Meanwhile, the Saint had in his pocket the card which the uncooperative bartender had given him. It might not be much, but it was something. And at least it might help to pass the time constructively.
Scoden Street was a narrow turning off one of the drabber stretches of Geary, given over to a few small dispirited neighborhood shops jumbled among other nondescript buildings of which some had been converted into the dingier type of offices and some still offered lodgings of dubious desirability. Number 685 seemed to combine the two latter types, for a window on the street level was lettered with the words “VERE BALTON STUDIOS” on the glass, behind which an assortment of arty enlargements were attached to a velvet backdrop, while on the entrance door was tacked a large printed card with the legend “APARTMENT FOR RENT.”
The door was open, though only a couple of inches.
Simon pushed it with his toe and went in.
He found himself in a small dark hallway, at the rear of which a flight of worn wooden stairs started upwards, doubtless to the vacant apartment. Immediately on his right was a door, also ajar, with a shingle projecting from the lintel on which the “VERE BALTON STUDIOS” sign was repeated. He went through into a sort of reception room formed by the space between the shoulder-height back drop of the front window and a set of full-length drapes which shut off the rest of the premises. It contained a shabby desk and three equally shabby chairs, but none of them was occupied.
“Hi,” said the Saint, raising his voice. “Anybody home?”
There was no reply, or even any sound of movement. But the long drapes were not fully drawn, and through the aperture he could see a yellowness of artificial light.
He went to the opening and looked into a small studio equipped with a dais, a tripod camera, and the usual clutter of lamps, screens, and props to sit on or lean against. But nobody was utilizing the props, and the only lamp alight was a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.
Simon stepped on through the curtains. The near corner inside had been partitioned off with Beaverboard into a cubicle which from the sinks and shelves of bottles that could be seen through its wide open door was obviously used as a darkroom, but no one was using it. At the opposite end of the studio was another door, half open.
“Anybody home?” Simon repeated.
Nobody acknowledged it.
He crossed the studio quietly, cutting a zigzag course between the paraphernalia, and his second tack put him at an angle from which he could see the body that lay on the floor of the back room.
It belonged to a fat man of medium height with dirty gray hair and a rather porcine face to which death had not added any dignity. There were three bullet holes in the front of his patchily reddened white shirt, loosely grouped around the “VB” monogram placed like a target over his heart, and two of them were ringed with the powder burn and stain of almost contact range.
Simon bent and touched the back of his hand to one of the flabby cheeks—not to verify the fact of death, which was unnecessary, but to determine if it was very recent. The skin was cold.
The room was an office, furnished with an antique roll-top desk, a hardly less antique typewriter, and a bank of unmatched filing cabinets. Nude color-calendar photos were pinned up on much of the wall space, interspersed with glossy monochromes of similar esthetic subjects. The desk was littered with a hodgepodge of correspondence, bills, prints, and negatives, and about half the filing drawers were open to varying extents, many of them with folders partly raised out of them. Nevertheless, the general impression, strengthened by the film of dust that could be observed on many surfaces, was not so much that of a recent ransacking as of an ancient and incurable disorder.
But why should there have been any ransacking? With his rolled-up sleeves and his coat over the back of the chair, Vere Balton hadn’t surprised any intruder—he had been surprised. And with a gun in his chest, he would have been glad to produce whatever the intruder wanted in exchange for his life, hoping he would not be cheated…
All this went through the Saint’s mind in a consecutive rush, like a cascade through a sieve. But before it had finished draining through, one scrap of flotsam was caught: Mr Otis Q Fennick was entangled, consciously or not, with something bigger than a candid shot of himself in the hay with a buxom brunette whose name was not on his marriage license.
Simon backed out of the office on tiptoe, and retraced his steps even more circumspectly between the obstacles and over the coiling cables of the studio lights, being careful to leave no clumsy traces of his visit. But in the anteroom in front he stopped by the desk on which he had seen the telephone. That was the logical place to look for one item of information that he had come for, and he found it in the first drawer he opened with a handkerchief wrapped around his fingers. There was an address book, precisely where one would expect it to be kept, and he turned the pages with the same precaution against leaving fingerprints, scanning each one swiftly but completely.
He had to go nearly all the way through the book before he came to a Norma, and not much farther to be positive that there were no others. He turned back and memorized the entry with a second glance:
Norma Uplitz
5 De Boer Lane—Apt. 2
AG 2-9044
Not the most likely name for the sexily constructed siren that Mr Fennick had indicated, but a lot of Hollywood queens had started life even less glamorously baptized.
He had not touched either of the entrance doors with his hands when he came in, he recalled, and he went out without touching them. He did pull the front door almost shut, before he put his handkerchief away, leaving it as nearly as possible in the same position as he had found it. Let the police have the benefit of any clues that might be latent in the set-up; the Saint’s only concern was not to interpolate any new ones which might point misleadingly to himself.
