The Complete Cases of Stuart Bailey

by Roy Huggins

  Doctor Blair breathed into the phone for a while without saying anything. When he got with me again his voice had thawed a bit and he said, “I see. I’m very sorry, Mr. Roark. You understand that I had to call the police yesterday, under the circumstances.”

  “Sure. The name’s Bailey.”

  “I shouldn’t feel too sensitive if I were you, about the mistake you made. If she was in a coma of some kind it would be a very easy error for a layman to make. I’ll go see to Miss Halloran now.” he hung up.

  I spent a long Lime with Farr. We had a long way to go. We started with ten years at hard labor, and after an hour and a quarter we ended with a promise from me that I would make no statements to the press now or later and that I’d never Lake another job in Tucson.

  At the door I asked Farr if he had fired Huffschmidt. Farr got a puzzled look on his face and said, “No. But it’s a funny thing. He quit.”

  “What d’ya know?” I said.

  I walked to Blair’ll office. The nun was high, the streets hot with a dry bard heat that got inside me and brought my spirits up from where they’d been hiding under my arch supports. The girl was still at her desk holding the silver pencil. She grew a smile for me and I looked for it to wilt, but it didn’t. She said, “Go right on in. Doctor’s expecting you.”

  Blair was behind his desk looking grayer and more distant than he had the day before. I sat down in the deep leather chair. Blair looked at me for a while, then paid, “Understand, this is a tentative diagnosis, but there is little doubt that Miss Halloran will be all right.”

  That was fine. But it was a little hard to believe. I said, “Her name is Dreves. The Halloran is just something she took while she was running from her sister. . . But she had an epileptic attack the other night, didn’t she?”

  “In a sense, yes. But she doesn’t have genuine epilepsy. She was in an accident—as you probably know—and as a result she has what Jackson calls ‘symptomatic’ epilepsy. It acts quite like it. But in Miss Halloran’s case it can be cured by rather simple surgery. The depressive condition was of course a part of it.”

  I grinned. “I see you’ve had better luck with her this time.”

  “We had a very long talk. She’s resting now . . . This was her first attack. Was she under considerable tension or strain that night?”

  “An understatement, doctor. She ran into her sister.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, as if that explained it pretty fully. “A very unhealthy relationship.”

  “Yeah, there’s probably close to half a million involved. It became Dorothy’s after the accident. I’ve got an idea the relationship was pretty deliberately unhealthy since then. The sister and her husband left here with some kind of legal codfish, but they’d have had to keep Dorothy with them to make it count.”

  “Miss Halloran mustn’t be concerned about things like that till we have her well, Mr. Roark. I may have to send her to Chicago.”

  I stood up. “All right. There’ll be an attorney here tomorrow from Los Angeles. He’ll know most of it, but he’ll have to be authorized to act. Will you see to it?”

  “I’ll take care of it, Mr. Roark.”

  “Bailey,” I said.

  SEVEN weeks later I was sitting in the bar of the Skyroom at the Lockheed Airterminal. I had a date. She slipped up onto the stool beside me and dropped her mink over the seat and said, “Do you have a match?”

  I had been wondering if the smile would be quite so beautiful without the off-key quality.

  It wasn’t. But I thought I’d like it better this way.

  THE END.

  NOW YOU SEE IT

  This was murder as surely as this was Hollywood. But it was murder with a curious and baffling difference, for the weapon seemed to have died with the victim.

  IT was one of those pink stucco mansions in Westwood with a lot of metal grill work and a silent button. You push the button and wonder if somebody’s kidding you. I was leaning on it with my thumb when the door was opened by a little man wearing a crisp white coat and an expression of restrained contempt, both being essential items in the make-up of a Hollywood butler.

  “Mr. Trist’s expecting me,” I said. “Bailey.”

  He looked at me for a while as if he were measuring me for the service entrance, said, “Wait here,” and shut the door in my face.

