'Oh, shut up, you two,' I said, scowling at them. 'You're giving me the shakes. Now, let's get this straight, Jack. The house will probably be watched, so you've got to keep out of sight. I'll let you know where we're going on my way out. Give us a good five minutes to get clear of the house, then follow on after us. Make certain no one sees you. We can't afford to slip up on this. Whatever you do, don't show yourself unless trouble starts, and then come out shooting.'
Kerman gulped.
'What was that last bit again?'
'I said come out shooting.'
'I thought that's what you said. Come to think of it, it mightn't be a bad idea if I made a will myself.'
'And for the love of Pete, try to shoot straight,' I went on, looked at my wrist watch, stood up and shoved the .38 into the shoulder holster under my coat. 'We'd better get off. If you don't hear from either of us, Paula, by midnight, get on to Mifflin and tell him the tale.
'She'll hear from me,' Kerman said, looking worried. 'Well, damn it, I hope she will!'
'Be careful, Vic,' Paula said anxiously.
I patted her shoulder.
'I can't make you out. You worry over a little job like kidnapping, but think nothing of sending me into a room full of dope fiends. Be your age, Paula. Think of the money we're going to make.'
'Well, don't do anything silly,' she said, trying to smile, 'and for heaven's sake don't show off before that rich blonde.'
'You're making me nervous,' I said. 'Come on, Jack. Let's get out of here.'
Together we went along the corridor to the elevator. 'Think we have time for a drink?' Kerman asked hopefully as we reached ground level.
'No; but there's a pint in the car. And, Jack, don't make any mistakes. This might turn out to be a nasty job.'
Kerman gave an exaggerated shudder. 'It's already nasty enough for me.'
He climbed into the back of the Buick and squatted down on the floor. I chucked a rug over him.
'I'm going to love every minute of this,' he said, poking his head out from the folds of the rug. 'How long do you reckon I'll be under this lot?'
'Oh, about three or four hours: not more.'
'With the temperature in the eighties, that should give me some idea what the Black Hole of Calcutta was like.'
'It'll get cooler in the evening,' I said heartlessly and started the car. 'You have a whole bottle of Scotch to help pass the time, only don't smoke.'
'Not smoke?' His voice shot up in a yelp of dismay.
'Listen; stop kidding yourself. If these guys find out you're in the back of the car, they'll steal up and slit your gizzard.'
That quietened him.
I drove up the two miles of private road a lot more sedately than the first time I came this way. I took the bend in the drive nice and slow, and pulled up within a yard of the balustrade surrounding the courtyard.
In the warm light of the evening sun, the house looked about as attractive as any house would look after a million dollars had been spent on it. The big black Cadillac stood before the front entrance. In the middle distance two Chinese gardeners were picking the dead roses off an umbrella standard. They worked as if the rose tree was their main source of income for the next nine months: probably it was. The big swimming pool glittered in the sun, but no one swam in it. Across the expanse of velvety lawn in the lower garden, below the terraces, six scarlet flamingoes stood looking towards me, stiff-legged and crotchety, as unreal as the blue sky of an Italian postcard. There was everything to be had this day at Ocean End except happiness.
I looked towards the house. The grass-green shutters covered the windows; a cream-andgreen striped awning flapped above the front door.
'Well, so long,' I said in a low voice to Kerman. 'I'm going in now.'
'Have a lovely time. Kerman's voice was bitter from under the rug. 'Don't stint yourself. Have plenty of ice with your drinks.'
I walked along the terrace and screwed my thumb into the bell push. I could see through the glass panels of the door into a big hall and a dim, cool passage that led to the back of the house.
A tall, thin old man came down the passage and opened the front door. He looked me over in a kindly way. I had an idea he was pricing my suit and wishing he could buy me something a little better that wouldn't disgrace the house. But I was probably wrong. He may not even have been thinking about me.
'Mrs. Dedrick is expecting me.'
'The name, sir?'
'Malloy.'
He still stood squarely in the doorway.
'Have you a card, please?'
"Well, yes, and I have a birthmark too. Remind me to show it to you one of these days.'
He tittered politely like an aged uncle out to have fun with his sister's young hopeful.
'So many gentlemen of the Press have tried to see Mrs. Dedrick. We have to take precautions, sir.'
I had an idea I would be standing there till next summer if I didn't show him my card, so I got out my bill-fold and showed him my card: the non-business one.
He stood aside.
'Would you wait in the lounge, sir?'
I went into the room where Souki had been shot. The Mexican rug had been cleaned. There were no bodies lying about this evening to welcome me; no untouched whisky and soda, no cigarette stub to spoil the repaired surface of the table.
'If you could sneak me a double Scotch with a lot of ice in it, I'd appreciate it.'
'Certainly, sir.'
