The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  Clark’s smile was patronizing. “According to rumor, my dear,” he corrected.

  “Isn’t it thrilling?” Billie asked.

  “Yes. Very thrilling.” It didn’t sound thrilling at all to McMain; it sounded impossible. “Where do you suppose Tommy Glade is keeping himself?”

  “Are you ridin’ herd on Tommy tonight?” Billie asked. “Because if you are, I reckon you’ll have a job on your hands. He took two drinks with us and seemed quite tight.”

  “If he’s tight, it will be the first time in the six years I’ve known him.”

  “What a model young man,” Clark said dryly.

  Billie Dean looked sharply at her escort; she frowned and the color rose in her cheeks.

  The drinks arrived. They drank them in silence, under a pall of dissonance that was in sharp contrast to the gay chatter of the surrounding tables. The music started again and McMain stood up.

  “Like to dance, Billie?”

  He was conscious that Clark sat glaring at him as he swung the girl out onto the floor. They danced for a moment in silence.

  “Larry!” the girl said abruptly.

  McMain looked down at the shining black head nestled against his shoulder. “Yes?”

  “What’s wrong with Tommy tonight?”

  McMain’s heart skipped a beat. “Nothing that I know of. Why?”

  “There’s something wrong with him. I felt it.”

  “You said he was tight.”

  “That was just talk,” Billie said. “He wasn’t tight. He was—strange.”

  “How do you mean strange?”

  “Well, it’s hard to explain exactly. You know how he’s always jokin’ and kiddin’. Tonight he acted as though he carried all the troubles of the world on his shoulders.”

  “He’s leaving for Boston tomorrow and he doesn’t want to go.”

  “It isn’t that. Tommy wouldn’t whine over a transfer. It was something deeper.” She leaned back and gazed up into his face with troubled gray eyes. “Larry, why are you lookin’ for Tommy?”

  “I can’t tell you,” McMain said stubbornly.

  “Why cain’t you tell me? Is—is it so serious?”

  “It’s damned serious, Billie.”

  “But what—”

  They paused by common accord. There was a commotion down the hall, near the balcony which overlooked the bay. Everyone at that end of the floor had stopped dancing.

  McMain saw Cal Clemens, one of the supply officers from the base, bearing down on him. Cal’s face was dead white and he was shouting:

  “Larry! Oh, Larry! Come here, will you?”

  McMain’s heart sank with a dread foreboding. “You’ll have to excuse me, Billie,” he said crisply. “Come! I’ll take you back to your table.”

  He took her arm and started rapidly with her across the hall. “You stay with Clark. I’ll be back.”

  He shoved her towards the table, turned and hurried over to Cal Clemens.

  “What’s wrong, Cal?”

  “It’s Tommy Glade.” Cal’s face was beaded with sweat.

  “What about him?” McMain snapped.

  “He’s out there on the balcony,” Cal said, “hanging over the rail.”

  “Good Lord!” McMain exclaimed in disgust. “Why all the fuss? Can’t a man get drunk and—”

  “He isn’t drunk, Larry.” Cal gulped. “He—he’s dead!”

  III

  y the time McMain got out to the balcony, someone had lifted Tommy Glade off the railing and laid him on his back. McMain dropped to his knees, jerked a flashlight from the hand of a frightened waiter and shone the beam on Tommy’s face.

  The ensign’s mouth was contorted. His plump cheeks were blue-black, his eyes staring and glazed. McMain scanned the circle of men who had gathered on the balcony, barked hoarsely:

  “Who found him?”

  “Hi did, sar,” the waiter said, speaking with the unexpected British accent of the Barbados negro. “Hi see ’im ’anging there over the rail. First Hi think ’e’s sick and Hi go over to give ’im a ’and. But he ain’t sick, sar. ’E’s dead.”

  McMain got to his feet. What an end for cheerful, happy-go-lucky Tommy Glade! Doubled over a railing on the balcony of the Strangers’ Club, like any common drunk. Dying there. Dying alone and in agony.

  Cal Clemens elbowed his way to McMain’s side. “What do you think, Larry? Did he have a bad heart?”

