Herne the Hunter 22

by John J. McLaglen

  The room was lit by a lamp the shade of which had been painted red and a dull and dark glow shone over everything, leaving the corners lost in misty shadow.

  Most things in the room were white. A bear rug was spread across the centre of the floor and to one side of it there was a leather settee in white hide. Tables, chairs and sideboards were also white. On the opposite side of the room to the settee was a grand piano, but this was black, a glass vase standing before the raised lid and holding white lilies.

  There was an opium pipe set up on the small table alongside the empty fireplace.

  Cassie continued to play the piano.

  She was wearing a white bridal veil, held around her head by a twined circle of white and red flowers. White lace fingerless gloves rose to just below her elbows. Small white satin shoes on her feet.

  She was oblivious to Herne’s presence and other than the veil, the gloves and the shoes she was quite naked.

  Her fingers moved awkwardly across the keys and she stared down at them, as if concentrating, trying to remember.

  ‘Cassie.’

  Herne’s voice was hollow in the sweetness of the room, hollow and out of place.

  ‘Cassie!’

  She gave no sign of having heard him and Herne was certain that she hadn’t. He didn’t think she could hear anything other than the melody she was playing and maybe something that was going on deep inside her head.

  Even with the air that was entering the room from the freshly-opened window, Herne found that the opium was making his head swim. He knew that Cassie wasn’t about to go anywhere of her own accord. He went out of the room and began to search the house. The first room along the corridor was a bedroom, the large four-poster bed covered in black satin. A riding whip hung from the post to the right of the satin pillows.

  The scent in the room was more subtle, feminine.

  The only clothes in sight were male.

  He tried the next room and found the door locked. The bayonet soon gained him access. He struck a match against the butt of the Colt and lit a lamp that was standing on the table at the far side of the room.

  Bellour’s camera was set up in the centre of the room and immediately in front of it was a small bed covered in a white silk sheet. The sheet was crumpled and smeared with small stains. In a wardrobe in the corner hung a number of items of female clothing, including small girls’ dresses. On the floor between the wardrobe and the bed lay a thick leather belt and a silk handkerchief with lace at the edges. The silk was dark with something that might have been dried blood.

  The exhibits which hung on the walls were different from those which Bellour kept on display in his store.

  Girls wearing a few selected items of clothing; girls wearing nothing but a pouting smile and a look of assumed innocence; girls who cuddled teddy bears or licked large lollypops or oversize dummies; girls who cuddled whips to their small breasts with a gaze of aging innocence; girls who lifted or stretched or spread their legs for Bellour’s camera; girls who kissed the air in front of it, laughed at it, winked at it, pointed at it as if to say, ‘I know what you’re peeking at!’

  Not all of the girls were Cassie, but most of them looked like her. It was Cassie, though, who held pride of place. Cassie whose poses were the most daring, the most debauched, Herne guessed the most in demand from discerning collectors.

  He didn’t know how large a trade there was in such items there in San Francisco, but he guessed that it would be big, pretty big. He guessed that a great deal of money would change hands. He wondered how much, if any, found its way into Cassie’s hands.

  He was opening and closing drawers, leafing through piles and piles of pictures and looking for something which might provide him with more concrete information when he became aware that the piano playing had stopped.

  He straightened, hand to his gun uncertain if the sound had ceased that second or if he had only slowly become aware of the silence.

  Carefully, he went out into the corridor.

  There was a light down below.

  He followed it into what proved to be large sitting room with expensive and comfortable furniture and a selection of Bellour’s more respectable work on the walls.

  Cassie was still dressed as a bride—if dressed was an adequate word—and she was holding a lamp high in her right hand. She was staring down at the carpet between the tiled fireplace and the low, circular table.

  Herne, his stomach sickened already by what he had found upstairs, followed her gaze.

