far-away look in her eyes. “I’ve never been a wife.”

  I flicked the card with my nails.

  “Alma . . . and Verne . . . I wonder who they are.” I slipped the card into my pocket.

  “If you’re so curious why don’t you ask him?” she said indifferently.

  “Did you know those pyjamas are transparent?”

  “They’re supposed to be.”

  That seemed to take care of that. We drank our cocktails. I locked the dagger in a drawer. There was still a lot of time to kill before ten o’clock.

  I kept looking at her pyjamas.

  “They’re a lot better than a sarong,” I said suddenly.

  “They’re supposed to be,” she repeated and wandered towards the bedroom.

  I watched her go. She looked back over her shoulder, raised her eyebrows and then went into the room. I followed her after a while.

  That’s another good way of passing the time, in case you don’t know.

  chapter ten

  The headlights of the Cadillac sent two long fingers of white glare up the mountain road that led to Ocean Rise.

  Lu Farrel lounged at the wheel and I sat by his side. I didn’t want him on this trip, but Casy had insisted. He said he didn’t trust Brett. How did I know Brett wouldn’t have a reception committee waiting when I arrived? If that kind of trouble was up there I’d be glad of Lu.

  I argued that Brett had given me his word, but that made Casy laugh. The word of a millionaire didn’t rate high with him, and he said so with a lot of fancy language. I finally gave way. As it turned out I was mighty glad to have Lu with me.

  It didn’t take long before the headlights picked out the twelve-foot wall surrounding Brett’s house.

  “You stick around outside, Lu,” I said, “and be ready for a snappy getaway. Keep in the car. If the guards see you they might molest you.”

  Lu stopped the car outside the gates. A powerful light flashed on over the guard’s lodge and a couple of uniformed guards appeared from nowhere. One of them stood before the iron gates; the other strolled over to the car. I got out as I didn’t want him to get a look at Lu.

  “Mr. Brett’s expecting me,” said. “I’m Floyd Jackson.” The beam of the flashlight hit me in the face.

  “I guess you’re Jackson all right,” the guard said after a lengthy scrutiny. “Come on in and I’ll phone the house. Do you want to bring the heap in?”

  “It can stay there. I’ll walk up.”

  “Suit yourself, but it’s quite a walk.”

  “I want the exercise. I’m getting fat.”

  He shrugged and moved to the gates.

  “It’s okay,” he said to the other guard. “It’s the party who’s expected.”

  The other guard scowled at me and opened the gate. We passed through and went into the lodge. It was very clean and bare and reminded me of a guard-room in a military camp. There was even a rack by the door that held four business-like looking carbines and ammunition belts.

  The guard went over to a wall telephone and muttered into the mouthpiece. He waited a moment, pushed back his hat to the back of his head and eyed me with a blank, dis
interested expression. A voice cracking in his ear brought him to attention.

  “Jackson’s down here, sir,” he said. “Yes, sir. I’ll have him sent up. I’ll see to it, sir. Yes, sir. I’ll fix it, sir.” He hung up, stroked his nose and gave me a sour grin. “That’s a boy who likes to be called sir. A big shot, see? How would you like to be a big shot, comrade? How would you like a fella like me to call you sir?”

  “I could stand it if you could.”

  “Yeah, maybe you could, but one big shot’s enough for me, so don’t go getting ideas, comrade. One big shot is plenty. Got a gun on you?”

  I said I hadn’t.

  “Gotta see, comrade. The big shot was emphatic about it. You don’t mind if I pat you over? No offence, mind. I gotta do what the big shot says.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He patted me all over, found the dagger case, lifted it out of my pocket.

  “What would this be, comrade?”

  “That belongs to the big shot. If you open it I’ll have to tell him and he mightn’t like it.”

  “Well, it couldn’t hold a gun, could it?” He handed the case back. “There’re a lot of things the big shot doesn’t like. I wouldn’t want to cross him.”

  I put the case in my pocket.

  “Come on, comrade, he’s waiting. That’s something else he doesn’t like.”

  We began to walk up the long dark driveway.

  “That’s a nice car you’ve got out there comrade,” the guard said suddenly. “I could use a car like that. Must have cost a heap of jack.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I borrowed it.”

  He spat into the darkness.

  “I didn’t think somehow a private eye could run to a car like that.”

  “I’m no dick now. I retired weeks ago.”

  “That right? Two of our guards got knocked off a couple of nights back. I thought maybe the big shot was hiring help.”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “Just sort of private business, huh?”

  “Kind of private, yeah.”

  We walked on in silence after that, but I knew he was bursting with curiosity.

  “Too private to talk about, huh?” he said as we neared the house.

  “You ask him. He’ll tell you if he wants you to know.”

  He again spat in the darkness.

  “That’s funny. I’ve only got to ask him. He’d tell me with the toe of his boot.”

  “He might at that.”

  “See that lighted window?” He paused to point. “That’s where he is. He said for you to go in the garden entrance. You can find your own way now, can’t you, comrade? No need for me to walk up all those steps, is there? I’ve got kind of tender feet.”

  I looked towards the terrace. Against the lighted french windows that stood open I could see the outline of the stone griffin at the head of the steps leading from the terrace.

  “Sure,” I said. “See you on my way out.”

  He stood at the bottom of the steps and watched me all the way up. When I reached the stone griffin I paused to look back. He was still standing there, his hands on his hips, watching. I kept on up the second flight of steps, and when I got to the top I looked back again. He was walking away down the driveway. There was bright moonlight and it was easy to see him. I ducked into the shadow of the house and waited a moment until he had disappeared around the bend of the drive. Then I ran down the steps to the griffin.

  I was taking a chance, but if I waited until I was through with Brett, the guard might be up there to see me to the gates. I had to pick my opportunity.

