He stopped and the word hung there. None of my clients had brought me a murder case before. "Murder?" I said. "The police —"
"Hang the police! You'll understand why, in a moment. . . ."
Last night there had been a small party at the home of Bill and Louise Trent in the Hollywood hills. All ten persons present were connected with the movie Wagon Wheels, which Kennedy was currently co-producing with A.A. Porter, another well-known name. The party had been a wild-type party, which was one big reason Kennedy was here; he wanted the thing hushed fast. Kennedy had left early with one of the female stars of the movie, later returned to the address and discovered a young and lovely starlet named Melba Mallory face down in the swimming pool, dead, and the star of Wagon Wheels, Alan Grant, lying on the grass nearby, dead drunk. A few feet from him had been an empty whisky bottle, cracked, a smear of blood on it.
I said, "You're sure the girl was dead, Mr. Kennedy?"
He grimaced. "Yes, I . . . She was close to the edge at the shallow end. I touched her, lifted her a little." He swallowed. "She was dead, all right. Been hit over the head, cut there. Then in the water all that time . . ."
"Why did you say you went back to the Trents' home?"
"I didn't say. Alan was supposed to call me this morning, early. At five. We were doing some retakes today and I wanted to try to keep him reasonably sober. He's a terrible lush, you know. When I couldn't reach him at his suite, I assumed he was probably still at the party and went there." He sighed. "Alan couldn't tell me anything. He's the star of Wagon Wheels. And we've got another of his movies not yet released. I want this murder solved fast, before scandalous rumors spread. And if there are any more delays on this film I'll have to dig up more money — which I can't do. A few thousand left, naturally —" he smiled — "for your fee."
I smiled.
Still smiling, I said, "Ah, yes. Let's talk about that." We did. The upshot of it was that if all went well and Kennedy wasn't ruined, I'd be able to pay my rent for several months in advance.
Kennedy said, "All I want's the truth. And fast action. If Grant did it, then that's that. I don't think he did. I hope to God he didn't — he's a drunk, and weak, but not a murderer." He paused. "And almost anybody might have had reason to kill that little — that Melba."
"You say she was in the picture?"
"Yes. That was one of the conditions A.A. insisted on himself — A.A. Porter, co-producer with me." Kennedy's voice became more anguished. "Wagon Wheels is the biggest thing since Cimarron, a Birth-of-the-Nation Western in Deep Screen, Technicolor and CinemaScope, and A.A. insisted Melba play in it. Minor role, but she stank up every scene she was in." His face got bleak. "Supposed to be a poor ranch woman. She acts like Mata Hari spying on the cactus. We've cut out all we could without ruining the continuity, but it's not enough. I'd shoot Melba's scenes over with somebody else, if I had any money left, and if A.A. would allow it — which he wouldn't. But, then, she's dead now, isn't she?" Kennedy ran his hands through his graying hair. "Ulcers," he mumbled abstractedly. "Pills . . . worry. Sometimes I think maybe it isn't worth it."
"What isn't?"
He stared at me as if I'd asked a very stupid question. Lovingly he said, "Money. Yes, sometimes I . . . good heavens!" Kennedy was looking about in dazed fashion. He'd finally got a real penetrating look at my office. Now was the time to clinch the deal, while he was dazed; I always clinch my deals while the clients are dazed. I rang for Yolanda, and she entered.
"Take a memo," I said. She advanced to the chaise lounge and poised a pencil over her memo pad. I said, "Agreement between Mr. Jay Kennedy of Gargantua Productions and Shell Scott, Investigator, dated . . ." Yolanda began making pothooks and wiggling. Kennedy was middle-aged, getting younger. I stepped up my delivery and named a figure two thousand dollars higher than anything Kennedy had mentioned. His mouth sagged open. Just for fun, as I sometimes do, I threw in, "And the party of the first part agrees with the party of the second part, agreeing to pay the third part all the other parts plus a million dollars." Kennedy didn't hear a word. They never do, not when I'm dictating two hundred words a minute to Yolanda. With my brain I should be a millionaire.