The greatest risk seemed to be that someone might remember seeing him going in or coming out. That was a hazard which he shared with the real killer. But the ultimate danger to himself was much less, for if that hypothetical witness took any note of the time, it would prove that the Saint had been there several hours after the autopsy would show that Vere Balton had died. So he took his departure boldly and unhurriedly, making no special effort to avoid being observed—which was perhaps the best of all guarantees against being noticed.
He walked back to the Mercurio and took the elevator directly to the sixth floor, without wasting any time on the house phone. He did not have to hesitate over the route to Room 607, for the number told him that it must be next door to the same relative location as his own room.
There was no “Do Not Disturb” card hung on the door knob, but it would not have moderated his peremptory knock if there had been.
The door opened almost instantly, and for one of the few times in his life Simon Templar felt that only the sang-froid of a sphinx saved him from falling over backwards.
It was not Otis Q Fennick who opened the door. It was a blonde. And no part of her configuration remotely resembled that of the creator of Crackpops.
It was, however, strikingly reminiscent of the general impression that Mr Fennick had haltingly conveyed of his unauthorized cot companion. But one specification that Simon was unshakably clear about was that Mr Fennick’s surprise package had been distinctly described as a brunette.
This blonde had not been manufactured in the past few hours. She might have owed something to tints and rinses, but the foundation was genetic. The Saint could tell. And as other minutiae gradually registered on him, they declined unanimously to fit into the reconstruction of a frill who hustled photos in a joint like the Rowdy Room and would blow more than a flash bulb for a fast bill. This one’s dress had the unmistakable cachet of expensive exclusiveness, and any one of the small ornaments she wore would have out-valued Norma Uplitz’s whole treasure chest of jewels. This one might be available too, for the right proposition, but the price tag would be liable to sift the boys by their tax brackets.
“I beg y
our pardon,” said the Saint, with a sensation of laboriously cranking his chin up off his necktie, “I was looking for Mr Fennick.”
“He isn’t here.”
“But this is his room?”
“Yes. He just happens to be out.”
“Oh.”
“It’s perfectly respectable,” said the blonde. “I’m his wife.”
“His…”
“Wife. You must have heard the expression. Are you feeling all right? You look rather glassy-eyed.”
Simon strove valiantly to unglaze. It required an abnormal effort, but the multiplication of shocks was proceeding a trifle rapidly even for him. And the day had scarcely begun.
“I was a bit startled,” he admitted. “I understood you were in New York.”
“I was—yesterday. But these new jets are so sudden. Do you have some business with him, or are you a friend?”
“To tell you the truth, I only met him last night. But we became quite chummy.”
“I can imagine it. Do you sell candy, or is it soda pop?”
“Neither. We just happened to be at the same hotel, and we bumped into each other. One of those things.”
“I thought you looked different from most of his business buddies. Come in.”
Simon had intended to from the moment he saw her.
The room was virtually a facsimile of his own, and the blonde looked as out of place in it as a piece of Cartier hardware in a junk yard. But the observation he wanted to make was that Mr Fennick really wasn’t there. The closet was open, and he was able to check under the bed by clumsily dropping the pack of cigarettes he slipped out of his pocket.
“As a matter of fact, you might be able to help me to catch up with him,” said the blonde. “I only arrived late last night myself—it was all on the spur of the moment, and I didn’t even try to call him till this morning. I know what these conventions are like. I spent the night with an old girlfriend who lives here.”
“I was wondering how you got in. That’s why I looked so dazed when I saw you.”
“They gave me a key at the desk, of course, as soon as I proved I was Mrs Fennick. Why shouldn’t they?”
“I called him less than an hour ago,” said the Saint, “and his phone was still shut off.”
“It was shut off when I called from downstairs ten minutes ago. So I came on up anyhow. Exercising a marital privilege. I didn’t see why I should have to sit in the lobby till he condescended to regain consciousness. But no Otis.”
“He must have gone out and forgotten to clear the line.”
“Do you solve crossword puzzles, too?” Simon had been opening his cigarette package, which was a fresh one, with unhurried neatness. He offered her the first of its contents, which she accepted.
“I can’t solve any puzzle about where he may have gone,” he said, striking a match. “He didn’t tell me anything about his plans for the day.”
“May I ask why you thought he wouldn’t mind your waking him up, if he was trying to sleep late?”
“I happened to have dug up a hot lead on something he was telling me he was very concerned about financially. I thought he ought to know it at once, so I took a chance.”
On the pretext of looking for a safe place to get rid of the match, he contrived to work himself around to a sufficient glimpse of the bathroom to confirm that Mr Fennick was not hiding out there, or stashed there as a corpse. He was aware that he might begin to seem obsessed with such possibilities, but he could certainly have offered a doozy of an excuse.
“Well,” she said, “that seems to leave us both in the same boat. He’s probably lost for the day now. They have meetings and lunches and speeches and more meetings, from the first hangover till it’s time to start the next one, don’t they, on these conventions?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Simon grinned. “I’ve never been part of one.”
“Ah, yes. I said that you didn’t look like the type.”
“Neither do you, Mrs Fennick.”
