The Cheim Manuscript (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I merely keep down the button for my home channel, assigned me by the Coleman Communications Company, which also gave me my special Mobile number, pick up the phone, give the operator the number I want and let the Coleman people worry about how it works.

  When I got no answer to my call to Jellicoe’s suite, and learned from the desk that he still had not picked up his key, I headed back downtown. On the way I placed several other calls. I put some lines out among a few selected informants, then checked with the LAPD. The police had nothing on him; Jellicoe wasn’t in jail or the morgue. Newspaper stories had said Gideon Cheim was in a hospital called the Weston-Macey, in Pasadena. I called there, figuring that if anybody could tell me where Wilfred Jellicoe was it would be his long-time employer; but I did not get through to Gideon Cheim.

  No. He was still recuperating. No, absolutely not, the sharp-voiced gal at the desk told me. Yes, he was off the critical list, but he was not to be disturbed. Absolutely not.

  Just before parking near the Cavendish House I completed a much more pleasant call, to a much more fun gal, Hazel, the cute and peppery little sweetie on the switchboard in the Hamilton Building, at the end of the hall outside my office.

  She handles all incoming and outgoing calls at the Hamilton, but to me shes virtually a private assistant, girl Friday, second in command — and a doll, a living doll. When I put the handset back in its cradle for the last time, she knew the case I was working on, what I wanted to know, and would take it from there.

  The hotel detective was a thick-hipped man named Horter. He unlocked the door, on the knob of which hung a Do Not Disturb sign, and stepped inside after me.

  I stood in the suites living room, looking around, while Horter walked to a door in the far wall and opened it.

  Wheeoo, he said, stepping inside, Lookit this, will you?

  I went over and stood next to him in a bedroom that looked as if gale-force winds had hit it. The spread and sheets were off the bed, both pillows were on the floor, the mattress was askew. The top three drawers of a four-drawer bureau were open and dress shirts, sport shirts, handkerchiefs, socks were scattered on the burnt-orange carpet.

  Somebody sure tossed the place, I said.

  And in a hurry.

  I walked to the bureau and opened the bottom drawer. It was filled with shorts, plus three bright ascots, one gold, one red and one white. A leather bag filled with cuff links was in the left front corner.

  The drawer above was empty except for a pair of swim trunks and three clean but crumpled T-shirts. Something small and green caught my eye, and I picked it up. The thing looked like a little pebble about half the size of a pea. One side of it was smooth, curved and shiny, the other jagged as if it had been broken from a larger piece.

  The bathroom was in order, apparently untouched. In Jellicoe’s closet, along with a couple of brown sport coats and matching slacks, were seven suits, well made and freshly pressed, but none very jazzy in color. All the garments were off the rack and conservatively cut. But those three ascots hinted at a dash of daring, or at least Walter Mitty, somewhere in the missing Wilfred.

  I said to Horter, Last time Jellicoe was around was Friday a.m. sometime? He hasn’t been back since then?

  Far as I know, he said glumly.

  What kind of a guy was he? I smiled slightly and corrected myself. I mean, is he. There was certainly no reason to think of him as dead. At least, not yet.

  Nice enough. Quiet, sort of retiring. Forty-five years old, maybe older. About six feet, thin. He squinted, Hard to remember much about him. Not the kind of guy to make much of a fuss.

  If he hasn’t been here since Friday — and, presumably, the rooms could have been looking like this since around then — how come the maid didn’t walk in and let out a yelp?

  The Do Not Disturb signs been on the door since Friday. Sometimes guests don’t want maid service over weekends. Too early for the maid to get to this room today.

  I nodded. How long has Jellicoe been staying here?

  About a year. Well, I better go tell the manager what the hell.

  I’ll look around some more, OK?

  Sure, Horter said. He went out.

  In the next five minutes I looked at or into everything visible in the suite, then walked back to the bed carrying three photographs Id found, sat down and lit a cigarette.

