If A Body

by George Worthing Yates

  “Pays for my trip and a little over. Not too bad, eh, George?”

  “How much in all?”

  “Sixteen eighty-five fifty. What’s up?”

  George was writing a check. He smiled innocently at Beardsley and asked, “May I cut in too? Having missed the sport, I’ll be disappointed if I don’t contribute. Double or nothing. Two cuts out of three. What do you say?”

  He said nothing. After a sharp glance at Woar, he nodded his head, a little reluctantly.

  Woar shuffled, and slapped the pack in front of Beardsley. He drew a seven, Woar a king.

  Beardsley shuffled, slid the pack to Woar, who drew a trey. Beardsley got an ace.

  Woar’s turn to shuffle. The strained silence tightened down on them. Beardsley fingered the pack hesitantly before he chose his cut—a seven. Woar quickly and casually turned up a ten.

  “Thanks,0”said Woar, gathering up the checks.

  “So I win a fat profit from the boys, and you win it from me,” Beardsley mused. “I didn’t expect that. In fact, I’m wondering if you have any right to keep it?”

  “The ethics,” said Woar, “become involved. Must we go into that? I plied the trade myself in Singapore, in leaner years. I see you alternate one tapered pack, one doped. Watch, I’ll draw the aces—a narrow ace, a shiny corner for another ace, an ace, an ace...What dainty doctoring! Your wife’s? I’ve only admiration for her art.”

  Beardsley raised himself indignantly to his feet:

  “Be careful, Brendan! If you mean I’m a crooked—”

  “I mean you are. Is that clear?”

  “Just say that again!”

  “With trimmings, if you like. You travel about the country cheating at cards, and your professional scruples are low enough to let you victimize college men. That is low! For one of your calling, you’re cheap and unenterprising, but thanks apparently to Mae’s shrewd management, you’re prospering of late—”

  Alden jumped. A silly thing to do. Woar used a deceptive left, reserving all the business for his right to a surprising place. Alden suddenly sat down and made violent retching noises in his throat.

  Woar slipped the Beardsley automatic in his pocket. “Sorry about your stomach. I didn’t want to mark your face.”

  “Aghh!”

  “And if you’re very good, I’ll let you have the weapon back. Feeling better? Then the time has come for us to be reasonable.”

  3

  George opened the window. Dawn streamed in and a cool wind that blew away the reek of tobacco smoke. Beardsley’s once cheerful face had sagged into heavy jowls. His pinkish skin had turned a morose, sickly gray. But the air revived him a little, enough to accept the stiff eye-opener Woar made for him.

  “I have to make up my mind, Beardsley. You’re either the most naive card-sharp I ever knew, or the boldest and coldest of murderers. You know I’m a detective, don’t you?”

  “Is that so?”

  “Please! An indifferent liar can be damned tedious. You may not know, however, that I’m a detective named Woar who demonstrated the innocence of a man being held on a murder indictment to satisfy the political ambitions of a certain public prosecutor in New Jersey. I thwarted the political ambitions. Not a deportable offense in itself, but the prosecutor’s a vindictive chap—and powerful. I’m wanted for deportation. I don’t intend to be caught. You understand?”

  Beardsley nodded.

  “Good! Because if I’m caught, you’re sunk. I’ll tell the police every blessed thing I know about you and Mae.”

  When Beardsley had digested the ultimatum, Woar went on to the next point:

  “Last night someone disguised in a yellow camel’s hair coat waylaid Ruth Shanley outside the Hotel Phillips. He induced her to go to a disreputable lodging house with him. He tried to make her sign a paper, probably the claim or the disclaimer to her husband’s insurance. That attempt involved physical torture.”

  “Damn it all! Do you think Yd do a thing like that?”

  “Quite! The moral leap from crooked gambling to an insurance fraud is no great strain; the efforts of you and Mae to hush Shanley’s murder are revealing; and Ruth’s inseparable friend and protector after the criminal fact was—you.”

  Beardsley squirmed pitiably and stammered, “I—I only tried to be kind. I couldn’t get mixed up with the law. I wouldn’t hurt a soul. Good God, Brendan—why do you pick on me?”

