I nodded.
“And the police, of course.”
“Not yet. At least not from me. I found him. The house door wasn’t quite shut. I went in. I found him.”
She picked the pencil up and poked at the ‘handkerchief again. “Does Mr. Kingsley know about this scented rag?”
“Nobody knows about that, except you and I, and whoever put it there.”
“Nice of you,” she said dryly. “And nice of you to think what you thought.”
“You have a certain quality of aloofness and dignity that I like,” I said. “But don’t run it into the ground. What would you expect me to think? Do I pull the hankie out from under the pillow and sniff it and hold it out and say, ‘Well, well, Miss Adrienne Fromsett’s initials and all. Miss Fromsett must have known Lavery, perhaps very intimately. Let’s say, just for the book, as intimately as my nasty little mind can conceive. And that would be pretty damn intimately. But this is cheap synthetic sandalwood and Miss Fromsett wouldn’t use cheap scent. And this was under Lavery’s pillow and Miss Fromsett just never keeps her hankies under a man’s pillow. Therefore this has absolutely nothing to do with Miss Fromsett. It’s just an optical delusion.’”
“Oh shut up,” she said.
I grinned.
“What kind of girl do you think I am?” she snapped.
“I came in too late to tell you.”
She flushed, but delicately and all over her face this time. Then, “Have you any idea who did it?”
“Ideas, but that’s all they are. I’m afraid the police are going to find it simple. Some of Mrs. Kingsley’s clothes are hanging in Lavery’s closet. And when they know the whole story—including what happened at Little Fawn Lake yesterday—I’m afraid they’ll just reach for the handcuffs. They have to find her first. But that won’t be so hard for them.”
“Crystal Kingsley,” she said emptily. “So he couldn’t be spared even that.”
I said: “It doesn’t have to be. It could be an entirely different motivation, something we know nothing about. It could have been somebody like Dr. Almore.”
She looked up quickly, then shook her head. “It could be,” I insisted. ‘-‘We don’t know anything against it. He was pretty nervous yesterday for a man who has nothing to be afraid of. But, of course, it isn’t only the guilty who are afraid.”
I stood up and tapped on the edge of the desk looking down at her. She had a lovely neck. She pointed to the handkerchief.
“What about that?” she asked dully.
“If it was mine, I’d wash that cheap scent out of it.”
“It has to mean something, doesn’t it? It might mean a lot.”
I laughed. “I don’t think it means anything at all. Women are always leaving their handkerchiefs around. A fellow like Lavery would collect them and keep them in a drawer with a sandalwood sachet. Somebody would find the stock and take one out to use. Or he would lend them, enjoying the reactions to the other girls’ initials. I’d say he was that kind of a heel. Goodby, Miss Fromsett, and thanks for talking to me.”
I started to go, then I stopped and asked her: “Did you hear the name of the reporter down there who gave Brownwell all his information?”
She shook her head.
“Or the name of Mrs. Almore’s parents?”
“Not that either. But I could probably find that out for you. I’d be glad to try.”
“How?”
“Those things are usually printed in death notices, aren’t they? There is pretty sure to have been a death notice in the Los Angeles papers.”
“That would be very nice of you,” I said. I ran a finger along the edge of the desk and looked at her sideways. Pale ivory skin, dark arid lovely eyes, hair as light as hair can be and as dark as night can be.
I walked back down the room and out. The little blonde at the PBX looked at me expectantly, her small’ red lips parted, waiting for more fun.
I didn’t have any more. I went on out.
20
No police cars stood in front of Lavery’s house, nobody hung around on the sidewalk and when I pushed the front door open there was no smell of cigar or cigarette smoke inside. The sun had gone away from the windows and a fly buzzed softly over one of the liquor glasses. I went down to the end and hung over the railing that led downstairs. Nothing moved in Mr. Lavery’s house. Nothing made sound except very faintly down below in the bathroom the quiet trickle of water dripping on a dead man’s shoulder.