  Two of the three photos were glossy eight-by-ten stills, the standard shots given out by studio publicity departments, and both were of sparkling-eyed, effervescent, swinging Sylvia Ardent. The photos were not new, but appeared to have been aged by more than time, as though held often in hot fingers, perhaps packed and unpacked, gazed upon, dreamed upon.

  The first was a close-up, a head-and-shoulders shot of Sylvia, smiling like a gal being salaciously tickled by a goose feather just out of camera range, her big green eyes open wide as she stared, with unconcealed lust, at something exceedingly desirable off to her left somewhere. In the second picture she was reclining on a white bear rug, clad in a pale-gray negligee which concealed her justly celebrated voluptuousness about the way smog hides the Hollywood Hills on weekends, and she was looking, with unconcealed lust in her eyes, at something exceedingly desirable off to her right somewhere.

  Sylvia was also in the third picture, but it was a nightclub photo, the kind pretty gals with long legs take for a couple bucks and as many dollars as you feel like tipping them. Luscious Miss Ardent was wearing a black cocktail dress cut so low in front that I assumed the V was not decolletage, but a rip, and she was gazing dreamily across the table at . . . Wilfred Jefferson Jellicoe, grinning hugely.

  Cigarettes smoldered in a tray before them. In the tables center rested a big wavy-bottomed clam shell, and extending outward from the liquor and hunks of pineapple and wilting flowers in it were two long straws, one held lightly in Sylvias fingers and the other pointing, toward Jellicoe’s very obvious teeth. My client had been certain her Jelly couldn’t possibly have been out with sex star Sylvia Ardent, and that he wouldn’t even have gone into such a place as the Panther Room.

  I flipped back the cover enclosing the photo and read the name there again: Panther Room. Mrs. Jellicoe, it would appear, had been wrong about a lot of things.

  I took the four-by-five photo that Gladys Jellicoe had given me out of my pocket and scrutinized it again. Then I looked back at the guy with Sylvia Ardent. The shots were barely recognizable as of the same man. But they were the same. At least, both were of Wilfred Jefferson Jellicoe.

  But one of them sure wasn’t Jelly.

  The Panther Room was on Hollywood Boulevard east of Vine, near Gower. This early in the morning, barely after 10 a.m., it was not the glamorous joint it became after sundown. The only music was a piped-in rock group playing something new to me, much guitar and drum, and a lyric which appeared to consist solely of the refrain, Hang on, baby, don’t leggo, repeated endlessly.

  The bar was on my right and opposite it on a raised platform, a listless go-go dancer wearing only the bottom half of a spangled bikini executed waggly wiggles and uninspired bumps, her expression indicating no joy whatsoever in the daily grind. A mirrored wall behind her reflected a rear view of the action, for those who preferred that sort of thing.

  I slid onto a stool at the empty end of the bar and waited for the gold-jacketed bartender to walk over.

  I told him who I was and that I was working for Mrs. Gladys Jellicoe. Somebody called her Friday morning about a wallet lost here the night before. Was it you?

  No, that was George, the day man. I work nights Tuesdays through the weekend. But I found the wallet, left it with a note for George when I closed up Thursday night.

  Id brought along the shot of Sylvia and Jellicoe drinking from the clam shell, and placed it on the bar top. While the bartender was looking at it I put the four-by-five my client had given me alongside it.

  That’s the guy the wallet belongs to. He the one who was in here Thursday night?

  Yeah. Him and that — wow! —
Sylvia Ardent. The bartender glanced back at the Panther Room photo, then studied the four-by-five next to it. This the same guy?

  Same guy.

  Picture must’ve been shot when he was sick.

  I take it he didn’t look sick Thursday night.

  Nope. He looked like the Sunset Strip Messiah. Gold jacket — almost like mine; I thought at first he was a waiter till he started throwing money around like it was counterfeit — copper-colored pants and shirt, white silk tie, dark glasses. Man, he looked healthy. But I’ll bet he was sick the next day. Must’ve had eight, ten highballs, then a Passions Punch.

  Passions Punch?

  The bartender pointed to the giant clam shell in the photo. One of them. Its the house specialty, eight bucks, supposed to be for six people. They drank the whole thing themselves. I was watching them — her, mainly, for good reasons. But I noticed he drank most of it. Bent his straw at the end, so he picked up the whole damn clam shell and guzzled what was left like it was a pail of beer.

