I paused there, a creepy sensation suddenly crawling up my spine. There was a faint smell of perfume in the still air, and that was something I had never smelt in my bedroom before.
I reached out and turned on the light. I felt my heart give a sudden sharp kick against my ribs.
Lying in bed, her chestnut hair half hiding her face, her bare arms outside the sheet, either dead or asleep, was Lucille.
I slumped against the wall while I stared at her. I couldn’t see any movement nor could I see if she were breathing. The shock of finding her in my bed was bad enough, but inside me began to grow a sick feeling of fear that she was dead.
Three people had died this night, and she could be the fourth. I had been able to walk out and lose myself after finding three bodies, but I knew if she were dead, I couldn’t walk away and forget her. She was in my bed and in my bungalow.
I made the effort. Pushing myself away from the wall, I crossed the room until I reached the bed. With a shaking hand, I very gently touched her arm.
She moved, giving a little sigh, and she turned slightly, pushing her face into the pillow as if to screen her eyes from the light.
I stepped back, drawing in a deep breath of relief. Then I saw her clothes scattered on the floor: a pair of lemon-coloured slacks, a white shirt, a pair of white panties and a brassiere on a chair.
I was beyond caring why she should be in my bed, and of the consequences if she were found here. So long as she was alive I didn’t care what happened.
All I wanted was sleep.
I went into the spare bedroom, stripped of my clothes, jerked the cover off the bed and slid under the sheet.
As my head dropped back on to the pillow, I began to drift off. The dead bodies, Lucille in my bed, the damaged Cadillac, the fear of the police and the menace of Oscar Ross dissolved into a heavy, dreamless sleep, and while I slept my problems and my fears sat at the foot of the bed, waiting to greet me when I awoke.
II
The hands of the bedside clock stood at five minutes past eleven when I opened my eyes. Hot sunshine was coming through the slats in the wooden shutters, making sharp patterns on the carpet.
For some moments I lay still, staring up at the ceiling, not quite convinced that I had been experiencing a horrible dream or if the events that now suddenly jumped into my mind had actually happened. Then as I became more awake, I realized this was no nightmare, and I threw off the sheet and slid out of bed. I took the spare bathrobe from the cupboard and put it on, then I went down the passage to the bathroom.
After I had shaved, I felt a little more capable of coping with the situation. As I came out of the bathroom, I heard movements in my bedroom, then the door jerked open and Lucille paused in the doorway.
We stared at each other.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Couldn’t you have used the spare bed or had you designs on me?’
She flushed scarlet.
‘I’m sorry. I waited and waited, but you didn’t come.’ Her voice was breathless. ‘I got so tired I lay on your bed and I must have fallen asleep.’
‘Then in your sleep you threw your clothes all over the room and managed to get under the covers,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘Well, I hope you slept as well as I did. I got in a little late and thought it would be uncharitable to wake you. Was there any particular reason why you are here or did you decide a change of beds would break up the monotony of your life at the Gables?’
She stared blankly at me.
‘You said you had found a solution. You didn’t say what it was. I wanted to know. I came down here and waited for you in the hope you would come back.’
‘I see, and how did you get in here?’
Her eyes shifted away from me.
‘I –I found a window open.’
‘That was careless of me.’ I ran my fingers through my hair and winced as I touched the lump at the back of my head. ‘Look, I’m not feeling quite myself this morning. Would you be a nice girl and get on your bicycle and go away? I want a little peace and quiet around here this morning.’
‘Ches, please…’ She began to beat her clenched fists together, a sign I had come to recognize as evidence she was agitated. ‘I must talk to you. This man who phoned… he’s been to see me. He intends to blackmail us.’
‘Yes, I know about him. Well, all right, then we’ll have a, talk, but not before I have had some
coffee. Will you oblige me by going into the bathroom and making yourself look glamorous? Right now you look as if you’ve been sleeping in a hedge. I’ll get the coffee, then we can have a conference.’
Leaving her staring after me, I went into the kitchen and put on the kettle. I heard her go into the bathroom and, after a moment or so, I heard the shower going.
By the time I had the coffee, orange juice and toast on the table, she had come out of the bathroom. There was a fresh glow to her skin now and her hair looked silky and neat. She had rolled up the sleeves of my dressing-gown, and with that extraordinary knack most women have, she somehow had made herself look lovely and desirable even when wearing a man’s dressing-gown that was several sizes too large for her.
‘Sit down and drink your coffee,’ I said. ‘Don’t let’s talk yet. There’s plenty of time.’
‘But, Ches…’
‘I said we wouldn’t talk yet. I want a little peace while I drink my coffee. Just relax, will you, and try to keep quiet?’
She sat down opposite me, her face suddenly sulky, and poured the coffee.
I savoured the situation. If I had no troubles, if Aitken dropped dead and if she were to marry me, this could be the set-up for the next twenty years or more: she sitting opposite me, looking lovely and a little sulky every morning while we drank coffee. I found the picture a lot less exciting than I had, imagined it would be.
