Michael Gray Novels

by Henry Kuttner

  Gray thought it over. “What became of his belongings?”

  Martin shrugged. “What he had in his apartment was sold to help pay off the judgments against him. I don’t know who bought them.”

  “And he left nothing at all to you?”

  “Nothing but disgrace,” Martin McCreery said. “And a few pieces of old furniture.”

  “Furniture?” Gray felt a flash of hope. “I thought you said—”

  “Nothing he ever used. Old pieces his father left him. We stored them for him here.”

  “What pieces?”

  McCreery shrugged. “A set of carved chairs, a big dining table. A complete Dickens. That desk you’re leaning on.”

  Gray sat up as if the desk had burned him. He swung round to examine it intently. The dully shining black wood had been tortured into loops and whorls of carving infinitely ornate. There were dozens of small drawers and scores of pigeonholes, most of them stuffed with yellowed papers.

  “Did your cousin ever visit you?” Gray asked. “Did he ever sit here?” He was staring at the desk.

  “Sometimes, yes. Everyone who visits us sits here, so I expect David must have. I don’t remember. I—Mr. Gray, what are you doing?”

  “Looking for hidden drawers,” Gray said over his shoulder. “Desks like this often have one, don’t they?”

  It took Gray fifteen minutes to find it.

  There was nothing very secret about the drawer, once you began to look. A little fingering around the molding beneath the pigeonholes and the flat hidden drawer pulled out, squeaking protestingly.

  There was nothing in it.

  Gray’s shoulders slumped. For a moment he had been sure he was on the right track. He gazed unhappily at the emptiness of the drawer. Nothing had lain in it for quite a while now. There seemed to be more dust around the edges than in the middle, as if at one time something flat and square might have rested there. But not lately.

  “Beverly used to sit here, too?” Gray asked, casting his mind out in random swings hoping for luck. “Did you leave her alone often? Long enough to find this if she got bored and started hunting?”

  “Well, I—I suppose I must have. Yes, it could have happened that way. You see, sometimes I have to make a call or two, and—” Here Martin caught himself and gave Gray an unhappy glance. He added quickly, changing the subject, “Melissa sat there, too, sometimes, when she was alive. Either of them could have found the drawer. What was in it, Mr. Gray? Can you guess? Was it something valuable?”

  Gray didn’t move his gaze from the empty drawer.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not David McCreery might have left something of his here that was very valuable. If he wanted a safer spot than his own house, and a spot the police might not think to look in. And Melissa or Beverly might have found it long after he died.”

  “The money?” Martin breathed, his red-rimmed eyes on Gray’s. His voice was hardly a whisper.

  “Not in this little space. But maybe the record of where the money is. Could that be what Beverly had in her purse?”

  “The joke was on me,” Martin said softly. “Damn the little trollop! So that’s what she was laughing about!” He blinked at Gray. “But wait a minute. Did the camera have anything to do with it?”

  Gray didn’t know about the camera. Martin McCreery told him the story.

  “We wondered at the time,” he added, “because the girls only wanted the camera for the evening. Usually it’s in the daytime you need a camera…”

  “Why would they come to you for a camera at all?” Gray asked.

  “It was—well, impromptu. They were here one day when I happened to have taken in a—” McCreery corrected himself. “A friend had just left his camera with me. It was there on the desk and the girls noticed it when they dropped in late that afternoon. It seemed to give them an idea. They laughed and whispered a little, and then—ah—borrowed it until the next morning.” He looked expectantly at Gray.

  “When was this?”

  “About a week before Melissa’s death. I checked it after Chris Bond was here. He had the idea they’d taken pictures with it to blackmail—a friend of Beverly’s.”

  Gray nodded. “One tiling about a blackmail photograph—you can keep the negative and sell prints till hell freezes over. If that’s what the girls were doing I’m not surprised they both wound up murdered.” He paused, frowning. Say Beverly’s treasure was a photograph. But of what? And how did Pollard fit into dús pattern?

