I was busy heaving myself to my feet. Elsa was very still, her face stiff. ‘You can’t use that gun here,’ I said, ‘and you know it. The bar’s packed. Gunshots up here — you’d never get out of the building.’
‘Daren’t leave you alive,’ he said philosophically.
I sat on the bed. It may be impolite with a lady present, but just then it was sit or collapse. ‘What have I got on you?’ I asked. ‘You know I’d never be able to prove you fired at the car. This little nick on my shoulder — who’s to say I didn’t get that in the accident? What’re you scared of, Beanie? Me?’
‘That’s a laugh.’
‘No need to be scared. You knocked me out and pinched the vase. But who’ll ever prove that?’
‘That’s a lie to start with,’ he said, obviously feeling better about something. ‘I never went into the place.’
‘Just bopped me and broke open the window?’
‘To you,’ said Beanie, ‘I’m admitting that. Seeing you won’t be telling anybody. That was all there was to it.’
‘In the job?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You came all the way here just for that? Don’t tell me stories, Beanie. You’re a busy man. Things to be done. People to be removed from time to time.’
The gun moved a little. ‘I told you. A holiday. A working holiday. Everybody’s entitled to a break.’
‘Of course they are. Don’t get upset. So this little job came up. You thought it’d pay for your holiday ...’
‘Fifty quid,’ he said.
‘Good money. This chap came to you, and said just break open a window so’s it’d look like an outside job. Fifty quid, and he got a vase worth fifty thousand.’
‘Never!’
‘True. Now don’t get too agitated. You weren’t to know there was a murder coming off.’
He said: ‘You. Lady. Sit down, for God’s sake.’ That was because he wanted to sit down himself. I’d got him going, annoyed, nervous. ‘Nobody said anything about murder.’
‘Of course they didn’t,’ I said soothingly. ‘Who was it, Beanie?’ There was a chance he’d tell me, seeing I wasn’t supposed to be living for long.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You took on a job, and you don’t know who for?’
‘It was all done through a contact.’
‘Who?’
‘Chap I met in a pub. Fred something. Said this guy’d phone me, and he did, and I said O.K., and the money came through the post.’
‘Trusting you. That was a risk.’
‘Well ... I thought I’d do it for him, anyway. Nothing much in it.’
‘Then he phoned you again and said he wanted me killing? Is that it?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Another fifty?’
‘Oh come on, Mr Mallin. Killing comes a bit higher. Even you.’
‘So you knew I’d be driving out that way?’
‘Why’m I telling you all this?’ he complained.
‘Because you’re worried, that’s why. There’s been a murder that you didn’t do for a change, so you haven’t covered for it, so you’re worried. How did you know I’d be out that way?’
‘He told me, didn’t he! Rang me up and said you’d be on that road, sure to be.’
‘How could you be so stupid! I mean, when’re you going to get paid for this latest little effort? When did you expect to?’
By that time Elsa was sitting primly on an easy chair, not looking at all easy, nursing her handbag, and Beanie had drawn up an old upright with a cane seat. It might have been a cosy little discussion, if it hadn’t been for the gun.
‘I mean,’ I said, ‘you were trusting him.’
Beanie looked baffled, then he brightened. ‘He’d come across. Or he’d be next, and he’d know it.’ He was fumbling in his left jacket pocket for cigarettes.
‘But how could he be next, if you don’t know who he is?’
That got him. The packet stopped in front of his face, the cigarette half lipped out.
‘He’s taking you for a mug, Beanie. Not only getting you to do me in, but at the same time getting you to dig your own grave.’
That really got him. ‘Now come off it,’ he bleated.
‘But he knew he was dealing with a dim-wit. You weren’t going to ask the reason when somebody said eliminate Mallin. You should’ve done, Beanie. Why d’you think he wants me dead?’
‘Everybody wants somebody dead.’