Alan Grant was unconscious in his suite of rooms on the fourth floor of the Graystone. But he was becoming conscious. I had him in the shower and was pouring it to him, hot and cold, then hot and cold again. Kennedy hadn't called the police earlier, so I'd told him to take care of that detail and then join me here. He arrived just as I hauled Grant out of the shower.
Kennedy said, "I phoned the police. Didn't mention my name. They'll get to me soon enough. Too soon." He glanced at the bed on which I'd dumped Alan Grant.
Grant mumbled some swear words. I'd fixed hot coffee, and started pouring it down him. "While we're waking this guy up," I said, "you'd better give me a list of everybody at the party, what they do in the movie, where they live, if you know, and so on."
He got pencil and paper and began writing. Ten people had been at the party, all of them in some way connected with Wagon Wheels. Bill Trent was director; he and his wife Louise had been the host and hostess. Alan Grant had taken Melba Mallory to the party. Kennedy and Porter, co-producers, had gone to the party alone; so had the two feminine leads, Miss Le Braque and Evelyn Druid. The two others present had been Simon French, who'd done the Wagon Wheels screenplay, and his wife, Anastasia.
From Kennedy I got a pretty good mental picture of the murder scene. The swimming pool was beyond twenty yards of lawn at the rear of the big house in the Hollywood Hills. Kennedy had found Alan Grant passed out on the lawn at the base of some thick bushes about ten yards from the pool. Between him and the pool's edge had been the whisky bottle.
I said, "About that bottle, Mr. Kennedy. Looks as if Melba could have been slugged with it and then pushed into the water. Maybe the glass has fingerprints on it that the police can bring out. Might make everything simple."
He smoothed his gray hair. "I won't try to make excuses. I . . . I got a little panicked, I suppose. Wiped the bottle off and threw it into the pool. I was afraid then that Alan had . . . Anyway, that's what I did."
"Oh." After digesting that I went on. "Before long we'll know the approximate time Melba was killed. Might be a good idea if I knew where you were at the time of the murder."
He thought about that for a while, then said, "As I have intimated, the party last night was somewhat . . . abandoned. Consequently I left early, about midnight, with Miss Le Braque. Went to her apartment and had a drink or two. She'll tell you the same thing. Keep it to yourself. Business, you understand. But keep it to yourself, anyway."
Across the room there was a deep sighing sound. Grant said, "What's going on here?"
It took ten more minutes of coffee, conversation, and threats from Kennedy, to get any kind of story from Grant, and even then it wasn't very coherent. Grant swore he hadn't known Melba was dead, he positively hadn't killed her, hadn't even touched her. He'd seen her with somebody, though. Alan Grant was the tall, rangy rawboned type that looks good whispering sweet nothings to a horse, but this morning the horse would have run away neighing. The flesh hung slack on Grant's face, sagged and spread; his eyes were two small sunrises in a field of putty. His curly brown locks had become unlocked.
"Must've passed out," he said. "All seems like a dream. Remember lying there on the grass, everything swimming. Saw them by the pool. Lights were on. They didn't see me, or else they didn't give a damn. Didn't appear to have any clothes on. They were unclothed, yes. There right alongside the pool." He shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut. "Some man with Melba, but all I know is it was her. Then there was somebody came running up, and shome — some talk. And a kind of a fright. Whoever it was ran away. And the guy ran away. Then somebody came back, or somebody else did. I don't know. Leave me alone."
"You said somebody came back — after these two ran away. Where was Melba?" I asked.
"Still lying there."
"Who pushed her?"
"Hell, I don't know. Maybe I dreamed it. Pushed her in and ran away. Leave me alone."
That was all we could get out of him. He lay back on the bed and started snoring. Kennedy said, "How much of that do you think happened?"
"Well, you know this guy better than I do. Any chance he's faking part of this drunk act?"
"It's no act. He's probably telling the truth as well as he knows it, or remembers it. I hope so." Suddenly he winced and snapped his fingers. "A.A. — he's got to know about this." He wheeled, went to the phone alongside the bed.
By the time I got to the door, Kennedy was talking to A.A. Porter and I'd heard the words "Wagon Wheels" three or four times. Before I went out I told Kennedy to inform Mr. Porter that I'd be right out to see him. Kennedy nodded, waved a hand, and I left.