  In the little silence McCreery began again. “Well have to talk about Bulwer, Mr. Gray. Now—”

  “In a minute,” Gray said. “We know one thing about Beverly and her treasure. She had it in her purse the morning of the day she died. In the evening—well, her killer couldn’t find it I think he set the apartment on fire, finally, as the only way to make sure of destroying the thing. And maybe he succeeded. Maybe it burned.

  “But suppose for a minute the reason he couldn’t find it was that it wasn’t in the apartment at all.” He looked at McCreery. “Do you think you scared her enough about losing it so she’d put it in safekeeping somewhere?”

  “I might have,” McCreery said.

  “But where? Not in a bank, you say?”

  “She told me she didn’t trust banks. Or anybody. At least, she said, nobody I know.”

  “But a person? A friend, maybe? A relative?”

  “She never mentioned any relatives,” McCreery said.

  Gray tried again. “Well, what did she do the rest of that day? Was she planning to see anybody?”

  McCreery knit his brows and thought.

  “She didn’t mention any names,” he said. “But I think I know where she went from here. To the beach.”

  “The beach?”

  “It was a clear day, warm, you remember. And both the girls always loved the midway—the amusement park. She said she might go out there in the afternoon. I know how you could tell if she did—was she sunburned that evening? Whenever Beverly was out in the sun, she burned.”

  Gray thought of the dead girl and the smell of burning.

  “You couldn’t tell,” he said with restraint “Not by the time I saw her.”

  Martin McCreery said, “Oh.” Then he added meditatively, “It wasn’t her day to see her fortuneteller. She’s at the beach, too.”

  Gray looked up alertly.

  “Who was that?”

  “I don’t know. Just some woman she went to regularly, once a month. Both the girls were great believers in tea leaves and cards and palmistry.”

  “So she talked to a fortuneteller every month,” Gray said in a thoughtful voice. “I wonder. A shrewd fortuneteller can find out a lot about a client even in one sitting. With a regular customer, she’d come to know quite a lot. I wonder how much Beverly may have talked? Maybe—enough.” A look of resolution came over his face. He rose purposefully. “All right, McCreery, thanks. I think I know what the next move is. And I’ll have to hurry.”

  “About Bulwer—”

  “Yes. I want you to come with me to the door. I’ll tell you on the way what I think needs doing.”

  But Gray didn’t speak while they went down the paper-walled corridors toward the glitter of sunlight through leaves at the end. Not until he stood in the dank back yard, with the reassuring sounds of traffic and voices just beyond the trees, did he turn to McCreery, waiting anxiously in the doorway. There had been not a sound from behind the walls this time. Bulwer was waiting as anxiously as Martin for Gray’s decision.

  “Now look,” Gray said. “I appreciate the way you opened up to me back there—after you had to. I’m even convinced you told the truth—mostly. But we can’t let it go at that, you know. That trap might easily have killed me. I don’t know if this has happened before. The chewed-up wood of the floor under that trap shows it’s been sprung more than once. If there’d been any stains on the wood, I wouldn’t have stayed in the house at all. I’m giving Bulwer the benefit of the doubt. But you realize I have to make
a report of this.”

  McCreery cried hoarsely, “No! No, I swear it won’t happen again! You can’t—”

  “I’ve got to,” Gray said. “You know I have to. Sooner or later Bulwer’s going to kill somebody. If he hasn’t already. I can’t just walk away and say nothing. But because you cooperated, there’s one thing I will do.” He gazed speculatively at Martin, who was violently protesting.

  “Shut up and listen,” he said. “I know you’re involved in a good deal more than you’ve told me. I don’t for a minute think your visitors come and sit in your office for old times’ sake. I haven’t any evidence why they come and it’s none of my business. If I reported what happened back there right now, the police would probably catch you red-handed at whatever kind of business it is you run. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to cover your tracks. And for God’s sake, keep Bulwer under control while you do it This time tomorrow the police will hear from me.” He started to turn away. Then he looked back.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it’s rough on Bulwer. But the way things are—you aren’t safe from nun either, McCreery. Have you ever thought of that?”

