“Not genuine?” Harry roared as if I had insulted him personally. “That superb piece not genuine? By God, sir, you are indeed a clown!”
Dean was staring at me. Something like respect kindled in his baby soft eyes. But he was still fighting me with all he had.
“Prognostication and conjecture would seem to be your long suit, Mr. Noon,” he purred blandly.
I shook my head.
“No Einstein me. The Violent Virgin according to the catalogues is solid marble and six feet tall. According to Harry here, it weighs close to sixteen hundred pounds. Well, when we had that tea party in the baggage car, I fell against that crate and toppled it against the wall of the car. Hell, the bomb wasn’t big enough to do that and my one hundred and eighty pounds couldn’t have done it. So the answer was easy. The clever Dean here must have had a reproduction made. So he could fleece the exhibition people with it. Or protect his real one from damage. Or maybe rent the damn thing out elsewhere so it could be working in two places for him. Either way, The Violent Virgin in the baggage car is a phony. The diversion of the bomb convinces me of that too.”
Duffy scowled at Dean. “How about that, Homer? Noon right about the statue? The railroad has a right to know.”
Dean almost bowed at me even though he was sitting down and his left leg was still paining him.
“I defer to your superior shrewd guessing. You are quite correct. The original Virgin remains intact in my country home in California.”
Duffy whistled and scratched his head, and Marlene Kelly moistened her red lips. But Harry was still in a questioning mood.
“Diversion, you say? What diversion in the baggage car? Surely, the bomb was no fake …”
“No, it wasn’t,” I admitted, drawing on my butt. “It blew a man’s head off. But no one in their right mind would have wanted to destroy a statue worth a million bucks which certainly would have happened if the bomb had gone off in the crate. So that started me thinking the statue was a phony. And it also convinced me the bomb was a ruse so someone would have a good excuse to visit the baggage car, knowing The Blue Green was there. It was as simple as that.”
Duffy coughed. “But you said the bomb couldn’t have been in the crate, Noon. And it wasn’t. I checked with my men. Peters thought it came from the crate because it seemed the likeliest place among all that baggage. But according to everything we found now, it looks like Peters found it in a suitcase near the crate.”
“That’s it, Duffy,” I said. “Nobody had the time or could have opened that crate to plant a bomb. Much less The Blue Green. It would have been noticeable to say the least. But somebody planted the bomb to have a logical reason to run to the baggage car and get something out of it. The bomb danger was that excuse.”
“Who for heaven’s sakes?” blurted Marlene Kelly.
“Yes,” Harry boomed, his eyes flying around the room. “Name him. Point him out. The Blue Green is mine–it belongs to me–I must have it back!”
Dean’s bland face broke into an insolent smile and his eyes mocked me. His soft mouth curled with scorn.
“Do continue, Mr. Noon. I for one desire to observe this rabbit your skillful fingers will materialize out of nebulae.”
I sailed my cigarette through the broken window. It was daylight for real now. A new morning and the Mainliner was beginning to throb again. The wheels were backing off slowly from the car wreckage. And Opal Trace’s bloody corpse hung suspended, asking me to take her down. Asking me to do something about her body. Not just leave it lying there.
There was a crashing sound of steel as the wheels of our car righted themselves on the rails and grinded for traction. We were level again. And every eye in the compartment was fastened on me.
Before anybody could stop me or know what I was doing. I closed in on Fat Harry, placed my knee against his stomach and yanked. He wiggled and roared in surprise but I had already climbed off him, palming the black automatic that I knew had been in his pocket. Duffy immediately trained his .32 on Harry’s enormous middle.
Harry fell back against the seat cushions.
“Mr. Noon!” he bellowed. “Have you lost your reason … ?”
Dean chuckled nastily. “A Behemoth among rabbits, indubitably.”
Marlene Kelly’s eyes glowed excitedly and even Schnapps’ dog head jerked wide awake with the uproar. His collar winked with light from the glass studs.
“It had to be him,” Marlene Kelly shrilled. “Who else is that interested in everything … ?”
I looked at her as if I were seeing her for the first time. She sensed the difference and stopped shrilling.
