The Kissed Corpse

by Brett Halliday

  I could see only the upper half of her when she got stripped down to damp flesh, but she had smooth shoulders and her breasts were pink and firm.

  She disregarded me utterly while she rubbed down with a hand towel. Then her breasts went into a lacy brassiere—which they filled competently; a silk slip went over her head; and lastly a white dinner gown of some shimmery stuff slithered down her figure.

  I’m a bachelor and it was the first time I’d ever sat in on the intimate secrets of a lady’s boudoir. I’d forgotten all about murder and Michaela O’Toole when she brought out a comb and smoothed down her brown bob, took a compact from her purse and began doing over her face.

  She used a generous amount of lipstick … and I thought about the murdered Leslie Young. Every woman uses more or less, I suppose, but my passenger was one of those who uses more.

  Lipstick on his mouth … smeared on his cheek, A woman’s voice warning him over the phone not to go to the hacienda.…

  The dome-light blinked out and she was spreading the robe from the back over the wet cushion beside me. Then she slid over as calmly as though we had been married ten years and were driving a few blocks to attend a session of the local bridge club.

  An evening wrap of coral satin was drawn snugly about her shoulders, and she had a demure smile for me when I looked her over.

  “I hope you won’t be ashamed to present me as your wife … that is … if none of those present have met your wife.”

  I was so taken by surprise that I blurted out: “I haven’t any wife.” I realized it was a slip as soon as it was said. I was posing as Leslie Young, and Young had been married two years.

  She said, “Well …” doubtfully, and I broke in:

  “None of them know I’m a bachelor, though. We can tell them you’re my wife … if you particularly wish to be introduced that way.”

  “I thought it might be best. In a situation like this, they’re not going to trust just anybody.”

  I had told Jerry Burke I was good at keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut. I tried to make good on my boast. Not having the slightest idea what “situation” she was talking about, I changed the subject:

  “What shall I call you?”

  She laughed and leaned closer to me. “You might call me darling … just for camouflage. I’ll answer to Laura also.”

  Laura? That was the name Mrs. Young had mentioned. I made an effort to be casual, saying:

  “And you can call me Leslie if you like.”

  She pulled away from me and I heard a quick breath sucked in between her teeth. I kept looking straight ahead … keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut.

  There was a catch in her voice when she spoke again: “And I’ll be …”

  “Mrs. Young,” I supplied. I looked at her and she was in the act of swallowing whatever words were about to pop out. It seemed to me there was more of bewilderment than any other emotion on her face.

  Then my headlights picked up two stone gateposts on the right with a high archway between. A lifesize stone statue of a bull pawed the air atop the archway. I slowed down and started to turn in.

  A barefooted peon stepped in front of the car, holding an American Springfield rifle at an awkward port arms. I stopped and rolled down the window while he came to it. In Mexican, I told him: “I am expected by Michaela O’Toole.”

  “Como se llama usted?” He had a thin hungry face, and his teeth were a dirty yellow.

  I answered his question as casually as I could: “My name is Leslie Young.”

  “’Sta bueno.” He nodded and stepped aside to let me drive onward toward lights which glowed faintly from the windows of a sprawling two-story adobe house.

  Laura Yates didn’t say anything. She hadn’t said anything since I told her my name was Young. She was drawn back in her corner, staring at me.

  Weeds grew along the drive, and what had once been a lawn was now an expanse of untended grass. Two cars were drawn up in front of the adobe house. One was a long glittering limousine with a Texas license. The other was a battered Model A coupe carrying a Mexican license. My lights lit up a ragged hedge and I was sure I saw a bulky shadow pressed close to the bushes. My nerves got jumpy until I remembered Jerry Burke’s promise. I wondered if Jerry had arrived so quickly.

  When I pulled up behind the limousine I saw the outline of a chauffeur sitting behind the wheel. I memorized the license number before cutting off my ignition and lights.

  It was too dark to see Laura’s face but I could feel the intensity of her regard as we sat there in the dark for a moment. I tried to speak lightly but I muffed it:

  “Here we are, Mrs. Young … darling.”