  Driving back toward his office, Gray found his mind kept pulling him two ways. There was work he should do at his desk and plans he should make about Pollard. He wanted to consult Abel about the pseudo-Szondi test, and it was time to talk to Zucker about Eileen.

  But a gathering excitement in him pulled Gray’s thoughts toward the beach. He had a strong sense of being near a breakthrough in the puzzles that surrounded him. If Beverly Bond had confided her dangerous plans to anyone, surely it would be to the fortuneteller she consulted so regularly. She would have asked for guidance from the cards or the stars. The fortuneteller might even know what Beverly’s treasure was, and where she had meant to get the money she promised Chris Bond.

  Gray debated with himself all the way to his office. He slowed and drew up toward the curb as he reached his own block, looking for a parking space. He thought, “If there’s a spot, I’ll stop. If there isn’t, I’ll try to find the fortuneteller first…”

  There was no parking space.

  Gray shrugged and drove on. He turned west on Geary and headed toward the beach.

  A big Lincoln which had been sitting patiently at the curb for nearly an hour hummed into life as Gray passed.

  It swung out into the line of traffic.

  It trailed Gray.

  22

  Madame Juno was fat, blond and overflowing. She had probably given up wearing a girdle at fifty or thereabouts, but she still remembered to pull in her stomach whenever she happened to think of it. She gave Gray a bored look and a sigh, but pulled herself together and put her short, plump arms on the table between them in a businesslike way.

  Gray regarded her thoughtfully. There were three fortunetellers on the midway. The first had responded with taciturnity to Gray’s approaches. Presently she had called him a cop and ordered him out of her booth. This was the second try, and Gray decided to be more cautious.

  “Now,” said Madame Juno, “a reading will cost you one dollar. Palm or cards. An astrological deep reading is two dollars, and for that you get a personally oriented star-charting of your problems.”

  Gray hesitated.

  “It’s better,” she assured him. “That one’s very thorough.”

  “All right,” Gray said. “Give me the two-dollar reading.”

  Madame Juno got out a pack of cards and shuffled them with plump, expert hands. Her hair was a dazzling blond. She had bright blue eyes and a good-natured, fat face with dimples under the rouge.

  “Cut twice,” she told Gray. Then she stacked the cards absent-mindedly, sighed, and began to lay them out. Above and behind her the faded purple curtains that draped the small room billowed in the wind from the ocean.

  “Looks like a trip,” she said, glancing up at Gray keenly. He made no response. Madame Juno turned up another card.

  This means money. I’m not sure whether you’re getting it or losing it Let’s see the next card.” Again she stole a glance at Gray.

  “Ah, here it is,” she said. “Red ace, a good sign. You’re getting money.”

  Gray met her eye and nodded. Madame Juno tried again. The queen of clubs gave her a chance to mention women. Gray responded to that one. Basically, the trick was based on the same psychological response many clinical tests use. The subject responds to some cues and not to others. A clever fortuneteller can learn a good deal without her client’s realizing how much he has given away.

  “You’ll have some problem with a dark woman,” Madame Juno said, and, at Gray’s slight frown, “Or you’ve already had it…Let’s see the next card…”

  Carefully judging Gray’s responses, she cued her prophecies until she had told him a very probable, though largely general, fortune. It was the kind of fortune he might have wanted to hear, judging from the kind of cues he had given.

  “You’ll get your wish,” she told him, turning up another card. Then she frowned and went through a gentle, heaving motion, her eyes focused on nothing. From under the table sounded two soft thumps. Madame Juno sighed with satisfaction. Gray deduced that she had just kicked off her shoes. And something, somehow, about the way she sat and moved and spoke struck him with sudden familiarity. Had he seen her before somewhere? Had he known someone who looked very much like her?

