The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  “Okay.” Affectionately, Traeger patted Miss Fawzi’s pretty cheek. “I’m just a dog of an infidel, sweetheart, but I love you. Don’t worry, I’ll hurry back.”

  “No funny stuff, chum. Remember what happened to our mayor when he tried it.”

  “Don’t tell me Lover Boy was really making passes at Lucrece?”

  “It’s not for publication,” Pete said, “but he had his pants off. Bill, I’m not kidding—you ought to see the pictures.”

  “Tsk-tsk,” murmured Traeger, “the poor, besotted man—and him going to confession every Sunday, without a doubt.”

  The passage upward ended, predictably, in Miss Fawzi’s closet, and they went back to the library, where Mrs. Hanson met them and told Timuroff his lady friend had called.

  “Oh, she’s that sweet and dainty you could almost eat her!” She giggled. “And maybe, sir, you’ll have to. She called to tell you you could take your time, because your omelette’s been et up.”

  Timuroff thanked her, and told her not to worry about Mr. Hanson and to get a good night’s sleep; and, as Traeger walked them to the door, he realized that for the first time since the phantom had made his presence known, he felt at ease about the doctor’s house. He told Traeger so, and they shook hands warmly.

  “By the way, Bill,” he asked, handing him the keys, “you said something down below about having had a dust-up with that Hanno crowd when they were doing someone’s dirty work. Whose was it, do you recall?”

  Traeger’s expression hardened suddenly. “It was some rich-bitch female moneylender, trying to grab a shady title company. She wasn’t in it personally—just a business name she was using as a front—so all I got was rumors. The outfit called itself Russian Hill Estates, and later on they changed their name or folded up—I don’t remember which. You want me to check into it?”

  Pete and Timuroff exchanged glances. “Maybe later,” said Timuroff. “What about van Zaam? Was that when you heard he’d been mixed up with Hanno?”

  “No, that was later, after Hanno got his license back. I can ask around and try to pick the lead up again, but I wouldn’t guarantee anything.”

  They left. The door closed, and its bolt clicked solidly behind them. They said nothing more until Timuroff had pulled out from the curb into the street.

  “Interesting, very interesting,” he remarked thoughtfully. “First Traeger thinks he’s heard about van Zaam working with this Hanno crew. Then he tells of Hanno being employed by someone who can’t be anybody but Miranda Gardner. A strange connection.”

  “Dammit, I can read your mind,” Pete said. “And suppose it is all connected somehow, and Hemmet and Medusa are behind it all—where does that put us? With the setup they have now, we wouldn’t have a chance of even saving Hanson and Doc Grimwood! No, Tim, it’s got to be coincidence—you know, dirty birds run together. Haven’t we enough other strange connections to look into?”

  “Yes,” said Timuroff, “and before long we’d better spend an hour or two talking over all of them, trying to sift the gold out of the garbage. Lise’s going to have a lot planned for tomorrow to take our guests’ minds off their troubles. She’ll probably drive them down to visit an old friend of hers, a composer and director from La Scala, who’s living in Los Gatos. She won’t need me along. Why don’t we get together around noon?”

  “All right.” Pete sighed. “With Bill here holding down the fort, we ought to be able to accomplish something—at least if that damn phantom doesn’t pull something really wild on us.”

  “I’m glad that you’re an optimist,” said Timuroff.

  CHAPTER X

  There Was a Young Man from Kaprust

  It was not quite one thirty when Timuroff got home, and he found Liselotte and their guests relaxing, full of good cheer. “Well, Heck,” he said, “you can tuck into bed tonight without worrying about your house. Traeger is an even better man than I expected, and everything’s secure.”

  “That is good news, Tim. Penny’s been waiting up, just hoping you’d tell us that.”

  “It’s been wonderful,” Penny Anne declared. “This apartment, and Liselotte’s omelette—I ate your share of it all by myself—and her lovely voice, and everything you’ve done for us. And tomorrow she’s going to drive us to Los Gatos to meet Maestro Umberto Mancinelli. He’s asked us all to dinner, and that nice inspector’s wife is coming with us.” She kissed the doctor on the forehead. “Good night, dear. I know I’m going to sleep beautifully.”