  “Not for meaty disclosures, certainly,” said Woar. “Do the Winter twins play poker well?”

  “Too well. Why, they filled hands I—”

  “No doubt. They dance well, too. And you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Specifically, how many times did you dance with Cicely last evening?”

  “Twice. No, three times, I guess it was.”

  “Smalnick—would you call him a two-fisted drinker?”

  “He’s Superman.”

  “But is he Smalnick? Is he really looking for his precious cinema locations? Would he drive his own car to California? Will this check he made out to you be honored at the bank?”

  Obviously never having considered otherwise, Beardsley scratched his white curls:

  “You don’t give a man much time to think, do you? I only know that foreign car he drives is registered in the name of Smalnick, and—well, the way it stands out like a sore thumb, it couldn’t be stolen. And he’d be an awful fool to call himself Smalnick if he wasn’t. It wouldn’t take long to check up.”

  Woar said, “I expect an answer by noon.”

  He stood gazing down at Beardsley and sucking on his cold pipe in speculation till his victim began squirming again.

  “I’d just as soon be pinched and get it over with,” Beardsley complained. “Can’t you make up your mind?”

  “No.”

  “And I’m supposed to—?”

  Woar tossed the automatic in his lap:

  “Keep your mouth shut, and go on with your trip. I expect to see you in Hutchinson or Dodge City. If not, I’ll let the police cope with your disappearance. Along the way, you might usefully meditate: Any further harm to Ruth Shanley, and I’ll spill the beans at once. And I warned Cicely last night, further informing on me, as at Migler’s and St. Petersville, can be counted on to produce the same result. Help, though, will be duly appreciated. I think we know where we stand now, Beardsley.”

  None too sure, Beardsley let himself gladly be pushed out the door. He fled to tell the worst to Mae.

  4

  Katheren roused herself at seven.

  George’s bed had not been slept in. Faint splashing sounds, however, came from the bath. She found him sitting in the tub, a somewhat owl-eyed fawn and battered from lack of sleep, but obviously pleased at the sight of her.

  “Hello, Katheren!”

  “Good morning, George.”

  “Oh, good!”

  “What?”

  “I wasn’t sure we’d be on speaking terms. We are. I said, ‘Good.’”

  “I seem to have some of your clean shirts in my bag, so I brought you one. Breakfast?”

  Cool, aloof and briskly businesslike was the order of the day for Katheren. Woar noticed, and squeezed bubbles out of his bath sponge in disheartenment. An outright quarrel could be fought to a quick reconciliation, but these unruffled calms, elusive and disturbing, might endure for a month.

  Woar said, “Oh, order me some eggs, anything. I don’t care.”

  From here on, the honeymoon encountered polar conditions of increasing severity.

  For instance, Cicely. With barely any sleep to her credit, she joined them at breakfast. Whatever agreement she had reached with Milton Smalnick, it failed to include transportation, for she asked, “If I ain’t inflicting myself, will you take me with you today?”

  Katheren made a face. “On what was once ironically termed our honeymoon? We’ll be glad to have you. We enjoy your company.”

  Sincerity or sarcasm, Katheren’s level voice gave no clue. Cicely chose to take it a
s sincerity.

  “Thanks. See you down in the lobby.”

  When she had ankled away trailing clouds of cigarette smoke, Katheren finished her coffee and started to pack with unapproachable vehemence. George decided against reasoning with her. Still in his dressing gown, he lighted his pipe and settled down with the telephone in the sitting room.

  “From now on,” Nick Leeds’s peremptory bark assured him, “I’m looking after Ruth—and nobody else!

  Beat up, that’s what she was—like you’d beat up a man with your fists.”

  “Will she tell who did it?”

  “You know how she is, Brendan. You can’t get anything out of her.”

  “The police?”

  “They’ll run the guy in for wife-beating, if they ever find him. That story of yours worked all right. But we’re not waiting for the police to get off their tails, we’re leaving as soon as the hospital lets her out, which ought to be about eleven or twelve o’clock...”

  That was at eight.