  The sun was down behind the Brentwood hills, but I could still see them in the twilight, rolling and spilling over one another in lithe grace to the Pacific. A tentative breeze was coming up from the south with a taste of salt in it. It was cold, and it seemed a long time before the door opened again and a tall man stepped out onto the porte-cochère with me. He looked like the Man of Distinction in the whisky ads, gray hair thick at the temples, and a suit of evening clothes that he probably charged off to capital investment.

  “I’m Gordon Trist,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, but I won’t need you. It was a mistake.”

  “It’s nice you discovered the mistake in time.”

  I said. “The man who asked me out here told me to carry a gun.”

  The tall man looked puzzled. “What’s that? I didn’t tell you to bring a gun!”

  “That’s right, you didn’t. But on the phone this morning you didn’t sound like a man who would change his mind tonight. I wanted to be sure I was talking to the same man.”

  “Oh.” He smiled, and his teeth gleamed in the gray light. They looked like very expensive teeth. “I won’t fail to call you, Mr. Bailey, if I ever do have need of a detective.” He took a thin wallet out of his breast pocket, took out three bills, folded them twice, and said, “This will cover your trip out here.”

  I took the bills and started to unfold them, but I didn’t finish. Trist suddenly gripped my arm, whispered, “Inside, quick,” and opened the door. We stepped inside and I heard someone on the walk. A tall slender man stepped onto the porte-cochere and came on into the hall.

  Gordon Trist turned and said, “Well, Freddie, what brings you home tonight?” He sounded nervous.

  Freddie grinned self-consciously and said, “Filial devotion, pop—sheer filial devotion.” His pale eyes took me in casually and he reached up and put a stray lock of straight blond hair in place. He had dainty ears that clung to his head as if they were trying to hide there.

  Trist shot me a tight stare and said, “Mr. Tate, this is my son, Freddie Trist.” And to Freddie, “Mr. Tate just came by for a drink.”

  “An inspired idea, Mr. Tate,” Freddie said. “I’ll join you.”

  That was that. I dropped the three bills into a side pocket and we went on down the hall. At the end there were high draped French doors. Freddie opened them and we went down two steps into a living room. There were two people in the room, a man in his thirties and a woman. The woman was young, with large dark eyes, a cold camfellia face, and a who-the-hell-are-you expression.

  Trist said, “Darling, this is Mr. Tate, an old friend of Geoffrey’s, in San Francisco. He’s on his way to the airport and dropped by to say hello.” He put his hand on my arm and said, “My wife.”

  She gave me a speculative look and said, “I’m so happy you dropped by. And how is dear Geoffrey?”

  “I haven’t seen nearly enough of him lately.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  Trist broke in rather abruptly, “And Mr. Crukston, Mr. Tate.”

  Crukston was compact and darkly handsome, with a smooth, tanned skin and the general appearance of a man who earns his living playing gin rummy at the Racquet Club. His hand was moist. Or maybe mine was.

  He smiled and said, “Geoffrey? I didn’t know the Trists had any friends that I didn’t know.”

  Mrs. Trist laughed lightly and said, “It’s Jeff, silly—Gordon’s brother.”

  “Oh,” said Crukston, and the smile widened and he gave me a look that didn’t mean anything at all.

  Freddie said nothing at all to either of them. He walked around to a wide chesterfield that fronted the fireplace, sat down and l
it a cigarette. Deep chairs upholstered in bright patterns were on either side of the chesterfield, with a great palette-shaped coffee table in the center. But it wasn’t a cozy room. A huge dark Regency fireplace dominated it like an aged and functionless matriarch.

  We were having the kind of conversation that makes drinking an essential part of life in a drawing room, and during the pauses I wondered what had made Trist so nervous that he hadn’t been able to explain me to his son without dragging me in for a drink. I didn’t like it. I wasn’t sure I believed it.

  Freddie stubbed out his cigarette and said, “Are you in charge of the drinks, mother?” He put a drawling emphasis on the last word and leered up at Mrs. Trist.

  Mrs. Trist pretended not to hear him. She raised a lovely round arm with a sliver of a watch on it and announced, “Sara’s late, as usual. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m thirsty.”

