1945 - Blonde's Requiem

by James Hadley Chase

  As I was opening the door, something caught my eye. I turned the beam of my flashlight on the floor. A once-white crumpled handkerchief was lying almost at my feet. I picked it up. It was a small, lace-edged handkerchief with the initials M.D. worked in one of its corners.

  I stepped into the alley, closed the back door and walked swiftly to the street.

  To me the initials M.D. could mean only one thing. The handkerchief belonged to Mary Drake! With that and the four pictures of the missing girls as evidence of kidnapping, I could start trouble for Macey if he wouldn’t cooperate with me. Kidnapping was a Federal offence and the F.B.I. would act on this kind of evidence.

  I slipped the handkerchief in my pocket and stepped cautiously from the alley into the street. There was no one around and I went back to the shop window.

  The moon was now immediately overhead. I could clearly see the details of every photograph in the window. But there was only one photograph that interested me, the one that carried the caption: Special enlargements $1.50 extra.

  One look was enough. I knew then why the three men had driven up to the shop and had entered in such haste. The photograph had been changed. The blonde girl whom Esslinger had told me was Mary Drake no longer laughed up at me. A photograph of a sharp-featured girl wearing a white floppy hat had taken her place.

  As I stared blankly at the photograph, the girl seemed to sneer at me.

  I reached the Granville Gazette building as a street clock struck three.

  As I walked along the sidewalk in the brilliant moonlight I felt as exposed as a nudist let loose in a subway. The air was still stifling and I was sweating and jumpy.

  I wandered past the dilapidated building, glanced casually at the double doors and noticed they were closed. I didn’t stop, but went on for twenty yards before ducking into a doorway.

  It was going to be a sweet job to force that lock in a street that was almost as light as day. It only needed one conscientious cop to poke his head round the corner while I was doing it and I’d be in a nice jam. From what I had seen of the Cranville cops he’d shoot first and ask questions after.

  I stood in the doorway and listened. It was quiet, and I was just making up my mind to get to work when I heard someone coming. I dodged back into the doorway and told myself what a smart guy I was not to have been caught in the open.

  A woman came down the street. I could tell it was a woman by the click of her wooden heels on the brick pavement. She was walking quickly, then she slowed down, and a moment later the clicking of her heels stopped altogether.

  I took off my hat and peered round the doorway. I caught a glimpse of her.

  She was standing outside the Cranville Gazette building. I couldn’t see much of her except she was slim, medium height, and seemed to be wearing a dark tailored suit.

  She looked suddenly up and down the street. The movement was nervous and furtive. I ducked back out of sight, hoping she hadn’t seen me.

  She didn’t run away, so after a few seconds I took another look. She was now standing close to the double doors. As I watched her, wondering what she was doing, I heard a faint sound of a lock turning. A moment later she pushed open the doors and disappeared into the building.

  Automatically I fumbled for a cigarette, changed my mind and massaged the back of my neck instead. This had foxed me.

  I gave her a couple of minutes and then walked to the building and tried the double doors. They were locked.

  My brain was still a little fuddled with sleep and I felt as fresh as a ten-day corpse. I didn’t know what to do. I was still gaping at the doors when I heard more footsteps. I had sense enough to move away from the Cranville Gazette building as a patrolman appeared from nowhere and stood staring at me.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he said, swinging his nightstick and sticking out a jaw that looked like it had been hewn from rock.

  I put on a drunk act and stumbled against him. “My pal,” I said, patting his shoulder. “Stick around a li’l longer an’ a beautiful big copper’ll come along. Tha’s what I said. Just stick around a little longer.”

  “I heard you the first time,” he said, shoving me off. “On your way, bud, or I’ll bend this club over your skull.”

  “Sure,” I said, staggering back a couple of paces. “But I’ve gotta let the women and chil’n go first. I’ve gotta get the boat launched. I’ve gotta do something or other . . . now what the hell was it?” By that time I’d faded away and was zigzagging down the street.

