Hard Case Crime: Shooting Star & Spiderweb (35 page)

It was going to be a long drive to Vista Canyon. But that’s where the Professor lived. I didn’t know exactly where, and I didn’t know how I’d locate his place in the dark. But he was gone, Jake was gone, and now was the time. Now was the time to go back downstairs and drive away very quietly. Now was the time for speed, across town and out of town. Now was the time to wheel and climb and twist and turn through the Canyon passage.

Now was the time for midnight, and a moon, for skirling winds that clawed the clouds to phosphorescent shreds. Now was the time for silence on winding trails, for whisperings in woods, for howling in the far-off hills. Now was the time to park the car on the shoulder of the road, out of sight; to crunch through gravel and inspect the crooked signboard at the roadway’s fork.

Names, meaningless names, names of the wealthy, names of the reclusive. No Otto Hermann. Hills rose crazily all about me, leering and looming in the moonlight; huge, white wrinkled faces bearded by titanic trees. They watched and waited, watched and waited, while a little ant crawled along the road. Me.

I was a fool to feel that way. I was a fool to come here. Melodramatic nonsense. But if it was nonsense, why did the Professor hide his house?

Little beads of conversation began to string themselves on a single thread of recollection.

“It’s on the very top of the hill...the windlass and cable is convenient because we lower a little car down the hillside for groceries, and you can even ride in it yourself if you like.”

And, “It was built back in Prohibition days. Porch on three sides, wonderful view, completely private. But the big secret is the fox pen just below the house. You see, the bootleggers had to have a place to cache their liquor, and guess what they did? They set themselves up as running a fox farm, and—”

It hadn’t seemed important at the time I heard it. But now everything came back to me. Hillside. Look for a cable from the top of the hill. Three-sided porch. A fox pen in back, just below the level of the house.

I began to climb, to crawl. Crickets stopped their chirping and listened. I hit a winding trail that ended up before the door of a three-car garage. An owl hooted—derisively, I thought. I went back down to the road and started up another path. The wind laughed at me. Look for the cable, fool!

I found it. I followed it, through a tangle of scrub. I clung to the heavy wire as the going got tough. What was the legend—string in the lair of the Minotaur? But this wasn’t fantasy. It was all panting and sweat and dizziness. Then the house looked down at me over the edge of the hillside, and I stared back.

There were no lights on the porches, or inside. I walked around to the front door, using the gravel path as little as possible. The door was locked, of course. I contemplated the wire mesh of the screened-in porch. I felt for my pocket-knife. Once a Boy Scout, always a Boy Scout.

Supposing the Professor hadn’t left? What if somebody else was here—Dr. Sylvestro, for instance? There were no answers. There was only a duty to perform.
A Scout is Obedient...

It takes about twelve seconds to break-and-enter a house, according to the movies. Working without director, lights or camera, I managed it in twenty minutes, with the aid of scraped and bleeding fingers. My trouser legs ripped as I wriggled through the wire mesh and dropped to the porch floor with a dull thud.

I got up and waited for an echo, a response from within the darkened house. Crickets punctuated the silence. The door opened to my hand. I was inside, groping for a light switch. I found it, then hesitated. But,
a Scout is Brave...

The light went on. I don’t know what I expected to see. A bubbling cauldron, a heap of skulls, the heads of children floating in alcohol—

It was a perfectly conventional room in a perfectly conventional home: unpainted furniture, covered with cushions; a round dining-room table, a stone fireplace and a pile of logs, bookcases made out of boards and bricks. A single touch of luxury was the grand piano that dominated the alcove of the living room.

I walked over to the bookshelves. It’s the first thing I do when visiting strangers. I looked at titles:
Romola, Helen’s Babies, When Knighthood Was in Flower, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, Man Drowning, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.

Professor Hermann hadn’t chosen these books. Maybe I’d made a mistake, maybe he didn’t live here at all. There were bedrooms and a kitchen to investigate now.