“You are,” I said as evenly as I could. “Interested enough to want The Blue Green for yourself. Interested enough to plant bombs in baggage cars. Interested enough to kill for it. Die for it.”
In the tight silence, I level Harry’s gun at her trim, smartly belted waist. Schnapps stared up at the gun muzzle almost sorrowfully. And everybody else was stunned into a captive audience. Dean, Harry and tough old Duffy.
Marlene Kelly kept on looking at me, her carefully done eyebrows as far apart as Denver and Brooklyn.
“Put up your hands, lady,” I said. “You should have stuck to making lipsticks. Now you’ll probably get ninety-nine years for your troubles.”
She threw back her red head and laughed. A real bitchy laugh. The high-handed laugh.
“Mr. Noon, you slay me …”
“Ladies First, I always say. What do you say, Miss Kelly?”
She said something under her breath. I didn’t hear her. Nobody did. Except Schnapps, I mean.
Because with all the speed of a rattlesnake and the fury of a tiger cub, he left her lap like chain lightning, sank his fangs into my gun hand and snapped his jaws shut.
I had no more chance or choice than a condemned spy on firing squad day.
I dropped the gun.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I’d never been bitten by a dog before.
It hurt. Hurt like hell.
My hand jerked back reflexively as a thousand needles of agony ran up my arm like a fast-stitching sewing machine. Schnapps was almost down to the bones in my wrist before I could tear him loose with my other hand, tearing at his gaudy collar for leverage. By that time, it was already too late. And lots of things had happened. All fast and furious.
Harry boomed in warning and Dean twisted in his seat and two gun shots filled the compartment with smoke and noise. All this while I was holding Schnapps at bay, and my right hand was bleeding like crazy. Somebody grunted in pain and surprise, and I pinned Schnapps with my knee to the seat cushions before he could bite me to death. Then I looked around.
With Schnapps yelping and barking and the Mainliner noisily rolling back into life, I saw what had happened. Things had gotten a helluva lot worse in five seconds flat.
Duffy was down on’ the floor near the door, holding his left arm and trying to keep himself from bleeding to death. He was swearing like a trooper. Marlene Kelly had backed off to the door, her hand groping for the knob, her eyes wild, Harry’s ugly gun clenched firmly in her well-manicured rich girl’s fingers.
“Don’t anybody try to stop me,” she whispered almost inaudibly. “I’ll kill anyone that does.”
I believed her. Harry believed her too. From his squatting position in his seat, his fat body was rigid with indignation and fear. Dean had forgotten all about the pain in his leg, and the beret on his round little head looked sillier than ever. I shifted my knee off Schnapps so I wouldn’t crush him. He wriggled like a slippery eel out of captivity, barked joyously and bounded over to his mistress sniffing and whimpering peacefully at her black pumps. He was well-trained all right. She had given him the word to jump me, and now that she was obviously in control, he was no longer interested in making a meal out of me.
Duffy swore loudly. “Damn–letting a woman get the drop on me …” He cursed again.
“So everybody’s wounded now,” I said loudly, looking right at M
arlene Kelly. “So what have you got, Miss Kelly?”
“Shut up,” she said, jiggling the door knob and getting the door half open. “I’ve got The Blue Green.”
“I already said that,” I reminded her. “But you’ll need wings to get off this train.”
She wasn’t listening. Her head cocked attentively as noises came down the hall. Like some other passengers coming. She closed the door again and held her breath. I could see she was charged with the excitement of the moment, because her neat round breasts were rising and falling in slow rhythm.
I kept on talking.
“Poor little rich girl. Only 32, beautiful, a genius in cosmetics. The Lipstick Queen. World-famous, has everything. Only the sad truth is she’s got nothing.”
“Talk your head off, Noon. Nobody’s listening.”
The gun was still trained on me and some of her attention was still on the noise in the corridor. We could hear footsteps padding down the hall.
“You’re listening, Miss Kelly. Girl who has everything from mink to Cadillac always wants more. The world was your oyster but you wouldn’t let it go at that. You wanted the Blue Green. Because you’re a beautiful woman and it was the most beautiful stone you’d ever seen. It was as easy as that.”
