by Roy Huggins
“All right,” he said, “Trist checked those out two days ago. What was the deal?”
“I never heard of Trist before yesterday morning. He phoned me at my office and asked me to be at his house that evening. When I got there, he had changed his mind.”
Green put a cigarette in his mouth then leaned over and offered one to me. Quint was chewing a cold cigar. We lit up and I went on, “It was just an accident that I was there when it happened. Trist had just handed me those three fifty-dollar bills when his son came up the walk. That seemed to confuse him, and he pulled me inside, introduced me as a Mr. Tate, and told Freddie I’d just dropped by for a drink.”
No one said anything.
“I never got the drink,” I added.
Green tapped his desk for a while with a pencil, then looked up and sighed, “All right, Bailey, that’s your story.” His manner said that he was through with me—I could go any time now. I Bet. I had seen them working before. He had just passed the ball to Quint.
Quint let the chair down quietly on all four of its legs. “A hundred and fifty bucks,” he mused, “just for coming out to hear that the guy had changed his mind.” He shook his head slowly, “You usually do better than that.” This had all been said in a leisurely, inconclusion manner. Then Green came in, and shot a question at me fast. “Why didn’t he call you and tell you not to come out?”
I grinned. “Maybe he did. I haven’t been in my office since yesterday noon. I don’t know why he overpaid me. He seemed kind of nervous.”
“Trist accumulated too much dough,” Green snapped, “to have had a nervous touch with money.”
Quint leaned back against the wall again and said, “Maybe he thought Bailey was cute . . . Don’t you think Bailey’s kind of cute, captain?” Green forced a smile. “Yeah. Cute as a bug—the kind that come out from under rocks.”
Quint growled, “Let’s have it. What, was the hundred fifty for?”
Green glanced at Quint and his brown eyes Looked a little irritated. He said, “Bailey, that can be checked, can’t it? Whether or not he called you at your office yesterday?”
“Probably. I’ve got a phone arrangement with the public steno across the nail where I used to have my office. If my phone rings five times and I don’t answer, it switches over to a phone in her office. Sometimes people call and hang up before the sixth ring.”
Green pushed a button, and a big aid man put his head in at the door. Burch, I want, you to listen in to this call. Come in as soon as we hang up.”
I dialed my number. It rang five times, and on the sixth a pleasant voice said, “Prospect four-seven-one-two.”
“This is Stu, Hazel. Any messages?”
“Yes, where’ve you been?”
“In jail.”
“Oh. Getting out in my lifetime?”
“I’m almost out now.”
“No messages.”
“Nice going, angel, but it’s okay for you to talk.”
“Okay. Lenhardt, of Caucasian Life, called you yesterday. He wants you to take over a case as soon as they get New York clearance. It’ll be four or five days.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nup.”
“Thanks. See you in the morning.” I hung up.
The big man came in. He didn’t look very bright. He repeated my conversation verbatim.
It seemed to make Green a little angry. “Damn you Shamuses!” he cried. “Don’t you know you can’t operate if we don’t want you to? Sure, the state gives you your license, but one word from me to Lenhardt and you don’t get any more work from Caucasian Life. Now let’s have it. What did Trist hire you for?”
I stood up. I was hungry, and I could still feel the crawling, obscene filth of the jail, and smell its sour odor of spewed wine. I said, “You didn’t find the knife on me, Green. So I don’t get this. I know you’re tough. I know you don’t like private eyes. I’m properly impressed—in fact, I’m scared to death. And I’ve told you what I know about Trist. So I’m leaving now or calling my attorney—which way do you want it?”
Green glared at me for a while, then he leaned back and exchanged a glance with Quint. When he looked back at me, he seemed to have made up his mind about something.
“Sit down,” he said, and leaned forward, pressing hard on the top of the desk with the flat of his hands. “We’re about to be fed to the wolves, Bailey. When this story breaks, we’ll be charged with corruption, collusion, idiocy and whatever else our friends can dream up.”
“You mean you’re sitting on the story?”