Miss le braque's home was on the way out to Porter's mansion, so I stopped there. She was a blonde, in less than dishabille, and she opened the door, then slammed it in my face, reappearing in a white robe. "Come in," she said.
I showed her the photostat of my license, told her who I was and why I was here. After a while, she corroborated Jay Kennedy's story in all details. Only they'd had several highballs together.
"Like one?" she asked me.
"No, thanks."
She simpered and smiled. "I'm going to have the lead in Wagon Tracks, Jay's next sequel to Wagon Wheels. Clever title, isn't it? After the Wagon Wheels, the Wagon Tra —"
"Please. You say Mr. Kennedy was with you at the party, then from midnight till he phoned Alan Grant's place at five you were alone together."
"Yes. Like a drinkie?"
"No. I don't drinkie in the morning. Thanks. Good-by. . . ."
A.A. Porter was waiting for me in the front doorway of his two-story auditorium. He was short, heavy, red-faced, with thinning strands of black hair on the top of his large head. Looking shaken and shocked, he pumped my hand and pulled me inside. "Terrible . . . terrible," he said in a deep, rumbling voice. "Jay just finished talking to me. Murdered. God! And Grant — do you think he did it, Scott?"
"I don't know who did it. I haven't even been to the Trents' house yet. Mr. Kennedy came to see me only about an hour ago."
He was nodding his big head. "Yes. But that fantastic story of Grant's."
"We can drag the pool, but I'll hazard a guess there's not even a minnow in it. Just Melba — though the police will have fished her out by now." I stopped. "Did Mr. Kennedy tell you the whole story that Grant gave us?"
He nodded. "Of course. Wagon Wheels must —"
"Forget Wagon Wheels for half a second, will you? And you'd better call Kennedy back and tell him to keep his mouth shut about your star's story. It's all right for the three of us to know about it, maybe, but it better not go any farther."
"See here!" He didn't like my tone and language. He was A.A. Porter.
I went on, "Look, by now the police are at the scene. I have to find out all I can before they put the whole bunch of you in jail. Besides which, I've got a lease expiring."
"A what?"
"And Yolanda. Never mind. Mr. Porter, I know there were ten people at the party; one of them was murdered. Of the nine remaining, I've learned that Mr. Kennedy and another person can alibi each other. It would help both of us if you could tell me, quick-like, where you were from, say, midnight on."
"That hardly seems necessary." His tone was frigid.
"You don't have to tell me a thing. But you're going to have to tell the police officers who'll soon be here. The quicker I can eliminate eight people, the quicker this mess will be over. Probably the police will get there sooner than I, but I'm going to have a good try at it. And that would make the mess smell sweeter for you and Kennedy. Make up your mind."
One thing I'd noted and liked about men like Kennedy and Porter, the big-wheel, executive, accustomed-to-command type, was that they made their decisions quickly and acted on them. Porter frowned at me for perhaps a second, then said briskly, "I suppose you're right. I was with Mrs. Trent, the hostess. We were —" he fixed his eyes on me, scowling slightly, and went on deliberately — "in the bedroom. Having . . . a . . . drink. A highball. It was necessary that we talk, and it was quiet there. We were together from shortly after midnight, say twelve-thirty, until four this morning, when I left."
This was the drinkingest gang I'd ever run across. Porter's story was so similar to Kennedy's that a man might almost think they'd compared them.
I said, "How is Melba Mallory's death going to affect the release of Wagon Wheels?"
"We'll probably have to shoot several scenes over. Actually, it may well improve the production. I had very high hopes for Miss Mallory, but she wasn't as good as I'd expected."
"Mr. Kennedy told me you insisted she have a pretty good part in the film."
"That's true." He nodded his big head. "I made a mistake. A man can't always be right." He paused. "I discovered Sandra Storme, you know. I rather hoped that Melba would be . . ." He shrugged.
Sandra Storme was the number-four box-office attraction. Everybody knew that Porter had discovered her. He told everybody. After another minute's conversation I left and drove to the Hollywood Hills.
Two police cars and an ambulance were parked in front, but I didn't see any policemen. Mrs. Trent answered my ring. Yes, she'd been with Mr. Porter. Yes, business. Yes, in the bedroom. Yes, of course, for a highball. Couldn't stand noise when she was drinking.