  She didn’t say anything. I got out, baffled and uneasy, went around to her side and opened the door. The rain had stopped and a slit of a moon was looking down at us through a crack in the clouds.

  She put her hand on my arm and got out. I took her arm and felt it quiver beneath my touch. We went up the gravel walk to the front door and I lifted the heavy bronze knocker and let it drop twice. The knocker was a miniature of the bull above the archway.

  I don’t know what I expected to happen. Nothing, I’m sure, could possibly have surprised me. There was only one thing definitely in my mind … to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut.

  The heavy oak door opened a cautious slit and a pair of black eyes stared at me while a cruel mouth asked: “Quien es?”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Young.”

  The door swung open and a brown hand slid a pistol back into the pocket of an unpressed coat. The Mexican spoke in perfect English:

  “I will take you to Miss O’Toole.”

  We went over the threshold into the great wide hallway and he closed and barred the door. There was a mouldy smell of dampness in the hall and the only illumination was a single candle in a wall bracket.

  Laura pressed close to me and a tremble was communicated from her body to mine. I wasn’t feeling like a tower of strength, but I braced myself and followed the Mexican down the hall, with dust swirling up from the thick carpet under our feet.

  We passed one wide doorway on the right. Light and the sound of voices streamed past heavy curtains.

  Our guide drew the curtains aside from another arched doorway beyond. With my hand on Laura’s elbow we went into a low-ceilinged room lit by flickering tapers in a wrought-iron candelabra suspended from an overhead beam.

  In a far corner of the room from us, a girl and a man stood in low-voiced conversation. The man was tall, stooping in what appeared an earnest and argumentative posture. His hands moved nervously as he spoke. His back was turned to us, and they stopped talking abruptly when the guard announced us.

  I knew the girl was Michaela O’Toole though her features were shadowy so far from the candelabra. I had thought of that name subconsciously ever since I first heard it. The last name was, of course, flagrantly Irish, but as she came toward us and the flickering candlelights fell upon her, I knew that her high cheek bones and finely chiseled chin were a heritage from Spanish and Indian ancestors.

  But I was in no way prepared for her strange beauty as she moved slowly and gracefully forward, a sharp little frown coming in her smooth brow, as if she were annoyed at this interruption.

  Her eyes were that deep fiery blue of Irish eyes; when she half closed them, long black lashes hung like silken fringe, dimming their light. Her hair was intensely black, drawn back from a smooth high forehead the color of ivory. A sweep of black and perfectly arched brows made her eyes look enormous when she opened them wide, which she now did in her intent scrutiny of Laura Yates and myself.

  She wore a Mexican-styled dress of black velvet with a crimson bolero jacket. A single crimson rose nestled in the curve between taut breasts.

  I stepped forward and said: “You sent me a note …”

  She did not reply immediately, and I forced myself to look away from the suspicion growing in her eyes as she quietly looked us both over from head to foot.

  The tall
man had turned, and I drew in a sharp breath of consternation when I stared at the ascetic features of Rufus Hardiman. He still stood in the shadows, twiddling his watch fob nervously. But there could be no doubt that it was he. The man whom I had met at the bend of the road, and who disappeared into the driveway of the Dwight estate.

  “Who are you?” Michaela’s voice was cold, yet she could not hide the languorous quality indigenous to the tropics.

  I turned quickly to see a flash of blue steel in her eyes, and involuntarily I thought of the blue steel dagger which probably lay beneath the crimson rose at her breast. I hadn’t fully recovered from the shock of seeing Hardiman here in this damp, dusty room which reeked of being tightly closed for a long time.

  “Why I … I am …”

  Laura Yates moved in front of me like a flash and interrupted my stammerings:

  “This man lies. He is going to tell you he is Leslie Young … but he isn’t. He is an … imposter.”

  6

  That was a nice slap in the face from a woman I’d picked up out of the rain and brought along like a weak-minded samaritan. I didn’t know what to say next. I was plenty on the spot. There was the note addressed to Leslie Young in my pocket, of course, but I knew I couldn’t keep up the imposture very long if I was questioned closely.