“Yeah, but not just sitting. We’ve seen working, all night last night, all lay today.” Green’s mouth was drawn right, and I knew something was coming that I wasn’t going to be prepared for.
“A man was killed,” Green breathed. “Six people in the room, room all shut up. In much less than a minute of darkness a man was stabbed in that room. And no one left it until the police came and took them away. But the police don’t find a weapon. Nothing on the six people, nothing in the room, or of the room, that could have been used to kill the man.”
The skin at the base of my skull suddenly tightened, and I put my hand up and rubbed the back of my neck. It didn’t help. Nothing—not Green’s quiet voice, nor the casual way he spoke—could dispel the quality of terror from the words.
“They prepared a hiding place in advance,” I said. “Maybe in the fireplace.”
Green shook his head.
Quint said, “We brought that gang downtown under glass, and we went over them with everything from a currycomb to a fluoroscope. I left two guards in the room overnight and stationed one outside. This morning we went out there with every gadget, electronic what not and gimmick known to man. We had ten experts with us. There’s nothing hidden in that room and no way for it to have got out of the room. We know that.”
“It’s an interesting story and I appreciate hearing about it, but why?”
“Because you were there,” Green said, “and because this is a cockeyed, screwball case where police know-how and organization are just thrown away.”
“Now I know,” I said, “how a straw feels when it’s being grasped at. I gather you think I might come up with some fey solution befitting a private detective—like his being stabbed with an icicle. The maid looked like she might grow them. Or maybe he was stabbed with something that was dropped into the water to dissolve.”
Quint snorted. “Those ideas aren’t too dumb, Shamus. We checked both of them. The weapon was withdrawn—wiped across Trist’s sleeve, in fact. And there wasn’t anything dissolved in the tea water. It was just water.”
“The main thing is that you were on the scene,” Green put in. “I’m going to assume for a few days that you’re leveling with us. Think over exactly what you saw. Talk to the others who were there, if you want. You can even use my name if you have to, but don’t expect me to back you up if they challenge it.” He stood up. “You could use a Little good will, brother. And we may have to make you our pigeon, anyway, if nothing else turns up.”
I stood up and grinned at him. “You ought to make up your mind whether you’re going to try to con me or scare me to death.” I went to the door and opened it. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to help. Murder is out of my line, and I don’t know anything as fleeting as good will from a city cop, unless it’s a snowflake.”
I stepped out and closed the door. The big bald man was sitting in the anteroom reading the sports page. I said, “They’re going to put a tail on me. Tell him I’ll be at El Lobo’s the rest of the afternoon getting drunk.”
“Sure,” the big man sneered, “I’ll do that little thing.”
THERE was a call I had to make first before I went to El Lobo’s. Out in Westwood. The widow was home. She answered the door herself. She was dressed in black, but it wasn’t sackcloth. She looked fine. She didn’t shudder or slam the door in my face, but she did seem a Little surprised.
She said, “Why, I—I thought the police were—�
�” She stopped talking and stood in the doorway a little irresolutely, not asking me to come in.
“Your husband asked me out the other night, Mrs. Trist. The police know that now. I’d like to talk with you . . . if you feel up to it.”
She frowned nicely, hesitated for a fleeting moment, and said, “Of course. Please come in.”
She took me into a little library with leather furniture and pickled-pine walls, a fire burning in the grate and a cozy feeling in the place that didn’t go with mourning clothes and talk of sudden death.
She sat me in a deep chair, got comfortable across From me, and before I could get my legs crossed had shot a question, “Why did Mr. Trist hire you, Mr. Bailey?”
I said, “I think you know, don’t you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, Mr. Bailey, But Mr. Trist’s affairs are my affairs now. I may decide to retain you if it seems indicated.”
“I wouldn’t be much good on a murder case.”
The wide eyes narrowed a little and she leaned forward in a cozy way and clasped her hands. “I believe the police are investigating that. And I don’t assume for a moment that my husband hired you as a bodyguard. You don’t seem quite the type.” She smiled, the smile of a widow with a short memory.
