by Basil Copper
He swept the car round a corner and down the intersection into the parallel street. A big grey station wagon driven by a woman in a turban with a florid face to match hesitated and stalled in front. Clark swore, gave her a blast of the horn and pulled smoothly round, all in one movement. We missed the front of the station wagon by all of three inches.
‘What you make of the Benson business?’ I asked.
He hesitated a moment. ‘I think the boyfriend knows more than he’s tellin’. I put the whole thing down to a false alarm at first. I figured she’d run off with someone and her parents were ashamed to talk. Now, I’m not so sure. She was pretty keen on this young fellow and he’s still right here in town, which knocks that theory down.’
‘You got his address?’ I asked.
‘I forgot,’ he said blandly. ‘Look me up some time at the office and I might remember it.’
He pulled in at the end of the parallel street, almost at the point where it started to run out of town. It was a large, new-painted store with the window full of green garden tools, rollers, hedge-trimmers and such-like. There was a neon sign over the top which said; JABEZ HARDWARE BENSON.
‘Thanks, Sheriff,’ I said and got out.
‘Any time,’ he said, leaning over to the window on my side of the car.
‘You will keep in touch, won’t you?’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want you to leave town without letting me know.’
‘Sure,’ I said.
He waved and pulled away from the kerb. I went on into the store. There were two or three people in the place admiring the coloured pictures on the seed packet advertisements. They seemed to start planning their gardens early in Mudville. I waited a few minutes and then a plump, well-fleshed man in a smart grey tussore suit with a dark tie came out from a cubby-hole office at the end of one counter. He had pince-nez clamped down over the bridge of his nose but despite the wide smile he didn’t look too happy. I figured he must be Jabez Benson.
There was a small desk lit by a shaded lamp inside the office and a grey-haired woman in a green smock sat at the desk and operated an adding machine. She looked like she was doing the year’s accounts for General Motors. The plump man blinked at me and put out his hand. He probably mistook me for a seed salesman.
‘Mr. er …’ he said, like he was searching around inside his head for a name. He didn’t come up with it.
‘You wouldn’t know me,’ I said. ‘You got somewhere private where we can talk?’
He seemed taken aback. ‘You’re not from Cartarett and Spalding?’
‘I’m sure they’re very nice people but I’m afraid not,’ I said.
‘It’s about your daughter.’
I had lowered my voice but quiet as it was in this corner of the store the grey-haired woman made a mess of her adding machine operations. I thought she was going to fall down. Benson didn’t look too good either. He went yellow around the nostrils.
‘It’s not bad news, Mr Benson,’ I said quickly. ‘I’d just like to ask you a few questions.’
‘Certainly,’ he said hastily. ‘Come inside. It’s just that mother and I have been under rather a strain these last few weeks.’
We went into the glassed-in cubbyhole, brushing past his wife. ‘Tell Perkins to take over, Emmy,’ he said, ‘and then come into the parlour. I’m sure this gentleman would like a cup of coffee.’
We squeezed through a tiny glass door in back and went on into a living room. It had a desk on one side which was cluttered with papers. Solid black leather armchairs were dotted about; there was a view of trees through a large window. Right now the place was pretty gloomy and the November light didn’t show much detail. Benson must have been conscious of this because he went round switching on green-shaded lamps. He seemed to have a collection of them all over the room. They only succeeded in carving big chunks out of the shadows, the way shaded lamps always do. When he’d finished he stood rubbing his hands together like he was listening for something. His wife was suddenly back in the room.
‘Do sit down, Mr …’ she said, echoing her husband’s earlier words.
‘Faraday,’ I said and eased myself into one of the big black chairs opposite an ornate teak coffee table. Mrs Benson looked at me curiously. She had a strong face, with a high, broad forehead and thick eyebrows.
‘Are you a friend of my daughter, Mr Faraday?’
‘By proxy, Mrs Benson,’ I said. ‘I don’t know her personally.’
I got out one of my cards and gave it to Benson. He held it upside down for a minute, blinking painfully through his glasses at it. When he got it right way up he looked at it like it had about half an hour’s worth of reading on it and then passed it to his wife. He licked his lips.