He drifted across the room to the sideboard on which stood a bottle of Haig and Haig, glasses, a bucket of ice and White-rock.
I listened attentively as he moved, but I couldn't hear his bones creak. I was surprised. He looked old enough for them to squeak. But, old as he was, he was no slouch when it came to mixing a drink. He handed me one strong enough to tip over a pony and trap.
'If you would care to look at some periodicals while you wait, sir, I will get some for you.'
I lowered myself into an easy chair that accepted me as if it was doing me a favour, stretched out my legs and balanced my drink carefully on the arm of the chair.
'You think there'll be a long wait?' I asked.
'I have no experience in these matters, sir, but it would seem likely they won't communicate with us until it is dark.' He stood before me, not unlike one of the flamingoes I had seen in the lower garden, and every inch of him dedicated to a life of service. Probably he would never see seventy again, but the blue eyes were still alert and clear, and what he lacked in speed he made up in experienced efficiency: a family retainer straight out of Hollywood, almost too genuine to be true.
'Yeah, I guess you're right. Looks like a good three-hour wait: probably more.' I dug out a package of cigarettes. He had a match flame ready before I got the cigarette into my mouth. 'I didn't get your name.'
The grizzled eyebrows lifted.
'Wadlock, sir.'
'Do you work for Mrs. Dedrick or Mr. Marshland?'
'Oh, Mr. Marshland, sir. I have been lent to Mrs. Dedrick for the time being, and I am very happy to be of service to her.'
'Have you been with the family long?'
He smiled benignly.
'Fifty years, sir. I was with Mr. Marshland senior for twenty years, and I have been with Mr. Marshland junior for thirty years.'
That seemed to put us on a friendly footing, so I asked, 'You met Mr. Dedrick when he was in New York?'
The benign expression went away like a fist when you open your fingers.
'Oh, yes, sir. He stayed a few days with Mr. Marshland.'
'I haven't seen him. I've spoken to him on the 'phone, and I've heard a lot about him, but there appears to be no photograph of him. What does he look like?'
I had an idea there was disapproval in the blue eyes now, but I wasn't sure.
'He is a well-built gentleman; dark, tall, athletic, with very good features. I don't think I can describe him any better than that, sir.'
'Did you like him?'
The bent old back stiffened.
'Did you say you would like some periodicals, sir? You may find the wait a little tedious.'
I had my answer. Obviously for some reason or other this old man had as much use for Dedrick as I had for a punch on the jaw.
'That's all right. It makes a change to sit and do nothing.'
'Very good, sir.' He wasn't friendly any more. 'I will let you know when there is any news.'
He went away on his spindly old legs as dignified as an archbishop conferring a favour, and left me alone in a room full of bad memories. About a yard from my left foot Souki's head had bled on the rug. Over by the fireplace stood the telephone into which Dedrick had breathed hurriedly and unevenly while he talked to me. I turned to stare at the casement window through which the kidnappers had probably come, gun in hand.
A short, dapper figure in a white tropical suit and a panama hat stood in the doorway, watching me. I hadn't heard him arrive. I wasn't expecting him. With my mind full of murder and thugs, he gave me a start that nearly took me to the ceiling.
'I didn't mean to startle you,' he said in a mild, rather absent-minded way. 'I didn't know you were in here.'
While he was speaking he came into the room and put his Panama hat on the table. I guessed he would be Franklin Marshland, and looked to see if Serena took after him. She didn't. He had a small, beaky nose, a heavy chin, dreamy, forgetful woman eyes and a full, rather feminine mouth. His wrinkled face was sun-tanned, and the thick fringe of glossy white hair, above which was a bald, sun-tanned patch, made him look like a clean-shaven and amiable Santa Claus.
I began to climb out of my chair, but he waved me to stay where I was.
'Don't move. I'll join you in a whisky.' He consulted a narrow, gold wrist-watch, worn on the inside of his wrist. 'Quarter past six. I don't believe in drinking spirits before six, do you?'
I said it was a good rule, but rules should be broken now and then if one was to preserve one's sense of freedom.
He paid no attention to what I was saying. There was look of aloof disinterest on his face that hinted he seldom ever listened to anything anyone said to him.
'You're the chap who's going to pay them the ransom money,' he went on, stating a fact and not asking a question.
I said I was as he carried a fair-size snifter to an arm-chair opposite mine. He sat down and stared at me over the rim of the glass the way you would stare at some curious animal at the Zoo.
'She tells me she's going with you.'
'So she says.'
'I wish she wouldn't, but nothing I say makes any difference. He sipped the whisky, stared down at his white buckskin shoe. He had the smallest male feet I have ever seen. 'I never have been able to influence her one way or the other. A pity, really. Of course, old people are bores, but sometimes they are able to help the young if the young would only let them.'
