1954 - Safer Dead

by James Hadley Chase

  I got to my feet.

  ‘If I turn up anything, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘My pal,’ Scaife said sarcastically and settled down once more to brood over the bulky file.

  III

  Arcadia Drive was a quiet street on the outskirts of the town. A row of bungalows faced a large vacant lot, overgrown with weeds and dead grass, and on which stood several large advertising hoardings.

  The bungalows might have been attractive when they had first been erected, but now they were past their prime. They had the dejected look of a man with a shrinking income, trying to keep up appearances and knowing he won’t be able to hold on much longer.

  Already some of the owners of the bungalows had given up the pretence of being middle class. Two of the front gardens of the bungalows displayed a line of washing, and the gardens were competing in appearance with the vacant lot opposite.

  No. 25 was still making a brave show. The lawn had been recently cut, and although the paintwork was at its last gasp, the curtains were bright and clean.

  I dug my thumb into the bell push. There was a delay before the front door opened. A girl, blonde, bright looking, with the standard prettiness you would expect from a girl who earns her living in show business, looked inquiringly at me. She had on a blue housecoat, pulled in tight at her waist, and her small feet were in quilted satin blue bed slippers.

  ‘Miss Shelley?’ I said, raising my hat.

  ‘Yes. If you’re hoping to sell something you’re wasting your time,’ she said briskly. ‘Don’t tell me I haven’t warned you.’

  ‘I’m not selling anything. I’m Chet Sladen from Crime Facts. Ever read our paper. Miss Shelley?’

  ‘I don’t like crime.’

  ‘That’s as good a reason as any. I want to ask you a few questions. Would you mind? I’m trying to get some background dope on Joan Nichols.’

  She lifted blonde, nicely shaped eyebrows.

  ‘But Joan’s dead. She died more than a year ago.’

  ‘That’s right. Would it be convenient if I stepped inside? I won’t keep you long.’

  She stood aside.

  ‘If this is a stunt to rob me,’ she said, smiling, ‘it’ll be a waste of time. I haven’t anything of value in the house.’

  I took out my billfold and gave her one of my business cards.

  ‘If that doesn’t set your mind at rest, you can call up Sergeant Scaife at police headquarters. He’ll vouch for me.’

  She laughed.

  ‘Well, you do read odd things in the papers. Come in. I’m sorry I can’t offer you a drink.’ She led the way into the sitting room that was spick and span, but austere. It contained only the bare necessities. ‘Do sit down. I hope you won’t keep me long, I’ve got to go out in a little while.’

  ‘I won’t keep you long,’ I said, sitting down in an armchair that looked comfortable, but turned out to be far from it. If she had told me it had been stuffed with rocks I shouldn’t have been surprised. I took from my billfold the photograph of Fay Benson and offered it to her. ‘Ever seen this girl before?’

  She took the photograph, studied it, shook her head and handed it back.

  ‘I don’t think I have. Her face is familiar, but that doesn’t mean anything. So many girls in show business look like that.’

  I thought about this, studied Fay Benson’s features and was inclined to agree with her.

  ‘You’re sure she wasn’t one of the girls in your troupe when you went to Paris?’

  ‘Oh no, I’m quite sure of that.’

  ‘Joan Nichols went with you?’

  ‘Yes. It would be much more fun for me, Mr. Sladen, if I knew what this was all about.’

  ‘Sorry; briefly, this girl, Fay Benson, disappeared fourteen months ago under mysterious circumstances. Joan Nichols seemed to have known her. Anyway, she called at Fay’s hotel three days after Fay had disappeared. Miss Nichols asked the reception clerk to let her know if Fay showed up. She then returned to her apartment, fell downstairs and broke her neck.’

  ‘I know she fell downstairs,’ Janet Shelley said, looking questioningly at me. ‘It was an accident, wasn’t it?’

  ‘The coroner said so; the police think so, but I’m not so sure. She could have been pushed.’

  ‘But why - why do you think that?’