She had been studying him with unmistakably increasing interest for the last few minutes, and her appraising eyes did not waver by a fraction of a degree at the intangible hint of audacity in his tone.
She said, “Did you get chummy enough, as you put it, to call my husband Otis?”
“I guess I did.”
“Then you needn’t be so formal with me. If he didn’t tell you, the name is Liane. Do you have a name, too? Or a number?”
“Simon Templar.”
“The Saint, of course. All right, I can enjoy a joke. But eventually you’ll have to explain why it’s funny. And what type don’t I look like?”
“The wife of a marzipan magnate,” said the Saint, unabashed. “You look more like a glamour model.”
“I was, not so many centuries ago. Lots of magnates pick up that type. Didn’t you know? It adds prestige, like a Cadillac. Why don’t we spend the day together, waiting for Otis, and I’ll explain it all.”
He would have had to be very much younger, very much older, or very much more naïve, to misunderstand the whole of her implication, and he let her know that he was weighing all of it in the long cool glance that he rested on her before he answered.
“It might be fun,” he said, and he did not have to pretend to mean it. “But—”
“Don’t tell me that Otis became your best friend overnight. And you don’t look like a man who’d have any other objection to taking pity on a lady’s boredom.”
“He didn’t, and I haven’t. But I’d hate to help spoil a good thing for you.”
“Did Otis give you the idea, in his cups, that we held hands every night while we made plans for our silver wedding honeymoon?”
“No. In fact, he gave me the impression that you were the rolling-pin type, just waiting for him to come home with a smudge of lipstick under his ear. If you’ve got him as housebroken as that, it could be moderately catastrophic if he picked up the ammunition to shoot back at you.”
“My good man, since we’ve suddenly become so very businesslike, let me remind you that the Fennicks are legal residents of the sovereign State of New York, which is also the legal domicile of the Fennick Candy Company. Have you ever heard any betting on a rich man’s chances in a New York divorce court?”
“You sound as if you’d talked to some good lawyers.”
She came so close, deliberately, that the first time they both inhaled simultaneously would have caused a most stimulating collision.
“Then why don’t you let me worry about my own problems?”
He bent and carefully kissed her motionlessly upturned mouth. Then he stepped back and glanced at his watch.
He was not aware until afterwards of how cold-blooded he must have seemed. He didn’t intend it as a rebuff. It was a long time since he had abjured any profound amazement at the strange impulses of women. Perhaps he had been exposed to too many of them. But in an oddly unegotistical way, for him, he was inclined to respect the privacy of their motives, and to enjoy the pleasant surprise without criticizing the donor. He had no moralistic resistance to Liane Fennick as an unexpected diversion, but there was a one-track quirk in his psychology that would not let him enjoy the best of it while he was still wound up with something else.
“There’s another problem I’ve got to take care of,” he said. “Let’s make it a date for lunch.”
She was palpably baffled by his restraint, but he couldn’t help that. If he could have seen only a few hours into the future, he might have played it differently. But she took it well.
“Twelve-thirty?”
“I’ll pick you up here.”
“This time you’d better use the phone first,” she said. “If it doesn’t answer, or if Otis happens to come back, I’ll meet you at the Drake.”
“But now,” said the Saint regretfully, “I have got to duck.”
He brushed her lips once more, with impudent promise, and went out.
An ingrained pattern of cautiousness that had become second nature made
him walk down two flights of stairs before taking the elevator. It was not a question of exaggerated apprehensiveness, but a simple automatism of eliminating unnecessary risks. Whatever the intrusion of Liane Fennick might lead to, he could lose nothing by impressing the elevator boy with the fact that he rode down from his own floor, which should suffice to supplant any recollection of the floor he had gone up to.
The same habit made him ask the bell captain in the lobby for a street map of the city, instead of asking the whereabouts of De Boer Lane. There was no point in gratuitously enlarging the number of witnesses who might recall that he had inquired about that address.
And having located that short blind alley on one of the southern slopes of Telegraph Hill, he also picked out a convenient intersection three blocks away, and directed a taxi there, for the same good reason. From the intersection, after the taxi was out of sight, he walked. There was nothing prescient about it, except a logic which assumed that something had to be rotten in the state of Fennick. He didn’t exhaust himself with trying to guess what it was. But after a very short stroll, he knew that his instincts had been impeccable at least on the score of procedure.
His taxi couldn’t have reached De Boer Lane if he had begged it to. The street that it opened from was almost solid with police cars at that point, and an ambulance backed into the narrow turning blocked it completely. The lane was only about forty yards long, and was lined with small unmatched houses jammed shoulder to shoulder, none of them more than two stories high, the kind of cottages that lend themselves to cramped but quaint conversions and are therefore highly esteemed by would-be Bohemian types. It was the ideal backwater for a girl of Norma Uplitz’s unconventional mores, where odd goings-on at odd hours would be so normal as to attract no attention. All except one aberration about which even the most sophisticated neighborhoods are seldom blasé…
The Saint to the Rescue (The Saint Series) Page 3