  So, I set my teeth together hard and kept my mouth shut while a strained silence held all of us in a sort of hypnotic spell, as if we waited for a witch to serve a potion which would unleash our tongues.

  In the silence, Michaela stepped close to Laura Yates and studied her face through low-lidded eyes.

  Laura stood the inspection without wavering. She was the first to recover, and she asked, “You’re Miss O’Toole?” as if renewing an old acquaintance at a pink tea.

  The shining black head nodded. “I am Michaela O’Toole.” She relaxed; her voice held the liquid warmth of tropical sunlight.

  I knew I was sunk if the two women made up to each other the way they started out. The note would be nothing but a scrap of paper. I cursed myself for the world’s greatest fool when Laura went on pleasantly:

  “My name is Laura Yates. Mr. Young had asked me to come here with him tonight, but he didn’t meet me as prearranged. This man came along … it was pouring rain … and I accepted a ride after discovering that he intended to pose as Leslie Young. I came to … warn you against him.”

  I started to protest, but decided that the less I said the better chance I would have. Michaela had turned her head and was looking past Laura at me, Irish eyes flaming. She was young … not more than twenty, I thought … but the tropics breed maturity at that age. Rich warm blood suffused her creamy cheeks close to the surface. Her upper lip was sensuously short, and she used no make-up anywhere on her face.

  Her beauty was extraordinary and, somehow, dangerous. There was a hint of fanaticism in her whole expression, but it was dominated by a coldly calculating personality which robbed her of any taint of feminine weakness.

  Looking directly into my eyes, she asked: “Who are you?”

  It was one of those moments. I could feel destiny in the making. Here I was on an important mission for Jerry Burke and on the verge of being checkmated by two women. I am a man slow to anger, but it was a pang of outraged anger which saved me … and determination to be loyal to Burke.

  I said: “Leslie Young, of course. I don’t know why this woman lies about me. You wrote me a note asking me to come tonight. You can readily see,” I went on, taking the note from my pocket and handing it to her, “that this woman who calls herself Laura Yates is an ingrate, so I am not surprised that she lies.”

  There was a faint gasp from Laura. She moved to one side and stared at me with a puzzled frown.

  Michaela glanced at the note and handed it back to me. She looked doubtfully at Laura and said:

  “What makes you say this man is not Mr. Young? I sent him this note yesterday.” There was an undertone of imperious anger in her voice.

  The American stepped forward from where he had been standing all the while. He spoke suavely before Laura could reply:

  “It seems to me, Miss O’Toole, that it would be better …”

  He was interrupted by a harsh American voice in the hall beyond the curtain shouting:

  “Mr. and Mrs. Young you say? I don’t believe it.”

  The curtains parted and the owner of the voice came into the room. His face was vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him at the moment. When he strode forward under the light, I recognized Raymond Dwight.

  He was a short dark man with bushy hair. Between forty and fifty years of age. His heavy features were deeply tanned by the sun, and every inch of his short stature exuded self-conscious arrogance. He was a man, one knew instinctively, who had bulled his own way ahead in the world by sheer force of a ruthless character; a man who enjoyed meeting obstacles for the perverse pleasure of riding over them roughshod; a bully of a man with a thin veneer of suavity which clung to him as awkwardly as did his obviously expensive tweed suit. He had a stub of a black cigar between thick lips, and his gaze jerked suspiciously from Laura to me.

  He rumbled: “Pasqual said Mr. and Mrs. Young were here.” It was more a challenge than a statement.

  Michaela’s perfect eyebrows moved slightly upward. “Do you know Leslie Young … and his wife?”

  “I’ve … met them. Who are these people?”

  “He says he is Mr. Leslie Young. She” Michaela indicated Laura, “says he is not. I think there is some mistake.”

  “He is not Young.” The short American ground out the words. “I don’t know the woman, but …” He stopped, his small pale eyes going over Laura, thick lips pursed pleasurably.

  “If you’ll just let me explain …” Laura begged.