  I shook my head. I think Mr. Jellicoe is a bud who only lately has blossomed. You say he was throwing money around? Literally? Like . . . through the air?

  No, just handing it out. Gave me ten bucks. Just for nothing. Said, Here, my good man, here is a little something for you. For ten bucks he can even call me his good man.

  He was drunk by then, huh?

  He had passed beyond drunkenness into another condition entirely. But he was a happy drunk. He paused, smiling. Of course, why would a man with that Ardent doll not be happy?

  It was a good question. And Sylvia was certainly a vital witness in this case, whom in the line of duty I would have to interrogate soon. In fact, as soon as possible.

  Jellicoe and Sylvia came into the Panther Room about 8 p.m., drank, partook of a lavish dinner, drank some more, finished with the Passions Punch, and left. Jellicoe smiling and weaving, Sylvia Ardent apparently still sober, or at least comparatively so.

  Jellicoe had tipped the maitre d a hundred dollars, the captain fifty dollars, the waiter twenty-five dollars, and practically everybody else in sight ten dollars. It could be assumed the evening here had cost him at least two hundred and fifty bucks. Yet, interestingly enough, there had still been — according to the bartender — nearly a thousand dollars in the wallet Jellicoe had lost, including six brand-new hundred-dollar bills.

  You still have the wallet? I asked him.

  No, the guy picked it up Saturday morning. George gave it to him. He grinned. Note I left for George, I gave him the same line I told you, the guy looked like the Sunset Strip Messiah — well, George tells me it sure looked like God was dead, all right. He laughed. Man, them highballs and a Passions Punch, even angels would fall outa the trees. . . .

  I barely noticed his last words — although he was laughing and pounding on the bar — because I was oddly surprised. It was a random, even foolish, thought, but Id been wondering if maybe Jellicoe was dead. And it had sort of idly occurred to me that if he’d spent much more time with Sylvia Ardent, a frail, weak-looking guy like that, it was at least possible that shed killed him. Not on purpose, of course, but —

  I cut my thoughts off and said, Jellicoe came back and picked up his wallet, huh? What time was that?

  Early. About this time, I guess. Say a little after ten. He paused. Guy wasn’t feeling too good, but he did the right thing. Gave George fifty bucks. Which George split with me.

  I smiled, gave the bartender my card and asked him to contact me if he saw Jellicoe again, thanked him and took off. I left a bill on the counter. It wasn’t a fifty. It wasn’t even a ten-dollar bill.

  But, then, I didn’t call him My good man, either.

  According to Gladys, Jellicoe banked at the Continental on Western, near his hotel. A man named Mr. Constance, a rather prim chap, looked upon me dubiously when I asked about the status of Wilfred Jefferson Jellicoe’s accounts.

  It took some fast talking, but I did learn that for approximately two weeks prior to this past Wednesday, the thirtieth of August, there had been slightly more than four dollars in Jellicoe’s savings account, and an even three hundred and twenty bucks in his checking account. But on Wednesday, Mr. Jellicoe had cashed a check — made out to him — in the amount of five thousand dollars, deposited four thousand in his checking account and kept ten crisp new hundred-dollar bills.

  I said; So he’s got forty-three-twenty in his checking account now?

  Well, Friday, two days after making the deposit, he returned and withdrew the entire amount in his checking account. And he looked . . . I’ll.

  What time of day was this?

  As I recall, ten-thirty, eleven — certainly before noon.

  That’s interesting. Incidentally, who was the check from? Who made out that five-thousand-dollar check to Mr. Jellicoe?

  Mr. Constance pursed his lips. I’m sorry. I’ve told you — well — more than I should, really. And the identity of the person — or firm — which issued the check concerns someone other than Mr. Jellicoe.

  It might, however, be of much help to me in —

  No. When Mr. Constance shook his head determinedly, he meant it. That was all he would tell me.

  But, I thought, even that much was quite a lot.

