1958 - Not Safe to be Free

by James Hadley Chase

  These photographers were young men, smart in their Riviera clothes, with hands that were rock steady and their ruthless keenness dazed Joe. His drink-fuddled mind made him clumsy with his camera and he had trouble in keeping it steady. They jostled him to the back of the crowd, yelling at him: “Get the hell out of the way, grandpa! Let a man work!”

  At five minutes to four by the corridor clock immediately above the door to suite 27, Joe snapped out of a doze and peered down the corridor. He saw Jay Delaney come down the corridor and pause outside the door to suite 27.

  Without thinking much about what he was doing, Joe lifted the Rolliflex, glanced quickly into the viewfinder, adjusted the focus and then gently pressed the shutter release. He had already set the aperture and he was satisfied that he had taken a printable picture should Manley want to print a picture of Floyd Delaney’s son which, Joe knew, was extremely unlikely.

  He shifted on the window seat as he watched Jay unlock the door and disappear into the suite. Joe shrugged and groped for the half-pint bottle of whisky he always carried around with him in his hip pocket. He took a long pull, sighed and put the bottle away. He was just beginning to wonder if he should waste any more time outside this door when he saw a girl coming down the corridor.

  He recognized her immediately. She was the up-and-coming French starlette, Lucille Balu, in a blue and white off-the-shoulder dress and a string of fat blue beads around her lovely brown throat.

  Automatically, Joe wound on a new strip of film, wondering what she was doing on this floor reserved for film executives only. He felt a tiny prickle of excitement as she paused outside the door of suite 27.

  He lifted his camera as she raised her hand to knock on the door and the shutter clicked as she rapped. As he lowered the camera, he thought the right caption to that picture should be: Opportunity Knocks. Lucille Balu, the French starlette, knocks on the door of Floyd Delaney’s luxury suite at the Plaza hotel. Is this the beginning of a Hollywood career for this talented young beginner? Not the kind of material Manley was looking for, of course, but there was a chance he might sell the picture to some other rag.

  He watched the door open and Jay appear in the doorway.

  He heard Jay say, “How wonderfully punctual! Come on in. My father’s waiting to meet you.”

  He watched the girl enter and the door close.

  It took several seconds for Jay’s words to sink into Joe’s fuddled mind.

  My father’s waiting to meet you.

  That couldn’t be right. Floyd Delaney was at the cinema. Joe had seen him with his wife walking up the steps leading to the cinema and he knew they wouldn’t be back until at least six o’clock.

  Joe ran his fingers through his thinning hair.

  What did this mean?

  He remembered Jay Delaney had asked him who the girl was and he suddenly stiffened to attention. Was there more to this good-looking, pleasantly mannered youngster than he had imagined?

  Joe had already noticed that Jay seemed to live a pretty solitary life. He had noticed, too, that he spent his days alone sitting on the beach, reading and kept away from the fun and games that made the drudgery of the Festival worthwhile.

  Had this boy tricked the girl into coming to the suite on the pretext that his father wanted to see her? Any ambitious starlette would jump at the chance of meeting Floyd Delaney.

  Was the boy going to attempt to seduce her?

  Joe broke out in a hot sweat of excitement. Suppose he did and she screamed for help: that would give him the right to burst in there with his camera. He might even catch them struggling together: the girl with her clothes up around her neck! How Manley would eat a picture like that! It would wipe out all Joe’s past mistakes! He would be in solid with Manley for life!

  He leaned forward and listened, but he couldn’t hear anything.

  Then just as he was about to leave his hiding place and go and listen at the door, he saw Sophia Delaney coming briskly down the corridor.

  For a moment he couldn’t believe his eyes. His run of bad luck had been so consistent that he couldn’t believe he was getting a break and what a break!

  Stepson lures starlette up to Papa’s luxury suite, then, at the psychological moment, stepmother arrives! It was the kind of stuff Peep lived on!

  Joe lifted his camera as Sophia knocked on the door.