I walked towards the hall, and as I did so the cricket chirpings deepened, blending into croakings. Frogs. Frogs, out in back of the house, below. Below...I remembered something about a fox farm, a fox pen. Where they kept the liquor in Prohibition days—

Abruptly altering my course, I went out to the rear porch. I switched the light off as I departed, and then allowed the moon to guide me. The view was magnificent: silver trees on platinum hills. But I wasn’t here to prepare a prospectus on mining stock. I sent a stare down at the levelled area in back of the hilltop house. More wire netting, thin-meshed and held together by strutwork. A concrete flooring. This was the fox pen, all right. I didn’t see any foxes inside. I didn’t see the Professor, either.

Going down the porch steps, I listened carefully to the frogs. Were they trying to tell me something? If they were, they gave it up. As I fumbled with a latch and entered the fox pen, the croaking ceased. Silence. Silver silence. I stood inside the pen, but I didn’t feel very foxy. The frogs told me nothing, the silence told me nothing. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I had to find it.

“The bootleggers had to have a place to cache their liquor and guess what they did?”

They stacked it right out here in the open, in the fox pen. No, they couldn’t do that. There’d be foxes in the pen, to make things look right. But—I saw it over in the corner, shadowed by the house above. A black circle: the metal lid covering a cistern.

Of course! That’s where they hid the liquor in the old days—down below, in the hollowed-out hillside! Lift the lid and climb down the stairs to the storage rooms, the vaults. That’s where they hid the liquor, and that’s where the Professor would hide whatever he wanted hidden.

The frogs croaked a triumphant chorus as I walked over to the iron cistern cover, bent down and reached for the ring in the center. It was heavy. I tugged and I had trouble. I couldn’t seem to move my shoulder. That’s because something was holding it back, gripping it tightly in restraint.

I glanced around at my shoulder and saw what rested there. It was a hand...

“Mr. Roberts—what are you doing?”

I looked up into the plump white face of Miss Bauer.

“Come away,” she whispered. Her hand left my shoulder, traveled to her lips. “He will hear you.”

“He?”

“Otto. He works down in the vaults tonight.” She urged me to my feet. “Do not fear. He will sleep below. Come to the house, eh?”

I followed her out of the pen, up the porch steps. She kept whispering. She had been asleep in the bedroom, she said, and when she heard me prowling around she thought at first I was the Professor. Then she finally tiptoed out to investigate and found me.

All this I learned in the kitchen. Gradually the story filtered through her accent, her idiom, her fear. For Ottilie Bauer was afraid.

She did not know, at first, what crazy business Otto had in mind when he urged her to come and live with him here in the Canyon. This Dr. Sylvestro, he was partly responsible—Otto had been his patient, once, years ago when he’d first come to America, after the war. Otto had been a brilliant man in the old country, but something went wrong. He got crazy ideas about making money, about success, about his power.

Now he was going too far. All this extortion, and threats, and the wild talk—Miss Bauer had warned. Miss Bauer had coaxed. Miss Bauer had pleaded. But he wouldn’t listen.

“Now I do not know what will come. He is preparing more of those horrible photographs. I have wanted to see you, to warn you. This must be stopped. And if you can not stop it, it is better for you to go away while you can. While he is—”

We both heard the sound, both turned. But it was only the wind. I smiled at her, but my hands clenched. She smiled at me, but her lip quivered.

“I can’t go away,” I said, softly. “You see, the Professor knows I killed Mike Drayton. You know it, too.”

Her lower lip quivered, stopped, quivered again.

“No. You did not kill him. That was a lie.”

“But—”

“He made you go away. You saw nothing after that. How I worked on the lungs in the car, how he revived.”

“He
revived?
”

“He sat in the car and Otto, he drove him away. For air, he told me, and I must go home to bed. It would be all right. So I went home, thinking how lucky we were, and next day in the papers—”

I stood up. “So the Professor murdered him and pinned the rap on me! You’re a witness, you can testify. You’re sure you saw Drayton alive after I left?”

She nodded, and I saw the part in her straight black hair.

“Yes. I can testify. I do not wish to tell this, but he must be stopped for his own good. You go away.”

“You bet I’ll go away, and fast!” I stepped around the table, then halted.

“But what about you—isn’t it dangerous for you to stay? If the Professor knew that you had tipped me off—”

“He will not harm me, Mr. Roberts.” She smiled. It was a very old smile, borrowed from the Sphinx. “You see, he is my brother.”

I drove back before dawn, slept until noon, then called Ellen.