  The body of a man he presumed to be Ray Bellour was stretched out flat, legs spread wide, one arm reaching towards the fire, the other high over his head. For some time he had been bleeding onto what was without doubt a very fine and expensive Indian patterned carpet. Most of the blood had begun to dry and it clung to the pile in ridges like miniature waves. The wound from which the blood had flowed was sagging open at his neck, like some grotesque version of Evelyn’s red mouth.

  Herne knelt close.

  Whatever had been used had been thick and jagged, not a knife but the edge of a broken bottle or something similar. The head had been forced back and the skin slashed through several times until there was an ugly wound that spread almost from ear to ear.

  Herne’s stomach clenched tight and for a moment he thought the combination of the opium and the pictures and now this slaughtered body might make him vomit.

  He stood up and turned towards Cassie.

  She was looking at him intently, as if aware now for the first time that he was there. The hand holding the lamp was folding over and those teeth were beginning to slot into the constant impressions they had already made in her lower lip.

  He caught the lamp just in time and set it on the mantelpiece, where it flickered for a moment, threatened to gutter and go out, but finally held and cast strong shadows across the room.

  Cassie started to laugh, a high-pitched distant giggling that ran Herne’s nerves raw.

  He slapped her face once and the giggling subsided, slapped her again and it stopped and she was suddenly conscious of what was going on around her. She stared past Herne at the body on the carpet, clutched one hand to her mouth and vomited over one of the armchairs before she could turn further away.

  Herne watched her pathetic body as it folded across the chair, vomit trailing from her fingers and the corners of her open mouth.

  He found a cloth and helped her to wipe herself dry. She looked at him and shivered against him, but he pushed her away and told her to go and find her clothes. For a moment it didn’t seem as though she had understood him, but something in her expression suggested that perhaps she did, so Herne left her and went back to the room above.

  For ten minutes he found every picture of Cassie that he could, dumped them into a box and carried them back down.

  Cassie was half dressed, the absurd wedding veil still attached to her head. Angry, Herne snatched it away and ordered her to hurry. He tipped the pictures into the open hearth and set fire to them with matches, leaning over them as they caught and shriveled, their brown tints darkening and darkening as their sickening images gradually disappeared from sight. One after another they curled and twisted while the body of their maker lay a few feet away, eyes closed and throat open, seeing nothing.

  Cassie stood before him, dressed, shivering.

  She looked, for the first time, genuinely young—not a pretence or a game, a show that she’d found pleased others and into which she’d got trapped, but a frightened young girl who was gradually coming to realize what had taken place.

  Herne put his hand on her shoulder and moved her towards the door and the street.

  Lucas opened the door and as soon as he saw the apparent state Cassie was in, his lip curled back over his teeth and he bellowed out a roar of rage. His fist swung back and came for Herne’s head like a hammer. Herne swayed inside it just, the thumb catching his ear. He tried to throw a punch of his own, but the black had him against the door frame and was not giving him any
room. They struggled for several moments, each one trying to get a clear blow at the other without success.

  Finally, Lucas pulled back to aim a blow to Herne’s face and gave Herne the opportunity to drive his elbow hard into the black’s ribs. It didn’t shift him backwards, but at least it stopped him in his tracks. Herne quickly threw a left to his head and tried to bury his right fist in his solar plexus; Lucas responded by taking two steps back, bellowing louder than before and charging Herne with his head down.

  Herne tried to side step but the charge didn’t leave him much time. The bald skull struck the top of his shoulder and cannoned off, knocking Herne back into the doorway just as Veronica was walking through it. He grabbed at the sides of the frame to keep himself from falling over or colliding with her and while his arms were outstretched, Lucas charged again.

  Herne caught at Lucas’s neck as the head drove deep into his belly and the two of them went rolling back onto the drive and towards the shrubs.

  Herne managed to kick out his right leg and catch Lucas a glancing blow on the knee, halting him from rising for a few seconds. Time enough for Herne to swing a fist into the side of his jaw and follow up with another between the eyes.

  Lucas’s head went back and his eyes closed as if Herne had actually managed to hurt him.