  “So am I, sweet.” The voice came from behind us. It was a warm husky voice, and it belonged to a tall willowy blonde with warm olive skin and dark eyes. She was making a nice entrance without being any more obtrusive about it than she could help. “Bourbon and soda will be fine,” she added.

  She said hello all around, kissed Gordon Trist ever so lightly on the cheek, and then brought her eyes to rest on me. Her mouth was open slightly, but there was nothing unbecoming about that, and she knew it. She looked under thirty, but not far enough under to be smug about it.

  Mrs. Trist said, “Oh, Sara, dear, have you met Mr. Tate?”

  Sara let the corners of her mouth turn up slightly. It was a nice full mouth. She drawled, “No-o, I haven’t. But I’m willing.”

  “I’ll try to keep it from being a strain,” I said. “I’m sure you will, and I’m sure it won’t be.” The corners turned up a bit more. The dark eyes looked as if they were ready for a little clean fun.

  Mrs. Trist smiled stiffly and said, “I hate to miss any of this scintillating conversation, but I think I should see about the drinks. Bourbon all around?” No one contradicted her. At the door she turned and said, “Her last name is Franzen, Mr. Tate. It’s in the book.”

  Freddie looked up at Sara Franzen and said, “I saw someone today who reminded me of you, Sally. A filly in the third race. I had forty dollars on her nose. She came in second.”

  There was a moment of silence. I saw Trist frown. Then Sara Franzen smiled warmly, almost affectionately. She looked at me and said, “Freddie insists I once had designs on his father—for his money, of course.”

  Trist chuckled and said, “Naturally.”

  “According to Freddie’s theory,” she went on, “I lost by a hair to Mildred.” I gathered that Mildred was the present Mrs. Trist.

  The doors from the hall pushed open and a maid came in. She had a long face and chilly gray eyes. She wasn’t carrying the bourbon. She had a tray in her hand with several cups, a glass bowl filled with individual tea bags, and a huge silver teapot perch on a copper samovar. There was a hot blue flame burning under it and sending a gay jet of steam from the culver spout. She put the tray on the coffee table and asked me if I took tea by any chance. She seemed sad when I told her I didn’t. We were all waiting for the drinks now with a frank and dry impatience, all except Trist, who was apparently a tea drinker. Crukston was looking at books, Sara Franzen was opening the console, and Freddie was straightening his tie in the mirror over the fireplace. I looked at Trist. He was holding a cup of tea while the maid poured cream into it. His face was tired.

  The doors opened again and Mrs. Trist came in, carrying a tray. “I knew you’d all appreciate it if I brought them,” she smiled, “instead of Henry.”

  I noted the tall frost-touched glasses and looked back at Trial. He was staring out into the room at nothing at all, and there was a gentle, resigned despair in his eyes.

  And then suddenly Trial’s face wasn’t there any more. The lights in the room went off. There was a shattering crash of glass, Trist’s voice Baying, “Who is it?” and then a grim, malignant silence. I started toward Trist and collided with the sharp edge of the coffee table. I could see that the lights were still on in the hall. They shone behind the heavy drapes of the French doors, but neither they nor the blue flame of the samovar shed light in the dark room.

  The lights were on again before I reached Trist. Freddie was standing with his hand on one of the wall switches. Mrs. Trist was glaring at the shattered remnants of the highballs.

  She looked up and said, “Freddie, was that one of your bright——”

  She was interrupted by a thin drawn scream that broke off almost before it started. It was Sara Franzen pointing a trembling finger at Trist, I had already seen it. He was slumped over, the hot tea spilled across his legs. But I didn’t think he was feeling it. I stepped closer to him and held my fingers to his throat.

  The lights had been off no more than half a minute. But a man can run an eighth of a mile in half a minute or a man can be killed. And Trist had been killed. He had been stabbed where the heart is. And the wound was empty and bleeding.

  “It was one of you.” Freddie said it with a trembling tension in his voice, his pale eyes jumping from one to another of us in meaningless appraisal. No one made any effort to contradict him. The only sound in the room came from Mrs. Trist, a dry, edged sobbing that was taking on the fixed rhythm of hysteria. The maid took a couple of tentative steps toward the French doors, and I told her the police might misunderstand it if she left the room. Then I culled Central Homicide and sat down to let the bitter tension grow.