“Stop guessing,” she sneered. “And don’t get tricky. I’ve seen this movie before. And I’m walking out of here before you think of something brilliant.”
I pretended to be shocked. “Miss Kelly, don’t you want to hear how I figured it had to be you? Aren’t you even interested in knowing how I knew it was you who planted the blow job in the baggage car? Aren’t you even wondering how I knew what you did with the fifteen pieces of broken down Blue Green? Don’t you even care that I guessed that you and Opal Trace had known each other before? That Opal Trace once worked for you? Miss Kelly, I’m hurt. All my brilliant deductions and you don’t want to hear them …”
“So long, sucker,” she said and slid the door open. Her last smile was the look of the mistress that Satan might have. “Tell it to Fatso and the Professor there. Maybe you can entertain them.” With that she eased through the door and was gone, Schnapps disappearing with her. She slammed the door on her way out.
Harry bounced out of his seat, his fat fists balled, his tiny eyes blazing. He was beside himself and two fatter people never lived.
“The minx!” he roared. “Come, sir. We must stop her before it’s too late …”
“Hold your water, Harry,” I sighed, crouching down by Duffy and looking at his bleeding arm. “Where can she go on a train that’s moving sixty miles an hour? And I’m damn tired of getting shot at.” Duffy winced as my fingers probed at his arm. “How bad is it, Irish?”
Duffy grinned. “Just a crease. Superficial. But they sure make a blood bath, don’t they? Your wrist looks a helluva lot worse.”
I made a face. The remark brought the pain back.
“Never thought a dog would ever bite me. I was sure Schnapps and me were pals. I hope he hasn’t got rabies.”
Harry was trying to squeeze past us to get out the door after the redhead. “Idiots!” he thundered. “Why do you delay? She’s escaping …”
“Like hell, she is,” I sighed wearily. “Haven’t you figured this one out for yourself yet?”
Dean snickered in his corner. I could see he was philosophical about the whole thing. But Harry’s face was a picture of bewilderment. Fat bewilderment. His tongue stuck in his throat and his tiny eyes showed me their color for the first time. They were brown. Nut-brown.
“Mr. Noon, you confuse me. Possibly I am stupid but–why are you so calm in the face of the loss of a fortune?”
I grinned. He made me feel like grinning. But I was busy tying a handkerchief around my cracked wrist.
“Miss Kelly will be back, Harry.”
Now he sneered. “Indeed? Why may I ask?”
I knotted the handkerchief with my teeth before answering. Then I reached down under the seat across from Dean and picked something up from the floor. It was leather and the lights of the compartment picked up fifteen reflections at measured points around the body of the thing. I turned it over in my good hand before showing it to Harry, Dean and Duffy.
“She’ll be back as soon as she misses this. Her damn Blue Green. We can expect her any old second now.”
“Blue Green?” Harry’s roar was mighty. “Damn me, Sir. That’s a dog collar. Schnapps’ dog collar. Highly ornamental, but hardly the thing that we are looking for.”
Duffy and Dean stared, as I held it up in my fingers and rolled it around my hand.
“Sure,” I said. “Schnapps’ collar. Which I removed while he was making a meal out of me. But you’ll notice it has fifteen studs on it. They look like glass and imitation diamond chips. But they happen to be what’s left of the Blue Green. Painted over to look cheap and worthless.”
Harry took it out of my fingers and gawked at it. His face seemed to collapse. He looked old and tired.
“That wonderful bauble. Reduced to insignificant bits of nothing …”
Duffy coughed. “What’s so insignificant about it? Probably will bring a wad of dough broken up like that and sold separately?”
“Money is not everything,” Harry began proudly. “If that were all …” Suddenly, he stopped talking and his head cocked expectantly. Then we all heard what he heard. A stealthy rustle of silk in the corridor. A click of one high heel.
It sounded like Marlene Kelly was coming back.
She’d gotten the bad news in a hurry.