  The Beardsleys had checked out of the Muhlebach and Smalnick out of the Phillips. The Tozer family, the Winters and Ray Kemp had left the Homelike Auto Camp, on the eastern edge of Kansas City near the junction of Raytown and Sniabar Roads, at twenty to seven. So far, so good.

  But criminal detection was more than a simple matter of telephoning. Woar faced the next step, a piece of tiresome routine: finding a taxi that had stopped to let one of its two passengers buy a second-hand hat and yellow camel’s hair coat. That might take a morning, or the whole day.

  He never started on it, however.

  Katheren appeared from her bedroom and asked, “Did you hear the knock on my door? By the way, you ought to get dressed. You look silly without trousers.”

  “Who was it?”

  “The house detective and a policeman, looking for Hazlitt Woar, alias George Brendan. I sent them to Cicely’s room. You’ve got a minute, possibly two, if you want to run for it.”

  “Blast. Katheren—”

  “Now they’re knocking on Cicely’s door.”

  “Listen. Get the luggage in the car. Pick up Cicely and Caligula. Pay the hotel bill as quick as you can. Then drive west on Sixth Street till you cross the state line into Kansas.”

  “And if they won’t let me?”

  “Rot. They can’t stop you if they can’t catch up with you.”

  George locked the connecting door from Cicely’s room. Several seconds later, a hand was rudely rattling the knob.

  “Either this is good-by, my dearest, till we meet on some far foreign soil, or I’ll manage to get a street-car into Kansas and see you in half an hour. In any case, I love you.”

  He kissed her and slipped out into the corridor, still buttoning his trousers. The house detective was fitting a pass key into the lock of the connecting door. The way to the elevators lay clear.

  Katheren felt the thaw coming on. She had half a mind to shout after George that she loved him too, in spite of everything, but it was too late. The house detective impaled her with a disillusioned stare.

  5

  She cooked him up a tale about being Cicely Smalnick, a bare acquaintance of the vanished Woars. It went down well enough for the moment. The moment was enough for Katheren, who stood on no ceremony.

  She bullied the management about the luggage, and the garage about the Buick. Both were brought together outside the hotel, and a staggering bill settled into the bargain, in slightly more than seven and a half minutes, during which time the detectives were apparently busy elsewhere.

  Or were they?

  Cicely had an inclination to ask questions, half in and half out of the Buick, but Katheren yanked her into the seat, tempered the violence with a throw-away smile, and departed.

  “Would you say we were being followed?” she asked at the end of two blocks.

  “How should I know?”

  “By close observation of that coupé in back of us. I’m going to turn in at this filling station for a look at the oil. See what happens.”

  The coupé parked and waited for them.

  “Well, if they want to make a point of it,” said Katheren determinedly, and she drove on, turning corners at random till she came to a hotel large enough to sport a commissionaire in uniform. For all she knew, it might have been the Muhlebach again.

  She stopped and asked him, “Is there a side entrance to this place?”

  “Yes, mam. That corner, turn right, and you can’t miss it.”

  She folded and inserted into his hand a bill which she hoped was no larger than a five. She was keeping one fearful eye on the coupé that had again stopped behind them.

  “I wonder,” she said to the commissionaire, “if you’d drive my car around to the side entrance for me? We’ve been annoyed for miles by the men in that car following us. We’d like to lose them.”

  “Why, yes, mam...”

  And as Katheren, Cicely and Caligula went into the lobby and the Buick disappeared round the corner, there was perceptible confusion in the coupé. Katheren hoped they’d follow her. The hope was partially gratified. One man got out to pursue them. The other stayed behind the wheel.

  “Now,” said Katheren, “we forget to be ladylike, if you don’t mind.”

  They had a fair start. They ran. Their passage through the lobby caused well-bred stares and in extreme cases a raising of eyebrows, but they found the way to the side entrance before pursuit could get its stride. The detective was still out of sight when they met the Buick.

  Hilda gave her all. The get-away, from any point of view, was magnificent. No trace of a black coupé survived it.

  When Katheren had settled down to fast and intricate driving through the westbound traffic on Sixth, Cicely relaxed enough to straighten her hat.