  I had to cover a lot of ground before I came to a side street. I reeled round the corner and then straightened up. I gave the cop a few minutes and then took a quick look. He was already on his way, and a moment later he turned off into Main Street.

  Cursing softly, I ran back to the Granville Gazette building. I had wasted a good eight minutes, and if that cop ran into me again it would be highly inconvenient—for me.

  I took out my pocketknife and with one of the hickies attached to it I tried to slip the lock back. My third attempt succeeded.

  I looked quickly up and down the street, made sure no one had seen me, and pushed open the door. I moved into the small lobby, which smelt like a chicken run. I closed the door softly behind me.

  I listened, but I didn’t hear any sound of activity. I groped my way to the stairs and started up. It took me a long time to reach the fourth floor. I made no sound on the way up and I didn’t like the absolute silence in the building. The woman couldn’t have had time to leave. Maybe she was on the fifth or sixth floor, but I ought to have heard her moving about by now.

  The Granville Gazette offices were at the end of the long passage. I didn’t want to show a light and I knew my way, so I went forward in inky darkness.

  Halfway down the passage I stopped. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw something. I edged against the wall and looked hard into the darkness. The hairs moved on the back of my neck. There was something right ahead of me. My hand slid back and reached for my flashlight. My other hand went for my gun.

  Then things happened so fast I was caught on the wrong foot. There was a quick movement, then someone brushed passed me.

  My hand shot out and I caught an arm—a woman’s arm. God knows what happened then. I felt her twist, come up violently against me and my arm was jerked forward. A hard little hip was rammed into my side and then my feet left the ground. I sailed through the air and came down with my head against the wall.

  Nothing mattered for a while after that.

  I came out of a red haze, my head expanding and contracting, and I up and cursed. The building was silent and I had no idea how long I had been lying there. I fumbled for my flashlight and looked at my watch. It was three-forty. I must have been out for almost a quarter of an hour. The light hurt my eyes and I snapped it off. I didn’t get up, as any movement sent pain stabbing through my head. I cursed some more. If I’d known I was going to run into a female jiu-jitsu expert I’d have stayed in bed. It set me back a long way to think a girl could have tossed me around like that. I thought I knew most of the Jap stuff, but that throw was the work of an expert.

  I sat up slowly, wincing as pain throbbed in my head; but after a while it got better and I stood up. I felt like I’d been fed through a mangle. Limping over to the head of the stairs, I listened, but I heard nothing. She was halfway home by now.

  Then I walked hack to the Granville Gazette offices. The door was unlocked.

  Somehow that didn’t surprise me. I pushed the door open and snapped on my flashlight. The outer office looked as dreary as ever. I walked over to Dixon’s office, listened, and then pushed the door open.

  The beam of my flashlight fell on the battered deserted desk. I went over to it. The centre drawer was open. I expected that too. A quick look told me the three photographs of the missing girls Dixon had shown me only a few hours before were gone.

  I stood staring down at the drawer, thinking. Of course the woman had got them. It
wasn’t going to be so easy now. With the photographs I could have called in the Federal Agents. I could have had Chief of Police Macey eating out of my hand. I wondered if she knew that.

  My head began to ache and I wanted my bed. It was nu use sticking around ‘this joint any longer. I wondered what Wolf would say if he knew I’d been tossed against a wall by a woman and had let her walk off with the only evidence I had as yet found in this case. I decided I wouldn’t tell him.

  As I turned to the door, I stopped short. Someone was sitting in the armchair by the window. All right, I jumped a foot, but who wouldn’t? I even dropped the flashlight, and as I stooped to pick it up I felt sweat run from my face like a squeezed sponge.

  “Who is it?” I said, putting my hand on my gun. My mouth was dry and I was as steady as tissue paper in a wind.

  Silence hung in the room like a sodden blanket. I turned the beam of my flashlight on to the chair. Dixon looked at me with blank glassy eyes. His livid violet-coloured face was set in a grimace of terror. Blood had oozed from his mouth and his tongue protruded like a strip of black leather.