  Before pulling away from the curb I used the Mobile phone to call the office. When Hazel answered I said, Hi, honey. You find any Jellicoe’s in hospitals?

  Not a one. Apparently you haven’t found him yet, either.

  Give me time. I’ve only had a couple hours. I already know he was alive and happy — very happy — Thursday night. And at least half alive Friday morning.

  I can do a little better than that. He was alive and happy Friday afternoon, too. Alive, anyway.

  Tell me more.

  Well, you told me he works, or at least did work, for Gideon Cheim. And Mr. Cheim is producing another movie — starring Warren Barr again. A girl friend of mine has a part in the picture and I called her. They were shooting all day Friday, and she said this Wilfred Jellicoe was on the set during the afternoon, talking to Mr. Barr.

  That might help, Hazel. If I don’t run the guy down fairly soon I’ll want to talk to anybody who saw him during the last few days. Look, I’ll be at Sylvia Ard —

  There’s one thing this girl told me you might be interested in. You know what Mr. Barr is like, don’t you?

  Warren Barr: tall, broad, magnetic, hard-bodied and hard-eyed. It was alleged he gave women goose bumps in the most unlikely places. As well as the likely ones. He was a mans man, too, quick with his fists — he’d been in half a dozen barroom brawls in the last three years — handy with a handgun, dead-eye with a rifle aimed at charging bear, fleeing elk, swift cheetah, soaring bird, or even scared rabbit if nothing more sporting was in range. He was one of that great company of alleged sportsmen who delight in killing animals for fun, knocking them over like tenpins in the hallowed name of Sport.

  Yeah, I said, I know what he’s like. Therefore, I shall be at Sylvia —

  Jellicoe talked to him for five or ten minutes on the set, alone. Then he left, but after that Mr. Barr was very upset, according to my girl friend.

  Upset how?

  She wasn’t sure whether he was angry or frightened or what, but she said he flubbed his lines, just wasn’t himself. The way she put it, he almost fell off his horse.

  Interesting. Whats this gals name?

  Lucilla Mendez.

  Where would I find her?

  Shed be on the set again today. With Mr. Barr and the rest of the cast. Theyre still doing retakes.

  Hazel told me where the company was shooting and I said, Sounds worth a check, but I think first I’ll see Syl — I stopped. The juxtaposition of the names had rung a bell.

  Sylvia Ardent was the kind of tomato never out of season — especially in Hollywoodland — and in the very nature of things, or you might say by the very nature of Nature, there were inevitably scores of hopeful males in constant pursuit of Sylvia Ardent. Shed been out on dates i
n town with a number of them, and occasionally she and some young, or even old, actor were reported in the columns as a thing — usually about the time publicity agents decided it was time for flackery about a hot romance.

  What rang the bell was my recalling that for several months, beginning a year or so back, Sylvia Ardent and Warren Barr had been a Big Thing, drinking on the Strip, dinners along Restaurant Row, even hints of impending flights to Las Vegas, Reno or Mexico — where the Hollywood set often flies for quickie marriages. The trouble with Hollywood is that so much of it is phony you can rarely tell when a thing is promotion for a picture or TV series, buildup for a potentially hot property, or actually a month or two of undying love and eternal devotion.

  I said, OK, I’m on my way to see rugged Warren Barr, mighty hunter of outlaws and rabbits. And, Hazel, you’ve been such a good girl I’ll get you his own handwrote autograph.

  How sweet.

  In the meantime, check for me and find out if Sylvia Ardent is working today, will you? And dig up her home address and phone number if you can.

  Sylvia Ardent. Hmm. This is business?

  What else?

  Whatever it is, its going to cost you a dinner at a terribly expensive restaurant.

  I’ll buy you a hamburger, I said, with onions.

  I was in the Cadillac, top down and a warm late-morning breeze brushing my face, headed for the set — a few miles ahead, out in the rolling hills not far from Hollywood — of Stampede!, an earth- and emotion-shaking drama of love and hate, fury, lust and rape, and probably some cattle, I supposed, produced by Gideon Cheim and starring Warren Barr.