“Go home and start packing,” I said. “We’re getting out of here.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow or the next day, as soon as I can clear up a few odds and ends.”

“You really mean it?”

“Cross my heart and hope not to die. Have you ever wanted to go to Niagara Falls on your honeymoon? Or do you prefer the Zambezi? That’s in Africa—Southern Rhodesia, I think.”

“You sound high.”

“I’m right up there, and you’ll be, too. Now, listen to me. I’ve just come from the Professor’s place. No, I didn’t see him, but I did see Miss Bauer. She turns out to be his sister. That’s right.

“The Professor didn’t leave town at all. That was just a cover-up to fool me. He’s actually getting ready to start his campaign on you and your uncle, and lining up Caldwell for another touch. So he’s still around, but don’t worry.

“Miss Bauer just supplied me with enough information to quiet the Professor—put him behind bars, if necessary. But he’s her brother, and naturally she doesn’t want to see that happen unless it’s absolutely necessary.

“So instead, I asked her for the file and the photos on Caldwell. These she agreed to get. They’re hidden out there at the house, she thinks, down below in a concealed basement. Some time this afternoon, if she’s alone and gets the chance, she’ll get the stuff and bring it over to Caldwell.”

“Caldwell?” Ellen’s voice rose.

“Of course. That’s where I’ll arrange to meet her—and you. Let’s say four o’clock. I’ll call him now and tell him we’re coming over. Once Caldwell has his photos and negatives, we can thumb our noses at the Professor and leave whenever we like.”

“You’re sure there won’t be any hitches?”

“How can there be? Nobody’s going to suspect Miss Bauer of double-crossing her brother. Nobody’s going to trail her to Caldwell’s place. That’s what makes it all so safe.”

“But Eddie—you’re being trailed. By Jake.” I paused. I’d forgotten that little detail. “Don’t worry about Jake. I’ll handle him this afternoon. Now, get busy and pack. Bring your things over to Caldwell’s house. Here, I’ll give you the address.” I read it off to her, made her repeat it. “Take a cab so there’ll be no slip-ups. And I’ll see you at four. Meanwhile, in case you happen to be interested, I love you.”

“You say the cleverest things.”

I hung up, not feeling clever. I’d forgotten about Jake. Well, that problem would be faced shortly. Right now there was the question of Caldwell.

I called him at home. A tired woman answered the phone. At first I thought it might be Marge, but it turned out to be the maid. Yes, Mr. Caldwell was there. He wasn’t feeling very well, but whom should she say was calling? I gave my name and waited.

Mr. Caldwell wasn’t feeling very well. I could imagine why. He’d just had another little phone call from Jake, about more pictures. And perhaps tonight or tomorrow he’d be taking a trip with a little black bag full of bills.

Perhaps a mention of my name would do the trick, though. I hoped so, anyway.

It did.

“Roberts! My God, I’m glad to hear your voice!” He didn’t wait for a reply. “I’m in trouble again. I got another call from—”

“I know. And that’s why I phoned you. I think your troubles will soon be over. Now, listen carefully to what I’m going to say.”

He listened and I told him everything.

“Got it straight?” I concluded. “Ellen Post and Miss Bauer should both be arriving at your house sometime before four o’clock. I’ll be there promptly at four on the head. And that’s that.”

“Roberts, I don’t know how to thank you for all this. You’ve saved my life. You know, I was seriously thinking of...doing away with myself.”

“You’ll live to be eighty, I guarantee it! By the way, is your wife at home?”

“Marge took a run down to Venice to stay with her aunt for a few days. Nobody here but the maid.”

“Maybe you’d better give her the afternoon off.”

“Right. See you at four, then?”

“Four sharp.”

And that wound it up. Except that I wasn’t feeling high any more, because I remembered Jake. Faithful old Jake.

I glanced at my watch. 12:30. I had about three hours in which to shake him. And I didn’t know how. No brilliant ideas came to me as I locked the door, descended the stairs and emerged to find Jake sitting on the steps.

“You sure must of hung on a beaut, the way you slept,” Jake greeted me.

“You been here long?”

“Over three hours. This sun’s murder.”

“You needn’t have bothered.”

“Boss’s orders. He wants to see you.”