‘A detective, eh …’ He made a helpless movement of his hands.
‘I’m here to help your daughter,’ I said. ‘Her employer engaged me.’
I couldn’t bring myself to say that ridiculous name. I could still see Dame Dora’s features and feel the pressure of that gigantic knee. Mrs Benson moved in the dusk. She put the card down on the coffee table.
‘She’s a nice woman,’ she said quietly. ‘We’ll help all we can.’
Benson coughed awkwardly and shifted over until he was sitting on the arm of the chair opposite me.
‘It’s a cold day, Emmy,’ he said. ‘Let’s have some coffee and then perhaps we can tell Mr Faraday what he wants to know.’
I drank my third cup of coffee and dragged at my second cigarette. The room seemed full of warmth and smoke.
‘This a good likeness?’ I said. I got out the office record card Dame Dora had given me. I’d studied it often lately. It seemed to me now like a face Mudville wouldn’t be seeing again. Mrs Benson clutched at the picture. Her eyes filled with water. Benson coughed embarrassedly. I looked in front of me and picked up my coffee cup again.
‘A very good likeness, Mr Faraday,’ the old lady said in a choked voice. ‘We haven’t seen this one, father. Perhaps we could get one from the company.’
‘I’m sure you can, Mrs Benson,’ I said. ‘I’ll mention it next time I go there. Right now I’d like to learn a little more about your daughter’s background. Any objection to me having a look at her bedroom?’
Benson got up clumsily. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Though I don’t think you’ll find anything. The police went all over it very thoroughly.’
He led the way through the parlour into a wide hall. White-painted balustrades led up into a high-vaulted staircase. There were cut store-flowers in bowls on dark wood furniture. The whole effect was more elegant than the impression I got of the rest of the place. Benson started up the stairs and we followed.
‘The last you saw of your daughter was about three that afternoon?’ I said.
‘That’s right,’ he answered over his shoulder. ‘She was going out for tea and taking in a movie afterwards. We didn’t start worrying until about eleven o’clock.’
‘We thought she’d probably gone over to Patti Morgan’s afterwards,’ said Mrs Benson, as we went along a broad landing and fetched up in front of another white-painted door.
It didn’t register for a moment. ‘What did you say, Mrs Benson?’ I asked.
‘Patti Morgan,’ she said. ‘She’s a girl works with Carmen at the Tweed company. She lives in Mudville too.’
The hell she does I thought to myself. ‘Didn’t you know?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Strange,’ said Benson, opening the door and motioning me into a large bedroom with two windows facing south. ‘I thought she would have mentioned it if you’d seen her yesterday.’
‘There wasn’t time,’ I said.
‘Oh, well,’ Benson said, ‘it makes no matter because Patti hadn’t seen her, leastways not since they got off the L.A. train on Friday night.’
I nodded. I went round the apartment while the two of them stood helplessly in the middle of the room, by the big rosewood bed with its immaculate white coverlet. The room was the sort of place I
should have expected a girl like Carmen Benson to have. Small town charm; chintzy curtains, quiet, tasteful wallpaper; a few books; surprisingly, Vanity Fair, Tender is the Night, Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, Tobacco Road, some back copies of the New Yorker. A Vassar pennant on the blank space on the side where the bed met the wall.
There was a pink silk pyjama case standing at the bed-head. I examined a large silver-framed photograph standing on the bureau; it was a college group. Carmen was sitting in the second row. She had the same wistful, almost defiant look like she had in the picture in my pocket, the hair still drawn back from her face in that rather prim way. The Bensons started opening drawers and cupboards for me but I had seen enough.
I looked out of the window. There was nothing but dark trees, some pasture with an old horse grazing; then the wet strip of the main road and beyond that the low hills. It would have been a nice view in summer. We went downstairs again. We all three stood in a semi-circle in the parlour like we were waiting for someone.
‘The Sheriff said something about your daughter having a boyfriend in town,’ I said. ‘I wonder if you could give me his address.’