  He wasn’t taking any chances.

  He stepped back, swung his right leg, and planted the underside of his boot alongside the black’s temple.

  Lucas went down poleaxed and didn’t show any immediate signs of getting up.

  From the safety of the doorway, Veronica Russell clapped her gloved hands together in mock applause. Then she turned away, stepped into the house and saw Cassie.

  ‘My God! What …?’

  ‘Never mind now. Is there someone who can put her to bed? Sit with her? I don’t want her going back out and I don’t want anyone to know she’s here. When Lucas comes round tell him not to let anyone into the house and to say that Cassie’s been here all along.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Never mind for now. Can you do what I said?’

  ‘Of course. But—’

  ‘All right. I’m going to wash up if you’ll show me where. After you’ve handled things we can talk.’

  Veronica wasn’t used to taking orders but she sensed that in this case it was the right thing to do. She pointed Herne in the direction he wanted and got on with what she had to do.

  She brought him a large glass of whiskey and a cup of strong coffee. Herne didn’t know what time it was but guessed it had to be very late. He hoped the major was sleeping and that he wouldn’t have to be told the half of what had happened—if Herne himself ever got to know that much.

  Veronica had found time to change into a straightforward blouse and a calf-length skirt and she looked about as ordinary as Herne supposed she ever got—which was not very.

  He drank half the whiskey, a couple of mouthfuls of coffee and told her what he knew.

  She stood listening, her face lengthening, eyes darkening at every sentence. When Herne had finished she took the glass from his hand and downed the rest of the whisky in a swallow.

  ‘You think Cassie killed him?’ she said, her voice controlled and matter-of-fact.

  Herne shrugged: ‘I think she could have. When you’ve been on that stuff you can do most anything and not know a damn thing about it.’

  ‘Half Chinatown spends its time in opium dens—they don’t seem to do too bad on it.’

  ‘Maybe they’re more used to it than Cassie.’

  ‘Sure. And maybe not. I knew she’d been running pretty wild, but

  ‘Didn’t you try and do something about it?’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ she gestured, beginning to pace the room. ‘I’d talk with her and get my words spat back in my face. Once in a while I’d even talk with dad but it only ate into his bones a little more. What was he supposed to do? Besides—she’s a grown girl now. But you’ve seen those pictures. You know that for yourself.’

  Herne turned his head away. He found it hard to understand that two girls could be so uncaring of one another when they shared the same blood—except that maybe that was at the root of it. The same wild blood. No wonder the old man was rotting in his bed or that damned wheel chair of his, decay seeping into him from every part of his body.

  ‘Did you know about them?’

  ‘Cassie’s artistic poses? No, but it doesn’t surprise me.’

  ‘Doesn’t it sicken you?’

  She looked at him, hesitating. ‘It upsets me, sure. It upsets me to think that someone like Bellour has been making a small fortune out of my sister’s body. But if anything sickens me it’s the minds of the men who need to buy that stuff. It’s them who’re sick, not Cassie. If she gets corrupted by it, it’s their corruption she’s contaminated by.’

  She spun away and seized a vase from one of the small rosewood tables and hurled it against the opposite wall. The thin glass shattered and splinters sprayed out into the room like sharp rain.

  ‘You’re all the same! Daniels. Bellour. You. Every man I ever met!’

  Herne shook his head. There were things he could say to try and prove that she was wrong but words wouldn’t make a dent in what her life had shown her. He finished his coffee and waited for her to calm down, the fine lines of her face slowly relaxing, her body becoming less tense.

  ‘I’m sorry. Maybe you didn’t deserve that. Not after what you did getting Cassie out of there.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  She came over and sat opposite him, her eyes were wide and dark and tired and he thought there were traces of vulnerability about her for the first time but even then he couldn’t be sure.

  ‘What can we do about Cassie?’