I wasn’t going to get on to philosophy. ‘But why? That’s the point. Beanie, old chap, he was setting you up. Why d’you think he got you up to the Towers that night? So’s you’d be there. He wanted you for his fall-guy, to take the rap for his murder. And who’s been keeping the fuzz out of your lap for you? Me, that’s who. Because I can prove it was an indoor job, Beanie, and he doesn’t want that. Because it was. I can prove it, man, and only me, and you — you great big checkered roonie — you’ve been trying to kill me.’
The whole thing wouldn’t stand a moment’s consideration, but you don’t have to be subtle with Beanie. He licked his lips, glanced round at Elsa, stuck the cigarette back in his face, and flicked at his lighter.
‘He’s ever so good at that sort of thing,’ said Elsa.
‘The stinking rat,’ said Beanie. ‘The low-down rotten bastard.’
I reached for my pipe and his nerves bounced the gun from his lap. I calmly filled it. ‘But you go ahead, Beanie. Blast away. Chuck away your only chance.’
‘Only chance to what?’
‘To get clear, Beanie. To leave me free to find out who really did it.’
‘Who’s stopping you?’ he howled unhappily. ‘What’re you sitting here for?’
‘Because you’ve got a gun on me,’ I reminded him. ‘And because if you hadn’t I’d be ramming teeth down your throat right now. So where do we go from here?’
He decided where he was going, bounced to his feet, dived at his cases, found he could manage two together by putting one under his arm, and headed rapidly through the door, still waving his gun.
‘Don’t try stopping me,’ he said. ‘Don’t you put your head out of this door, or I’ll blow it off.’
Then he was gone. Elsa sat, staring at me. I lit my pipe.
‘That horrible little man!’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘That nasty, aggressive, horrible little man! Why didn’t you strike him, David?’
Then she ran to the window and jerked up the lower sash. Hot street noises surged in. I joined her. Beanie ran out and threw cases into his car.
‘You come back here!’ Elsa shouted, and she threw her handbag at him. It bounced off the roof. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Oh, I could hit him!’
‘You mustn’t discourage him,’ I said. ‘He’s going to find our man for us.’
And off he went in a flurry of screaming tyres.
Then I ran down and rescued her handbag before some wagon or other flattened it. It certainly wasn’t heavy enough to contain a gun.
We followed him more slowly in the Porsche. Elsa was suddenly quiet.
‘It’s been an eventful weekend,’ I hinted, not wishing to question her directly.
‘He was hateful, David.’
‘Beanie?’
‘You know who I mean. You might have said something about him, and warned me or something.’ I caressed the gear lever into top, but said nothing. ‘And he’s got such a wonderful place.’
‘He showed you round, did he?’
‘But of course. He’s so proud of it. You’d never imagine, with such a home ...’ She stopped.
‘Shows he’s got taste.’
‘Taste!’
‘You.’
‘Oh.’ She thumped my knee with her fist. ‘Why shouldn’t he have showed me round?’
‘It would take time.’
‘Then why did he?’
‘To demonstrate his taste. It’s a subtle form of flattery, and it’s been brought to a fine art by all the leading seducers.’
‘David
,’ she said with menace, ‘if you’re insinuating ...’
‘Elsa ... sweetheart ... if I hadn’t known ...’ I turned to her with a smile. ‘I’m sure you handled him very competently.’
‘I hit him with my handbag.’
‘It has a busy life.’ I slowed for the entrance to Hillary’s drive. ‘Had you still got your handbag, then?’
‘If you say one more word on the subject, I’ll ... I’ll switch off your ignition.’
I ventured, ‘Had he dusted his Utrillos?’
Which was why we were a little late arriving, and missed the beginning of the party. It was as good a way as any to erase her memories. I eventually drove into the courtyard and stopped where I’d previously parked the Oxford, and there was Elsa’s Rover, as calm as you like. She got out and walked round it.
‘It is mine, I suppose?’
‘I asked them to fit that solenoid switch. They must have delivered it, too.’
‘He’s delivered it,’ she said. ‘David, the nerve of the man.’
‘And I suppose that means I’ll have to run him home,’ I said sighing.
‘Don’t you dare suggest it.’
‘He wouldn’t dare accept,’ I assured her.