  “Now watch for George.”

  “How can I watch for anything with my hair blowing in my eyes? What is this, something Elsa Maxwell invented?”

  They crossed the inter-city viaduct into the safety of Kansas. Katheren pulled up on State Avenue, giving Cicely’s hair its needed reprieve.

  “Not exactly palsy-walsy,” said Cicely, “with the law, you people, are you?”

  “We’re notorious international jewel thieves,” Katheren told her. “Mull it over while I find my husband.”

  But she didn’t find him.

  She walked the street, she gazed into opaque waters of the Kansas River, she loitered by a lamp post. She told Caligula and herself, “He’ll be along almost any minute now. He had to take a street-car, you know.”

  Kansas City, Kansas, is a far cry from Kansas City, Missouri. More than a river divides them.

  More than a river divided the Woars, but if he had shown up then, she would have forgiven him everything.

  Half an hour passed. An hour. Two hours...

  Ten

  JUST as the lunch hour rush began and her hopes dwindled to a crumb, he swung jauntily down from a bus. He wore no traces of disaster, but instead a broad grin. A shy, conciliating grin; nevertheless, a grin.

  “Waiting long, my dear?”

  “Practically three hours.”

  “Accosted by any passing gentlemen?”

  “After three hours, I’m not in the mood for banter.”

  “Naturally,” and he hesitated. The hesitation seemed guilty to Katheren. “I came as quick as I could, my dear—but that blasted informer has been polishing his technique. I asked Nick Leeds to inquire. Apparently the police know our itinerary as far ahead as Los Angeles, so—”

  “Is that where you were—with Nick Leeds?”

  “Oh, I did drop in at the hospital. Only for a moment. He and Ruth were leaving. What really delayed me was a development. Quite interesting. They’re my weakness, you know—developments.”

  Her first flush of relief at the sight of him had subsided. Now, as a result of having worried about him in vain, and learning that his desperate flight for liberty had really been a dawdle over footling “developments,” she was overwhelmingly irritated. />
  “I’m not interested in the Shanley case, George. I don’t want to hear about it. I never want to hear about it in the future. That’s definite, I think.”

  “Damn it all, my dear—”

  “And I don’t particularly want to be called your ‘dear,’ everything considered. Cicely’s room was on our hotel bill. Are you formally supporting her now?”

  “Oh, good Lord!”

  “And the rather futile party in the Grill last night—that was on our bill too. It came to more than a hundred dollars. We’re practically broke. Those invitations, I gather, were more of your detective work?”

  “All right, I’ll confess to that—but do listen to reason, Katheren! I wanted to have done with it for our own sake—”

  “George, please! I’m not interested in the Shanley case. Can’t you understand that?”

  Since two small children had stopped to listen to the quarrel, George shut up. They walked on to the Buick then, tacitly agreeing to an armistice.

  Katheren drove, and drove fast. Unfortunately, Cicely ogled and snuggled. Katheren drove faster. Poor Cicely! Even her automatic efforts to snuggle further out of the wind were unfortunate.

  George worked out a new route to avoid possible police traps in Olathe and Ottawa; by way of Topeka (on the road to Denver) and south to Emporia, then via the New Santa Fe Trail to Hutchinson and Dodge City, their original destination.

  Katheren asked, “Do we meet the suspects there?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of them particularly.”

  “Of course you weren’t!”

  “I was thinking of word from Gaillard.”

  “Oh, I see,” and Katheren left it at that.

  There were traces of recent rain along the road margins; bright puddles in the dark earth, and deep ruts. The road itself was none too smooth. The social going was even rougher. For the first five miles, Cicely tried to lighten the journey with sprightly chatter, a monologue showing off her exhaustive reading in the field of gossip columns, but even she had to give up in the face of that bleak silence.

  Pride is strong, individual sensibilities unyielding. Marriage in the middle years can wreck on either.

  Not only did the chances of saving the Woar romance look small, but little seemed left to save just then. Divorce loomed near by, around the next corner, waiting to hear its name mentioned. Incompatibility.