The Paul Cain Omnibus (20 page)

He lowered his voice to a discreet drone. “And your lady was there, too. She, too, objected very strenuously, until I had had a long talk with her and convinced her of the error of her—shall we say, affection, for a gentleman of your instincts. She seemed very frightened at the idea of becoming involved in this case—I’m afraid she will be rather hard to find.”

Druse sighed, lowered his eyes slowly to the rubies, touched the largest of them delicately with one finger. “And so,” he said, “to end this vicious and regrettable business—I give you your rubies”—he lifted his hand and made a sweeping gesture towards Mrs Hanan—“and your wife—and now I would like your check for twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Hanan moved very swiftly. He tipped the edge of the table upward, lunged up and forward in the same movement; there was a sharp, shattering crash of chinaware and silver. The derringer roared, but the bullet thudded into the table. Hanan bent over suddenly—his eyes were dull, and his upper lip was drawn back over his teeth—then he straightened and whirled and ran out through the door to the living room.

Mrs Hanan was standing against the big buffet; her hands were at her mouth, and her eyes were very wide. She made no sound.

Druse went after Hanan, stopped suddenly at the door. Hanan was crouched in the middle of the living room. The Filipino boy stood beyond him, framed against the darkness of the entrance hall; a curved knife glittered in his hand and his thin yellow face was hard, menacing. Hanan ran out on the terrace and Druse went swiftly after him. By the dim light from the living room he saw Hanan dart to the left, encounter the wall there, zigzag crazily towards the darkness of the outer terrace, the edge.

Druse yelled: “Look out!” ran forward, Hanan was silhouetted a moment against the mauve glow of the sky; then with a hoarse, cracked scream he fell outward, down.

Druse stood a moment, staring blindly down. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead, then turned and went into the living room and tossed the derringer down on the big center table. The Filipino boy was still standing in the doorway. Druse nodded at him and he turned and went through the dark entrance hall into the kitchen. Druse went to the door to the dining room; Mrs Hanan was still standing with her back to the buffet, her hands still at her mouth, her eyes wide, unseeing. He turned and went swiftly up the broad steps to the office, took up the telephone and dialed a number. When the connection had been made, he asked for MacCrae.

In a minute or so MacCrae answered; Druse said: “You’ll find a stiff in Mrs Dale Hanan’s apartment on the corner of Sixty-third and Park, Mac. She killed him—self-defense. You might find his partner downstairs at my place—waiting for his boss to come out… . Yeah, his boss was Hanan—he just went down—the other way… . I’ll file charges of attempted murder against Hanan, and straighten it all out when you get over here… . Yeah—hurry.”

He hung up and went down to the dining room. He tipped the table back on its legs and picked up the rubies, put them back into the case. He said: “I called up a friend of mine who works for Mahlon and Stiles. As you probably know, Mister Hanan has never made a will.” He smiled. “He so hated the thought of death that the idea of a will was extremely repugnant to him.”

He picked up her chair and she came slowly across and sank into it.

“As soon as the estate is settled,” he went on, “I shall expect your check for a hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars, made out to the insurance company.”

She nodded abstractedly.

“I think these”—he indicated the jewel case—“will be safer with me, until then.”

She nodded again.

He smiled. “I shall also look forward with a great deal of pleasure to receiving your check for twenty-five thousand—the balance on the figure I quoted for my services.”

She turned her head slowly, looked up at him. “A moralist,” she said—“morbid—and mercenary.”

“Mercenary as hell!” He bobbed his big head up and down violently.

She looked at the tiny watch at her wrist, said: “It isn’t morning yet, strictly speaking—but I’d rather have a drink than anything I can think of.”

Druse laughed. He went to the buffet and took out a squat bottle, glasses, poured two big drinks. He took one to her, raised the other and squinted through it at the light. “Here’s to crime.”

They drank.

B
rennan turned off Sixth Avenue at Forty-Ninth Street and walked towards Broadway. It was a few minutes before seven; there were little knots of men around the tinhorn bookmakers who used the street as an office. Brennan elbowed his way through one of the groups, went into the drugstore of the Valmouth Hotel, sat down at the soda fountain and said: “Small glass of milk with a shot of chocolate in it.”

He watched the soda-squirt pour milk into the glass, squeeze the dark cloud of chocolate into its whiteness, set the glass on the green marble counter.