“Thanks.”
“You apparently don’t intend to tell me why Mr. Trist hired you.”
“I don’t know why, Mrs. Trist.” I took the three bills, that were beginning to lose that crisp new look, out of my wallet and held them out to her, “This was by way of a retainer. I’m afraid I didn’t earn it.”
She shook her head. “It’s your money, Mr. Bailey. You’ve been put to a good deal of inconvenience . . . and you never did make that plane to San Francisco, did you?” The eyes were a part of the smile now, starry and cold.
“I haven’t had a hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of inconvenience, Mrs. Trist.”
“Why don’t you know why my husband hired you?”
“He was killed before he got a chance to tell me. If I keep this money, I’d like to earn it. Maybe I could find out for you why he hired me.”
Her eyebrows rose, making neat, worried little furrows in the skin of her forehead. “Thank you, Mr. Bailey. I—I knew you’d want to help if you could. I thought for just a moment there that you were lying to me.”
“What’ll happened to the maid and the butler?”
“They asked for time off. They were both pretty upset.”
“Been with you for some time?”
“No, we have the usual turnover—every three months.”
I stood up. “Have the police taken the lock off the room?”
“Why, yes, hut they’ve asked that nothing be disturbed. I’m certainly not going to use the room until this is all straightened out.”
“Can I have a quick look at it?”
“I—I guess it would be all right.”
The room looked larger by daylight, and it showed the going-over the police had given it. I lit a cigarette and started round, with Mrs. Trist following silently behind me. I could understand her silence. There was a cold, quiet threat of terror in the place. I looked for light switches. I found three, and they were in places that, according to my recollection, would have made it almost impossible for either Freddie or Mrs. Trist to turn off the lights without being noticed. I didn’t find anything else, and I hadn’t really expected to. I stopped and dropped an ash into a round glass tray on the coffee table and said, “What was Crukston’s relation to the Trist family?”
“He was Gordon’s real-estate broker. Not in the usual sense. My husband invested a good deal of his money in business property; Mr. Crukston did the buying, but, instead of taking a commission, he took a share in the ownership and managed the property.” She smiled. “Gordon used to say he had Greg—Mr. Crukston, that is—on an incentive system.”
I turned to stub the cigarette out in the little glass tray. Something about the tray hit me. It was strictly a ten cent item in a million-dollar layout. I picked it up. It didn’t feel like glass. I said, “Does this go with the rest of the furniture, Mrs. Trist?”
“I wish you’d call me anything but ‘Mrs. Trist,’ Mr. Bailey. It makes me feel like on old woman.” She frowned at me and then smiled through it.
“All right, toots,” I grinned. “What do you know about this bit of crystal ware?”
She looked up and laughed. It was a nice little laugh, and the eyes were still starry, but no longer cold. She took the ash tray, looked at it briefly, and said, “Why, no-o, it doesn’t belong in here. Maybe it found its way up from the kitchen.” She put it back on the table.
I spent five more minutes and said, “I’m afraid there’s nothing for me in here.” She turned and started for the door, and I followed, but as I went by the coffee table I reached down and pocketed the ash tray. It didn’t mean a thing to me, but it was something that didn’t belong in the room. And I could use an extra ash tray anyway.
In the hall she gave me the dancing eyes again and asked me to stay for a drink. I thanked her and said no, and she looked worried and said, “Mr. Bailey, I think you can see that I might feel a little uneasy. I don’t know why Gordon was killed. I was close to him. Who knows what might happen next?”
“Yeah. I don’t think you ought to be alone here. But as you say, I’m not the bodyguard type.”
At the door she gave me the widow’s smile again, and I went away, wondering what it was for.