We finished our coffee in silence. From time to time we looked at each other across the table. It was a pretty odd breakfast, but I was determined not to listen to her troubles before the first cigarette of the morning.
When we had finished the coffee, I pushed a box of cigarettes towards her, got up, walked over to the settee and lay down on it I lit a cigarette and stared up at the ceiling. I now felt more or less ready to cope with whatever she had to tell me.
‘Okay,’ I said, not looking at her. ‘Let’s have it. You’re now being blackmailed—is that it?’
She sat rigid, her clenched fists on the table, her eyes wide open.
‘Yes. He came yesterday evening. I was swimming. He suddenly appeared as I was getting out of the bath.’
I let smoke drift out of my open mouth.
‘If you were wearing the bikini I saw you in, I’m surprised he had the heart to blackmail you.’ I lifted my head to look at her. ‘How did you like him? He struck me as the type most girls would rave about.’
‘I thought he was hateful,’ she said in a cold, flat voice.
‘Really? Perhaps that was because he wanted money from you. I’m sure if he asked you to go out to dinner with him, you would have found him enchanting.’
‘Ches! Will you please stop talking like this! He is demanding thirty thousand dollars! He said you and I could find that amount!’
‘I know. He seems to have a certain child-like faith in our ability to raise such a sum. He has put the same proposition to me. He has given me until the end of the week to find the money. Do you think you could find thirty thousand dollars?’
‘Of course not!’
I reached out and tapped ash off my cigarette.
‘How much can you find—’
‘I don’t know. I have a diamond ring. It’s the only thing I really own. Roger gave it to me before we were married. It must be worth something.’ She began to twist a ring on the third finger of her right hand. ‘I don’t know how much. Perhaps you could sell it for me.’
I stretched out my hand.
‘Let’s have a look at it.’
She stared at me as if she couldn’t believe she had heard aright,
then she pulled the ring off her finger, got up and came over to me. She handed the ring to me.
I took it, looking up at her.
‘Sit down here,’ I said, patting the settee.
She sat down, folding her hands in her lap. Her expression was puzzled and worried.
I examined the ring.
It wasn’t bad, but there was nothing about it that would excite any jeweller to fall over himself to buy it.
‘I’d say you might hock it for five hundred,’ I said, ‘providing you told the guy your mother was starving, and you were dying of consumption, and if, of course, he believed you.’ I dropped the ring into her lap. ‘Well, we’re making progress. We now have only to find twenty-nine thousand and five hundred dollars.’
‘Ches! Why are you talking like this to me?’ she demanded angrily. ‘What have I done? I warned you we would be blackmailed and you didn’t believe me and now you turn against me. It’s not my fault.’
‘I’ve had a very trying night,’ I said patiently. ‘Your problems, Lucille, don’t interest me immediately. I have other things to think about.’
‘But they are your problems as well!’ she flared. ‘How are we going to raise the money?’
‘That, as Hamlet once said, is the question. Have you any suggestions to make?’
‘Well, you—you can find most of it, can’t you? You told me you had twenty thousand dollars.’
I looked at her.
She was sitting forward, her eyes frightened and anxious, and she looked very young and lovely.
‘I have to give that to your husband. He might be annoyed if I gave it to Oscar instead.’
‘Ches! You’re not taking this seriously! What is the matter with you? This man says he will tell Roger we were making love on the beach together and he will tell the police I killed the policeman! He says he has a photograph of you changing the number plates of your car!’ She began to beat her fist on my knee. ‘You’re in tins as much as I am! What are we going to do?’
I pushed her hand away.
‘We’re not going to let this situation stampede us,’ I said. That’s the first thing. The second thing is we’re not going to pay Mr. Oscar Ross, and the third thing is you’re going to get dressed and go home before someone comes here and finds us together in an obviously compromising situation.’
She became rigid, her clenched fists between her knees.
‘You’re not going to pay him?’ she said, her eyes growing round. ‘But you must! He’ll go to the police! He’ll tell Roger… you must pay him!’
‘There’s no must about it. We have until the end of the week: that’s six days. I’ll be surprised if I don’t find something in that time about Ross that will discourage him from pressing his claim. A man like him must have a past. He’s anxious to leave town. I’m going to dig into his past, and I’m going to find out why he wants to leave town. I may turn up something. I’m certainly not going to pay him a dime until I’m convinced I must pay him and I’m far from convinced at this moment.’
She stared at me, aghast.
‘But if he finds out you are investigating him, he may not like it. He may go to the police…’
‘He won’t. Now will you be a nice girl and get dressed and go home? I have lots of things to do and you’re in the way.’
‘But you’re not really serious? You’ll only antagonize him. He—he may raise the price.’
‘He won’t,’ I said. ‘He’s no fool. He knows thirty thousand is as much as he can hope for. Now will you please go home?’
Slowly and reluctantly she got to her feet.
‘Don’t you think we’d better give him the money, Ches? We—we may go to jail if you try to be clever.’
I smiled at her.
‘Will you relax and leave this to me? We have time and we may be lucky.’
‘I don’t like it,’ she said, staring down at me. ‘I think it would be better to pay him and get rid of him.’