  II

  As Jay swung the scarlet cord, he saw Sophia follow each swing. He felt very sure of himself. He had seen that he had frightened Sophia and he knew it wasn’t easy to frighten his father’s wife. He had also seen that he had disconcerted her by his barefaced admission that he had brought a girl to the suite.

  I had better not overdo it, he thought. I’d now better begin to reassure her. I mustn’t let her imagine that there is anything seriously wrong. I had her worked up just now so badly she looked as if she were going to bolt out of the room. She must be very sensitive to atmosphere. I wonder how she guessed about the girl. Maybe it was the perfume. Women notice things like that. The girl had been overscented.

  “Do you mean to tell me you have a girl in your bedroom?” Sophia said and he could see she was now trying to whip up her anger again, which had been cooled by her fear.

  “I’m sorry, Sophia.” He spoke gently. “It was one of those stupid impulses.”

  He moved away from her, tossing the curtain cord onto the settee; then he sat on the arm of a lounging chair. He had now to persuade her to come over to his side. He had to appeal to her sympathy and understanding. He must get her to promise not to tell his father.

  It was fantastic, he thought, that she should have returned like this. For three days she had remained with his father throughout all those dreary performances, but on this day, when it had been so vitally important that he shouldn’t be disturbed, she had to return. But, now he had recovered from the shock of hearing her angry rapping on the door, he found the situation exhilaratingly exciting.

  It had certainly been a shock when she had rapped on the door. He had been kneeling beside Lucille’s lifeless body, loosening the cord around her throat. The knocking sound had paralysed him. His heart seemed to stop beating. The blood in his veins seemed to congeal. His mind had gone blank with panic. It had been a bad moment, but it also had been a test.

  He had known from the beginning that if he did this thing, sooner or later, he would be challenged and he would have to rely on his nerve and his wits to save himself, but who would have imagined the challenge would have come so quickly? The girl was scarcely dead when the knocking had come on the door.

  He had got his panic quickly under control. He had known that he had only a few seconds in which to act. He had picked up the girl’s body. She had been surprisingly heavy and awkward. He had staggered with her into his bedroom and dumped her on his bed. Then he had returned to the lounge and snatched up the curtain cord and stuffed it into his hip pocket.

  There had been an added complication: during the very brief but violent struggle, the string of the girl’s necklace had broken and the beads had shot about the floor. They were big blue beads, the size of small walnuts and although they were easy to retrieve, he had had to do it at lightning speed.

  He had just picked up the last bead in sight when he heard a key being pushed into the lock of the door. He had darted into his bedroom and closed the door soundlessly as the door leading into the suite had opened. He had had no time to compose himself when he heard

  Sophia call him. He had been thankful for his dark glasses. He was confident that he could control the expression on his face, but he knew that his eyes would have given him away could she have seen them.

  “A stupid impulse,” he repeated. “I’m really sorry, Sophia. She looked so attractive and I was bored.” He reached for his cigarette case lying on the table and opened it. “Will you?”

  He offered the case.

  She shook her head.

  “I can’t understand you doing such a thing,” she said and her voice was cold.
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  He lit a cigarette and he was pleased and not a little proud to see how steady his hands were.

  “I don’t think you realize how lonely I am sometimes,” he said, feeling sure this would be the right approach. “After all, Sophia, you have father, but I have no one. Father doesn’t care about me. He’s too busy to care about anyone but you. This girl was on her own in the lobby. She looked lonely too. So I talked to her. It was she who suggested we should go somewhere together. Don’t think I’m trying to excuse myself. She appealed to me, and, if I had had the nerve, I would have made the suggestion. I didn’t know where to take her, so I brought her up here.” He looked at Sophia from behind his dark glasses. She was relaxing and she had moved over to the table and now rested her hips against it.

  He could see he had her interest. “It’s a funny thing, but although I thought she was attractive down in the lobby, as soon as I got her up here, I realized she wasn’t attractive at all. I suppose it was seeing her in this familiar room. Anyway, I realize now what a fool I’ve been to have brought her up here.”