  Timuroff said good-night to her, and she went out with Liselotte.

  Hector Grimwood turned to him eagerly. “Tim, did you find out anything about that laugh and where it came from?”

  “Yes, that’s what took so long. We don’t know anything about the phantom, but we know how he gets in and out, and how he kidnapped Muriel Fawzi—”

  He told the story as briefly as he could, trying to play down the drama of it and the mystery of the iron door and newfound passages; but Dr. Grimwood listened impatiently, crying out that it was tremendous! the most exciting news he’d heard in years!

  “I wish we were back there right now!” he exclaimed. “So I could see it all and bring poor Muriel back upstairs. But I suppose we’ll have to wait at least till Monday—I wouldn’t miss tomorrow for the world, and Penny Anne would leave me if I suggested such a thing! Is Mr. Traeger going to try to catch the phantom?”

  Timuroff outlined the measures they had taken. “I hope they meet with your approval, Heck,” he urged. “Both Pete and I believe the phantom isn’t out to do you any serious harm, and Traeger will be right on top of things. But we ought to find out who he is and what he’s really up to before we try to grab him.”

  They talked for a few minutes, Hector Grimwood weaving fantasies about the iron door. “It’s very odd,” he said, “that no one told me. The whole affair was handled by Mrs. Albright’s own attorney, old Jefferson, who should’ve known—but of course Albright was frightfully secretive. I suppose it’s anybody’s guess.”

  Finally he announced that he was going to take one of Penny Anne’s sleeping pills and go to bed. “If I don’t, I’ll roll and toss all night, wondering about it—and worrying about poor Hanson in that jail. I forgot to tell you young Coulter phoned. There’s nothing he can do, at least till Monday. He was quite upset. He said that Hemmet wasn’t any help at all.”

  “Somehow,” said Timuroff, “I’m not surprised.”

  He sneaked into the bedroom, where he undressed as quietly as he could, trying not to awaken Liselotte.

  She waited until he was beside her before she stopped pretending. “Beast!” she whispered in his ear. “Do not tell me! I know you will not come with us tomorrow to see Umberto. He will be hurt, and I will have to make up foolish stories to explain.”

  “Tell him that Pete and I are him ting down the Phantom of the Opera. He, of all people, should understand.”

  “You mean that you have found out something?”

  “We found some secret passages Heck didn’t even know about, with Muriel Fawzi sitting very primly in one of them. I told him all about them.” He yawned. “Why don’t you let him tell you the whole story while you’re driving down?”

  Liselotte pinched him in an especially vulnerable spot. “You will tell me the whole story, and you will hold me very nicely while you do it!”

  Timuroff sighed, and held her very nicely, and told her the whole story. Finally, kissing her good-night, he made her promise not to wake him up for breakfast.

  When he awakened, it was eleven o’clock and everyone had gone. Liselotte’s maid, Emilia—who looked like a late-Renaissance female poisoner, and who adored him—was grumbling around, preparing a mixed grill, which she knew he loved and which she swore no true Christian would have eaten before sundown. While he consumed it, she sat across from him by invitation and,
with many a pungent comment, read him the morning headlines.

  There was no shortage of exciting front-page news. A dramatic account of Hanson’s arrest was followed by an announcement from the board of supervisors: meeting in extraordinary session, they had unanimously elected Mario Baltesar mayor pro tem. Munrooney’s party had also chosen him to run for the office at the forthcoming election. Finally, a Mrs. Dorene Enzwilger of Daly City had proclaimed, through her attorneys, that Errol Vasquez Munrooney had been, not only her off-again, on-again common-law husband, but the father of at least two of her several children. There were pictures of Munrooney and of Baltesar, and a sentimental shot of the plump Mrs. Enzwilger and her brood, posed in front of her modest residence.

