1957 - The Guilty Are Afraid

by James Hadley Chase

“I’m interested in buying a going concern,” Creedy said, suddenly staring at me. His eyes went through me like twin bullets through chiffon. “I’m prepared to take over your agency. Shall we say ten thousand dollars to include the goodwill and what there is of the personality?”

  “And what happens to me if I sold you the business?” I asked.

  “You carry on, subject to my supervision, of course.”

  “I don’t supervise easily, Mr. Creedy: not on an offer of ten thousand dollars.”

  “I might be prepared to raise the purchase price to fifteen thousand dollars,” he said, and began to puncture holes in his snowy blotter with the letter opener.

  “I take it I wouldn’t be encouraged to continue to investigate my partner’s death?”

  He pursed his lips and did more damage to his blotter.

  “That is a police matter, Mr. Brandon. You are not getting paid to investigate your partner’s death. I think it would be reasonable, if I bought your business, to expect you to exert your talents on something that made a profit.”

  “Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m sorry. Thanks for the offer. I appreciate it, but I’m solving this case, profit or no profit.”

  He laid the letter opener down, placed his fingertips together and rested his chin on them. He stared at me the way you might stare at a spider that has dropped into your bath.

  “I intend to buy your business, Mr. Brandon. Perhaps you will name your price.”

  “On the theory that every man has his price providing the price is big enough?”

  “That is an accepted fact. Every man does have his price. Don’t let us waste time. I have a lot to do today. What is your price?”

  “For my business or for not going ahead with the investigation?”

  “For your business.”

  “It amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?”

  “What is your price?”

  “I’m not selling,” I said, and got to my feet. “I’m going ahead with this investigation and no one is stopping me.”

  He leaned back in his chair and began to drum gently on the desk with his fingertips.

  “Don’t be hasty about this,” he said. “I have made inquiries about your partner. I am told he was an utterly worthless person. I am told that if you hadn’t worked with him the business wouldn’t have survived for very long. I am told he was a womanizer, if I may use the term. He wasn’t even a good investigator. Surely you are not going to pass up a very good opportunity because of a man like that. I want your business, Mr. Brandon. I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars for it.”

  I stared at him, not believing I had heard aright.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not selling.”

  “A hundred thousand,” he said, his face intent.

  “No,” I said and I felt my hands turn moist.

  “A hundred and fifty thousand?”

  “Cut it out!” I said, and I put my hands on his desk and leaned forward to stare into his expressionless eyes. “You are bidding too cheap, Mr. Creedy. A hundred and fifty thousand isn’t much to keep your name out of the biggest scandal on this coast, is it? A million would be more like it, but don’t offer it to me because I wouldn’t take it. I’m going through with this investigation and you and your money won’t stop me. If you’re all that anxious to keep me from finding out the truth why don’t you give your lackey Hertz a couple of hundred bucks and tell him to fix me? Probably he would do it for less. Sheppey was my partner. I don’t give a damn if he was a good or a bad partner. In my racket no one kills an investigator and gets away with it. We feel the same way about it as the police feel when a cop gets killed. Get that into your money-riddled mind and stop trying to buy me off!”

  I turned around and started my long walk towards the exit.

  The silence I left behind me was painful.

  Chapter 12

  I

  I drove back to the bungalow with plenty on my mind. I put the car in the garage to be out of the blazing sun, unlocked the front door of the bungalow and went into the bedroom.

  I stripped off, put on a pair of swimming trunks, collected a towel and then walked down to the sea. I had a twenty-minute swim, then returned to the bungalow and sat down on the verandah in the shade, put my feet up on the rail and considered the various points I had discovered.

  I had to make up my mind if it was Thrisby or Bridgette Creedy who was lying. Thrisby’s story was acceptable to me and Bridgette had every reason to lie, but I wasn’t absolutely sure she had been lying.

  What I had to decide was whether Thelma Cousins was being dangled in front of me to take my attention away from something else. I was quite sure the match-folder meant nothing to Bridgette, but it meant a lot to Thrisby.

  I wondered if it would pay off to go to his place, wait until he went out then search the house. I might turn up something that would give me the key to the mystery. I wondered if he had a servant living with him. I thought it would be a good idea to go out there this night.

  I was lighting a cigarette when I heard the telephone bell ring. I got up and went into the lounge, lifted off the receiver and said, “Hello.”

  “Is that you, Lew?”

  Margot’s voice.

  “Why, I wasn’t expecting to hear from you,” I said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in my apartment. I’ve been thinking about that match-folder.”

  I sat on the arm of a lounging chair, holding the telephone on my knee.

  “I’m pretty sure it belongs to Jacques Thrisby,” she went on.

  I didn’t say I thought it might too.

  “What makes you say that, Margot?”

  “I remember now that he was sitting opposite me at the table. I remember he took out his cigarette case. It had a lighter attached and the lighter wouldn’t work. He took this match-folder out of his pocket, then a waiter came up and gave me a light. He left the match-folder and the cigarette case lying on the table beside him. He left them there when he danced with Doris. I am pretty sure now I took the folder to light my cigarette. It’s quite possible I put the folder into my bag without thinking. I can’t say definitely that I did so, but I am sure Jacques put a folder of matches on the table.”