  “I can understand that, Jay,” Sophia said and he was quick to notice that her voice had softened.

  “My one thought was to get rid of her,” he went on. “I didn’t know how to do it. I was scared she would make a scene. Then you knocked. I can’t tell you how glad I was that you came back. I honestly don’t know how I would have got her out of here without making a scene.”

  Sophia moved uneasily.

  “Can she hear what you are saying?” she asked and looked at his bedroom door.

  “Oh, no.” He leaned forward to flick ash into the ashtray. “I bundled her into the bathroom and locked the door.” Then he couldn’t resist making the gruesome joke. “She can’t hear anything—she might just as well be dead.”

  Sophia wasn’t listening. She walked over to the window and stared down at the sea glittering in the sunshine.

  “I must say this does surprise me, Jay,” she said. “It wasn’t nice of you to bring a girl up here.”

  “I know and I’m ashamed of myself. I’m sorry, Sophia.”

  She turned then and her lips made a movement of a stiff smile.

  “Let’s forget it. I’m sure it won’t happen again.” She began to cross the room to her bedroom. “I’m going for a swim. I just looked in for my swimsuit.”

  Jay felt a surge of triumph run through him. He had come through the first test. It had been unbelievably easy. He was willing to admit it had been a very dangerous moment. If he had lost his nerve, it would have been disastrous.

  “Thank you, Sophia, for being so nice about it,” he said and gave her a lost, very young smile. “Will you have to tell father?”

  “No, I won’t tell him.”

  A blue object lying under a chair caught her attention and she bent and picked it up.

  “Where did this come from?” she asked and put on the table one of the beads from the broken necklace.

  Once again panic nibbled at the edges of Jay’s mind as he looked at the bead.

  “It’s a pretty thing, isn’t it?” he said, trying to speak casually. “Are you sure it isn’t yours?”

  “Of course it’s not mine!”

  The snap in her voice warned him not to overdo his casualness.

  He pointed to his bedroom door, lowering his voice as he said: “It must be hers. She probably dropped it.”

  Sophia gave him a questioning, uneasy look, then she walked quickly into her bedroom, leaving the door open.

  Jay picked up the bead and dropped it into his trousers pocket, where the other beads were. He would have to search the room very carefully after Sophia had gone to make sure there were no other beads lying around. It was unfortunate she had seen it. If she thought about it she might realize it was a bead from a string of beads and that, together with the scratches on his arm she had seen, might make her think there had been a struggle.

  Sophia came out of the bedroom carrying her swimsuit and her peignoir.

  Jay opened the door for her.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” she said and looked pointedly at his bedroom door; then she went quickly down the corridor as if she were anxious to get away from him.

  Jay stood in the doorway looking after her, then he turned and shut and locked the door.

  He glanced at his wristwatch. The time was exactly half past four.

  Moving quickly, he began to search the room for any more of the blue beads. He found yet another under the settee and then, after a further search, he was satisfied there were no more to be found.

  He replaced the curtain cord and then stood back and surveyed the room.

  There were no signs of the struggle that had taken place.

  The room looked exactly as he had found it when he had entered forty minutes ago.

  He lit a cigarette, and, moving over to the window, he examined the three ugly red scratches on his arm. The girl had tried desperately to save her life. The cord had choked back her screams, but she had managed to reach behind her and had clawed his arm just before she lost consciousness. He had been surprised and alarmed that such a frail-looking girl could have had such desperate strength. There had been a moment when he had begun to doubt if he could subdue her.

  He went into his bedroom, crossed the room without looking towards the bed and entered the bathroom. He bathed his arm and put on some disinfectant ointment. Then he washed his hands and, while he was drying them, he considered his next move.

