Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (69 page)

“Oh, no. They’re confirmed bachelors and have nobody related to them near by. In this house there’s only the maid and myself.” She swallowed hard. “Are they hurt?—badly?”

“They’re dead. We’re law officers. We’d like to have a look around.”

“Dead?” She whispered it as she stepped backward and let Norris enter with Harper and Rausch following. Her mind had some difficulty in grasping the full import of the news. “Not
both
of them surely?”

“Both, Mrs. Clague. I’m sorry” Norris extracted three photographs from his wallet, showed them to her. “Do you recognize any of these men?”

She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, studied the pictures bemusedly. “No, I don’t.”

“Sure you haven’t seen any of them recently?”

"I'm positive."

“Where’s this maid you mentioned?”

“In the kitchen. Do you wish to speak with her?”

“Yes.”

She called, “Winnie! Winnie!”

Winnie slouched in, a plump, ungainly girl with the placid eyes of a ruminating cow.

“Know these?” demanded Norris.

She ogled the photographs. “No, sir.”

“If any of them had visited recently would you or Mrs. Clague have been sure to have seen them?”

“Uhu. I guess so.”

The housekeeper put in, “Mr. Ambrose and Mr. Philip seldom had visitors. They used this house only for relaxation and sleep. And they kept late hours. Two or three o’clock in the morning they'd come home sometimes. But always sober, I'll say that for them. I—”

“What did they do for a living?” Norris asked.

“They have three jewelry shops somewhere or other. And a small wholesale warehouse in town. Their father started the business, I believe. He’s been gone a good many years. They were two nice gentlemen and it’s terrible to think they’re—” Norris cut the garrulity with an impatient gesture. “We want to look over any papers they’ve left lying around. Where did they keep their correspondence?”

“All their business files will be at the office,” said Mrs. Clague. “But their personal letters will be in that desk or perhaps upstairs in their rooms.”

“All right, Mrs. Clague. We’re sorry to trouble you but these things happen. If you’re not too busy how about fixing some coffee?”

Still somewhat bewildered, she agreed, retreated to the kitchen as if glad to escape their questions. Winnie slopped along behind her, turned twice to look back with a bovine smile before she too disappeared. Norris frowned after her.

“What was that slut smirking at?” he asked.

“You,” Harper informed. “She’s about I.Q. 70 but that doesn’t spoil her appetite for a tasty hunk of man. It’s what comes of being a handsome Fed.”

“Nuts!” growled Norris, looking sour. He spoke to Rausch. “We’ve no time for search-warrant formalities and by the looks of it there’s nobody around to bawl about the matter. I’ll rake through this desk. You give the bedrooms a going-over. When we’ve finished we’ll run into town and frisk the office. We must compile a list of all contacts they’ve made these last few weeks.”

Rausch tramped upstairs, Norris spent five minutes trying to open the desk, failed, called in one of the two agents stationed at back.

“Finagle this lock for me, Yensen.”

Examining it, Yensen went out to the garage, returned with a length of wire. “Another Roadking is stashed in there. Same model and one number higher. They must have bought them together.” He fiddled with the wire, turned the lock, rolled up the lid which automatically released the drawers.

Avidly Norris pounced on the contents, pulling documents from pigeonholes, scanning them rapidly, putting them aside. He lugged out the drawers one by one, found a dull black gun concealed in a camera carton, handed it to Yensen.

“Hang on to that. The ballistics boys may be able to dig some data out of it.” After a while he finished reading the last of a bunch of letters, shoved them back, grunted discontentedly. “Go ask Mrs. Clague when the Baums were last here.”

Yensen departed, came back. “She says they had breakfast this morning.”

“That’s peculiar.” He turned to Harper. “All this stuff is chitchat, mostly from friends in the trade. It averages a letter a day. But there’s nothing filed for the last five days. If the average was maintained there are five letters missing.”

“They may be at the office,” Harper suggested. “Or—”

“Or what?”

“Maybe they destroyed them on receipt.”

“Why should they do that?”

“Because the messages were devoid of interest, they having become alien to the readers.”

“We’ll check at their office before we jump to any conclusions,” Norris decided. “Either they kept them or they didn’t.”

