1953 - This Way for a Shroud

by James Hadley Chase

  Conrad walked into the room, then came to a sudden standstill.

  “Now this will make you really happy, Sam,” he said, and waved to a bloodstained object on the floor.

  Bardin joined him.

  “Well, I’ll be damned! A machete!” He knelt beside the razor-sharp knife. “I bet it’s the murder weapon. It’s just the thing to cut someone’s head off with, and it would lay a belly open like you open a door.”

  “It wouldn’t interest you to wonder why a guy like Jordan should have a South American jungle knife in his possession?”

  Bardin sat back on his heels. His grin made him look like a wolf.

  “Maybe he picked it up as a souvenir. I bet he’s been to South America or the West Indies: probably the West Indies. It’s the murder weapon all right, and I’ll bet the blood on it is June Arnot’s blood.”

  Conrad was turning over the clothes on the chair.

  “There’s no blood on these. I shouldn’t have thought it possible to cut off someone’s head and not get blood on you.”

  “For crying out loud!” Bardin said impatiently. He stood up and stretched his big frame. “Do you have to lean so hard on your job? Maybe he had a coat on or something. Does it matter? I’m satisfied; aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” Conrad said frowning. “It’s all very pat, isn’t it? The whole setup could be a plant, Sam. The gun with Jordan’s initials on it, the smashed car, Jordan’s suicide and now the murder weapon. Everything cut and dried and laid out ready for inspection. It smells a little to me.”

  “It smells because you’re overanxious to earn a living,” Bardin said, lifting his massive shoulders. “Forget it. It convinces me, and it’ll convince the Captain. It would convince you if you didn’t yearn to get Maurer into the chair. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Conrad pulled at his nose thoughtfully.

  “Maybe. Well, okay. I guess there’s nothing here for me. Want me to drop you off at headquarters?”

  “I’ll call them from here. I’ll want the boys to look this joint over. As soon as I get them working, I’ll go back to Dead End and give the press the story. You’re going home?”

  Conrad nodded.

  “May as well.”

  “Lucky guy. No late work, a nice little home and lots of glamour to keep you warm. How is Mrs. Conrad?”

  “Oh, she’s fine, I guess,” Conrad said, and was annoyed to hear how flat and unenthusiastic his voice sounded.

  V

  Driving just below the speed limit, Conrad cut through the back streets to avoid the theatre traffic. He wondered uneasily if Janey had made good her threat and had gone out, and if she had, whether she was back yet. He didn’t want to think about her just now, but inevitably, whenever he headed for home, she forced herself into his thoughts.

  He slowed down to light a cigarette. As he flicked the match through the open window his eye caught the nameplate of the street: Glendale Avenue.

  It was not until he had nearly reached the end of the street that he remembered the girl, Frances Coleman, who had called on June Arnot at seven o’clock this night, had given her address as 145 Glendale Avenue. His foot trod down hard on the brake and he swung the car to the kerb.

  For a moment he sat still, staring through the windshield at the dark empty street. Doc Holmes had said June Arnot had died around seven o’clock. Was it possible this girl had seen something?

  He got out of the car and peered at the nearest house. It was numbered 123. He walked for a few yards until he came to 145.

  It was a tall, shabby, brownstone house. Some of the windows showed lights; some didn’t.

  He climbed the flight of steep stone steps and looked through the glass panel of the front door. Beyond was a dimly lit hall with stairs going away into the darkness.

  He turned the door knob and pushed. The door opened and a violent smell of frying onions, virile tomcats and ripe garbage jostled past him as if anxious to reach some fresh air.

  He tipped his hat to the back of his head, wrinkled his nose and moved farther into the hall. A row of mailboxes screwed against the wall told him what kind of house it was. The third mailbox belonged to Miss Coleman: that put her on the third floor.

  Conrad climbed the stairs, passing shabby doors from which came the blare of radios playing swing music as if the listeners were stone deaf but determined to hear something.