  “Now,” she said briskly, “if you have a problem, the cards may help with those, too. You’re certainly born under a lucky sign.”

  Gray said, “Well—there’s one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Madame Juno was gathering up the cards. Now they began to flow between her hands in a fast, easy shuffle.

  Watching her, Gray said, “I’ve got something valuable I want to hide, and I’m not sure where it’ll be safe.”

  The shuffle never faltered. If Madame Juno felt any surprise, she had no trouble in concealing it.

  “I’ll have to know more,” she said. “What’s this valuable thing like?”

  Gray said hesitantly, “It’s—well—it would fit into a woman’s handbag.”

  Madame Juno took it with perfect calm. “Let’s ask the cards,” she said.

  The cards advised Gray to try a safe-deposit box.

  “And that’s that,” Madame Juno said, with a grunt of satisfaction. “I hope you found out what you wanted. Good luck.”

  Gray didn’t move. “I’d like to ask another question.”

  “I’m sorry. That was it. The reading is finished.”

  “But I’ve got to know. Can’t you give me another reading?”

  “Not on the same day,” Madame Juno said, with the air of one whose ethics are obscurely outraged. “Still,” she added quickly, “maybe your palm would show something. But that will be three dollars more.”

  Gray paid. Madame Juno examined his palm, clicked her tongue, chuckled, nodded and sucked in a brief breath of astonishment.

  “You have a very unusual hand,” she said, and then checked herself. “What was your question?” she asked.

  Gray thought, “How would Beverly have put it? A dangerous venture? Did she even realize how dangerous a venture it might be to blackmail a man like Pollard?” Aloud, he said carefully, “I’m planning a—a job that might be dangerous. I’m a little worried. There should be big money in it, but I’m not sure whether to—whether to go ahead or not.”

  Madame Juno flicked him a quick look. It was, of course, the kind of question that would make anybody look up with some suspicion. But Gray thought he saw something more on the highly tinted, plump face across the table. And again, for just a moment, in that searching glance he thought he saw something familiar.

  “Well, let’s see,” Madame Juno said, composing herself. Her finger traced a line across his hand. “How old are you now? There’s a break in your life line along about here. It’s guarded by a Square of Protection, but I wouldn’t advise you to take any chances. If you get through the next few years, you’ll live a long time
.” She sat gazing down for a moment and the plump, dimpled features relaxed in a look of sadness.

  “It will mean trouble if you go ahead with this project,” she said suddenly. “I wouldn’t advise you to take any chances. You’re going through a dangerous time now and you shouldn’t run any risks if you can help it” She paused, and the wind flapping in the tentlike walls made hollow noises around them. The board walls of the shack groaned against each other faintly.

  “Well,” Madame Juno said, suddenly brisk, “is that what you wanted to know?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Gray told her. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it” She laid his hand firmly back on the table and said, “Then good luck to you. Good-by.”

  Gray got up slowly. Had he learned anything at all? Was she the woman? Well, there was one more fortuneteller he could try. He went out his step lagging, and stood there in the windy sunshine trying to decide why he felt so obscurely uneasy. He had missed something somewhere. From the corner of his eye he caught a sudden, incongruous motion across the street, as if somebody had jerked back out of sight in the instant as Gray turned his head. It was only an impression. He turned away again and stood looking at the little board shack that housed Madame Juno.

  Why had she looked so familiar in brief, sudden flashes? Where had he seen her before? The way she tucked her chin in, looking down, the way her plump wrists arched, dealing out the cards…

  Where had he seen another woman with these mannerisms, doing these same things? Another plump, blond woman who wouldn’t struggle too hard against the encroachment of fat when it overtook her in later years…

  “Melissa,” Gray heard himself say in an astonished whisper. “Beverly!”

  Madame Juno looked up as Gray pushed between the purple folds again. She lifted her penciled brows in surprise.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Two readings in one day is the limit.”

  Gray let the curtains close behind him.

  “Were they your daughters?” he asked.

  The woman stared. “Who?”