“If a search elsewhere fails to produce them we can bet on two things,” said Harper. “Firstly, that the Baums were taken over about five days ago. Secondly, that the enemy is no longer so desperate to get established in number and is starting to be choosy.”

“How d’you make that out?”

“The Baums have been in daily contact with Mrs. Clague and Winnie. We know that much. But neither of the women were touched. They’ve been left alone despite that they’re easy prey. They’ve lived with the Devil but retained their souls. Aren’t they the luckiest people?”

“You give me the creeps,” Norris complained. He turned to Yensen. “Make a list of names and addresses from this correspondence and bring it to H.Q. We’ll have to follow up every one of them.”

Rausch reappeared saying, “Nothing of any significance up there except a couple of telephone numbers scribbled on a pad by the phone in Ambrose’s room.” “We’ll look into those later." Norris had a final, dissatisfied glance around, saw nothing of fresh interest. “If the fate of the Baums isn’t yet known to those we’re seeking you can see what’s likely to happen. Somebody’s going to come along wanting to know how the brothers made out. If all of us go to their office there will be nobody here to make a grab. We’ll have to stake this place until the news gets out and warns off possible visitors.”

“I’ll stay with Yensen,” Rausch volunteered. “If anybody—”

Something went
whirr-whirr
above.

“The phone!” yelped Norris.

He charged upstairs, taking steps two at a time. The others crowded behind him. Entering Ambrose’s room he eyed its bedside phone warily.

“Notice any other telephone here?”

They shook their heads.

“Too bad. No chance of holding the caller while we trace him.” Extracting his pocket handkerchief he draped it over the tiny scanner then lifted the earpiece. The small visiscreen at once lit up but revealed no picture. That meant a similarly obscured scanner at the other end. “Hello!” he said.

“Var silvin, Wend?”
demanded a voice bearing the sharpness of deep suspicion.

“Baum residence,” said Norris, frowning. “Can I help you?”

Click! The line went dead. Norris rattled the instrument, raised the operator, identified himself. “Where did that call originate? Let me know quickly— it’s urgent!” He hung on for most of a minute, listened again, snorted, racked the phone and told the others, “The Baum warehouse. Evidently they had a rendezvous there with somebody who got worried and called after they’d failed to turn up. We missed a trick by not finding out the place and going there first.”

“Get along right now,” urged Rausch. “I’ll stay with Yensen, just in case.”

Norris nodded, signed to Harper and they hastened to the car. Ordering one of the waiting police to join them, he drove away at top pace.

“You might as well take it easy,” advised Harper, with unconcealed pessimism. “There’ll be nobody at the place. Whoever hangs up on a call isn’t going to sit around.”

“That’s what I think,” agreed Norris, maintaining speed. “But if we fail to catch somebody it won’t be for lack of trying.” He used a hand to indicate the microphone under the dashboard. “Put out a call. Any cars near the warehouse to go there at once. Detain anyone found on the premises.”

Harper did as told. Two voices answered, said they’d be there within a couple of minutes.

“A couple of minutes too late,” he commented, replacing the mike.

The warehouse proved to be an ancient but solid red brick building with six heavily barred and shuttered windows and a cumbersome steel door. It had the appearance of property once designed to hold merchandise regarded as a chronic temptation to the backward neighborhood. Two cars were lined up outside and three police were standing defeatedly near by.

“We’ve three men waiting around the back,” one of them told Norris. “The place is locked. Nobody answers the bell. No sounds inside. Looks like it’s empty.”

“Then we'll break through the door.”

It took some time to do that but they managed without overmuch damage. Not a soul lurked within. The first floor held a number of flat glass showcases exhibiting costume jewelry arrayed on black velvet. The floor above was littered with light crates and cardboard cartons, some full, some empty. A small office of clapboard and plastiglass stood in a corner.

Entering the office, Norris moved carefully around, said to one of the police, “Fetch the fingerprint man. Given enough luck we may be able to discover who was waiting here.” To Harper he added, “It takes a professional criminal to wipe a place clean of prints—and the characters we’re after don’t fall into that category. ”

He went to the desk, slid out its drawers. The contents were not enlightening, mostly billheads, invoices and other business items. A metal filing cabinet proved no more informative.