  The door facing the head of the stairs on the third floor told him this was where Miss Coleman lived. A neat white card bearing her name was pinned to the panel with a thumb tack.

  As he closed his hand into a fist to knock, he saw the door was ajar. He knocked, waited a long moment, and then stepped back, his eyes suddenly wary.

  Was this going to be another body behind a half-open door? he wondered.

  Already he had looked at six bodies this night, each of them in its own particular way, horrible and pathetic. He felt his nerves crawl under his skin and the hair on the nape of his neck move.

  He took out a cigarette and pasted it on his lower lip. As he set fire to it he noticed his hands were steady enough, and he suddenly grinned.

  He leaned forward and pushed the door open and peered into darkness.

  “Anyone in?” he said, raising his voice.

  No one answered. A solid silence came out of the room on a faint perfume of Californian Poppy.

  He took two steps forward and groped for the light switch. As the light went on, he drew a deep breath of expectancy, but there were no bodies, no blood, no murder weapons: just a small, box-like room with an iron bedstead, a chest of drawers, a chair and a pinewood cupboard. It looked as comfortable and as homely as a Holy man’s bed of nails.

  He stood looking round for a moment or so, then he moved forward and opened one of the cupboard’s doors. Except for a faraway smell of lavender the cupboard was empty. He frowned, reached for one of the drawers in the chest and pulled it open. That, too, was empty.

  He scratched the back of his neck with a forefinger, stared around some more, then lifted his shoulders and walked out into the passage.

  He turned off the light and then walked down the stairs, slowly and thoughtfully. Back again in the hall, he inspected Miss Coleman’s mailbox. It was unlocked and empty.

  A notice on the wall caught his attention. It read: Janitor. Basement.

  “What have I got to lose?” he thought, and went along a passage and down a flight of dirty stairs into darkness.

  At the foot of the stairs he collided with something hard and he swore under his breath.

  “Anyone at home?” he called.

  A door swung open and the light of a naked electric lamp flowed out, making him blink.

  “No vacancies, pally,” a mild oily voice oozed from the doorway. “This joint’s fuller than a dog with fleas.”

  Conrad looked into a small room that contained a bed, a table, two chairs and a worn rug. At the table sat a large fat man in shirt sleeves. In his mouth he held a dead cigar. Spread out before him on the table was a complicated patience game.

  “You’ve got a vacancy on the third floor, haven’t you?” Conrad said. “Miss Coleman’s moved out.”

  “Who says so?”

  “I’ve just been up there. The room’s empty. Clothes gone. All the little knickknacks that make up a home gone too.”

  “Who are you?” the fat man asked.

  Conrad flashed his buzzer.

  “City police.”

  The fat man curled his upper lip into a complacent sneer.

  “What’s she been up to?”

  “When did she leave?” Conrad asked, leaning against the door post.

  “I didn’t know she had left,” the fat man said. “She was here this morning. Well, that’s a relief off my mind. I would have had to put her out tomorrow: saves me a job.”

  “Why?”

  The fat man wheezed as he pushed a fat finger into his ear and massaged it briskly.

  “The usual reason. She was three weeks behind on h
er rent.”

  Conrad rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully.

  “What do you know about her? When did she come here?”

  “A month ago. Said she was a movie extra.” The fat man swept the spread out cards into a little heap, picked them up and began to shuffle them. “Couldn’t get anything cheap in Hollywood: anyway, cheap enough for her. She was a nice girl. If I had a daughter I’d like her to be like her. Nice way of talking, nice looks, quiet, well-behaved.” He lifted his fat shoulders. “But no money. It’s the bad ones who have the dough, I guess. I told her to go home, but she wouldn’t listen. She promised to have the money for me by tomorrow morning for certain. Looks like she didn’t get it, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s the way it looks,” Conrad said. He suddenly felt tired. Why should an out-of-work movie extra call on June Arnot, he wondered, except for a touch? She probably never got farther than the guardhouse. It was unlikely June Arnot would have seen her.

  He glanced at his watch. It was just after midnight.