I was surprised by Benson’s reaction. His face coloured up, he clenched his hands at his side and when he spoke, his voice came out with a rushing choke.
‘The Sheriff had no right to say such things, Carmen had no boyfriends in this place and anyone tells you different is a liar. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Mr Faraday, I’ve got business in the store.’
‘Sure,’ I said quickly, ‘and thanks for your help. If I hear anything I’ll let you know.’
He mumbled something, shook hands perfunctorily and went back into the office.
‘I’ll show you out the private way, Mr Faraday,’ said Mrs Benson in an unnecessarily loud voice.
We went out into the hall. Mrs Benson opened a door which led on to a porch facing the street. She looked at me closely, like she was searching my face for an answer.
‘There was a boy,’ she said quickly, as she started to close the door. ‘My husband didn’t approve. You know how it is in small towns. He feels he’s got something to do with Carmen’s disappearance, though God knows, the police have questioned him enough. He works at the Redbarn Auto Showrooms a few blocks from here. Newton Cheney is his name.’
She grew thoughtful. ‘Carmen could have done worse for herself. He’s a good-looking boy. But Jabez doesn’t like car salesmen on principle. I’m afraid there were lots of rows between him and Carmen about it when she was home on week-ends.’
She sighed heavily and caught hold of my sleeve. She put her head up close to mine.
‘You’ve got a strong face, Mr Faraday, and an honest one. Find my girl for me.’
‘I’ll try, Mrs Benson,’ I said awkwardly. She shut the door quickly. I went out and latched the gate behind me. I went down the sidewalk feeling sorry I wasn’t God.
*
The Redbarn Auto Showrooms was on one of the side roads between the two main streets. It stood next door to the Adair-House Hotel, which was pretty ritzy as small towns go. It was a two storey white box with a wide ramp at rear so that cars could be shown on two floors. There was nothing so vulgar as petrol pumps at the front; they were stacked away at the side. A discreet arrowed sign, white on blue, said GAS and pointed away from the showroom. There were blue lettered neons which gave all the classic names; FORD: CHEVROLET: CHRYSLER: DODGE: BUICK.
The ground floor was all glass. Up on the second floor cars revolved on turntables. They had big windows there too. You could walk up the ramp and along a small gallery outside to see these. The neons gave all the O.K. foreign names here; MERCEDES-BENZ; PEUGEOT: CITROEN: RENAULT: ROLLS-ROYCE: BENTLEY: SIMCA. I walked in through the massive plate-glass doors. A bell buzzed somewhere in the silence. There was thick grey carpeting; several gleaming new cars went round on their turn-tables. A big printed symbol, gold on blue said: WE ARE HERE TO SERVE YOU.
A large man in a blue pin-stripe suit and a pale green polka dot bow-tie swam in through the plate glass by a rear door. A pink-faced blonde secretary was smoothing down her dress. The big man sneered his way through the showroom towards me. He had mean, whisky eyes, receding black hair and something like a dead ferret under his nostrils. He was nearly up to me before I saw it was a mustache. He had face-powder on his shoulder too but he didn’t notice that until after I’d gone out. That made him madder than ever.
‘Can I help you sir?’ He contrived to make the pleasantry offensive.
‘I’d like to speak to Mr Newton Cheney,’ I said.
‘Who wants him?’ he said, an edge coming into his voice.
‘I do,’ I told him. ‘Is he here or isn’t he?’
‘No,’ he said through his teeth.
‘Thanks for the information,’ I told him. ‘I’ll be back.’
‘We close at four today,’ he said to my shoulder blades, with what sounded like a grinding of incisors.
‘You’ll sell a lot of Frazer-Nashes with that technique,’ I told him.
He did make an effort then to come towards the door, but it was too late.
‘Don’t rupture yourself,’ I said. ‘I’ll show myself out.’ When I got outside I looked back. The big fellow was brushing face-powder off the front of his jacket and bawling out someone in the inner office. I grinned and went on down the street. Farther down I found a Post Office. I went into a booth and after a little trouble with my change, I dialled long distance. Stella sounded pretty good.