  ‘It’d take too long to go into now, Miss Shelley. I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. I’m trying to find out if Miss Nichols was a friend or just an acquaintance of Fay’s. Would you know?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘She never mentioned Fay Benson to me.’

  ‘Were you and Miss Nichols friends?’

  ‘Not particularly. She was rather difficult. None of the girls got on well with her.’

  ‘In what way - difficult?’

  She hesitated, then shrugged.

  ‘I don’t like gossiping about people, but as she’s dead, I don’t suppose it matters. She was always short of money. She tried to borrow from us. After all, we were all hard up, and we had to make do with what we were paid, but Joan would never stint herself. She was always in debt, always worrying someone for a loan. If she didn’t get it, she could be rather horrible. She had a very sharp tongue.’

  ‘What did she spend her money on?’

  Janet Shelley shrugged.

  ‘What do girls spend their money on? She never went without a thing. Of course, she had to dress better than we other girls. She moved in a better circle. She had an amazing talent for making friends with people with money. When she was in Paris she got friendly with Mrs. Cornelia Van Blake, the millionaire’s wife. Don’t ask me how she did it, but she did. Twice she went to Mrs. Van Blake’s hotel and had dinner with her. She borrowed a dress from me for the occasion, and somehow she squeezed twenty dollars out of some of the girls to put on a front. They never did get their money back, and I had a lot of trouble getting my dress back.’

  All this wasn’t interesting me very much, but I let her talk in the hope she would say something eventually that would be news to me.

  ‘Did you ever see her with a tall, suntanned guy around thirty-five who has an eyebrow moustache?’ I asked hopefully.

  She shook her head.

  ‘No. She didn’t have any young boy friends. All her male friends were old: business men; sugar daddies if you like.’

  For a girl who didn’t like gossiping about people she was doing all right, I thought.

  ‘Have you ever met a guy who fits that description? His name might be Henry Rutland. He owns a cream and green Cadillac.’

  She laughed ruefully.

  ‘I wish I had. He sounds fun. My boy friends never run to more than a Ford.’

  There didn’t seem any use my wasting her time or mine any further. I was getting nowhere fast.

  ‘Did Miss Nichols have any enemies, do you know?’ I asked as a final question.

  ‘I should say she had a flock of them, but none of them would want to kill her. All they’d want to do would be to avoid her.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said getting up. I was glad to be out of the armchair. ‘I’m sorry to have taken up your time, but it’s been nice to meet you.’ I looked around the austere room, then at her. ‘I’m going to embarrass you, Miss Shelley. My editor doesn’t expect me to waste people’s time asking all sorts of questions for nothing.’ I fished out two tens, folded them and put them on the table. ‘That represents a fee for information.’

  If Fayette could have heard me he would have blown his top, but I liked this girl and it was pretty obvious she was having a thin time.

  She blushed prettily.

  ‘Gee! I didn’t expect.’ She stopped short. ‘I haven’t told you anything.’

  ‘Call it a rain check. I might be back for more information,’ I said. ‘So long for now.’

  Before she could protest further, I went into the hall, opened the front door and legged it down the path to the car.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I

  I picked Scai
fe up at headquarters at seven-forty. It was a warm evening and the sky was cloudless. It looked as if we were going to have a nice night for the barrel-lifting job.

  ‘Did you see the Shelley girl?’ Scaife asked as he settled comfortably on the bench seat of the Buick.

  ‘I did, but I didn’t get much out of her.’ I gave him the gist of our conversation. ‘Do you know if any of your boys took Joan’s fingerprints before she was buried?’

  Scaife shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know. I’d say they did, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Why?’

  ‘It might be an idea to check to see if she had a record. A girl who is always after money more often than not gets into trouble.’

  Scaife nodded.

  ‘That’s an idea. Okay, when I get back, I’ll see if we have prints. If we have, I’ll get them checked.’