A woman sat next to him and put her hand down on the counter near the glass; her hand was very white and her nails were long—bright scarlet.

She said: “You wouldn’t high-hat an old pal, would you?”

Brennan turned his head slowly, smiled faintly with his mouth, said: “H’ are ya, Joice?” He picked up the glass. “What do you want to drink?”

“I want to drink Piper Heidsick Nineteen-eleven,” she said slowly, “but I will drink a lemonade—with plain water.” She spoke more to the soda-squirt than to Brennan.

The soda-squirt smiled, nodded.

Brennan sipped his milk. He asked: “How’s business?”

“Lousy.” She took a cigarette out of a small black suede bag. “Got a match?”

Brennan shook his head.

The soda-squirt took a paper of matches out of his shirt pocket, scratched one, lighted her cigarette.

She inhaled deeply, blew a thin gray cone of smoke at the electric fan on the end of the counter. “I guess I’ve lost my dewy freshness.”

Brennan nodded slowly, emphatically. “An’ if you don’t lay off the weed, and start taking care of yourself, you’re going to lose whatever you’ve got left.”

She said: “I haven’t had any weed for five weeks—an’ I’ve been getting a load of sun, on the roof, every day the sun’s been out.” She watched the soda-squirt serve her lemonade with a broad flourish, tasted it. “It’s not me—it’s a jinx.” She smiled without mirth. “Or all the chumps are still out at the World’s Fair.”

Brennan finished his milk, put a quarter on the counter.

She set down her glass, said: “That’s terrible,” turned to Brennan. “Come on upstairs—I want to show you something.”

Brennan grinned. He said: “I’ll buy you another drink, but I won’t go upstairs.”

“That’s not funny.” She smiled faintly and stood up, and Brennan stood up and they went through the lobby to the elevator, up to the sixteenth floor. She fumbled in her bag for the key; Brennan noticed that her hands were trembling, that she had suddenly paled until the deep red rouge on her cheeks looked black against the icy whiteness of her skin.

He said: “What the hell’s the matter?”

She put the key in the lock, turned it, swung open the door; Brennan went into the dimly lighted room. She followed him, closed the door. The shade was tightly drawn on the one window; a brightly figured negligee had been thrown over the lamp. There was a very slender, very beautiful girl lying across the bed; her head hung in a strange and broken way, down backward over the edge of the bed; her long straw-colored hair hung to the floor, made a twisted yellow pool on the dark rug.

Brennan knelt and put out his hand and stroked two fingers Hunch across her forehead, turned to stare expressionlessly up at Joice Colt.

“How come?”

Joice Colt shook her head. She was trembling violently; her eyes moved back and forth swiftly from Brennan to the girl on the bed. “I don’t know,” she said. “I came in about ten minutes ago an’ she was like that. I called Ed Harley, but he wasn’t in. I was afraid to call the police—her being in my room an’ everything. I couldn’t think. I went downstairs an’ went into the drugstore an’ tried to think—an’ then you came in… .”

“Go on.”

Joice Colt shrugged, shook her head slightly, stood staring vacantly down at the girl on the bed.

“So now
I’m
supposed to do the thinking.” Brennan stood up, moved towards the door. He smiled, shook his head slightly. “Nuhuh, baby—I’m a busy man.”

Joice Colt laughed suddenly. She said: “You damned fool!—don’t you realize this is a swell story? I thought you were a newspaperman—or have you passed that up for straight P.I.?”

“Story!” Brennan grinned slowly. “Blond Beauty Bumps Herself Off in Forty-ninth Street Hotel—that kind of story is a dime a dozen. This”—he jerked his head towards the girl on the bed—“is probably the sixth today. Any leg-man can cover it.” He drew himself up with exaggerated pride, tapped his chest with a blunt finger. “I’m doing features.”

He put his hand on the doorknob, smiled gently at Joice Colt. “I’m sorry about the gal, but being sorry for her won’t help her now. I don’t quite see how you’re jammed up because she decided to commit suicide in your room. If you’re telling the truth, I think you’d better call the police. I’ll call my paper from downstairs and have them send somebody over that likes this kind of thing.” He half opened the door.

Joice Colt said slowly: “This is Barbara Antony, Lou Antony’s wife. Lou got out of Atlanta this morning. Maybe it wasn’t suicide.”