  Herne looked at her, looked at the floor, back at Veronica again. ‘In the long term, I don’t know. Maybe you can get her a doctor, straighten her out, send her away. I don’t know. But now, keep her in and out of sight. So far as I can see there’s no one who can link her with what happened to Bellour. If …’

  Her fingers grazed his forearm. ‘Are you saying you don’t care if she’s guilty?’

  ‘What’s guilty? What does that mean after what he’s done to her? For what it’s worth I don’t think she cut his throat, but I wouldn’t blame her if she did. I’ll poke around, ask a few questions. If I can find out who did do it, then she’s off the hook for good.’

  Her hand closed round his wrist. ‘Thanks, cowboy.’

  Herne stood up and she released her grip. ‘Don’t thank me yet.’

  At the door he turned. ‘Would Lucas have gone wild like that if that’d been you I’d brought back in that state?’

  ‘Lucas has always been ’specially fond of Cassie. Her and my father both. There’s something special about them as far as he’s concerned.’

  ‘An’ he’d do anything to protect them?’

  She looked at him sharply. ‘If he could, yes. Why d’you …?’

  But the door had closed on Herne’s back and Veronica’s question went unasked.

  Ten

  Herne asked for his steak well done and with a couple of eggs on the top, a side order of fried potatoes and some tomatoes. While he was waiting for it to arrive he drank black coffee from a tall, thick china mug and thought over what he knew.

  What he thought he knew.

  There was one man who might have good reason to want him dead and that was Cord Daniels, but the one who’d put a price on his head had been Ray Bellour. At the time Bellour hadn’t any reason for knowing him at all. Except that Cassie knew about him and had made her own guesses about what he was doing. And Cassie could have told Bellour. But Cassie, like everyone else, thought the major had hired him to find out what had happened just before Connors was dragged out of the bay with his throat cut.

  Which was precisely what had happened to Bellour himself.

  If Bellour had wanted to keep Herne from finding out about Connors it meant one of two things: either Connors had
found out about the racket in dirty pictures and Bellour didn’t want Herne coming down the same trail, or Bellour had been responsible for having Connors killed and wanted to head Herne off from tracking that one home.

  One of two things—or both.

  The second as a consequence of the first.

  He leaned back as the waitress set down a large oval plate, a second plate for his tomatoes and potatoes, a third holding two thick wedges of cornbread.

  ‘More coffee?’ She was freckle-faced, auburn haired, her arms were tanned and slightly fat; when she smiled a dimple appeared smack in the centre of her left cheek. Herne thought she looked just about the only natural woman he’d seen since he’d got to San Francisco.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, smiling back. ‘It’s good.’

  The smile didn’t last long.

  He’d remembered one other connection, one other way. When he’d suggested to Evelyn that Bellour could have been gambling at Daniels’ place, the idea had struck home hard. If there was a connection between the two men that was more than coincidental; if Daniels was in some way wrapped up in Bellour’s dirty racket; if he knew about Cassie …

  Herne leaned back and let the idea run through his mind a little more. He could see it all beginning to draw together … maybe … just maybe.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ He realized that the waitress was standing beside him, concern on her face.

  ‘No, why d’you ask?’

  ‘You’ve hardly touched your breakfast.’

  He glanced down at the steak and shook his head, gave a short laugh. ‘It’s fine. I was thinking, that’s all.’

  ‘You shouldn’t make a habit of it.’

  ‘Thinking? I don’t.’

  She grinned. ‘Enjoy your steak now.’

  He nodded, smiled, watched her as she walked away towards one of the other tables. Then he turned his attentions back to his meal, eating now with even greater appetite, excited by the fact that he could feel himself about to break through the maze at last.

  He listened to the newsboy’s shout of ‘Painter found dead in Bay!’ and bought a paper. According to the front page story the body of Raymond Bellour, noted society portrait painter and artist, had been discovered floating in the bay by fishermen returning at first light. His throat had been cut and his wallet was missing. San Francisco police were working on the assumption that the murder was yet another carried out by the gangs of wild youths which continued to terrorize sections of the city after dark.