  I reached the griffin, took a quick look around. No one hollered at me; no one peeped out of the windows. I climbed up the base and reached into the little hollow between the wings. My questing fingers found nothing. I groped some more, cursed softly, levered myself up to stand on the top of the pedestal. I took out a small flashlight and turned the beam into the hollow. There was a little dirt, a little rainwater, but no compact.

  Time stood still while I clung to the stone wings of the griffin and gaped into the empty hollow. Then out of the night came the sharp crash of gunfire: a single shot, too close for comfort, but not directed at me.

  I dropped from the pedestal and darted up the steps towards the french windows. The echo of the shot was still whispering in the garden as I reached the open glass doors: a thin wreath of smoke drifted lazily out on the beam of light.

  I stood in the doorway and looked into the brightly lit room. It was a nice room: the kind you would expect to be owned by a millionaire. Everything in the room was expensive and neat and good.

  Lindsay Brett sat in an armchair facing me. There was a blank look of surprise on his well-fed face, and a small blue hole in the centre of his forehead. His sightless eyes stared at me; his lips were drawn off his teeth in a startled snarl. He didn’t look as if he would ever run up the Matterhorn again, nor did he look as if he had any breath left to whistle Dixie. I didn’t have to touch him to know he was dead.

  The death weapon, as the newspapers would call it, lay on the desk in front of him. It was a six-shot .25 automatic, and smoked still curled from its short blue barrel.

  Whoever had killed Brett had made a swell job of it. The slug had wiped out this millionaire’s life as surely as it had wiped out my chances of collecting twenty-five thousand dollars. And that’s what I thought about as I stared into the dead, empty eyes. So I wasn’t going to be on easy street after all. Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Jackson wouldn’t collect their reservations to Miami tomorrow morning. No dough for Jackson, the boy detective. That’s the way it is. You make plans, build castles, sit on top of the world, then someone comes along and lets off a heater and bursts the bubble for you.

  Then another thought popped into my mind. The cops wouldn’t look far for the killer. They’d pick on me. I felt a chill run up my spine and into the roots of my hair. Sure they’d pick on me. They couldn’t help themselves. I had come up here alone. I hadn’t been up here long before the shooting starts. Of course they’d pick on me. Redfern would fall over himself with a set-up as sweet as this.

  These thoughts took very little time to run through my mind. The smoke was still drifting out of the gun barrel as I began to back slowly away. Then the door of the room opened and a girl burst in. We looked at each other over the top of Brett’s dead head. She was tall and slim and fair and nice. She saw the gun, then Brett. Blood was beginning to ooze out of the hole in his head. She stiffened and her hands flew to her face and she screamed. The sound jarred through me and set my nerves jangling.

  Feet pounded along the passage outside. I didn’t wait. They wouldn’t believe me no matter how convincing I was. No one was going to believe me this time. I went down the terrace steps as if I had wings to my feet. The girl screamed; then a man shouted. I didn’t look back, and as I ran a penetrating noise of a bell started up.

  I ran down the dark driveway towards the gates and the car. The guards would know something was up by the bell, but I had to take a chance on that. I couldn’t climb the wall. I couldn’t stay in the grounds. If they let the dogs out they’d run me down in no time. I had to get past the guards or I was sunk.

  I could see the gates now as I tore down the driveway. They stood open and I could hear the engine of the Cadillac roaring. Then I saw something else and I put on a spurt. The two guards were standing against the wall of the lodge, their hands stiffly above their heads.

  “Come on, dear,” Lu called from the car. “These boys won’t bother you.”

  I darted past the guards and into the car. Lu was leaning out of the window. He was pointing a sawn-off shotgun at them.

  “You drive,” he said calmly. “I’ll watch these guys.”

  I engaged gear, shot the Cad into the darkness.

  Lu withdrew his head, slid the shotgun on to the back seat.

  “Push her along,” he said uneasily. “They’ll start shooting in a moment.”

  The words were scarcely out of his mouth
when gunfire broke out behind us. A slug smashed the clock on the dashboard, another cut a groove along the off wing: pretty nice shooting.

  “Mick’s going to be tickled pink having this car shot up,” Lu said and giggled. “What did you do to annoy them?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said, treading on the gas. “Someone got in ahead of me and shot Brett. They think it’s me.”

  Lu forgot to act soft.

  “Is he dead?” he demanded, a rasping note in his voice.

  “Very,” I said.

  The shooting had stopped now, but I didn’t slacken speed.

  “That guy’s influence won’t die with him,” Lu said and rubbed his jaw with an uneasy hand. “This is going to start something we’ll all be sorry about.”

  He didn’t say another word until we reached Casy’s joint, then as I got out, he slid under the driving-wheel.

  “You see Mick,” he said. “Tell him I’m going to get this car under cover. Those guards had a look at it. They’ll know it again.”

  Casy was playing poker when I walked in. One look at my face brought him to his feet.

  “All right, boys,” he said to the players. “I’ll be back in a while. I have a little business right now.”

  He went straight to his office and I followed.

  “Trouble?” he asked and locked the door.

  “You bet there’s trouble,” I said through clenched teeth. I had time now to realize what a jam I was in, and it shook me. “Brett’s dead. Someone got there just ahead of me, and as I walked in, whoever it was shot Brett with a .25. And I’m it.”

  He swore softly and obscenely under his breath.

  “See the killer?”

  “No, I’m it, I tell you. I was seen gaping at Brett. I’ve got to get out of here. There’s nothing you can do about this, Mick. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

  The telephone began to jangle. Mick scooped up the receiver, barked, “Yes?” He listened, his face a blank, sullen mask. “Okay, okay,” he said angrily. “He’s not here anyway. Come over and have a look if you want to. I’ve got nothing to hide.” He hung up and his eyes glittered as he looked at me.