  “It adds up,” I said. “I let him see the folder when I went out there this afternoon. He reacted like a man who has sat on a tack.”

  “Did you talk to him, Lew?”

  “Bridgette was there. I arrived at the dramatic moment when she was about to shoot him.”

  “Shoot him?” Margot’s voice went up. “Oh, Lew, surely not!”

  “She may have been planning to scare him, but I had the idea she meant to give him the full treatment. He had just handed her a pretty brutal brushoff.”

  “She must be out of her mind! What are you going to do about it, Lew? You haven’t told the police?”

  “No. I doubt if Thrisby would admit she tried to kill him. I’d only be landing myself into more trouble, and I can’t imagine the police filing a charge against her. Did you know she had a gun?”

  “No.”

  “I think she was the one who hired Sheppey. Thrisby said so. I talked with her this afternoon, but she says Thrisby is lying. He told me he was going around with Thelma Cousins, the girl who was murdered. Bridgette found out and hired Sheppey to watch them. That’s his story, but she denies it.”

  “This is fantastic. Will the police find out about it?”

  “They could do. It’s something you’ll have to face up to, Margot. This is a murder case.”

  “Do you think Bridgette had something to do with Sheppey’s death?”

  “I don’t know what to think at the moment.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  I could hear a note of alarm in her voice.

  “Tackle Thrisby again. Do you know if he has a servant at his place, Margot?”

  “Yes: a Filipino, but he doesn’t sleep there. He comes in early, and leaves around eight o’clock.”

 
“I’ll go out there tonight and take a look around.”

  “What do you expect to find then, Lew?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s surprising what you can dig up if you take the trouble to look. When am I seeing you again, Margot?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “You mustn’t ask trifling questions. You wouldn’t like to come out here after half past ten? I might be able to tell you what I’ve found in Thrisby’s place.”

  She hesitated, then said, “Well, I might be able to.”

  The thought of seeing her again this night sent a hot wave of excitement through me.

  “Then I’ll expect you around ten-thirty.”

  “All right. Be careful, Lew. Don’t go near the house unless you’re sure he’s out. Don’t forget what I told you: he’s dangerous and ruthless.”

  I said I wouldn’t forget and she hung up.

  I sat and thought, then after a while I called St. Raphael police headquarters. When I got a connection, I asked if Lieutenant Rankin was in.

  After a pause, Rankin came on the line.

  “What do you want?” he growled when I told him who was talking.

  “Traced that icepick yet?” I asked.

  “What do you think I am—a miracle worker? You can buy those picks anywhere in town. There must be hundreds of them lying around.”

  “Sounds to me as if you’re making no progress.”

  “I’m not, but it’s early days yet. This isn’t going to be a fast job. Have you got anything?”

  “Only a pain in the neck for you,” I said. “I’m beginning to think it wasn’t Creedy who hired Sheppey. It looks as if his wife did.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “From the odd talk I have picked up. Would you know if she has a gun permit?”

  “What are you getting at, Brandon?” There was a rasp in his voice. “Don’t you know you’re fooling around with dynamite with the Creedys?”

  “I know that, but dynamite doesn’t scare me. Has she a gun permit? It’s important, Lieutenant.”

  He told me to hold on. After a long delay, he came back on the line.

  “She has a permit for a .38 automatic: serial number 4557993. She’s had the permit now for three years,” he told me.

  I reached for a scratch pad and jotted down the number.

  “Thanks, Lieutenant. One more thing: did you get anywhere with your digging into Thelma Cousins’ background?”

  “No. She just hasn’t any background. We’ve asked around. Hahn seems to be right. She didn’t go with men. It beats me what she was doing with Sheppey.”

  “You have her last address, Lieutenant?”

  “She had a room at 379 Maryland Road. The landlady’s name is Mrs. Beecham. You won’t get anything out of her. Candy spent an hour with her. She had nothing to tell him.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “If anything new turns up, I’ll call you.” And I hung up.

  I went into the bedroom, put on a suit, shoved the .38 in my shoulder holster, then left the bungalow, locked the door after me and got the Buick out of the garage. The time was now a quarter past five. There was still plenty of heat in the sun, and as I drove along the promenade I could see the long stretch of beach was crowded. I pulled up by a cop who was resting his feet on the edge of the kerb and asked him where Maryland Road was. He gave me directions. The road lay at the back of the town and it took me some twenty minutes of fighting traffic to get there.

  Mrs. Beecham was a fat, elderly body with a friendly smile and an inclination to gossip.

  I told her I was connected with the St. Raphael Courier and could she give me some information about Thelma Cousins.

  She invited me into a room full of plush-covered furniture, a canary in a cage, three cats and a collection of photographs that looked as if they had been taken fifty years ago.

  When we had sat down I told her I was writing a piece about Thelma and I was interested to know if she had a boyfriend.

  Mrs. Beecham’s fat face clouded.

  “The police officer asked that. She hadn’t. I often told her she should have some nice young man, but she was so bound up in the church. . .”

