"Well, what?"
He had shoulders as wide as a door and long thick arms that were corded with muscle. He was wearing a white apron over blue denim trousers and a checked shirt, and he had a tall chefs hat perched jauntily over the bulging shapeless lump that had once been his left ear. He carried a toothpick in one corner of his pulpy lips, and his eyes were dully expressionless under thick, scarred eyebrows.
"Ah, yes," Brill said nervously. "Bring the whisky, Kokomo, and--and a siphon of soda."
"You want ice?"
"I've had mine tonight already," Doan said.
"No," Brill said. "No ice."
Kokomo lumbered back through the archway and appeared immediately again carrying a decanter and a siphon on a tray with a stacked pile of glasses.
Brill took the tray. "Mr. Doan, this is Kokomo--the cook and caretaker. This is the detective, Kokomo."
"This little squirt?" said Kokomo. "A detective? Hah!"
Brill said: "Kokomo! That's all!"
"Hah!" said Kokomo, staring down at Doan. He moved his big shoulders in a casual shrug and padded back through the archway. The swinging door squeaked shut behind him.
"Really, Mr. Brill," Sheila Alden said severely. "It seems to me that I have grounds for complaint about your choice of employees."
Brill threw his hands wide helplessly. "Miss Alden, I've told you again and again that our Mr. Dibben had been handling all your affairs and that he was injured when an auto ran over him and that his duties were suddenly delegated to me without the slightest warning and that he hadn't made any note of the fact that you intended to come up here.
"When you called me I had to find a man at once who would act as caretaker and cook and open this place up for you. This man Kokomo had excellent references--a great deal of experience--all that. You must admit, Miss Alden, that in spite of his uncouth appearance, he is a very good cook, and it's very difficult to get servants to come clear up here..."
Sheila Alden wasn't through. "And I don't think much of your choice of a secretary, either."
Brill lifted his hands. "Miss Greg had the very finest references. There was nothing in them whatsoever that indicated she was--ah--inclined to drink too much."
"Lonely country," Crowley said. "Brings it on. Seen it happen to a lot of chaps in Upper Burma. Probably be all right as soon as she gets back to civilization, eh? By the way, Mr. Doan, how on earth did you find this place? I mean, I got jolly well lost myself, and I can't see how a stranger could find his way here."
Doan had filled a glass half with whisky and half with soda and was sipping at it appreciatively. "The station master brought me around--not because he wanted to. He seemed a bit sour on the Alden name."
"And that's another thing!" Brill said worriedly. "The man's a crank--dangerous. He shouldn't be allowed at large. He holds some insane grudge against Miss Alden, and he might--might... I mean, I'm responsible. I tried to talk to him, but all he did was threaten me. And those damned dogs. Mr. Doan, you had better investigate him thoroughly."
"Oh, sure," said Doan.
Brill ran thin nervous fingers through his hair, mussing up the blazed streak of white that centered it. "I don't like you coming up here in this wilderness, Miss Alden. It's a great responsibility to put on my shoulders." He fumbled in his coat pocket and brought out a shiny metal case.
Doan stiffened, his glass half-raised to his lips. "What's that you've got there?"
"This?" said Brill. "A cigar case."
The case was an exact duplicate of the one Doan had found in his pocket--his deadly present from the mysterious Mr. Smith.
Brill snapped the catch with his thumb, and the case opened on his palm, revealing the six cigars fitted into it snugly.
Doan released his breath in a long sigh. "Where," he said, clearing his throat. "Where did you get it?"
Brill was admiring the case. "Nice, isn't it? Just the right size. Eh? Oh, it was a present from a client."
"What was his name?"
"Smith," said Brill. "As a matter of fact, that's a strange thing. We have several clients whose name is Smith, and I don't know which one of them gave me this. Whoever it was just left it on my secretary's desk with a little note saying in appreciation of services rendered and all that and signed, 'Smith'--"
"What was in it?" Doan asked.
Brill looked surprise. "Why, cigars."
"Did you smoke them?"
"Well, no. You see, I smoke a specially mild brand on account of my throat. I gave the ones in the case to the janitor, poor chap."
"Poor chap?" Doan repeated.
"Yes. He was killed that very night. He had a shack on the outskirts of the city, and he was running a still of some sort there--at least that's what the police think--and the thing blew up and blasted him to bits. Terrific explosion."
"Oh," said Doan. He watched thoughtfully while Brill selected a cigar and put the case back in his coat pocket.
"Well," said Brill, making an effort to be more sociable. "Let's think of something pleasant..." His voice trailed off into a startled gulp.
Joan Greg had come quietly in from the hall. She was holding Doan's revolver carefully in her right hand. She was walking straighter now, and she came directly across the floor to the front of the divan. She stopped there and pointed the revolver at Sheila Alden.
"Here!" Crowley shouted in alarm.
Doan flipped the contents of his glass into Joan Greg's face. Her head jerked back when the stinging liquid hit her. She took one uncertain step backward, and then Doan vaulted over the couch and expertly kicked her feet from under her.