  I moved forward a pace and peered at him. Around his neck was a thin cord.

  It bit into his neck and the folds of flesh half hid it.

  Sitting in a huddled heap in the chair, his hands clenched in his last agony, he looked very lonely and very dead.

  chapter three

  I came out of the bathroom to find two men in my room.

  One of them lolled against the door. The other sat on my bed.

  The one against the door was a big man, rather paunchy, wearing a black and white striped suit. He would be about forty years of age.

  Below his eyes across the top of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose there was a wide path of freckles. His mouth was tight and mean.

  The one on the bed was short, fat and chunky. He had big shoulders and no peck. His face was red and puffy and his square jaw looked like it had been tacked on as an afterthought. A flat-crowned panama hat rested on the back of his head and his pale-grey suit was well cut and fitted him in spite of his bulges.

  I looked at them, said “Hello,” and propped myself up against the bathroom door. I had a feeling they didn’t like me and nothing I could ever do would make them change their minds.

  The man on the bed eyed me without interest. He put a fat white hand inside coat and took out a cigar. He lit it with care and tossed the match on the carpet.

  “Who let you two in?” I said. “I may be living in a hotel, but my bedroom isn’t a lobby.”

  “You Spewack?” The man on the bed pointed his cigar at me so I should know he was talking to me.

  I nodded. “I was coming to see you this morning,” I said, “but I overslept.”

  His eyes opened a trifle. “Know who I am?”

  I nodded again. “Chief of Police Macey.”

  He looked across at the man at the door. “Hear that? He knows who I am.” A half-wit child couldn’t have missed the sneer in his voice.

  The man at the door didn’t say anything. He was unpeeling paper from a package of chewing gum. He fed a strip of gum into his mouth and began to chew.

  “So you were coming to see me—what about?” Macey asked, thrusting his square jaw at me and bullying me with his eyes.

  “I’m a licensed investigator,” I told him. “I want cooperation.”

  He looked at me fixedly and rolled his cigar wetly between his lips. “You do? Well, I ain’t interested. We don’t like private dicks. Do we, Beyfield?”

  The man at the door agreed with him. “We hate ‘em,” he said. His voice sounded like it came from his ankles.

  I shrugged and walked over to the dressing table. As I picked up a packet of Lucky Strike and shook out a cigarette, I glanced in the mirror.

  Beyfield had sunk a hand in his coat pocket. It might have been his finger or a gun that he was pointing at me through the cloth of his coat.

  “That’s too bad,” I said, lighting up. “But I still want cooperation.” I turned and leaned against the wall.

  Macey picked his nose. “What sort of cooperation?” He wasn’t looking at me now, but down his feet. I noticed he was wearing buckskin shoes and powder-blue socks.

  “Four girls have disappeared from this town and nothing’s been done about it,” I said; “I’ve been hired to find them.”

  “Four girls?” His voice was soft, but his jowls and where his neck ought to have been turned red. “Who told you?”

  “Never mind who told me,” I said. “I hear things. You’re going to get a pain where you won’t like it if something isn’t done.”

  He touched off ash before saying: “Who told you about Mary Drake?”

  “You don’t have to bother with that angle,” I returned, wandering over to the armchair and sitting down. “You’re not making a secret of it, are you? You’d better tell Starkey to lay off. He’s overplaying his hand.”

  Macey’s mouth pursed and he raised his eyebrows at Beyfield. “Hear that?” he said sourly.

  “Maybe we’d better bounce him a little,” Beyfield said. “The guy’s hysterical.”

  “Don’t give me that stuff,” I said, looking from one to the other. “I’ve got enough evidence to stick the Feds on Starkey. How would you like that?”

  Macey didn’t seem to think much of the idea. “What evidence?”

  I shook my head. “You’re not acting like a policeman,” I said, “and I don’t trust you. Everything I’ve found I’m turning over to the Feds.”