“Tell you one thing,” remarked Harper, sniffing the air. “The Baums and their associates seem fond of cold-cure.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Norris.

“Ambrose had a faint odor. So did Philip. And I can smell it again here.” Norris twitched his nostrils a couple of times. “Your sense of smell must be a great deal sharper than mine.”

“People vary that way. So do dogs. I can detect it all right. And I know what it is."

“What is it?”

“Eucalyptus.”

“Well, that’s mighty useful,” commented Norris sardonically. “Now all we need do is track down somebody stinking of eucalyptus.”

“You could do worse,” Harper opined. “Three smellers in a row, and in one day, means something. Like tobacco. If I’m in a deep forest and smell burning tobacco I know a man is somewhere near.”

“So—?”

“Maybe somebody
likes
eucalyptus.”

“You come up with the damnedest ideas,” said Norris.

“They’ve got to come from somewhere if we’re going to make any progress at all.” Harper shoved hands deep in pockets, gazed moodily around. “Anyway, why shouldn’t certain people have a craving for the stuff? Koala bears dote on it, so I’m told.”

“They eat the leaves,” Norris informed. “Besides, we’re not trying to cope with koala bears. We’re in pursuit of things with bigger teeth and claws.”

“So what? Even tigers have fangs.”

Norris frowned at him, reached for the telephone, handling it delicately so as not to spoil any latent prints. He dialed, spoke to someone.

“This is no more than a wild guess but you’d better note it: check all suspects for an odor of eucalyptus.” He racked the instrument, admitted, “It would sound silly to me if this entire business wasn’t so crazy.”

“Not being a full-time Sherlock,” said Harper, “I tend to miss things that are obvious to you but spot others that you may overlook. For instance, what’s the scientific conclusion to be drawn from a liking for eucalyptus?”

“I don’t know.”

“That elsewhere the natural prey is vegetarian and feeds on aromatic shrubs, its favorite food being something akin to eucalyptus. So here the host feels a need born of centuries of conditioning. In other words, they’ve found a local drug that reminds them of home, sweet home.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“Sorry, I forgot you’ve been told only part of the story,” said Harper. “You’ve got to know the whole of it to guess the way I’m guessing.”

“Eucalyptus isn’t a drug,” declared Norris, baffled.

“Not to us, it isn’t. God knows what it is to some other guppies.”

“Look, did you sniff the stuff when you shot that girl?”

“No, I didn’t go near enough or hang around long enough. Her case being the first, I was in a jam, had to get out fast, had no time or inclination to look for what I suspect only now.”

“Humph!” Norris thought a bit, resorted to the phone again, called the Baum house, spoke to Rausch. “We’re out of luck here. The bird had flown.’’ He listened to some comment from the other end, then continued, “Harper smells eucalyptus, says the Baums smelled of it too. I didn’t notice it. Did you?”

Rausch said, “Yes. But I thought nothing of it.”

Cutting off, Norris observed, “I should have my nasal passages irrigated.”

“This is important,” Harper pointed out. “Ambrose and Philip carried the odor. Whoever was here reeked of it. Maybe they stumbled across the stuff with the same glee as a bunch of hopheads discovering a field of Mexican hemp. If so, they’ll pass the news one to another.”

“Well?”

“The habit will hand humanity a small advantage. If you can’t tell what’s going on in a suspect’s mind you can at least smell his breath.” He thought again, added, “By ‘you I mean the forces of law and order in general.
You
couldn’t smell an overheated goat under your own bed.”

“Thanks for the criticism,” grunted Norris. He lapsed into silence as the fingerprint man arrived and set about his business. The newcomer raised prints all over the place, most of them undoubtedly being those of the Baum brothers. When he had finished, Norris ordered, “Get them checked as quickly as possible and let me know the results.” He turned to Harper. “Momentarily we’re stalled. Let’s get back to your office.”

“And put the worm on the hook once more, eh?”

Norris glanced at his wrist-watch. “I don’t think so. It’s a bit too late to expect further action there. You’ll be just in time to lock up and go home. If anyone else comes after your blood before tomorrow it’s likeliest to be while you’re in bed.”

“That idea makes for peaceful sleep.”

“Don’t worry. You’re well guarded around the clock.”