1956 - There's Always a Price Tag

by James Hadley Chase

  I tried to assure myself that the four men in the car weren't waiting for me. They probably knew nothing about me, but I hadn't the nerve to cross the street and enter the vaults. I retraced my steps and went into an all-night drug store around the corner. I ordered a coffee, and sat smoking while I wondered what I had best do.

  I had a growing urge to get out of town. I took out my wallet and checked to see how much money I had with me. It wasn't much: five dollars and some small change. I had two thousand in the bank. But dare I wait until the bank opened? I had to wait, I told myself. Without money I was sunk.

  So I waited. I moved from the drug store to a snack bar and then on to another drug store. The hands of my watch crawled on. After three coffees and having smoked all my cigarettes, I decided I could start towards my bank. I moved slowly, keeping a lookout for any man who might be a detective. This time I approached my bank cautiously, keeping to the opposite side of the road. I spotted another big black car, parked within forty yards of my bank, containing four men.

  I stepped into a shop arcade out of their sight. I knew then that the police were on to me. This couldn't be a coincidence. They were waiting for me to lose my nerve, get my money out and bolt.

  I went into a drug store, ordered another cup of coffee and sat down at a table against the wall. My hands were shaking so badly I was afraid to pick up the cup. I had to get out before the net closed, but how was I to do so without money?

  Then I thought of Solly. He might lend me enough to get out of town. He had been in trouble with the police himself, and he would know what it was like to be in this kind of jam.

  I went over to the row of telephone booths and put a call through to Solly's office.

  Patsy answered.

  'Is Jack there?' I asked.

  'No. Is that you, Glyn?'

  'That's right. Look, Patsy, it's important I talk to Jack. Where shall I find him?'

  'He's down at police headquarters.' My heart kicked against my ribs.

  'He’s what?'

  'At police headquarters. A detective came about half an hour ago and took him down there. Glyn, are you in trouble?'

  I drew my lips off my teeth in a mirthless grin. That was an understatement.

  'I could be,' I said. 'What do you know, Patsy?'

  'Jack sent me out of the room, but I listened outside the door,' Patsy said, speaking fast and low. 'The detective was asking questions about you and Mrs. Dester.'

  I wiped the sweat off my face.

  'What kind of questions?'

  'He wanted to know if Jack knew anything about you and her: if you were friendly with her or went out with her.'

  'What did he say, Patsy?'

  'I don't know. I couldn't stay outside the door that long. After a few minutes, Jack came out and said he was going down to headquarters.'

  'How did he look?'

  'Scared. I'd keep away from him, Glyn. You mustn't trust him. He only thinks of himself.'

  'I guess that's right. Well, thanks, Patsy. Thanks a lot.'

  'Is there anything I can do? This woman's dead, isn't she? It's in the papers.'

  'Yes, she's dead. No, there's nothing you can do. So long, kid, and thanks.'

  I hung up and went back to my table, pausing at the bar to buy a pack of cigarettes. I lit one and sat down again. Solly would tell them how I had offered him five hundred dollars to dig into Helen's past.

  They would guess I had planned to blackmail her. My mouth turned dry. That would explain why I had killed her if they ever hooked me to her killing.

  I felt the net was tightening. A feeling of panic threatened to submerge me. For some minutes I sat motionless, trying to think of a way out, then I remembered Marian. It was possible that she had some money I could borrow. I went back to the telephone booth and called Dester's number. A man's voice answered. I had forgotten the policeman who had been left to watch the house. There were extensions all over the house. He would be certain to listen in to what I was going to say. I knew I couldn't involve Marian in this business.

  'Hello there?' the policeman was saying. 'Who's calling?'

  I dropped the receiver back on to its cradle and came out of the booth.

  I felt trapped and beaten. I very nearly gave up then. If I had had the courage I would have gone to police headquarters and told them the truth, but I just couldn't face it. I told myself I still had a slight chance of getting away if I acted at once. I had to get rid of the suitcase. If they caught me with it I couldn't see how I could ever beat the rap.

  I picked up the case and left the drug store. Walking quickly, I made my way to the central bus stop and went into the left-luggage office.

  'I want to check this in for a few days,' I said to the clerk who took the case indifferently, slapped on a label, gave me a ticket and tossed the case on to a shelf.