  “His heart was all right.”

  “But there doesn’t seem to be a wound. Good Lord, man, what could have killed him?”

  “Only an autopsy will determine that.”

  “You—you think—he killed himself?” Clemens asked.

  “Not in a million years. Tommy Glade was murdered.”

  “Murdered! But—”

  “Now see here, Cal! I’m going back to the base. This thing happened in Panama and the Colón police will have to take over. Call them, will you?”

  “Okey, Larry.”

  McMain pushed through the hushed throng and made his way onto the dance floor. The music had stopped now and everyone was standing around, looking towards the balcony, talking in low tones. Clark and Billie Dean were not in the hall.

  McMain ran down the stairs two at a time, leaped into his car and drove swiftly back to Coco Solo. At the entrance of the military reservation, where he pulled up at the sentry box, he asked:

  “Did Lieutenant Dean’s sister just go by in a car?”

  “About two minutes ago, sir,” the marine sentry told him.

  “Who was with her?”

  “There was a tall guy, some civilian, in the back seat and a native chauffeur driving. It was a black Cad touring car, sir.”

  McMain put his car in gear and drove on to the wardroom, shut off his motor and lights, and went inside.

  Doc Lucas was gone. McMain glanced at the board beside the door and saw the doctor’s peg had been shoved into the “sick bay” hole. Emergency call, probably, and every other doctor on the base ashore.

  McMain walked over to the pantry and glanced inside. Pete Adams’ body had been removed and the blood mopped up. He closed the door and walked down the corridor. Passing his own room, he went on to the end of the passage and paused before Tommy Glade’s.

  The key, he noted, was on the outside of the door. McMain turned the knob and stepped inside. The odor of some exotic perfume, so strong as to be almost stifling, smote his nostrils as he groped for the light switch, found it and snapped on the lights.

  He heard a gasp before he saw the slim girl in the pale green dress. She was standing on the other side of the room, one hand at her breast, the other resting on a square black bottle which stood on the table in the corner. She was breathing fast and her gray eyes were frightened.

  “What in hell!” McMain cried.

  Billie dropped her gaze, but did not speak.

  The lieutenant glanced around swiftly. Save for a heavy trunk which stood beside the bed, a few toilet articles on the chiffonier, the room was bare of Tommy’s belongings.

  McMain looked back at Billie. “For God’s sake, girl, what’s this all about? You rush away from the club the instant you hear Tommy’s dead. You tear out here with Clark. And now I find you rifling Tommy’s room. Are you, by any chance, a Secret Service operative, too?”

  Her laugh was forced. “No, I’m just a member of the Ladies’ Auxiliary.” The attempt at humor was flat; humor was out of tune with the tragedy in her eyes.

  McMain sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Oh, hell!” he groaned. “Let’s not try to be funny. What are you doing here, Billie?”

  She came towards him, carrying the black bottle in her right hand. Pausing at the foot of the bed, she pleaded:

  “Won’t you please not ask me that question? Won’t you please let me go away from here and forget you ever saw me?”

  “You know I can’t do that,” McMain said unhappily.

  She met his eyes and then looked away. “And two weeks ago, that nig
ht drivin’ home from the club, you told me you loved me.”

  “You’re not being fair, Billie. Whether or not I love you doesn’t enter this mess at all. Two men have been murdered tonight and—”

  “Two!” the girl cried.

  “We found Pete Adams in the pantry a while ago with his throat cut.”

  “Pete Adams!”

  “Our old wardroom steward.”

  “Yes, I know.” She stood there staring at him, her lips parted, her shining dark hair wind-blown and awry.

  “What, precisely, do you know?” McMain asked gently.

  “I know it all fits.”

  “What fits?”

  “Don’t you know?” Billie countered.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. Can you tell me?” His voice was mild, patient. “Can you tell me why Pete’s throat was cut? Can you tell me why that fine young officer was murdered? And how?”

  “Tommy,” she said, her voice trembling, “killed himself.”

  “How?”

  “I—I think—he drank poison.”