Mrs. Trent and I went back to the bedroom. We didn't drink anything. It was a lovely bedroom, with soft pastels dominating the color scheme, an enormous bed, dressing table, high beamed ceiling. This bedroom was at the rear of the house, one door leading from the hall into here, one other door, closed, in the left wall. "I guess that's all the questions I wanted to ask, Mrs. Trent. Thanks very much for letting me ask them. I know you've already talked to the police. You were with Mr. Porter for all that time. With him every minute?"
"Every minute." She paused. "Oh, he went in there for perhaps a couple of minutes."
I took a look. In "there" was a small chunk of Rome before the decline and fall. To be perfectly accurate, it was a bathroom, but with a sunken tub larger than some people's swimming pools, mosaic-tile walls, and the usual. A mink cover, even. Imagine. A big window was open in the rear wall and I looked out it at the lawn behind the house. And it appeared I was going to meet the police about now.
Several uniformed and plainclothes officers were grouped twenty yards away from the pool, one man taking pictures. One of the officers I'd come to know well in these last three years was looking this way, saw me and motioned for me to join them. I went back into the bedroom. Mrs. Trent took me down the hall to a side door and showed me out. I walked around the side of the house and up to Sergeant Casey, the man who had waved at me.
"Hi, Shell. Important people in this one, huh?"
"Yeah. I'm in it, you're in it. Kennedy's retained me."
"I heard. Three thousand policemen isn't enough?"
"Anything you can pass on? Free, I mean." Casey shook his head. I said, "How about the time of death?"
"Coroner can't tell this soon. You know that. Oh — he gave us a guess. Between two and three this a.m. Give or take a couple days. But he's usually close. Good man." He paused. "I suppose you just got up?"
"Been up for minutes. Even talked to a couple people."
"Suspects?" I nodded and he continued, "You might have to talk to them in jail pretty quick. We're rounding them up for interrogation. Got one downtown now. Guy named Simon French. Had him in jail since a little after three this morning."
"French?" He was the Wagon Wheels writer.
"Yeah. Writer who was at the ball here last night. One of the Hollywood Division's F cars picked him up. He was running down the street naked about half a mile from here."
"Naked, huh? Well, that's at least a misdemeanor. Also a little uninhibited."
"Yeah, these people are free as birds. You know what he said when the policemen asked him what the hell? The guy
said he loved the cool, moist fingers of the morning wind on his burning flesh. He's a writer?"
"That's what they say. Thanks, Casey. Think I could talk to French at the jail?"
"You can ask."
"Sure. How about French's wife, Anastasia? She say anything about her hubby's track suit?"
"Haven't located her yet, far as I know. Not home. She's probably being ravished by the cool, moist fingers of the morning —"
I left before he got carried away. At the jail I was told that Simon French hadn't talked to anybody since being picked up in Hollywood. They let me see him, but he wouldn't tell me much, either. Just before I left, though, I said to him, "The police told you Melba was murdered, of course."
"Of course."
"I don't suppose you killed her."
"I don't suppose."
"French, your dialogue is lousy."
"Who's paying me?"
"The state may, if you keep it up. Look, French. Melba was minus clothes when she was killed. You were flying down the street, a Hollywood nudist, half a mile from where Melba was killed. Coincidence? And word floats around that more than two people cavorted about the Trents' pool around two or three this morning. Maybe four people. Maybe five. Maybe a few words from you could get you out of big trouble?"
Oddly enough, his face got a puzzled expression on it and he started to speak. But he didn't say anything.
I left and drove to French's home just off Beverly Boulevard. Nobody was there. I didn't see any police cars around. After waiting five minutes I started to leave when a big Cadillac pulled into the driveway. A short, pretty woman with her hair piled on top of her head got out of the Cad and walked toward the house.
There was a chance, since Anastasia French hadn't been available or talked to the police, that she didn't know much about what was going on this morning. Anyway, I was going to play it that way. She hadn't seen me yet, and I said, "Hello, Anastasia."
She looked up toward me, startled. "Hello . . . who are you?"
Have Gat—Will Travel Page 9