  ‘She interests me. She’s the only one so far in this setup who doesn’t make sense,’ I said. ‘Rutland could have been Fay’s boyfriend. Hesson and Farmer kidnapped her. Flemming killed her. Do you think Rutland paid those three to do the job? Do you think he’s the guy behind the killing?’

  ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t pay to make wild guesses,’ Scaife said. ‘I prefer to wait until the facts fall into line. We don’t even know the girl’s dead.’

  ‘Like to bet she’s not at the bottom of the lake?’

  Scaife shook his head.

  ‘No, but until we find her, I’m keeping an open mind on the subject.’

  ‘There seems a lot of traffic heading this way,’ I said, slowing down as I came upon a long line of cars moving slowly towards Lake Baldock.

  Scaife swore under his breath.

  ‘I wonder if someone’s talked? My stars! The old man will bust his truss! Look at this mob!’

  There was no hope of overtaking the procession of cars ahead of us. We had to follow along behind them. About a quarter of a mile from the lake, the cars slowed to a crawl.

  We could see three cops ahead in the road, holding up the traffic.

  ‘Let me get out a moment,’ Scaife said.

  I stopped the car and waited while he spoke to one of the cops, then he came back, scowling.

  ‘There are about a couple of thousand sightseers around the lake and more coming every minute,’ he said, getting back into the car. ‘We’ve had to call out the reserve to handle them. Someone’s talked all right. We can go through. Mind how you go.’

  I edged out of the stream of traffic and drove on until we reached the lake.

  Six police cars and a couple of trucks stood under the trees. The ground around the water’s edge swarmed with pressmen and cameramen. There were even two units of the newsreel hawks busily setting up their cameras.

  A squad of police was working on three powerful searchlights, directing their white, glaring beams on to the still surface of the water.

  Harris was climbing into his frog outfit when Scaife and I joined the group at the water’s edge.

  Creed glared at me.

  ‘Is this your doing?’ he demanded in a voice you could cut ham on.

  ‘Not guilty, captain. I haven’t said a word.’

  ‘That’s what everyone is saying. Well, I hope for someone’s sake we find this girl.’

  He turned to Harris who was shivering in the still night air and snarled at him to hurry up.

  Harris got into the boat; two cops shoved it off, scrambled aboard and began to row to the centre of the lake. Nearby was a powerful winch, anchored to a tree. At the end of the steel cable was a set of clamps. Three policemen were loading the clamps into another rowboat. They pushed off, and as they rowed after the first boat, two other policemen paid out the cable. Scaife and I kept away from Creed. We stood under the trees watching the two boats as they slowly neared the centre of the lake.

  A couple of newspaper cameramen tried to put out their own boat with the view of getting photographs of Harris as he entered the water, but a squad of police blocked them off. One of the cameramen went over to Creed to protest, but he didn’t get anywhere. Creed vented his spleen on him, and the cameraman retreated, shaken.

  ‘If that barrel only contains cement,’ Scaife said out of the corner of his mouth, ‘you’re going to see the nearest thing to an earthquake you’re likely to see. It’s my bet Harris has been shooting his mouth off. There’s nothing he likes better than publicity.’

  Harris had gone into the water and the waiting crowd watched, silent and tense. After ten minutes or so he reappeared and waved to the boat that carried the tackle. The oarsmen rowed over to him and lowered the clamps over the side.

  ‘Won’t be long now,’ Scaife said restlessly. He lit a cigarette, took an impatient draw, then tossed the cigarette into the lake. After what seemed an age, Harris’s head again appeared above the water and he waved.

  Creed turned to the two men on the winch.

  ‘Okay, start winding,’ he snapped.

  The two men bent to their task. It was as much as they could do to turn the handles and Creed shouted to two other cops to help them.

  Slowly the drum turned, winding in the cable. After ten minutes, Creed changed the four men who stood back, sweating and panting.

  ‘I think we might get back a little,’ Scaife said under his breath. ‘If the old man spots us, he’ll get us to do some of that, and it looks like hard work to me.’

  We moved further back into the shadows.

  It took more than an hour of slow winding before the barrel broke surface.