Brennan closed the door. “Now you’re talking sense,” he said. “When you give me that wide-eyed ‘that’s the way she was when I came in’ business, an’ then close up like a clam, I pass. You’re a lousy liar.”

He went to one of the two low armchairs, sat down, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “What’s it all about?”

Joice Colt took a cigarette out of her bag, lighted it. “Barbara and I have been practically living together for the last month,” she said. “She had the room across the hall but we always left our doors unlocked and sort of shared everything.” She smiled ruefully. “That is, whatever we had to share—which was nothing.”

Brennan suddenly noticed a green glass tumbler that had rolled partway under the bed. He got up and picked it up with his handkerchief and sniffed it, sat down again and put the tumbler on the table beside him.

He said: “Make it fast. We’ll have to call the Law pretty soon.”

“Barbara’s been cockeyed for the last couple weeks,” Joice Colt went on, “An’ every time she’d begin talking about killing herself. She talked about it too much—people who talk about it that much don’t do it.”

“What was the matter with her?”

“Everything. Antony cut off her allowance about three months ago. He’d fixed it up for her before he was put over. She didn’t have a dime. She was on the cuff to the bootlegger for a couple hundred an’ she was into the hotel for twice that much—she got her eviction notice yesterday… .”

Brennan glanced at the girl on the bed. “How come Antony cut off her dough?”

“He probably heard she was playing around.”

“Was she?”

“Uh-huh.” Joice Colt was smiling a little. She took a deep drag of her cigarette.

“Who with?”

Joice Colt said: “Ed Harley,” as if the name were a bad taste in her mouth. Her eyes were narrowed to thin blue-fringed slits.

Brennan leaned back. He said slowly: “Well, well—your own true love. How come you and Barbara were so chummy if Harley aired you for her?”

“It wasn’t her fault. He gave her that razzle-dazzle works about starring her in one of his clubs an’ she was too limp to say no. Then he dropped her like a hot potato when Antony was wise to him, an’ got scared.”

Brennan curved his thin lips into something like a smile. “And Harley didn’t even take care of her bill in his own hotel?”

Joice Colt shook her head.

Brennan said: “Nice boy.” He stared thoughtfully at the girl on the bed. “It looks like there were plenty of reasons for her to do it—broke, kicked out of the hotel, given the gate by Harley, and Antony on his way up from Atlanta with blood in his eye.”

“Just the same, I’ll take the long end that it wasn’t suicide.” Joice Colt smashed out her cigarette. “She wasn’t the type.”

“Harley would probably want to shut her up.” Brennan picked up the tumbler again with his handkerchief, sniffed it. “And Antony would be a cinch for this kind of thing—if he’s half as haywire as they say he is—but he couldn’t get here from Atlanta if he was sprung this morning… .”

“He could fly.”

Brennan nodded slightly. “We can check on that.” He was silent a little while and then he said slowly: “If it wasn’t suicide, and if Harley and Antony can establish alibis—you know who’s going to hold the bag, don’t you?”

Joice Colt stood staring vacantly down at him.

“Little Joice,” Brennan went on. “The DA can make a swell show out of your prison record, and the fact that Harley dumped you for Barbara—and you discovering the body… .”

“That’s ridiculous.” Joice Colt laughed a little, without mirth.

Brennan nodded. “Uh-huh. Would you like to tell a jury of twelve good men and true how ridiculous it is?” He got up and went to the telephone, asked the operator to get the city desk of the
Eagle
, call him back. He leaned against the wall and smiled sleepily at Joice Colt. “I think we’d better vote for suicide for the time being,” he said. “Don’t you?”

She nodded abstractedly, went to one of the low chairs and sat down.

The phone rang and Brennan picked it up, said: “Hello, Johnnie. Barbara Antony, Lou Antony’s wife, bumped herself off in her room at the Valmouth… . Yeah… . Strychnine, I think… . There are a lot of angles. One of them is that Lou got out of Atlanta this morning. Have somebody call the office in Atlanta and check on him—whether he took a train, or flew, or what have you… . Yeah, Ed Harley’s another angle, but you’d better soft-pedal that. Make it suicide for now—I’m going to work on it and whip out a swell feature for tomorrow—save the spot page. An’ Johnnie, call Centre Street right away—have ’em send Freberg if he’s there—he’s the brightest boy on their whole doggone detective force; which isn’t saying a hell of a lot… . Uh-huh. So long.”