The Mainliner’s wheels hummed, sang and rumbled through the brisk daylight now. Bright green countryside flashed by the broken windows. And Opal Trace’s blanket-covered corpse jogged easily and weirdly on the sill, still half-in, still half-out of Drawing Room B.
With the stealthy sounds in the corridor, I couldn’t wait any longer. I handed Duffy my .45, stepped over to the sill and gently eased Opal’s body from its awful, almost disgraceful position. She was heavy. Very heavy in death. I wrapped the blanket around her more securely and propped her against the cushions. I tried not to look at the ugly, drying red splashes on the blanket but they were there all the same. Sitting across from me, Dean’s face turned slightly green in shade and he averted his head. His soft profile was still undefined like dough, but now it had puckered and lined a little. Even he had had some feeling about Opal Trace.
Then I faced the door and we all waited, poised and ready for something to happen at the door. Harry’s fat face was eager, Dean caught his breath, and Duffy still sitting on the floor was sniffing like a bird dog, my .45 like Gibraltar in his hard right hand.
The door opened suddenly, flying back on its hinging and Marlene Kelly stood framed in the doorway. Redheaded, beautiful, magnificent. And mad. Real mad. Her eyes were two furious bursts of rocketing anger. The torn skirt and the wide stance of her legs was like something out of all the female folklore in the world.
But the black gun in her hand was something out of the underworld. And for a split eternity of time, I would never have to see the statue known as the Violent Virgin. Harry’s Number One Nude could never have compared to Marlene Kelly standing in the doorway of Compartment B with a gun in her hand.
She was all the beautiful women since time began made angry and violent by men. Furious at being manhandled, maltreated and overwhelmed by the brute male. She was a living chunk of redheaded rapture with a cause to die for.
The cause happened to be an expensive diamond this time. But it had made her feel the same way. She was etched in the oils of hate in the doorway for one meteoric second, she wasn’t going to ask for anything in a nice way.
And she didn’t give anybody much choice about how to handle her.
She opened up from the doorway, her finger clamped down hard on the trigger of Harry’s gun. And hot lead ripped into the compartment.
Duffy had the best chance of all of us. He had my .45. He blasted away with it just once. He was nearest her, and off to one side–c
ut off from her full range of view.
The slug from my .45 hammered right into her midriff, flung her back through the open doorway and pinned her to the rocking wall of the corridor. She hung there for two seconds, staring dumbly down at the huge hole near her belt buckle on the nice, beige dress. Then she said, “Oh,” in a small, little girl’s voice and sat down slowly. Blood gushed down her waistfront and the gun in her hand thudded softly to the carpeted floor.
She died sitting down. Her red head dropped limply on her shoulders and her glazed eyes seemed to stare at the floor. But she wasn’t seeing anything anymore.
I got up from where I had scrunched down to get out of the way of her talking gun and walked slowly into the hall. Behind me, Harry gasped and wheezed into view again, trembling like a mountain of jello.
I stepped into the corridor and looked at Marlene Kelly once. Once was enough. When you talk things over with a .45, once is generally enough. Down the hall, I could hear Schnapps barking and scraping away at a door, wanting to be let out. Then he started howling.
Duffy cursed again behind me.
“I didn’t miss that time,” he said grimly. “Damn fine looking Irish girl like that too.”
Opal Trace was dead too. And she had been a damn fine looking girl. It was just one of those days when all damn fine looking girls were meant to die. I straggled back into the compartment and sat down heavily. I was sick now. Sick and tired. And hungry. And I hoped I never heard of The Blue Green and the Violent Virgin until the day I died myself.
And I was still hungry.
Duffy must have sensed my mood. He cleared his throat and scowled at me from his position on the floor.
“Three hour’s to Chicago. Will you help me clean up this mess before we get in? This is going to be the cockeyedest trip report I’ve ever turned in.”
“Yeah,” I told him. “I’ll help you clean up this mess.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The dining car of the Mainliner was something. Plush seats, clean linen, wonderful waiters and a lovely-to-ride-by green vista of grass and trees passing by. It was a beautiful day. The clouds were white sheep chasing gently after a glowing, late morning sun.
The Case of the Violent Virgin Page 12