  If I had any luck I should be out of the country before the case was found, if it were ever found.

  I felt less scared now I was rid of the suitcase. I walked through the swing doors of the left-luggage office into the hot sunshine. There were about twenty buses lined up, waiting to go. The crowd of travellers moved around me, jostling me while I tried to make up my mind which bus to take. I decided finally to head for San Francisco. I walked over to the timetable board to see what time the San Francisco bus was due out.

  I was running my finger down the long list of place names when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a big man come up to stand close beside me.

  I felt my heart contract. The kind of terror you experience in a nightmare took hold of me. Slowly I turned my head. A large, red-faced man in a shabby suit and a slouch hat was looking intently at me. He had cop written all over him.

  'Okay, Nash,' he said curtly. 'We want you. Come on, let's go.'

  I stood staring at him, unable to think, unable to move. Another big man materialized out of the crowd and closed in on me.

  'Take it easy,' the first cop said. 'There's no need to get excited. Lieutenant Bromwich wants to talk to you. Come on.'

  I went with them to the waiting car, got in the back with the first cop while the other one slid under the driving wheel.

  Then I saw a third detective come out of the left-luggage office, carrying my suitcase. He got in the front, resting the suitcase across his knees.

  'Let's go,' the first cop said in a bored, flat voice.

  The car moved off.

  I looked out of the car window at the traffic, the people moving on the sidewalks, the shop windows and the blue of the sky. It seemed to me that it was imperative to store up in my mind the sight of these familiar things. I had a feeling I wouldn't see them again.

  * * *

  The room was small with dirty yellow walls and it smelt of stale sweat, stale tobacco smoke, unwashed bodies and carbolic acid. The furnishing consisted of two hard, straight-backed chairs and a trestle table spotted with ink stains.

  A bored policeman sat in a chair by the door and stared gloomily at a bluebottle fly that walked across the ceiling. I sat in the chair by the table, waiting.

  Four hours had dragged by since I had been brought to this room. I had been given a cup of coffee that stood on the table, cold and untouched. The saucer was crammed with my cigarette-butts.

  The policeman hadn't spoken during the four hours. Every so often he would shift his small, hard eyes from the fly to me and then back to the fly again.

  I didn't kid myself. I was in trouble. The chances were that this was the beginning of the end of my life. This could be the first step towards the gas chamber. During the long hours of waiting, I had decided my only hope was to tell the truth. It depended on the attorney I could get whether the jury would believe me or not. At least Dester's suicide note should stop them charging me with his murder, but would they believe I had never intended to kill Helen? Even if they did believe me, I would still go to jail for a long time. This was the end of me anyway. Maybe it would be better to go to the gas chamber than to spend twenty years behind w
alls.

  The door suddenly opened and the cop who had picked me up at the bus station came in.

  'The lieutenant is ready for you now,' he said.

  I got up and walked across the room and followed him down a long corridor into another room less shabby than the one I had just left.

  Bromwich stood by the window, a cigar between his teeth, a scowl on his face. Seated on a hard— backed chair before the desk, his pipe in his hand, was Maddux.

  Bromwich pointed to a chair.

  'Sit down,' he said.

  The cop who had brought me went out, leaving the door half open. Moving slowly, I sat down.

  Bromwich looked over at Maddux.

  'Okay, you can have him for ten minutes. Then I want him.'

  'Thanks, Lieutenant,' Maddux said. 'I won't be longer than that.'

  Bromwich gave me a hard, hostile stare and then went out, shutting the door behind him. Maddux began to fill his pipe.

  'Well, Nash,' he said, not looking at me, 'you didn't last long, did you? You must have put in a lot of hard work and thought to have pulled a stunt like this, but it came unstuck pretty fast. It was a smart idea and you nearly foxed me. I picked up two clues that put me bang on the beam. I investigated your background and I found out that you had worked for a refrigeration company some two years ago. That made me think. Then when I talked to Miss Temple and she told me about her sleepwalking act and how you had insisted on keeping the freezer motor running, I saw how you had fixed it. Just two clues and a nice idea went haywire. It was a nice idea, Nash, but it couldn't have worked: the lack of blood and the lack of fingerprints pointed to a trick. I had only to dig deep enough to find out how the trick was worked.'