  “You don’t think she had a secret boyfriend, Mrs. Beecham?” I asked. “You know how it is. Some girls are shy and they don’t let on they have someone.”

  Mrs. Beecham shook her head emphatically.

  “I’ve known Thelma for five years. If there had been anyone, she would have told me. Besides, she very seldom went out. The only time she did go out after she had finished her work was on Tuesdays and Fridays. It was then she went to the church to help Father Matthews.”

  “She might have told you she was going to the church but she could have been going out with a boyfriend. That’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, no,” Mrs. Beecham said, and looked shocked. “Thelma wasn’t like that at all. She wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “Did she ever have visitors here, Mrs. Beecham?”

  “She had her friends from time to time. Two girls from the School of Ceramics and a girl who did church work.”

  “No men?”

  “Never.”

  “Did a man ever call on her here?”

  “No. I wouldn’t have encouraged it. I don’t believe in young girls having men in their rooms. Besides, Thelma wouldn’t have done such a thing.”

  I took out my billfold and produced a photograph of Sheppey.

  “Did this man ever call on Miss Cousins?”

  She studied the photograph and then shook her head.

  “I’ve never seen him before. No man ever called on her.”

  “Did a blonde, smartly dressed woman ever call on her? A woman of about thirty-six . . . wealthy?”

  She began to look bewildered.

  “Why, no. Just her three friends and Father Matthews; nobody else.”

  It looked then to me as if Thrisby had been lying when he had said both Sheppey and Bridgette had gone to Thelma’s place.

  “On the day she died, did anything unusual happen? Did anyone come to see her, did she get a letter, or did someone call her on the telephone?”

  “The police officer asked that. Nothing happened out of the way. She left as usual at eight-thirty to get to the School at nine. She always came back here for lunch. When she didn’t come back as usual, I got worried. When she didn’t turn up at her usual time after work I first called Father Matthews, and then the police.”

  Rankin was right. It was like digging into concrete. I thanked the old girl, said she had helped me and got away with difficulty.

  As I walked back to the Buick, I was feeling a little depressed. I realized I hadn’t made the progress I thought I had. It seemed pretty certain to me now that Thrisby had been lying.

  II

  Around nine o’clock I drove out to the White Chateau. It was growing dusk as I got on to the mountain road, and as the sun set, the sky and the sea turned an orange red. From the height of the road, the view of St. Raphael City was magnificent.

  But I wasn’t in much of a mood to admire the view. I had too much on my mind, and I couldn’t help thinking from time to time that in an hour and a half I would have Margot with me in the isolation of the bungalow.

  I drove fast, using my spotlight to warn traffic coming in the opposite direction that I was on my way. I reached the branch road down to the White Chateau soon after nine-thirty. Leaving the Buick on the roadside, I walked down the road until I came to the wooden gate. I pushed this open and walked quietly up the path. By now the sun had set, and it had grown suddenly very dark.

  I had brought with me a flashlight and a couple of tools for opening a window or a locked drawer. I paused at the edge of the lawn to look at the house, which was in darkness.

  Crossing the lawn and moving silently, I walked around the house. No lights showed anywhere, but before attempting to break into the place, I walked over to the double garage and tried one of the doors. It slid back at my touch, and I was surprise
d to see a Packard Clipper in there. I touched the hood and found it cold. It obviously hadn’t been out all day.

  Moving even more cautiously, I crossed the lawn again and went up on to the terrace. I walked to the front door, and rang on the bell.

  For three minutes I waited. Nothing happened. No one answered the bell. I moved along to the french doors. Out of the darkness the Siamese cat suddenly appeared and walked along by my side. I paused outside the French doors, tried the handles but found the doors locked. The cat took this opportunity to twine itself around my legs. I bent to rub its head, but it moved quickly away, jumped up on to the balustrade of the terrace and watched me warily.

  I took a flat jemmy from my pocket, inserted it between the french doors, exerted pressure while I pulled steadily on the door handle. There was a sudden clicking sound and the door swung open.

  I pushed the door further open and stood listening, but I heard nothing. The room was in darkness. I took out my flashlight and shot the beam into the room. I was a little uneasy about the Packard being in the garage. It might be that Thrisby hadn’t left the house - but why the darkness? I told myself it was more than likely that someone had picked him up in their car, and that was the reason why his Packard was in the garage.

  I stepped into the lounge, crossed to the light switch and turned it on. Then I got a shock. Standing across one of the corners of the big room was a desk. All the drawers hung open, and a mass of papers, letters, old bills, lay scattered on the top of the desk and on the floor.

  Across the room was a cupboard containing a nest of drawers: these drawers hung open too and more papers were scattered on the floor. It looked as if someone had beaten me to it, and I swore softly under my breath.

  I crossed the lounge to the door, opened it and stepped into a big hall. Facing me were stairs leading to the upper rooms. Across the way were two more doors. I opened one and looked into a fair-sized dining room. Here again the drawers of the sideboard hung open and table ware had been bundled out on to the floor.

  I tried the other door and looked into a luxury equipped kitchen that hadn’t been disturbed. I returned to the hall and stood at the foot of the stairs, holding the beam of the light on the stairs while I listened.