I went to the telephone and looked up the number of the police department in the directory. I dialed and while I was waiting for an answer, I took the little automatic out of my pocket and laid it on the table beside the telephone.
When the male voice said: “Bay City Police—Smoot talking,” I said: “There’s been a shooting at 623 Altair Street. Man named Lavery lives there. He’s dead.”
“Six-two-three Altair. Who are you?”
“The name is Marlowe.”
“You right there in the house?”
“Right.”
“Don’t touch anything at all.”
I hung up, sat down on the davenport and waited.
Not very long. A siren whined far off, growing louder with great surges of sound. Tires screamed at a corner, and the siren wail died to a metallic growl, then to silence, and the tires screamed again in front of the house. The Bay City police conserving rubber. Steps hit the sidewalk and I went over to the front door and opened it.
Two uniformed cops barged into the room. They were the usual large size and they had the usual weathered faces and suspicious eyes. One of them had a carnation tucked under his cap, behind his right ear. The other one was older, a little gray and grim. They stood and looked at me warily, then the older one said briefly:
“All right, where is it?”
“Downstairs in the bathroom, behind the shower curtain.”
“You stay here with him, Eddie.”
He went rapidly along the room and disappeared. The other one looked at me steadily and said out of the corner of his mouth:
“Don’t make any false moves, buddy.”
I sat down on the davenport again. The cop ranged the room with his eyes. There were sounds below stairs, feet walking. The cop with me suddenly spotted the gun’ lying on the telephone table. He charged at it violently, like a downfield blocker.
“This the death gun?” he almost shouted.
“I should imagine so. It’s been fired.”
“Ha!” He leaned over the gun, baring his teeth at me, and put his hand to his holster. His finger tickled the flap off the stud and he grasped the butt of the black revolver.
“You should what?” he barked.
“I should imagine so.”
“That’s very good,” he sneered. “That’s very good indeed.”
“It’s not that good,” I said.
He reeled back a little. His eyes were being careful of me. “What you shoot him for?” he growled.
“I’ve wondered and wondered.”
“Oh, a wisenheimer.”
“Let’s just sit down and wait for the homicide boys,” I said. “I’m reserving my defense.”
“Don’t give me none of that,” he said.
“I’m not giving you any of anything. If I had shot him, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have called up. You wouldn’t have found the gun. Don’t work so hard on the case. You won’t be on it more than ten minutes.”
His eyes looked hurt. He took ‘his cap off and the carnation dropped to the floor. He bent and picked it up and twirled it between his fingers, then dropped it behind the fire screen.
“Better not do that,” I told him. “They might think it’s a clue and waste a lot of time on it.”
“Aw hell.” He bent over the screen and retrieved the carnation and put it in his pocket. “You know all the answers, don’t you, buddy?”
The other cop came back up the stairs, looking grave. He stood in the middle of the floor and looked at his wrist watch and made a note in a notebook and then looked out of the front windows, holding the venetian blinds to one side to do it.
The one who had stayed with me said: “Can I look now?”
“Let it lie, Eddie. Nothing in it for us. You call the coroner?”
“I thought homicide would do that.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Captain Webber will be on it and he likes to do everything himself.” He looked at me and said: “You’re a man named Marlowe?”
I said I was a man named Marlowe.
“He’s a wise guy, knows all the answers,” Eddie said.
The older one looked at me absently, looked at Eddie absently, spotted the gun lying on the telephone table and looked at that not at all absently.
“Yeah, that’s the death gun,” Eddie said. “I ain’t touched it.”
The other nodded. “The boys are not so fast today. What’s your line, mister? Friend of his?” He made athumb towards the floor.
“Saw him yesterday for the first time. I’m a private operative from L.A.”
“Oh.” He looked at me very sharply. The other cop looked at me with deep suspicion.
“Cripes, that means everything will be all balled up,” he said.
That was the first sensible remark he had made. I grinned at him affectionately.
The older cop looked out of the front window again. “That’s the Almore place across the street, Eddie,” he said.