So when we got there, they were all in the drawing-room, celebrating. Not the return of the Rover, but the return of Uncle Albert and Alton K. Bloome.
For some reason I could not understand, Alwright seemed to have taken me at my word and released them both. It was very flattering, until Uncle Albert explained that they’d been back there since half past five, which meant that they’d been released long before I phoned police HQ.
Our own entrance created something of a stir. It was known that I’d disappeared rapidly after an argument with Alwright, and Vale had told them Elsa had left his place, apparently to return to Shropshire, he thought. There was an abrupt silence. Across the room, Vale came to his feet.
Elsa touched my arm. ‘No, David.’
‘Just a little one.’
‘In Hillary’s drawing-room?’
So I smiled round, and everybody welcomed Elsa, and somehow or other I found myself facing Hillary.
‘We were having a celebration,’ he said.
‘I realised that.’
‘It’s unfortunate, my dear chap, that whenever we do that you seem to do something ... irrevocable.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So please do try, there’s a good fellow.’
I tried very hard.
By that time it was becoming dusk. Elsa and I had missed dinner, so we slipped down to the kitchen and persuaded Mrs Pohlman to create a sandwich or two. When we got back they weren’t in the drawing-room, and the noise took us along to the Grand Hall.
Hillary had got all the chandeliers on, though they looked rather meek with a green-gold sky beyond the windows, and maybe he’d had a little too much to drink because his decorum was showing a dent or two. He was practising the conducted-tour speech he was going to make on his opening day. Fisch was a little flushed, too, though it only showed on his ears, and was hovering at Hillary’s elbow with a champagne glass in one hand, a catalogue in the other, correcting primly. Elaine giggled, a girlish sort of sound. Allington looked embarrassed for her.
‘Speech! Speech!’ shouted Bloome, his arm round Uncle Albert’s shoulders, and Uncle Albert, spluttering, plucked at his hand and kept saying: ‘Let him say it.’
But Hillary, persistently, ignored Vale’s T’ang vase, though his own had had pride of place. He wasn’t that far gone.
‘The T’ang,’ called out Vale. ‘What about the T’ang?’ He was stone, cold sober. And he went on saying it in a voice gradually becoming colder and more bitter, until at last Hillary stood in front of it, and could no longer ignore the challenge.
‘T’ang vase,’ he said. ‘Circa 750 AD. Loaned by Martin Vale of Morton Foster, and said to be genuine.’
The gold had gone from the sky and there was a low line of grey. Vale stood a few feet from me, white, his nostrils quivering.
‘You will withdraw that, Keane.’
‘Nothing in my exhibition,’ said Keane precisely, ‘nothing is a fake. Each item has been authenticated. I cannot show your vase, Vale. I cannot do it.’
I was poised in case he decided to have a go at Hillary. But he did not move. His voice was cold. ‘I’ve got a certificate, would you like to see it? Frame it and put it up beside the vase. How’d that be?’
‘I’d prefer you to move it.’
‘The wrong certificate,’ I said quietly to Vale. ‘It’s your birth certificate you should show him.’
I’d have loved him to have a go. Oh yes, I’d have loved it. Maybe I’d have let him get in one good one on Hillary’s calm and arrogant face. But he stood still, his eyes flicking from one to the other of us, and there was hatred in them. He was locked out. There were several seconds during which I thought he would never move. Then, with a strange dignity that I never imagined he’d possess, he took three quick strides towards the vase, his hands extended.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I shall do as you wish.’
But he never reached it. One of the tall windows opened and Beanie Sloan stepped through. I never seemed to see him without a gun in his hand. It was there now.
He’d come to speak a few words with his employer.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I recall that it was not so much the gun as the sports jacket that struck a bizarre note.
The window by which Beanie had entered was about mid-way along the length of the room, and as we had been gathered around the T’ang vase, we made a tight group with a lot of spare space around us. What might have been effective, if it could have been arranged, would have been a sudden scattering in all directions to divide attention, but what happened in practice was an abrupt stiffening into a startled tableau.