  “Tommy Glade?” McMain shook his head. “No. Tommy Glade was a man. If he wanted to go out, he’d choose a man’s way. He wouldn’t drink poison at the Strangers’ Club. He’d come here to his room and blow his brains out with a service .45.”

  “Don’t! Don’t!” Billie begged.

  McMain tried a new tack. “Is that alleged Secret Service man waiting for you outside? Around the corner of the building where I didn’t see him when I drove up?”

  “Mr. Clark brought me over and then went back to town,” Billie answered quickly—too quickly.

  “And you had time, after he brought you home, to walk over here?” he asked skeptically. When he received no answer his eyes shifted to the square bottle. “What have you there?”

  “A bottle of perfume.”

  “The perfume that’s so rank in this room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you opened it?”

  “Yes.”

  McMain saw that the glass stopper was sealed with a heavy coating of wax. “Then how did you seal it up again? And why?”

  She lifted the black bottle, staring in surprise at the wax around its neck.

  McMain did not wait for an answer to his questions. His voice, now, was not so gentle. He was prodding himself, forcing himself to be hard. “Why did you open it in the first place? … Did you sprinkle it around the room? … If you did, why?”

  The girl breathed heavily; her eyes were like a cornered animal’s. She screamed suddenly:

  “Please! Let me alone! I won’t listen to you any longer. I won’t answer your questions. I won’t!”

  Her eyes met his for a brief moment. Then, before he realized her intention, she had leaped towards him. Her open left hand, the whole weight of her body behind it, struck him in the face and bowled him over backwards on the bed.

  By the time he gained his balance and got to his feet, the door was slamming behind her. He heard the lock snap home and then the patter of her footsteps running down the passageway.

  A hurt, regretful smile twisted his lips. Then, with a quiet shrug, he switched off the lights and went to the window. He heard the outer door of the wardroom slam and a moment later the low purr of a powerful car.

  Not until then did he release the screen and hop over the sill. Running around the building, he was just in time to see Clark’s black touring car swing onto the concrete of the base’s main street, heading towards Colón. McMain went back into the wardroom, picked up the telephone and called the sentry box at the gate.

  “Lieutenant McMain speaking. That big Cad with Miss Dean is on its way up. Stop it. Close your gates and stop it if you have to use your rifle. Got that?”

  “I got it, sir.”

  McMain put the telephone back on the stand. He was still smiling that twisted, regretful smile, but with his lips alone. His dark eyes were hard.

  IV

  cMain went out to his car and drove to the Deans’ quarters. He found Chuck Dean, his wife and the Mayers in a bridge game. He greeted them, said briefly:

  “Sorry to break up your game, but I’ll have to see you for a few minutes, Chuck.”

  Chuck, a lanky, blond six-footer, rose from the table. He got his cap and followed McMain out of the house, down the stairs and to the small roadster.

  “What’s it all about, Larry? Pete Adams?”

  “That’s the beginning of it,” McMain acknowledged, and briefly sketched the night’s events.

  “Good Lawd, I cain’t understand it!” Chuck Dean said dazedly at last. “Billie has always been adventurous, reckless you might say, but getting involved in a thing like this— Why do you suppose she wanted that bottle of perfume? She must have got it for Clark. But why didn’t he do his own dirty work?”

  “He’d need her with him to get onto the base after nine o’clock.”

  “But after he was here, why didn’t he drop her at home and go back to the wardroom himself? Why did he have to drag her into this?”

  McMain said quietly: “Chuck, she was in it already.”

  “My sister?” Chuck raged. Then he caught himself, asked more calmly: “You say this fellow is a Secret Service man?”

  “Billie believes he is and he doesn’t deny it. Personally, I think he started the rumor himself as a blind.”

  Chuck thought about that for a moment or two, while he nervously coiled and uncoiled his long legs. “And Tommy’s room, you say, was rank with perfume?”

  “Terrible. And yet the cork wasn’t out of the bottle.”

  “Then where did the smell of perfume come from?”

  “I didn’t take time to investigate.”