  Freddie’s eyes followed me hack to my chair, and he stood staring at me with a fixed, neurotic penetration. Sara Frauen paced quietly in the center of the room, and Crukston sat and studied the corpse in the barrel chair with a speculative horror. After a while, Mrs. Trist stopped sobbing and poured herself a cup of tea with trembling hands. I looked at the money Trist had given me. Three crisp new fifty-dollar bills. They had bought him one hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of nothing.

  THE man in charge worked directly from Central Homicide. He was Lieutenant Quint, known affectionately to all those who worked with him as Lieutenant Quint. He was a brickfaced, freckle-eyed man with a sense of humor like an elder statesman and a passionate aversion for private eyes. He and his crew arrived about twenty minutes after I called. No one had left the room. The butler let them in, looking more curious than indignant. Quint looked at the body briefly, put a man at the French doors, gave some instructions and turned to us.

  His eyes rested on me for a moment, and then passed on as if he had never seen me before. He said, a bit unctuously, “Can you tell me, in just a few words, what happened?”

  Freddie answered. The words weren’t few and they were a little impassioned, but he told the story with a high degree of accuracy, mentioning that the French doors had remained closed.

  Quint nodded, looked thoughtful for a moment and said, “Who has the weapon?”

  Twelve innocent eyes stared up at him, and the rest was silence.

  Quint called to one of the men, “Parker, found the shiv yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “Better check the windows.”

  “I did. Dust all over ‘em. They haven’t been opened for weeks.”

  Quint looked back at us. “Well, never mind,” he whispered. “We’ll find it.” He looked at Mrs. Trist and said, “You’re the wife of the deceased?”

  She nodded.

  Quint poked a short fat thumb at me and said, “What’s this man doing here, Mrs. Trist?”

  Mrs. Trist looked puzzled and said, “Why, he just dropped by. He’s from San Francisco, a friend of my brother-in-law.”

  “Your husband knew him, then?”

  “Why——”

  “He’s a private detective, Mrs. Trist. Name of Stuart Bailey, Did you bring him out, or your husband?”

  Mrs. Trist turned and looked at me as if she were seeing me for the first time. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She coughed dryly and tried it again. “My h
usband didn’t know him. I’m sure of it! This man said his name was Tate!”

  “Mr. Trist never spoke to you about hiring a private detective?”

  “Never!”

  I said, “That’s going to look kind of bad for you, Mrs. Trist. Your husband didn’t take you into his confidence.”

  Mrs. Trist looked a little startled, and Quint said, “Shut up, you! . . . Parker, take this man downtown. Maybe we’ll book him for murder after we let him sweat awhile.”

  I stood up and held out the three crisp bills. “Check on these when you get around to it,” I said. “You’ll find that. Trial, drew thorn out of his bank—probably this morning.”

  Quint sucked his teeth and looked at the bills. Ho didn’t lake them. He let me stand there holding them out to him. “How do I know,” he drawled, “that you didn’t take them off the guy after you killed him?”

  “You don’t,” I said, “I also removed the diamonds from his lodge pin and pried the gold out of his teeth.”

  Quint took the bills. “What’d he hire you for?”

  “You want me to tell you that . . . right here?”

  Quint’s earn reddened almost imperceptibly and he turned and bellowed, “What are you waiting for, Parker? Put this guy on ice!”

  PARKER put me on ice. They went over me as if they thought I might be a pearl-bearing oyster, and threw me into a tank. After twenty-four hours I would begin to have rights again, just as if they knew about the Constitution. To keep the record straight, I mentioned that I’d like to call my lawyer. That gave them such a good laugh they let me keep my cigarettes.

  At three o’clock the next afternoon they took me over to the City Hall and into Jed Green’s office. Green was behind his desk, and Quint was leaning against the wall in a chair that wasn’t built for it. Green was in charge of the Homicide Bureau, a mild-mannered, brown-eyed man in his early forties. His face was pale and he looked worried. He handed me my three fifties and asked me to take a seat.