‘We got ourselves some trouble,’ I told her. ‘A guy called Nelson Holgren got himself killed last night when I arrived.’
‘My, we are on form,’ she said drily. ‘Is this connected with the Benson girl?’
‘This is just a great town for murder,’ I said. ‘What I want you to do is to check the L.A. Directory and find out what you can about him. Give me a ring at the Pinetop Motel after nine tonight.’
I gave her the number.
‘How did you make out with the Benson case?’ she said.
‘Too early to say,’ I said. ‘The Sheriff up here started in by arresting me but we’re on the same side now.’
She chuckled. After I hung up I walked back down town. It did me good. The bald-headed man in the drugstore gave me a nod as I went by. At that distance it passed for friendly. When I got to my car there was a piece of folded paper tucked under one of the windscreen wipers. At first I thought it was a parking ticket but when I unfolded it, there was just one line on it, scribbled in thick pencil: Come On In.
I went down the hall to Sheriff Clark’s office. It seemed busy today. All the other offices were occupied, of course, but there was still too much noise coming from his part of the building. I knocked and walked in. The room was full of people. There were at least half a dozen behind the oak railing, and others stood around outside. One or two were obvious pressmen and another seemed to be strung with cameras from head to foot. Macklehenny had a long-peaked baseball type of cap on his head and his revolver was buckled on. The typewriters were hooded. Somewhere in the back a radio was bleating.
As I came in Clark caught sight of me and put down the phone. ‘You’re just in time, Mr Faraday,’ he said. ‘We’re waiting for the doc. They dragged that car of yours out of the river, about eight miles north of here. You want to go along?’
I nodded. ‘I’d like that,’ I said.
Chapter 5
Compost
I leaned against the bonnet of Sheriff Clark’s patrol car and smoked. Way down the slope, where the cable thrummed taut against the rocks and thin winter grass, the Bugatti was being winched up through the dark brown water. Nothing of it was visible, but the streaks of white where the cable entered the water showed the strain. The cable ran to the winch of a bright red commercial operator’s truck which was parked on the road above us.
Knots of people stood about the slope and murmured to themselves. At the top the road edge was lined with curious faces, thick as flies, and State troopers in black leath
er slickers kept them back. The Bugatti driver had been identified as Holgren. The body had already been removed by police frogmen and the doctor was at work behind a low canvas screen about a hundred yards from where we stood. Two lines of torn turf clear down to the water’s edge showed where the sport job had gone over the night before.
The stream was called the Agano and it was pretty high right now. The current rode past at a fast lick and slewed the cable and its burden sideways. The police frogmen must have had a fair job of it. I looked down again to the muddy stream where November leaves and small branches were eddying past. Farther on, its course was lost among dark boulders and the darker stretches of the ragged winter trees; but below us there was a clear space without trees which ran along the bank for several hundred yards. It was the only possible place for some miles where the car could have gone over with any chance of getting to the water.
This argued fair local knowledge, some degree of nerve and a lot of confidence in the dark. There was only a white-painted plank fence at this point. As the road was narrow it looked like the car had no room to charge the fence. The killer had simply put the Bugatti broadside on across the road and butted the fence two or three times until the planks broke. Nerve, confidence and local knowledge again. The terrain was flat for a car’s length just beyond the fence, then it dropped suddenly down the hillside. The killer would have joined Mr Holgren under water if he had misjudged his play.
‘What’s the word, Mr Faraday?’
A figure in an off-white trench coat had just appeared at my elbow. His brown snap-brim fedora had a card tucked into the band of it; his eyes were sharp; he wore a light mustache like a shaving brush and a collection of cameras strung round his shoulders. His dark grey trousers were tucked into rubber waders. I recognized him as a staff man on the Examiner back in L.A.
I filled him in on a few details while Clark kept a rather worried eye on me from a few yards down the slope.
‘You’d better check out with the Sheriff,’ I told him, just to keep Clark happy. ‘Pass the stuff along to the wire boys, Harry,’ I added. ‘It might keep the locals off my neck a piece.’