Brennan hung up the receiver, took a shiny leather cigar-case out of his breast pocket, took out a cigar and stuck it into his mouth. He started back to his chair and then someone knocked at the door; he glanced at Joice Colt, turned and went to the door, opened it. A man with a blue silk handkerchief covering the lower part of his face stood in the doorway. He was a very tall, heavily shouldered man and he held a short automatic waist high in front of him.

Brennan looked at the automatic, said: “How do you do?” slowly.

The man came into the room and Brennan backed up; Joice Colt stood up and put one hand to her mouth. The man closed the door and stood with his back to it for a moment, then went swiftly to Brennan, jabbed the automatic viciously into his stomach. Brennan started to put up his hands and the man grabbed his shoulder suddenly, spun him half around, crashed the barrel of the automatic down hard against the back of his head.

Brennan saw Joice Colt’s white drained face. He heard her scream. Then his vision dulled and his knees gave way and he fell forward heavily.

He heard Freberg’s voice before he opened his eyes, recognized the nasal Scandinavian drawl. Freberg was saying: “Get a report of what’s in her insides before you do anything else. Then swear out a warrant for the Colt gal—I want her picked up tonight… .”

Brennan opened his eyes; Freberg was bending over him. There was another man standing in the doorway. The other man said: “Okay,” and went out and closed the door.

Freberg was a slight blond man, about thirty-five. He grinned at Brennan, slid his arm under Brennan’s shoulders and pulled him up, held a dark brown pint bottle to his mouth. Brennan put up his hands and held the bottle, took a long drink. He glanced at the bed and saw that the Antony girl had been taken away; he and Freberg were alone in the room.

Brennan handed the bottle back to Freberg, said: “Oi jamina—my head!”

“Uh-huh.” Freberg took a drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Who did it?”

“Carnera.”

“I know—I know.” Freberg put the cork into the bottle and tucked it into his hip pocket. “What did he look like?” Brennan got laboriously to his feet, sank into one of the chairs. He noticed that the tumbler was no longer on the table, the carpet between the table and the wall glittered with splinters of green glass. He leaned forward and held his head in his hands.

He said: “Big guy—black hair. He had a handkerchief draped over his pan.”

Freberg sat down in the other chair.

Brennan asked: “What happened to Colt?”

Freberg shrugged. “Was she here when the big fella slapped you down?”

“Uh-huh.”

“When I got here,” Freberg went on, “the house dick was shooing away a lot of innocent bystanders. It seems somebody screamed in here and the guy in the next room called downstairs, and when the dick came up with a passkey he found the Antony gal very dead, and you, cold with that egg on the back of your head.”

“Nobody else?”

Freberg shook his head. “Nobody else.” He leaned back and tilted his hat back and scratched his head. “The doc figured her to have been dead about an hour. What happened?”

Brennan straightened up, said: “Give me another shot of that.”

Freberg took the bottle out of his pocket and handed it to Brennan. Brennan took a long drink and put the bottle on the table.

“She killed herself,” he said. “Strychnine, I guess… .”

Freberg smiled, nodded.

“Colt came in and found her, dead. Colt called Ed Harley but he wasn’t in the hotel. She went downstairs to figure things out and ran into me in the drug store. I came up with her, and called Johnnie with the story and told him to call you.”

“An’ Carnera?”

“He came in and shoved a rod into my guts and then clipped me before I knew what it was all about.”

“He don’t fit into the suicide picture very well, does he?” Freberg lighted a cigarette, leaned back again and stared skeptically at Brennan.

Brennan did not answer.

Freberg said: “Listen. Joice Colt left the hotel about five-thirty this evening. Before she went out she shook up a highball for Barbara Antony that had enough strychnine in it to kill the National Guard. She came back about a quarter of seven—as near as the elevator boy can figure—and found out how well it had worked, and then she got scared. She called Harley to plant the idea with him that Barbara had committed suicide. Harley wasn’t in. She didn’t know whether to call the police or to take it on the lam. While she was trying to make up her mind she ran into you, and you looked like a swell sucker to plant the suicide angle with… .”