BY the time I got to Beverly Glen Boulevard it was pretty clear that the powder-blue convertible behind me intended to stay there for a while. Not even in Hollywood do the police use powder-blue convertibles. I swung right at Hamstead, cut into a clean little alley—they probably had another word for it in Westwood—drove a block, turned right again and finally came back onto Hamstead. The blue car was a block ahead, hesitating at an intersection, trying to make up its mind. It moved forward. I put on some speed for effect and let my brakes scream a bit as I pulled in close. The blue car came to an abrupt stop. I set my hand brake and went around to the right side of the blue car.
Freddie was at the wheel. He was sitting back, lighting a cigarette and getting a leer ready for me. I got in and sat down, and he gave me the leer along with some heavy white smoke. Freddie didn’t inhale his cigarettes. He just smoked for effect.
I said, “We seem to be going the same way.”
“Do we?” His voice was quiet, but there was an almost feverish glow along the ridge of his hollowed cheeks, and his eyes were bright.
“Relax,” I said. “My horoscope says I shouldn’t kill anyone today.”
He took another mouthful of smoke and tried to blow a ring. “You’re quite a kidder. How long does it take for murder to seem funny?”
“What’s on your mind?”
“You’re confused. You stopped me.”
“Don’t annoy me, Freddie. I’m tired and hungry, and I’m bigger than you are.”
“So?”
I took the ash tray out of my pocket and said, “Ever see this before?”
He dropped his eyes briefly and they came up again just as they had been, bright and a little scared. “No.”
“How do you know? I’d guess it would be hard to really be sure.” Freddie curled a lip and said, “I don’t mind your splitting infinitives, but your hairsplitting bores me. Let’s say I don’t remember seeing it before.”
“I’d like to go on letting you be worldly,” I growled, “but I need a short bath, a square meal and a long deep, but before I can have those things, I’ve got to find out if you were following me because you think I’m mixed up in your father’s death or because you’re mixed up in it.”
“That’s easy. I’ll tell you. Because you’re mixed up in it, and I intend to find out how.” It was getting dark now, but even in the gray light I could see the heightening color in his cheek, and the brightness in his eyes like a thick glaze.
I looked at him for a long time. Then I shook my head and said, “Brother, I just d
on’t think you’re that smart.” I got out and closed the door and drove away.
I went home and thought about things and looked at the ash tray and wondered if I shouldn’t take that trip to Santa Cruz I’d been promising myself. I went into the kitchen and mixed a drink. While I was there I took a knife and scratched the bottom of the tray. Not glass.
You don’t find clues very often in this business. You push around on the margin among the dirt and the despair and the occasional violence, and sometimes you get your job done and sometimes you don’t. But you seldom do it with clues. Now I had something that might be a clue, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I put it back in the coat pocket, had a bath, fixed a meal and went to bed.
That night I dreamed. I dreamed I had solved the case. Through a clever analysis, I discovered that Trist hid smoked himself to death.
IT was nine o’clock when I looked in on Hazel. She was bright and cheerful as usual, and so was the morning. I had the world in one pocket and the ash tray in the other. There were no messages, so I stepped across the hall and opened my office door. It wasn’t much of an office, long and narrow, with a single window, mustard-colored linoleum, a desk, a filing cabinet, and two Mexican posters on the walls. I had never had any trouble keeping it neat.
But it wasn’t neat now. It was untidy. Drawers pulled out and left that way, a few papers scattered on the floor. It wasn’t havoc, just the casual disorder of someone looking for something nervously and in a hurry. Nothing had been overlooked. The hand had been into every spot where something could be put away or hidden. That seemed to call for a deduction: The party hadn’t found what he was looking for.
I didn’t waste any time. But I had had breakfast downtown and had been gone for more than an hour and a half. The nervous Nimrod would have been to my apartment and gone by now. But ten minutes later I was at my door. I tried the knob. The door was unlocked. I opened it slowly. Here was the havoc, an aspect of sheer meaningless rage. That suggested a deduction: The party hadn’t found what he was looking for here, either.
I heard a sound from the kitchen, remote, unhurried. I had him trapped! Then another sound with more urgency in it, the hiss of a siphon sending its carbonated joy into a glass of ice cubes and whisky, I turned toward the open kitchen door.