  “Well, thanks.” He pushed himself away from the door post. “That’s all I want to know.”

  The fat man asked, “She isn’t in trouble, is she?”

  Conrad shook his head.

  “Not as far as I know.”

  The night air felt cold and fresh after the fusty smells of the apartment house. Conrad drove home. Bardin had said he was convinced that Jordan had done the job. Why should he bother? He would talk to the D.A. tomorrow. If only he knew for certain that Maurer and June had been lovers. If they had been then there might be a chance that Maurer had engineered the job; might even have done it himself.

  “Oh, the hell with Maurer!” Conrad thought as he walked up the path to his front door. “I’ve got him on my mind like a junkie’s got dope.”

  He sank his key into the lock and moved into the dark little hall.

  The house was very still and silent.

  He went along the passage to the bedroom, pushed open the door and turned on the light. The twin beds had an empty and forlorn look about them.

  So Janey had gone out and she wasn’t back yet.

  He began to strip off his clothes. As he walked into the bathroom for a quick shower, he said aloud, “And the hell with her too!”

  chapter two

  I

  Charles Forest, District Attorney, sat behind his big, flat-topped desk, a cigarette between his thick fingers and a brooding expression in his eyes.

  Forest was a short, bulky man with a fleshy hard face, searching green eyes, a thin mouth and a square jutting chin. His thick white hair was seldom tidy as he had a habit of running his fingers through it when he was working on a knotty problem, and he seemed to spend most of his working hours solving knotty problems.

  “McCann seems satisfied it was Jordan,” Forest said, waving his hand to the pile of newspapers that lay in an untidy heap on the floor. “On the face of it, Paul, he’s got a watertight case. I’ve read Bardin’s report, and that seems pretty conclusive. What’s worrying you?”

  Conrad sank lower in the armchair. One leg hung over one of the arms of the chair and he swung it backwards and forwards irritably.

  “It’s too damned pat, sir,” he said. “Doc Holmes said it looked like a professional job, and I think so too. I think a hophead would have to be very lucky to kill six people with six shots, especially when he’s using a .45. Those guns kick, but each time he hit a bull’s eye. It seems to me the killer was a crack shot, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t killed before.”

  “I know,” Forest said mildly. “I thought those five shots good shooting. I’ve checked on Jordan. He was a crack shot. He could hit a playing card edge on at twenty yards, and that wants some doing.”

  Conrad grimaced.

  “I should have checked that myself,” he said, annoyed with himself. “Well, all right, that takes care of that. There is another thing: he uses an electric razor. From the look of him he hasn’t put a razor blade against his skin for years, and yet he had a cutthroat razor in his possession. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

  “Not particularly. It would be something if we knew for a fact that he didn’t own such a razor, but we don’t know that. People cut their corns with razors, you know.”

  “That’s what Bardin said, but I asked Doc Holmes. Jordan hadn’t any corns. And another thing, there was no blood on his clothes.”

  Forest nodded.

  “Well, go on: what’s on your mind?”

  “Bardin said he’d heard rumours that June Arnot was Jack Maurer’s mistress,” Conrad said quietly. “Suppose Maurer found out she was cheating on him with Jordan? What would he do? Send them his congratulations? If I know Maurer as well as I think I do, he would have gone up there and ripped her wide open and then cut her head off to teach her not to double-cross him in the future.” He sat forward, his eyes intent. “The moment I saw the set-up I wondered if it wasn’t a gang revenge. It would explain the professional touch and the ruthless slaughter to make sure there were no witnesses. Maurer has the imagination to leave a set of clues to lead the investigation away from him and to incriminate Jordan.”

  Forest stared at his blotter, his brows drawn down.

  “Do we know for certain she was Maurer’s mistress?” he asked after a long pause.

  “No, but we might find out if we dug deep enough.”