  I didn't say anything. I watched him light his pipe.

  'You're in trouble, Nash,' he went on. 'We have an open-and-shut case against you. We're experts at this kind of racket. We don't want a confession out of you. We have enough evidence against you to put you into the gas chamber twice over, but once will be enough.'

  'I didn't kill Dester,' I said, my voice unsteady. 'And you can't prove that I did. I have his suicide note. He shot himself.'

  'No, he didn't; you killed him,' Maddux said mildly. 'I'll tell you why you did it and how you did it. He gave you a job as his chauffeur. You and Helen Dester fell for each other. She knew he was insured for three-quarters of a million and she wanted that money as she wanted Van Tomlin's insurance money. But you were smart. You knew if Dester was murdered, she and you would be our suspects. You found out that Dester had cancelled the self-destruction clause in his insurance policy. You also found out that he had already paid a hundred and four thousand dollars in premiums, and you knew that if an insurance company doesn't settle a claim, it is a rule that they return all premiums' He laid an emphasis on these words. 'You decided it would be safer to go for the smaller amount, and that's what you planned to do. But you saw no reason why you should share the money with Helen Dester. You got Solly to dig into her past and you found out that she killed Van Tomlin. Although Dester and his wife didn't get on together, he was still in love with her. You blackmailed him. You threatened to tell the police what you had found out about her unless he gave you a sum of money, as much as he could then afford. He gave you two thousand, six hundred dollars that pretty well emptied his account. We can prove this. We have the cheque he gave you.'

  'That's a lie!' I sat forward and glared at him. 'He paid me a year's salary. He said I might as well have it while it was there.'

  Maddux shrugged.

  'Is anyone going to believe that? But never mind, you can argue that out with the jury. I'm telling you what happened; what the jury will believe happened. You weren't satisfied with such a trifling sum as two thousand six hundred - blackmailers are never satisfied. You forced him to leave the rest of his estate, when his debts were paid, to you in his will. We've seen the will and the wording fixes you, Nash. It says everything is to come to you after Helen Dester's death. That was all right with you because you planned to murder her. You shot Dester. You and she put him in the deep-freeze cabinet. Now why did you put him in there instead of calling the police right away and telling them that Dester had shot himself? I'll tell you why. You had allowed Helen Dester to believe she and you were after the three-quarters of a million insurance money. You had told her the plan was to make it look as if Dester had been kidnapped and later murdered so she could put in a claim for the full amount. You wanted to get her to the forestry station and that was the only way you could do it. You impersonated Dester so Marian Temple could see you leave. You took Helen Dester to the forestry station and you killed her. You tied her and left her. Your idea was to throw the blame on to Dester, making out he had killed her, then faked it to look like a kidnapping. He was to lose his nerve, come back to the house, write a confession and kill himself. It looked a cinch to you, but when Harmas started to investigate and pointed out the damning facts that there were no fingerprints, that Dester couldn't have got into the house without being seen and that he hadn't bled enough, you lost your nerve. I found out that you had a safe deposit and I got Bromwich to watch for you there. I also got him to block you off from your bank. So what did you do?

  What every guilty character does: you tried to bolt.'

  'I didn't kill Dester!' I exclaimed. 'I didn't kill her either! It was an accident! I didn't mean to hit her.'

  'I shouldn't talk like that,' Maddux said and knocked out his pipe. 'If I were you I wouldn't say anything until you have had a talk with your lawyer. By the way, do you know of a good lawyer? If you don't I do. I know a man who isn't scared of a forlorn hope and who will put up a good fight for you.'

  'I don't want anyone you recommend,' I said.

  'Don't be a fool. I'm not interested one way or the other now. My business was to block any claim on my company. I've done that. This guy could help you.'

  I didn't know anyone. I had to have someone.

  'Well, all right.'

  'Okay. I'll have him come over right away,' Maddux said, 'but don't expect miracles. He's a good man, but I don't think he can save you. I don't think anyone can save you. At least you can be sure he will try.' He got up and crossed to the door. 'Well so long. I won't wish you luck. I don't think you deserve it.'

  I listened to the sound of his footfalls receding down the corridor.

  After a minute or so, Bromwich came into the room with two detectives.

  As I looked at his hard, hostile eyes, I knew this was the beginning of my end.