I had the idea he was talking rather to himself than to me so I didn't say anything.
He brooded off into a silence that lasted some time. I helped myself to another of my cigarettes, kept an intelligent expression on my face just in case he might think it worth while to speak to me and resisted the temptation to fidget.
In the middle distance I noticed the two Chinese gardeners had decided to call it a day. They had been staring at the umbrella standard for some time without touching it; now, having learned it by heart, they moved off to enjoy a well-earned rest.
'Do you carry a gun?' Marshland asked suddenly.
'Yes; but I don't expect to use it.'
'I hope not. You'll see she takes as little risk as possible, won't you?'
'Of course.'
He drank half the whisky. It didn't do much to cheer him up.
'These fellows have pretty big ideas. Five hundred thousand is an enormous sum of money.'
He seemed to expect me to say something so I said, 'That's why they snatched him. The risk is enormous too.'
'I suppose it is. Do you think they'll keep their side of the bargain?'
'I don't know. As I explained to Mrs. Dedrick, if he hasn't seen them...'
'Yes; she told me. You're probably right I've been reading about some of the famous kidnapping cases of the past years. It would seem the higher the ransom the less likely is the chance of the victim surviving.'
I was suddenly aware that he wasn't mild or absentminded any more, and that he was staring at me with an intent, rather odd expression in his eyes.
'It depends on the kidnappers,' I said, meeting his eyes.
'I have a feeling we shan't see him again.' He got slowly to his feet, frowned round the room as if he had lost something. 'Of course, I haven't said anything to her about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't already killed him.' The white eyebrows lifted. 'What do you think?'
'It's possible.'
'More than possible, perhaps?'
'I'm afraid so.'
He nodded. The pleased, satisfied expression in his eyes jarred me to the heels.
He went out of the room, very spry and dapper, and humming a tune under his breath.
IV
It wasn't until the hands of my watch had crawled round to eleven that the telephone bell rang. The five-hour wait had been interminable, and I was so het-up I very nearly answered the telephone myself, but someone in some other part of the house beat me to it.
I had been pacing up and down, sitting on the settee, staring tout of the window and chainsmoking during those five long hours. I had seen Wadlock for a few minutes when he had brought me dinner on a wheel wagon, but he hadn't had anything to say and left me to serve myself.
I had been out just after eight o'clock to have a word with Kerman and to drop him a cold breast of chicken through the car window. I didn't stay more than a minute or so. I was scared anyone who might be watching the house would hear his flow of bad language.
Now at last something was going to happen. Although Dedrick meant nothing to me, I was nervy after the long wait. I could imagine what Serena must be feeling like. She was probably fit to walk up a wall.
A few minutes later I heard movements outside and I walked into the hall.
Serena, in black slacks and a short, dark fur coat, came hurrying down the stairs, followed by Wadlock, who was carrying three oilskin-wrapped packages.
She looked white and ill; there was a pinched, drawn look about her that told more clearly than words how she had suffered during those long hours of waiting.
'Monte Verde Mining Camp. Do you know it?' she said in a low, unsteady voice.
'Yes. It's on San Diego Highway. It'll take us about twenty minutes to get there if the traffic is light.'
Franklin Marshland appeared silently.
'Where is it?' he asked.
'Monte Verde Mining Camp. It's an old worked-out silver mine on San Diego Highway,' I told him. 'It's a good spot for them.' I looked at Serena's white face. Her lips were trembling 'Any news of your husband, Mrs. Dedrick?'
'He - he is to be set free three hours after the money has be delivered. They will telephone us here where we will find him.
Marshland and I exchanged glances.
Serena caught hold of my arm.
'Do you think they're lying? If we let them have the money, we'll have no hold on them at all.'
'You haven't a hold on them, anyway, Mrs. Dedrick. That's what makes kidnapping such a filthy business. You're entirely in their hands, and you just have to trust them.'
Wouldn't it be better, my dear, if you let Mr. Malloy delivers the money, and you wait here for the second message?' Marshland asked.
'No!'
She didn't look at him.
'Serena, do be sensible. There's always a chance they might be tempted to kidnap you. I'm sure Mr. Malloy is quite capable...'
She turned on him, distraught with misery and hysteria.
'I'm going with him, and nothing you say will stop me!' she cried wildly. 'Oh, you needn't pretend any more. I know you don't want Lee to come out of this alive! I know you hate him! I know you've b
een gloating with joy that this has happened to him! But I'm bringing him back! Do you hear? I'm bringing him back!'
'You're being absurd...' Marshland said, a faint flush coming to his face. His eyes looked hard and bitter.
She turned away from him to me.
'Are you coming with me?'
'Whenever you're ready, Mrs. Dedrick.'
'Then bring the money and come!'
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