  “If we could prove she was his mistress beyond any reasonable doubt, then I would think you’re on to something, Paul.” Forest reached out and stubbed his cigarette out into the ash bowl. He looked up and his cold green eyes probed Conrad’s face. “I don’t have to tell you that the only reason why I accepted office was because I was determined to nail Maurer. I know how you feel about him yourself: that makes the two of us. Up to now we’ve got exactly nowhere. He’s never stepped out of turn, never made a wrong move, never given us anything we can use against him. We’ve nailed four of his best men during the past two years, and that was an achievement, considering the opposition we came up against. But in spite of keeping after him, we’re no further to nailing Maurer now than we were when I took office.” He leaned forward and poked a finger in Conrad’s direction. “I’m not going to discourage any hunches, any leads or any ideas that might give me a chance – no matter how remote – to throw a hook into Maurer. Okay, you think Maurer could be at the back of this killing. He could be. I don’t say he is, but he could be, and that’s enough for me. Go ahead and make some inquiries, but don’t let anyone know what you’re doing. The only way we’re going to corner Maurer is to surprise him, and make no mistake about it, surprising Maurer is my idea of a modern miracle. He has ears everywhere. He knows every move we make as soon as we make it. But go ahead and start digging. I don’t give a damn if it is a waste of public money. We’ve got to gamble on hunches or we’ll get nowhere. Don’t make any written reports. Keep this between your staff and myself. Don’t bring police headquarters into it unless you have to. I’m pretty certain someone at headquarters talks.”

  Conrad’s face lit up with a triumphant smile. He had hoped Forest would react in this way, but knowing the amount of work the office had to handle, he didn’t think Forest would give him an okay to go ahead on the flimsy evidence he had to offer.

  “That’s fine, sir. I’ll start right away. Van Roche and Miss Fielding are okay. I’ll need them, but apart from them I’ll keep this under my hat. I’ll see if I can dig up some dirt on June Arnot. If I can link her with Maurer we’ve really got something to work on.”

  “I’ll leave it to you, Paul,” Forest said. “As soon as you think you’ve got something, let me know.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I’ve got to be in court in ten minutes. Don’t take up too much time on the investigation. We’ve got a lot on our hands, but this comes first, understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Conrad said happily, and got to his feet.

  “There’s just one other little thing,” Forest said, and looked up. “This isn’t my business, but I’m go
ing to mention it because I like you and because I take an interest in you. If I’m talking out of turn, say so and I’ll shut up, but sometimes a word at the right time can be helpful.”

  “Why, sure,” Conrad said, puzzled. “What’s wrong, sir?”

  “Nothing yet,” Forest said. He looked down at his smoking cigarette, then looked up again. “Are you looking after that pretty wife of yours properly, Paul?”

  Conrad’s face tightened. This was unexpected, and he felt blood mount slowly to his face.

  “I don’t think I understand, sir.”

  “Someone told me your wife was at the Paradise club last night on her own,”

  Forest said quietly. “She wasn’t exactly sober. I don’t have to tell you that Maurer owns the club, nor do I have to tell you a lot of people, including Maurer and his mob, know she is the wife of my Chief Investigator.” He got to his feet and came around the desk. “That’s all, Paul. I don’t know if you knew, but if you didn’t, it’s time you did. See what you can do about it, will you? It’s not good for business, and I don’t think it’s good for your wife.” He smiled suddenly, and his hard face softened a little. He put his hand on Conrad’s shoulder. “Don’t look as if the end of the world has come. It hasn’t. Young women as pretty as your wife often try to kick over the traces. Maybe she’s finding life a little dull: especially when you get called out suddenly. But have a word with her. She’ll listen to reason.” He patted Conrad’s shoulder, picked up his briefcase and made for the door. “I must be going. I’ll expect some news of Maurer from you in a day or so.”

  “Yes, sir,” Conrad said woodenly.

  II

  Conrad’s staff consisted of his secretary, Madge Fielding, and his legman, Van Roche. Neither of them appeared to have any other interests except the work of the department, and when Conrad came into his office he found them waiting impatiently for him.

  “What’s the verdict, Paul?” Van Roche demanded as Conrad crossed the room to his desk.