‘Naturally you would think that because it’s not your money. If you’re so anxious for him to be paid why don’t you ask your husband if he will lend you thirty thousand dollars? There’s a slight chance that he might.’
She made an angry movement with her hands, then turned and went quickly out of the room.
I reached for the telephone book, turned the pages until I came to the R’s. I found Oscar Ross had a place called Belle Vue on Beach Boulevard: not perhaps the best district in town, but at least as good as mine.
Out of curiosity, I checked to see if Art Galgano was in the book. I wasn’t disappointed nor surprised
to find he wasn’t.
I put the book down, got to my feet and poured another cup of coffee. My head was beginning to ache again, and I went into the bathroom, found some aspirin and washed down the three tablets with the luke-warm coffee.
I went back to the settee and sat on it while I did a little thinking. After ten minutes or so, Lucille came out of my bed-room. She made an attractive picture in her lemon-yellow slacks and white shirt. In her right hand she carried a white wrap-over handbag.
She stood in the doorway, obviously showing herself off, with the lost-little-girl look on her face that made her look cute enough to eat.
I regarded her and wished she wasn’t Aitken’s wife, that she wasn’t such a barefaced liar and that she wasn’t so completely untrustworthy.
‘Ches,’ she said in her small, little girl’s voice, ‘we really must be sensible about this. I’ve been thinking…’
‘Save your breath,’ I said. ‘I know exactly what you have been thinking. You have decided, for both our sakes, I should hand over every nickel I own, but there is one point you have overlooked. Once you pay blackmail, the blackmailer always comes back for more. Ross will gladly accept the money and perhaps we won’t hear from him for a year or so, then one day when we think all is well, he’ll turn up with a hard-luck story and put on the bite. This is my money, Lucille. I may eventually be forced to part with it, but I’m going to be quite sure there is no other way out of this mess before I do part with it.’
She began to move restlessly around the room.
Finally she paused and said without looking at me: ‘Then perhaps I should tell Roger. I am sure he would pay this man rather than let me go to prison.’
‘We’ve played this scene before and it’s still corny,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘Go home before I get annoyed with you.’
She gripped her handbag until her knuckles turned white and she marched over to me, her eyes stormy.
‘We’ve got to pay this money! If you won’t, then I’ll tell Roger! I mean it!’
‘The last time you acted out this little scene you said finally you didn’t want to tell him and you wouldn’t throw him in my face again. It seems you have a short memory. Well, all right, if you are so anxious to tell him, we’ll both go and tell him, and I’ll make sure he gets the facts right.’
She went white with anger.
‘I hate you!’ she screamed at me and took a swipe at my face with her handbag.
I got my hand up in time and took the blow on my wrist. The contact was so violent that the handbag shot out of her hand, flew across the room, hit the wall and burst open, its contents scattering on the floor.
An object from the bag caught my eyes.
‘Well, what do you know!’ I exclaimed.
She darted across the room and snatched up the object and thrust it inside her shirt, then she backed away, her eyes wide with fear and dismay.
For perhaps a second or so I stood rooted, staring at her, then as she turned and bolted for the door, I shot after her.
I grabbed her as she reached the hall. She broke free, dodged around me and tried to open the front door. I grabbed her arm and swung her around. She closed with me, kicking, punching and trying to bite. She was surprisingly strong, and before I could smother her arms, I had collected three or four punches in the face that hurt and made me pretty mad.
She squealed as I forced her
around so her back was to me and I brought her down on her knees.
She squirmed away from me, got to her feet and dived towards the front door. I grabbed her again. Panting, she twisted around and aimed a kick at me, but this time I was ready for her and I got out of the way.
She tried to butt my face with the top of her head, then wrenching one wrist free, she managed to rake her nails down the side of my neck.
This was turning into quite a scrap and I was fast losing my temper.
It was like trying to hold on to a wild cat. Somehow she managed to get her knee up and slam it into my chest, breaking my grip on her wrists. She squirmed away from me, but as she did an object fell to the ground.
I picked it up.
It was a driving permit.
I examined it.
It was made out in her name and dated two years back.
I turned to look at her.
She didn’t move. She crouched there in the corner, her face hidden in her hands.
Then she began to weep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I
PUTTING the driving permit in my pocket, I turned my back on the weeping girl and made my way into the bathroom. I ran the water into the toilet basin and bathed the scratches on my neck. They were pretty deep and painful. I stopped the bleeding. Staring at myself in the mirror, I saw it was pretty obvious that I had been in a fight.
I went into my bedroom and changed my pyjamas for an open-neck shirt and slacks, then I went into die lounge and sat down and looked across the sands at the sea and the distant palm trees.
I was thinking and smoking when I heard a movement behind me and I looked around. Lucille stood in the doorway.
We stared at each other.
‘Ches…’ Her voice was a thin quaver. ‘I can explain… really I can…’
‘Well, come on in and explain,’ I said. ‘This should be worth hearing. You’ve proved to me you are a pretty fluent liar, but now this is where you can win an Oscar if you take the trouble.’
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