  He blew smoke in a thick cloud at his feet, reached inside his coat and pulled a blunt-nosed automatic. He pointed it at me and said to Beyfield: “Take a look around.”

  Beyfield went through the room methodically. He didn’t miss anything and he didn’t make a mess. He put everything back as he found it. After ten minutes he was through.

  I sat watching him. “Don’t miss the bathroom,” I said. He grunted and went into the bathroom.

  “Smart guy, huh?” Macey’s face was congested. “I could book you and make you talk.”

  “Wolf wouldn’t like that,” I returned. “Be your age, Macey. You can’t afford to act the copper so long as you’re backing Starkey. I’m not scared of you or of any of your boys. Take me down to headquarters and see where it gets you. Wolf would raise such a squawk the Governor would hear him.”

  Beyfield came out of the bathroom. He was still chewing placidly. “Nothing,” he said, and went back to loll up against the wall.

  Macey jerked his head at my suit that was lying on the chair. As he did so I remembered Mary Drake’s handkerchief. If they found that I’d be in a hell of a jam. They might even try to pin the kidnapping on me.

  “I’ve had enough of this,” I said angrily. “You leave my personal things alone or come back with a warrant.”

  The automatic came up slowly so the barrel pointed right between my eyes.

  “At this distance,” Macey said, showing his yellow teeth, “I’m a pip of a shot. If you don’t believe it, start something and see where it gets you.”

  Beyfield went through my suit with practised hands. I watched him with forced calm, but I didn’t feel so good. When he came to the pocket where I had put the handkerchief I had a hard time not to start something. I was so surprised when his hand came out empty that I nearly gave myself away.

  “Finished?” I said, wanting to search the pocket myself. I knew he couldn’t have missed the handkerchief and that meant it was no longer in my pocket. It also meant that the female jiu-jitsu had got it, and that made me mad.

  Beyfield worked his jaws around the gum before saying: “He’s bluffing.”

  “Do you think I’m crazy enough to keep anything in this room?” I said. “Whatever I’ve got is somewhere safe. And now if you’ve finished, suppose we get down to business. What are you going to do about Mary Drake?”

  Macey put the automatic away. He pulled at his underlip and stared at me th
oughtfully. I could see he didn’t know what to make of me.

  “We’re looking for her,” he said at last. “We’ll find her all in good time.”

  “Luce McArthur disappeared a month ago,” I said. “You haven’t found her.”

  Beyfield shifted restlessly, but Macey scowled at him. “A month’s not such a long time,” he said. “We’ll find ‘em all before long.”

  “Starkey could find them today.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “It sticks out a mile,” I told him. “He’s kidnapped them to put Wolf and Esslinger on the spot.”

  He shook his head. “You’re wrong.” He chewed the butt of his cigar reflectively and added: “Starkey wouldn’t like that line from you.”

  “He’s going to get it all the same,” I said, “unless you can suggest something better.”

  “Me?” He looked almost hurt. “We’re working on it, but we don’t know nothing yet. These kids don’t amount to much. We’ll get around to ‘em when we’re ready.”

  “Dixon says they were murdered,” I said, watching him. “Mass murder doesn’t sound so good.”

  “He’s crazy. Besides, he’s dead.”

  “Dead?” I repeated, acting surprised. “What do you mean—dead?”

  He nodded his head. “Yeah,” he said. “Like I said—dead. I’ve known him years. He was crazy, but I got used to him.”

  “But I was talking to him yesterday,” I said, sitting forward in my chair.

  “You know how it is. Here today, gone tomorrow. He had a seizure or something. The doctor said his heart had been bad for years. Went suddenly. They found him this morning.”

  “Who found him?”

  “We did, didn’t we, Beyfield?”

  Beyfield grunted.

  “They couldn’t open the office and we were passing.” Macey touched off more ash, sighed and wagged his head. “He was working late last night. Must have popped off around two o’clock. That’s what the croaker said. Well, we’ve all got to go.”