She fell on her back, coming down so hard that her blond head bounced forward loosely with the impact. Doan stepped on her right wrist and twisted the revolver from her lax fingers.
Joan Greg turned over on her stomach and hid her face in her arms. She began to cry in racked, gasping sobs. The others stared at her, and at Doan with a sort of frozen, dazed horror.
"More fun," said Doan, slipping the revolver into his waistband. "Does she do things like this very often?"
"Gah!" Brill gasped. "She--she would have... Why--why, she's crazy! Crazy drunk! Where--where'd she get that gun?"
"It was in my topcoat pocket," Doan said. "Careless of me, but I didn't think there were any homicidal maniacs wandering around the house."
Sheila Alden's face was paper white. "Get her out of here! She's fired! Take her away!"
"Yes, yes," said Brill. "At once. Terrible. Terrible thing, really. And I'll be blamed--"
"Take her away!" Shield Alden screamed at him.
Doan leaned over and picked Joan Greg up. She had stopped crying and she was utterly relaxed. Her arms flopped laxly. Her eyes were closed, and the tears had made wet jagged streaks down her soft cheeks.
"She's passed out, I think," Doan said. "I'll take her up and lock her in her bedroom."
"Yes, yes," Brill said. "Only thing. This way."
Crowley was bending anxiously over Sheila Alden. "Now, now. It's all over. Gives a person a nasty feeling, I know. Saw a chap run amok in Malay once. Ghastly thing. But you're a brave girl. Just a little sip of this."
Brill led the way across the living room and down the hall to a steep stairway with a rustic natural-wood railing. Brill went on up it and stopped at the first door in the upper hallway. He was still shaky, and he edged away from the limp form of Joan Greg as a man would avoid contact with something poisonous.
"Here," he said, pushing the door open and reaching around to snap on the light. "This--this is awful. Miss Alden is sure to complain to the office. What do you suppose ailed her?"
Doan put Joan Greg down on the narrow bed under the windows. The room was stiflingly hot. He looked at the windows and then down at Joan Greg's flushed face and decided against opening one. While he was looking down at her, she opened her eyes and stared up at him. All the life had drained out of her round face and left it empty and bitter and disillusioned.
"What's the trouble?" Doan asked. "Want to tell
me about it?"
She turned her head slowly away from him and closed her eyes again. Doan waited a moment and then said:
"Better get undressed and into bed and sleep it off."
He turned off the light and went out of the room, transferring the key from the inside of the lock to the outside and turning it carefully. He tried the door to make sure and then put the key in his pocket.
Brill was wringing his hands in a distracted way. "I--I can hardly bear to face Miss Alden. She will blame me. Everybody blames me! I didn't want this responsibility... . I've got to go down and out-wait that scoundrel Crowley."
"Why?" Doan asked.
Brill came closer. "He's a fortune hunter! He didn't get lost today! He came over here on purpose because he's heard that Miss Alden was here! She's an impressionable girl, and I can't let him stay alone with her down there. The office would hold me accountable if he--if she..."
"I get it," Doan said.
"I don't know what to do," said Brill. "I mean, I know Miss Alden will be sure to resent--But I can't let him--"
"That's your problem," said Doan. "But I'm not supposed to protect her from people who want to make love to her--only the ones that don't. So I'm not out-waiting our friend Crowley. I'm tired. Which is my bedroom?"
"Right there. You'll leave your door open, Mr. Doan, in case--in case..."
"In case," Doan agreed. "Just whistle, and I'll pop up like any jack-in-the-box."
"I'm so worried," said Brill. "But I must go down and see that the scoundrel doesn't..."
He went trotting down the steep stairs. Doan went along the hall back to the bedroom Brill had indicated. It was small and as neatly arranged as a model room in a display window, furnished with imitation rustic bed, chairs and bureau.
It, too, was stiflingly hot. Doan spotted the radiator bulking in the corner. He went over and touched it experimentally and jerked his fingers away with a whispered curse. It was so hot the water in it was burbling. Doan looked for the valve to turn it off, but there was none.
He stood looking at the radiator for some time, frowning in a puzzled way. There was something wrong about the whole setup at the lodge. It was like a picture slightly out of focus, and yet he couldn't put his finger on any one thing that was wrong. It bothered Doan, and he didn't like to be bothered. But it was still there. An air of intangible menace.
He discovered now that he had left his grip downstairs. He didn't feel like going and getting it at the moment. He wanted to think about the people in the house, and he had always been able to think better lying down. He shrugged and headed for the bed. Fully dressed, he lay down on top of it and went to sleep.
CHAPTER VII.
NICE NIGHT FOR MURDER
WHEN DOAN AWOKE, he awoke all at once. He was instantly alert, but he didn't make any other motion than opening his eyes. The heat int he bedroom was like a thick oppressive blanket--fantastic and unreal against the shuffling whie of the storm outside.