  Chuck Dean sighed heavily. “Well, I reckon we better round up Billie and that Clark fella and see what they have to say.”

  “Right.”

  McMain drove through the silent base and down the road to the sentry box.

  “Good Lawd!” Chuck Dean exclaimed. “Look at that gate!”

  The double gate was a mass of twisted steel, folded outward. The marine guard came over, uncomfortably at attention.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. McMain. I stopped ’em and told ’em they couldn’t go through. They argued a little, and then the driver threw his car into gear and—blooey!—bang through the gate he went.”

  “You’re a hell of a sentry!” McMain snorted. “Did you fire at the car?”

  “No, sir. I was afraid I might hit Miss Dean. And I didn’t like to take the chance, sir, just because of an elopement.”

  “Elopement!”

  “Sure. Didn’t you know, sir? They were eloping. Miss Dean and the big guy. He told me.”

  McMain viciously jerked his car into motion, shoved the gears into high, and shot down the road.

  “Now what?” Chuck Dean asked.

  “We have to find Clark’s car.”

  McMain jammed the accelerator to the floorboard. The white ribbon of concrete, the black jungle on either side of the road, shot past at seventy miles an hour.

  Suddenly Chuck Dean cried: “Hold her, Larry!”

  McMain came down on his brake. “What was it?”

  “Body, looked like. Back there beside the road.”

  “Not—”

  “No. A man. Reckon you better come about, fella.”

  McMain cramped his wheel and swung the car around with its tires screaming. “Good God! This gets worse all the time. Where’d you see that body? Which side of the road?”

  “My side comin’ in. Your side now. Wait! There it is. See it?”

  McMain drew up at the edge of the concrete. The body of a man, crumpled as though it had been hurled from an automobile, lay in the lush grass which bordered the highway. McMain and Dean piled out of the car and, in the glow of the headlights, turned the body over.

  “Clark’s chauffeur,” McMain said laconically.

  “You know him?”

  “I’ve seen him around.”

  The man’s face was bloody and caked wit
h mud. He had been shot. The bullet had gone into his right temple at the height of the eye, passed through his head and come out at almost the same location on the left side.

  “Must have died instantly, poor devil,” McMain muttered. “Well, we’d better hit for town, report this to the police and get their help in finding Clark’s car. Come on.”

  McMain had turned to the car when Dean caught him by the arm, almost jerking him off his feet.

  “Good Lawd, Larry! He—he moved!”

  “Nonsense. The man’s dead as a mackerel.”

  “No! Wait!”

  Dean dropped to his knees beside the chauffeur. He unbuttoned the man’s coat with shaking fingers. Tearing the shirt open, he dropped his ear to the bared breast. He listened for a moment, and then sat up abruptly.

  “By heaven, Larry. He’s alive!”

  “With a bullet through his brain?”

  “I don’t give a damn,” Chuck stormed, “whether he has a bullet through his brain or not. The man’s alive and his heart is strong. And we cain’t leave the poor devil here to bleed to death.”

  “Then we’ll have to take him to the sick bay at the base. I hate to waste time going back, but there’s nothing else to do. Get hold of his feet.”

  The chauffeur was a slight man; they had no difficulty in lifting him into the car. Then, with Dean standing on the running-board holding the unconscious man erect, McMain drove back to the sub base and to the sick bay. There they found Doc Lucas, who, taking one look at the man, said crisply:

  “It’s a miracle, but not without precedent. Carry him into the operating room.”

  McMain and Dean carried him in and left him there. They were in too much of a hurry to make explanations and the doctor, for a time, was too busy to listen to them.

  At police headquarters in Colón, a large and dingy room through which passed the cosmopolitan port’s nightly stream of drunks and brawlers, they found the desk sergeant.

  McMain introduced Chuck and himself. “Anything new on that death at the Strangers’ Club?”

  The harassed, sweating sergeant shrugged lean shoulders. “My men report, gentlemen, that the young officer took poison because a lady spurned him. A most unfortunate affair. I have ordered an autopsy performed. After that we shall hold an inquest. And then the body will be turned over to the naval authorities.”