  Michaela turned on her with a flame of anger in her eyes. “We wish to hear no more.” She spoke then to Hardiman, who appeared acutely uncomfortable: “Your pardon for this happening, Senor. It is not of our making, I assure you.”

  Facing the curtained doorway, Michaela clapped her hands sharply and called: “Pasqual!”

  The swarthy Mexican who had met us at the door came through. His hand held the hilt of a half-drawn dagger, his mouth was a thick, cruel slit. He moved stealthily, his black eyes upon Michaela in complete adoration.

  She made an imperious gesture. “You will take these … guests … to the front upstairs room, Pasqual. See that they make no trouble.”

  I was watching my chance. Laura and I were nearer the curtained doorway than the others. I grabbed her wrist in a hard grip and jerked her around. Together we made for the door. With Burke outside, we’d be all right if we could make it through the door.

  Half-way down the hall I could hear the swift thud of running feet, then Pasqual was upon us. By the dim light of the one candle I saw the gleam of steel in his hand. His grip on my arm was like iron claws, and his dagger hand went up. In the excitement, I had held to Laura as she wriggled to get away.

  A sharp voice came from the curtains:

  “Pasqual!” and a crisp command in Spanish which I could not interpret.

  The Mexican grudgingly loosened his grip. The weapon clattered to the floor and his other free hand closed upon Laura. With the brute strength of a giant he forced us back along the hall.

  “See here,” growled Dwight, “I don’t like this.”

  “Nor do I, Senor.” Michaela silenced the short man with a wave of her slender hand. “I think we will not talk of it until they are safely upstairs.”

  Laura started to say something, but didn’t. Pasqual was pressing close to me and I felt the muzzle of his pistol prodding my ribs.

  Michaela spoke softly: “You will go with Pasqual to the room, and no harm will come to you.”

  I saw the uselessness of a further attempt at escape. With mock courtesy I offered my arm to Laura as we went up the stairway at the end of the hall, Pasqual close behind, holding a candle in his left hand.

  At the top of the stair
s he motioned forward with the candle and we went down an unlighted, bare hall with only the faint gleam to guide us. At the end, he opened a door and we went into a big square bedroom. Pasqual closed the door and a key clicked in the lock outside.

  There was only the cold gleam from stars and a slitted moon coming through high barred windows to light the room. Laura’s hand dropped from my arm and she moved away from me. I stood just inside the door and said:

  “This is a hell of a jam you’ve gotten us into.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  God! how I hated that woman’s self-control. I was pretty shaky inside, and I’m afraid my voice wasn’t wholly steady. She, however, sounded quite interested and amused.

  There was the creak of bedsprings in the direction in which she had gone. I lit a cigarette and held the match high above my head. There was a four-poster bed in one corner, two straight chairs, and a massive chest of drawers. Laura was sitting on the bed, tranquilly watching me. The musty odor of a long unused room was suffocating.

  I went to the windows and found them all tightly closed. I loosened a rusty catch and went to work on one, finally getting it open after barking my knuckles. The iron bars outside were heavy and solid. Directly below was the hedge, and I strained my eyes downward and made out a skulking figure beneath the window. It was Jerry Burke all right. He was looking up, motioning.

  He moved away along the side of the house as I watched, and some of the empty feeling went out of my belly. If worst came to worst, I knew Jerry would take a hand.

  Leaning on the sill, I breathed the first deep breath I’d had since entering the house, but it didn’t relieve the sick feeling that I had fallen down completely on the job Burke had assigned to me.

  It was all Laura’s fault. I decided then and there that gallantry and sleuthing didn’t mix. Yet, I couldn’t put too much of the blame on her. By exposing me as an imposter she had simply rushed ultimate exposure. Dwight would have ruined things even if Laura hadn’t been along.

  I stood at the window a long time before the thought struck me forcibly that Laura Yates might fit into the scheme of things in a terrific way. If she had murdered Young as Mrs. Young intimated, wouldn’t she pull just such a stunt as she did tonight? To throw suspicion away from her?