Doan stayed still and wondered what had awakened him. His bedroom door was still open, and there was a dim light in the hall. A timber creaked eerily somewhere in the house. The seconds ticked off slowly and leadenly, and then a shadow moved and made a rounded silhouette in the hall in front of the bedroom door.
Doan moved his hand and closed his fingers on the slick coolness of his revolver. The shadow thickened, swaying a little, and then Joan Greg came into sight. She was moving along the hall with mincing, elaborately cautious steps. She had evidently taken Doan's advice about going to bed. She was dressed in a green silk nightgown that contrasted with her blond hair. She stopped opposite Doan's doorway and looked that way.
Her soft lips were open, twisted awry, and there was a dribble of saliva on her chin. Her eyes were widened in mesmerized horror. She was holding a short broad-bladed hunting knife in her right hand.
"That's fine," said Doan quietly. "Just stand right where you are."
The knife made a ringing thud falling on the floor. Joan Greg drew a long shuddering breath that pulled the thin green silk taut across her breasts. The cords in her soft throat stood out rigidly.
Then she crumpled like a puppet that has been dropped. She was an awkwardly twisted heap of green silk and white flesh, with the gold of her hair glinting metallically in the light.
Doan swung cat-like off the bed and reached the doorway in two long steps. He didn't look down at Joan Greg, but both ways along the hall. One of the doors on the opposite side moved just a trifle.
"Come out of there," said Doan. "Quick!"
The door opened in hesitant jerks, and Crowley peered out at hi. He was wearing nothihng but a pair of blue shorts, and his wedge-shaped torso was oily with perspiration. His face was a queer yellowish green under its tan.
"So beastly hot. Couldn't get the windows open. I thought--I heard--"
"Come here."
Crowley moistened his lips with a nervous flick of his tongue. He came forward one step at a time. "What--what's the matter with her?"
"Stand right there and stand still."
Crowley's breath whistleed between his teeth. "Blood! Look! All over her hands--"
Doan knelt down beside Joan Greg. Her hands were spread out awkwardly beside her, as though she had tried to hold them away from herself even while she fell. There was blood smeared on her fingers and streaked gruesomely across both her soft palms. Doan poked at the knife she had dropped with the barrel of his revolver.
There was blood clotted ont hem, too. On the handle and on the broad blad. Doan raised his head.
"Brill!" he called sharply.
Bed springs creaked somewhere, and Brill's nervous voice said: "Eh? What? What?"
The springs creaked again protestingly. Brill, looking tall and lath-like in white pajamas, appeared in the open door of the bedroom next to Doan's. His slick hair was rumpeld now, and he held one hand up to shield his eyes from the light.
"What? What is it?" His thin face began to lengthen, then, as though it had been drawn in some enormous vise. "Oh, my God," he said in a whisper.
He came forward with the stiff, jerky steps of a sleep-walker. "Did she commit suicide?"
"I'm afraid not," said Doan. "She's fainted. Which is Miss Alden's room?"
Brill stared at him in pure frozen horror. "You don't think she--" He made a strangled noise in his throat. He turned and ran down the hall, his white pajamas flapping grotesqely. "Miss Alden! Miss Alden!"
The door at the end of the hall was hers, and Brill pounded on the panels with both fists. "Miss Alden!" His voice was raw with panic now, and he tried the knob. The door opened immediately.
"Miss--Miss Alden," Brill said uncertainly.
"The light," said Doan, behind him.
Brill reached inside the door and snapped the switch. There was no sound for a long time, and then Brill moaned a little.
Doan said: "Come here, Crowley. I want you where I can watch you."
Crowley spoke in a jerky voice. "Well, Joan--I mean, Miss Greg. You can't leave her lying--"
"Come here."
Crowley edged inside Sheila Alden's bedroom and backed against the wall in response to a guiding flick of Doan's revolver barrel. Brill was standing in the center of the room with his hands up over his face.
"This will ruin me," he said in a sick mumble. "I was going to get a partnership in the firm. They gave me full responsibility for watching out for her. Account was worth tens of thousands a year. They'll hound me out of the state--can never practice again." His voice trailed off into indistinguishable syllables.
This bedroom was as stiflingly hot as Doan's had been. Sheila Alden had only a sheet over her. She was stiffly rigid on her back in the bed. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear, and the pillows under her head were soaked and sticky with blood. Her bony face looked pinched and small and empty, with her nearsighted eyes staring glassily up at the light.
Doan pointed the gun at Crowley. "You talk."
Crowley made an effort to get back his a
ir of British light-heartedness. "But, old chap, you can't imagine I--"
"Yes, I can," said Doan.
Crowley's mouth opened and shut soundlessly.
"It comes a little clearer," said Doan. "You were so scared you got a little rattled for a moment. Just how well do you know Joan Greg?"
Crowley's smile was an agonized grimace. "Well, my dear chap, hardly at all. I just met the young lady today."
"We can't use that one." Doan said. "You know her very well. That was what was the trouble with her. She was jealous. You've been living off her, haven't you?"
The Essential Works of Norbert Davis Page 4