Eddie went and looked with him. “Sure is,” he said. “You can read the plate. Say, this guy downstairs might be the guy—”
“Shut up,” the other one said and dropped the venetian blind. They both turned around and stared at me woodenly.
A car came down the block and stopped and a door slammed and more steps came down the walk. The older of the prowl car boys opened the door to two men in plain clothes, one of whom I already knew.
21
The one who came first was a small man for a cop, middle-aged, thin-faced, with a permanently tired expression. His nose was sharp and bent a little to one side, as if somebody had given it the elbow one time when it was into something. His blue pork pie hat was set very square on his head and chalk-white hair showed under it. He wore a dull brown suit and his hands were in the side pockets of the jacket, with the thumbs outside the seam.
The man behind him was Degarmo, the big cop with the dusty blond hair and the metallic blue eyes and the savage, lined face who had not liked my being in front of Dr. Almore’s house.
The two uniformed men looked at the small man and touched their caps.
“The body’s in the basement, Captain Webber. Been shot twice after a couple of misses, looks like. Dead quite some time. This party’s name is Marlowe. He’s a’ private eye from Los Angeles. I didn’t question him beyond that.”
“Quite right,” Webber said sharply. He had a suspicious voice. He passed a suspicious eye over my face and nodded briefly. “I’m Captain Webber,” he said. “This is Lieutenant Degarmo. We’ll look at the body first.”
He went along the room. Degarmo looked at me as if he had never seen me before and followed him. They went downstairs, the older of the two prowl car men with them. The cop called Eddie and I stared each other down for a while.
I said: “This is right across the street from Dr. Almore’s place, isn’t it?”
All the expression went out of his face. There hadn’t been much to go. “Yeah. So what?”
“So nothing,” I said.
He was silent. The voices came up from below, blurred and indistinct. The cop cocked his ear and said in a more friendly tone: “You remember that one?”
“A little.”
He laughed. “They killed that one pretty,” he said. “They wrapped it up and hid it in back of the shelf. The top shelf in the bathroom closet. The one you can’t reach without standing on a chair.”
“So they did,” I said. “I wonder why.”
The cop looked at me sternly. “There was good reasons, pal. Don’t think there wasn’t. You know this Lavery well?”
“Not well.”
“On to him for something?”
“Working on him a little,” I said. “You knew him?” The cop called Eddie shook his head. “Nope. I just remembered it was a guy from this house found Almore’s wife in the garage that night.”
“Lavery may not have been here then,” I said.
“How long’s he been here?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Would be about a year and a half,” the cop said, musingly. “The L.A. papers give it any play?”
“Paragraph on the Home Counties page,” I said, just to be moving my mouth.
He scratched his ear and listened. Steps were coming back up the stairs. The cop’s face went blank and he moved away from me and straightened up.
Captain Webber hurried over to the telephone and dialed the number and spoke, then held the phone away from his ear and looked back over his shoulder.
“Who’s deputy coroner this week, Al?”
“Ed Garland,” the big lieutenant said woodenly.
“Call Ed Garland,” Webber said into the phone. “Have him come over right away. And tell the flash squad to step on it.”
He put the phone down and barked sharply: “Who handled this gun?”
I said: “I did.”
He came over and teetered on his heels in front of me and pushed his small sharp chin up at me. He held the gun delicately on a handkerchief in his hand.
“Don’t you know enough not to handle a weapon found at the scene of a crime?”
“Certainly,” I said. “But when I handled it I didn’t know there had been a crime. I didn’t know the gun had been fired. It was lying on the stairs and I thought it had been dropped.”
“A likely story,” Webber said bitterly. “You get a lot of that sort of thing in your business?”
“A lot of what sort of thing?”
He kept his hard stare on me and didn’t answer.
I said: “How would it be for me to tell you my story as it happened?”
He bridled at me like a cockerel. “Suppose you answer my questions exactly as I choose to put them.”
I didn’t say anything to that. Webber swivelled sharply and said to the two uniformed men: “You boys can get back to your car and check in with the dispatcher.”