  Emilia, rapping the paper ominously, declared that it was all a plot aimed at that fine Inspector Cominazzo, at Dr. Grimwood and his pretty friend, and—saints preserve us!—at Mr. Timuroff himself. “Look!” Angrily she pointed at the Enzwilgers. “What do you think of that?”

  “I think,” said Timuroff, “that it is probably a mayor’s nest.”

  “How can you joke? Do you understand? They are not married!”

  Timuroff smiled. “You mean like Madame Cantelou and me?”

  “That is different. You love each other. Besides, la signora gets much money from the one who was her husband, he who owns the ships. Also, you are very careful and do not make babies. It is the innocents one must be sorry for!”

  Timuroff sighed with her over the immoralities of a wicked world, complimented her on a delightful breakfast, and phoned Pete. Twenty minutes later, he was in the Cominazzo kitchen, drinking coffee and listening to a rundown on what was new, while Pete finished his ham and eggs.

  There wasn’t much. Traeger had bugged the alley entrance, and installed two more telltales, one near the iron door, the other in the chamber to which Miss Fawzi had been abducted.

  “You’ll never guess where he put the second bug!” Pete chuckled. “Under Miss Muriel’s pantaloons, where no high-minded phantom would dream of looking for it! Would you believe that she’s as complete as anyone could want?—just like Lucrece and Evangeline. Only those rods that she had goosing her, the ones that made her work. Bill says it was almost more than he could bear just to look at ’em.”

  “Maybe Heck can work out some less painful way of doing it. What else has happened?”

  “Well, Jake called and so did Stevens. Both of ’em say that Kielty’s on to something he thinks can be worked into a real headliner, only he’s not telling anybody what it is. Also, he’s got half the bureau digging into Grimwood’s history, with emphasis on right-wing politics—Goldwater, for God’s sake! There’s all sorts of pressure being applied. Looks like they want it wrapped up for election day.”

  “That makes sense,” commented Timuroff. “A rightist plot could win them the election hands down, especially if they drag a racial angle in—and probably they will.”

  “Speaking of that,” Pete said, “it’s being dragged in already, only in reverse.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Denny Wallton. It’s like I told you—ever since the killing, the militants and left-wing noisy boys have been giving him a stinking time, hinting he took a payoff to stay downstairs while Munrooney was being killed. Today he wandered in, Jake said, and he was all shook up. One of his kids got put into the hospital by some sort of rat pack on the way home from basketball. Denny’s all ready to resign. He never did like that Munrooney detail—he telt Munrooney only wanted him to show off because he was black, and he resented it.”

  “He’s a good man?” asked Timuroff.

  “The best.”

  “Could they have any other reason for attacking him? Right now, with Munrooney as a martyr and Chiefy knuckling down to them, they’ve not been riding the Department. Why pick on him?”

  Pete shrugged. “Maybe to discredit anything he says. Perhaps they’re scared being that close to Munrooney he maybe heard too much.”

  Timuroff sat back and looked at him. “Well, it’s one more question. Let’s choose a few, make sure they’re the right ones, and try to find some answers.”

  “Which ones would you suggest?”

  “For a starter, What happened to old Jefferson, who was handling Albright’s legal business when he died? Our phantom, and probably Munrooney’s murderers, had to find out about those passages; they had to get the keys from someone. Even if Albright never told his wife, he may have left instructions with his lawyer. Next, How did the khanjar get away from Socrates? But both of those will keep. The final one’s the best, What does the poet know that’s so important? It could be direct, scene-of-the-crime evidence. He has already talked to Kielty—perhaps enough to worry Kielty and his friends. I think we ought to go up there right away.”

  “You mean today?”

  “Why not? Heck and the ladies are going to be at the maestro’s until late tonight. We can run up to Stitchgrove’s ashram, question him, stop at three or four better wineries, sample their wares, eat a decent dinner, and still get back in time.”