Vale stood with his arms outstretched towards his vase, one foot in front of the other. Hillary’s hand remained poised in front of his mouth. Elsa stood three feet from me, and Elaine was beside her. Bloome still clutched Uncle Albert’s shoulder, as though he might be preventing the little man from hurling himself at the gun. Fisch might have been carved, he was so still, but Allington was jittering and almost sobbing.
I stepped round Elsa.
‘This gentleman,’ I said, waving towards Beanie, ‘is called Beanie Sloan. He’s extremely good with that thing he’s waving, so we’d all better be careful what we do.’
‘You trying to be clever, Mallin?’ said Beanie.
‘Helping you. You need help, Beanie. You’re not going to be able to do this on your own.’
The gun swung slowly towards me, a hint that maybe he’d prefer to. ‘Cut it out. You know why I’m here.’
‘Of course I do. You were late. I’d about given you up.’
He lifted his upper lip unpleasantly. ‘I don’t need you. Don’t push it.’
‘Let me introduce you to your host,’ I went on. ‘This is Hillary Keane. Hillary — Mr Sloan. No need to shake hands.’
And Hillary found his voice. ‘This is preposterous. David, I’ve not been happy about your conduct, but to introduce one of your dubious friends …’
Beanie snarled, and not at ‘dubious’ you could be sure.
‘Not a friend, Hillary. He’s already tried to kill me once.’
I hadn’t said anything to anybody about the affair with the Oxford, so it came as a surprise to all, except the one who’d arranged it, of course. But though I’d hoped to get some hint out of it, I didn’t. Their reactions were universally of horror.
‘Let’s get on with it,’ said Beanie angrily.
‘On with what? You’ve come to find your employer. But how can you be sure you’ve got him unless you kill all of us? All the men, that is. I suppose it wasn’t a woman?’
‘Say!’ Bloome chimed in. ‘He’s an amatoor. Back in the States they line us up against the wall and frisk us for gats.’
‘Or an American?’ I asked Beanie.
Beanie was shaking with suppressed destruction. He had the urge to kill somebody. ‘How the hell do I know?’ he snapped.
‘You mean he sounded American?’
‘Phoney,’ Beanie said. ‘Tryin’ to sound tough.’ He sneered. ‘They’re all bloody actors. They all try to sound like Yanks. As phoney as him.’ And he jerked the gun at Bloome, who was appalled at the suggestion.
‘David,’ said Hillary, ‘will you please explain.’
‘Let’s get on with it,’ Beanie said angrily.
I ignored him. ‘It’s quite simple, Hillary. Our friend here was employed for one small job, to break open that window over there. On the way to doing it, he knocked me out, because I was in the way. But since then he’s been instructed to kill me. So far he hasn’t succeeded. But the interesting thing is why I was preferred dead rather than alive, and it’s possible that I know something dangerous I’m not aware of. And of course, it’s possible that other people also know something dangerous that’s going to require their removal. You get my point?’
Now I had their general attention, but I wasn’t sure how long Beanie would allow me to go on. Beanie always was a man of action. Talking bored him. I glanced at him. His eyes were hunting, his chest heaving with impatience.
‘The point is,’ I said, ‘that it’s very necessary to find out who is this employer of Beanie’s, because that’s the one who killed Frazer. So I thought the quickest thing to do was get Beanie here, all set to blast his employer for framing him, because only Beanie knows who that is. The snag is that he only knows the voice. And now he tells me that the voice used a phoney American accent. Beanie, you do make life difficult.’
‘Get over there,’ he snarled. ‘Get out of my way, Mallin. I’m doing this.’
I didn’t move. ‘Now how can you handle it on your own?’ I asked. ‘Come on, Beanie, you need help.’
He gazed at me with blood-filled eyes. ‘Not from you!’
I ignored him. ‘Now I suggest the two ladies stand to one side, then all the men say a little something with an American accent. Then maybe you’ll recognise which it is. How’s that, Beanie?’
‘I refuse,’ said Bloome.
Beanie looked harassed. ‘I don’t know they’re all here.’
‘There’s only Henry the chauffeur,’ I told him. ‘Shall I go and fetch him?’
The Silence of the Night Page 14