  A wild, frenzied cheer broke out from the crowd as the four policemen slopped into the water and manhandled the barrel ashore. A beam from one of the searchlights was directed on to it, and there was a rush of cameramen to photograph it.

  They wanted Creed to pose beside it, but he wouldn’t do it. I could see he wanted to, but he was scared the girl wasn’t inside the barrel, and he wasn’t taking the risk of making a fool of himself.

  A black, closed truck, like an ambulance, edged to where the barrel lay.

  ‘That’s the mortician’s truck,’ Scaife said. ‘Creed’s not taking the risk of opening the barrel here. Come on, let’s get out of here. We’ll go to the mortuary. That’s where they’ll open it.’

  We pushed our way through the excited crowd, and once clear of them, we ran fast to the Buick. I had trouble in turning the car, so congested had the road become. I got the car turned at last, and drove fastback to town.

  The mortuary was behind police headquarters. I parked the Buick in the police park, and we walked over to the mortuary building.

  A fat little man, wearing a rubber apron and rubber gloves came out of a room as we entered the tiled passage.

  ‘Evening, sergeant,’ he said, his badly shaven face lighting up. ‘How’s it coming? Did they get it up?’

  ‘Hello, Joe,’ Scaife said. ‘They got it up all right. They should be along in about half an hour.’

  ‘Anything in it?’

  ‘Cement. I don’t know what else. The old man’s opening it here.’

  ‘The last cement job I did,’ Joe said scowling, ‘was a horror. The guy had been in the water for six months. You should have seen him.’

  ‘She’s been in for fourteen months. Think there’ll be anything left to see?’

  Joe shrugged.

  ‘It depends on how much of the cement has covered her. If she’s right inside the cement shell, she might be all right. She won’t last long: just long enough to identify her.’

  Listening to this talk made me feel a little sick. I wasn’t sure now if I wanted to be present when they opened the barrel.

  ‘Come into the office,’ Joe said. ‘I’ve got a bottle in there that’ll put you in the right mood. I always have a shot before I tackle a job like this.’

  We went into a small office and stood around while Joe got three glasses and a bottle of Scotch from a cupboard.

  ‘This is Chet Sladen, the guy who writes for Crimes Facts,’ Scaife said. ‘He’s working on the case.’
r />   Joe nodded at me.

  ‘I’ve read some of your stuff, mister. You should have a good story here. Going to take photographs?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  He beamed and moved over to the light.

  ‘Maybe you’ll be wanting my picture?’

  ‘I don’t suppose his camera’s insured,’ Scaife said, grinning.

  I took a couple of shots of the little man. The light was poor and I didn’t expect to get good pictures, but as I was going to make a hole in his whisky, I thought it only fair to do something in return.

  We had several drinks: taking the whisky straight without a chaser.

  I was feeling less squeamish when I heard the truck come into the yard.

  Joe hastily put the bottle and glasses away, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and went to open the double doors leading to the morgue.

  ‘Come on,’ Scaife said. ‘This’ll be a good test for your stomach.’

  Creed came in scowling, followed by the Medical Officer.

  ‘You here already?’ Creed said, glaring at me.

  ‘Why not? It was my idea you found her,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’ He snorted and turned to snap orders at the squad of cops who were manhandling the barrel on to a four-wheel trolley.

  ‘I had a sweet time shaking off those vultures,’ he went on. ‘If I could find out who talked, I’d break his neck.’

  ‘Well, you should be able to find out; you’re a cop,’ I said, needling him.

  Scaife nudged me, shaking his head warningly.

  We all trooped into the mortuary behind the truck. Joe and two of his assistants, also in rubber aprons and gloves, stood waiting.

  ‘Get going,’ Creed said. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’

  He waved the four policemen who had wheeled in the truck, out of the room. I moved back against the wall, and fitted a flashlight bulb into the flash socket. My hands were unsteady and I nearly dropped the bulb.

  It didn’t take Joe and his assistants long to strip off the outer casing of the barrel.