  “Timuroff,” Pete said, “you’re a hypocrite. You want to get out there in the grape country, and sip free wine, and drop in on a few antique stores where probably you’ll find a rare old sabre or spontoon. But I’m a simple, dedicated policeman, and I can’t agree without a formal protest.” He put his dishes in the washer. “Let’s go. Maybe I’d better call ahead and see if we’ll be welcome.”

  He dialed, told the phone who he was, reminded it of his conversation with the poet, and said that, yes indeed, he and his friend were sort of seeking for enlightenment. “Okay,” he told Timuroff disgustedly, “we’re approved of.” He slipped a miniature tape recorder in his pocket. “If we pick up something really hot on Kaula orgies, I’ll mail it to Chiefy with ‘Wish you were here. Love from Disneyland.’ It ought to make his day.”

  Timuroffs Mazda was waiting demurely at the curb, and its rotary engine responded instantly. “Hey,” Pete exclaimed, “you know that character Rop Millweed, on the Chronicle? He called up half an hour before you came, trying to pump me about friction in the police department, and was anybody plotting against me personally, and that kind of crap. I told him Kielty was my only friend, and Chiefy had been like a father to me, and then he took another tack. It seems there’s a new craze being started up, mostly by the press—making up dirty limericks about Doc Grimwood and his girls. Your car reminded me.”

  “My car?”

  “Uh-huh.” Pete read from his notebook:

  “‘The gears from her ass to her ankle

  May occasionally grind or go clankle,

  But believe me she can

  Help a weary old man—

  Her vagina works just like a Wankel.’”

  “The Hindoos,” remarked Timuroff, “achieved much the same effect without modern technology. The lady, bottom down, was in what amounted to a large net shopping bag suspended from the ceiling by a rope, the rope was twisted, and the rajah—he must have been at least a rajah—well, I’m sure you follow me.”

  “I’m way ahead of you,” Pete said. “Which is probably what the girl told the rajah. Millweed read me one more. He said he got it from an editor of Ramparts:

  ‘Dr. Grimwood, ancient and lewd,

  Displayed his Lucrece in the nude.

  He announced, “My invention

  Will relieve sexual tension—

  A girl who comes easily unscrewed!’”

  Timuroff considered it solemnly. “It clearly reflects the tortuous psychological writhings of the New Left: dark undertones of frustration, penis envy, and possibly impotence. A limerick should be simple, forthright, tightly plotted. Any nuances should simply contribute unobtrusively to its dramatic gestalt effect.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind for next time he phones. May I quote y
ou? And have you heard about ‘The Young Man from Kaprust’?”

  “I don’t believe I know that one.”

  “As we’re paying him a visit, maybe you should. It’s not one of Mr. Miff weeds. It’s traditional:

  ‘There was a young man from Kaprust—

  Obsessed by abominable lust,

  He ravished a hen,

  A turkey, and then

  A little green lizard, which bust.’”

  Timuroff laughed. “Perhaps the young man we’re calling on has written poems about his own disappointments, which he’ll recite for us. And what did Rop Millweed say after he had presumably softened you up with pornographic verse?”

  “He hinted that his public was just panting to find out what went on between our expert, Mr. Timuroff, and Madame Cantelou, and whether Doctor Grimwood’s little ladies were really capable of sexual intercourse, and he intimated that a red-hot newshawk like himself, with Influential Friends in City Hall, could do big things for a struggling homicide inspector.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I told him to perform a flying Kaula ritual on a galloping goose. Only I put it in terms he could understand.”

  “An excellent rejoinder,” said Timuroff.

  The day was bright and blue and wonderful, with a wind ruffling the blue-green Bay and filling the sails of swarms of Indian summer yachtsmen between the Marina and Marin. They crossed the bridge in silence, Timuroff trying to remember which of his Drummond-Mowbrey relatives, retired after a lifetime in the Central Provinces Police, had told him about the Kaula sect.

  The traffic was light, and the Mazda disposed of the miles expeditiously, following far enough behind a white-striped scarlet Stingray so that its less blatant speed would escape the notice of the highway patrol. They circled round the Bay, headed for Napa and Highway 29.