  It wouldn’t be safe to get rid of the body until the early hours of the morning. The Plaza hotel went to bed around half-past three a.m. He had twelve hours to make up his mind what to do with the body. But during those twelve hours, unless he did something about it, the girl would be missed.

  He remembered overhearing the conversation between the girl and the man with the wiry black hair who, he guessed, would be her agent. They had made a date to meet in the bar downstairs at six. If she didn’t turn up, this man might make inquiries about her and this, Jay decided, he would have to prevent.

  He went back into the lounge, again not looking towards the bed as he crossed the room. He went over to the row of reference books his father always had by him and, after a quick search, he found, in a copy of “Who’s Who in the Film World,” a scrappy entry covering Lucille Balu’s brief career as a movie star. He learned that she was twenty-one, had appeared in five movies, that she had an apartment in Paris and her agent’s name was Jean Thiry.

  Jay closed the book and replaced it on the shelf, then he picked up the telephone receiver and asked the girl on the switchboard to connect him with Information and Messages. He had no fear that his call could be traced. The two men dealing with messages were coping with a steady stream of callers throughout the day. They would not be likely to remember one isolated call.

  “Will you please deliver the following message to Monsieur Jean Thiry, who will be in the bar at six o’clock?” Jay said. “The message is: I am spending the evening in Monte Carlo. Will see you in the morning. Lucille Balu.”

  The man repeated the message, said it would be delivered to Monsieur Thiry and then hung up.

  At about six o’clock, Jay knew the maid came to prepare his bed for the night. .

  He went into his bedroom, shutting and locking the door. He looked at the dead girl lying on the bed. She lay on her side in a slightly curled up position, her back turned to him. She looked as if she were sleeping.

  He glanced around the room for a place in which to hide her. There was a big cupboard against one wall and he went over to it and opened it, noting there was a lock on the door. He decided to put her in there.

  For a brief moment his nerve faltered at the thought of touching her, but only for a moment. He opened both doors of the cupboard, then went over to the bed and took hold of her. Again her dead weight surprised him and he was breathing heavily by the time he had got her into the cupboard.

  He was glad when he had shut and locked the cupboard doors. He took the
key from the lock and put it in his pocket. Then he went to the chest of drawers, took from it a pair of swimming trunks and, unlocking the bedroom door, he went into the lounge. He paused to fill his cigarette case from the box on the table; then he left the suite, locking the door after him. He crossed the passage to the elevator and pressed the buzzer.

  Joe Kerr watched him.

  Joe was puzzled and disappointed. What had seemed to be the situation of a lifetime had mysteriously fizzled out to nothing. Instead of a first-class row and scandal and a chance for him to have walked into the suite with his camera, nothing had happened at all.

  Sophia Delaney had left, taking with her a swimsuit and now young Delaney had also left with a swimsuit.

  But where was the girl? Why hadn’t she left?

  Joe had seen the boy lock the door: that meant the girl couldn’t leave even if she wanted to. What was the idea?

  Joe wiped his red-raw sweating face with a grubby handkerchief and tried to puzzle out what it all meant.

  The girl had gone in there and she hadn’t come out, so she must still be in there. Then why had young Delaney locked her in?

  This was now developing into an intriguing situation.

  Joe peered up and down the long, deserted corridor, then he left his hiding place and crossed over to the door of suite.

  He listened intently, his ear against the door panel, but he could hear nothing. He hesitated for a moment, then, lifting his hand, he rapped sharply on the door. He knocked several times, but he heard no movement nor sound from within the suite and he stepped back puzzled.

  He was certain she was still in there. Had young Delaney warned her not to answer a knock?

  Then he suddenly became aware that he was being watched and he moved casually away from the door and glanced down the corridor. At the far end, leading to the stairs, he saw the short, bulky figure of the hotel detective. With the resourcefulness of years of experience as a newspaperman, Joe started down the corridor towards the detective, who eyed him suspiciously as he came.

  “Mr. Delaney doesn’t seem to be in,” Joe said as soon as he was within a few paces of the hotel detective.