Never Bet Your Life

by George Harmon Coxe

  The jerk of her head as she tried to avoid that hand was instinctive. She felt the scream rising in her throat even as she tried to struggle and wondered if only she could hear it. Then it was choked off and her face was in a muscular vise and she could no longer breathe.

  She felt herself being lifted clear of the ground. She clawed desperately at that hand and felt her fingernail break. She kicked both feet and then, suddenly, something struck the back of her neck and her senses foundered into utter darkness….

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DAVE BARNUM waited for five minutes after Workman left the bungalow before he turned out the lights. He was beginning to worry about the long-distance call, already more than a half hour late, and he thought if he waited in darkness it would be assumed that he had gone to bed, lessening his chances of being bothered unless it was something important.

  From that moment on the minutes dragged and the impatience grew in him. He kept looking at his watch and trying not to. He began to curse the telephone, the company, and his friend in California. This went on until he realized how futile and childish he was being and then, gradually, he began to explore the unlit, silent places of his mind and his impatience fell away. In its place there came a stirring of fear.

  For by now he had an idea who had killed Stinson. The trouble was he could think of no concrete proof to support his theory and there was too much else he could not account for: facts which seemed to have no relation to the crime.

  And so he sat there in the dark by the front window and tried to think as he had been taught to think in college, taking one point at a time, starting from something he knew to be true and following a line of supposition along its crooked, convoluted path until he had to abandon that possibility and start afresh. The pattern was there if he could find it and he was not discouraged when it failed to materialize. Again and again the blank wall came up in his thoughts to frustrate him, and in the end it was the telephone call which gave him what he needed and dropped the key pieces into their proper places.

  The ring which came so abruptly startled him. He was peering out the window, watching Betty’s unit, though he was not aware of it, and seeing her light go out. He could not see her door open but a moment later he saw someone moving and he could tell the figure wore a robe. Then he was jumping for the telephone and sweeping it up before its first shrill summons had ended.

  “Hello,” he said in hard, impatient tones. “What the hell took you so long?”

  “I’ve been trying since seven thirty our time,” his friend said. “They kept calling me back and telling me the circuits were still busy. You want to hear what I’ve got?”

  After that Dave listened with only brief interruptions, for the pattern was unfolding in his mind even as he listened.

  “Beverly Hills?” he said. “Yeah…. Yeah. That’s right. In trust for ten years. And what’s it amount to?” He listened, then said: “That must be the one. Yes, Elise. And what’s that date again? April 19th?”

  He thanked his friend and hung up. To help quiet the mental turmoil rising inside him he went outside, driven by a compulsion that was both excited and triumphant. Swinging round the corner of the bungalow, he crossed the drive and continued to the sandy slope where he stopped to let his eyes adjust themselves to the darkened landscape.

  Almost at once he saw the white line of surf ahead of him and the limitless blackness beyond. Then, as he tried to locate Betty, he thought he heard the cry, a sudden, high-pitched note, not loud but distinct, and just as suddenly choked off.

  The sound chilled him and he stood stock still, peering intently and listening again. Then, silhouetted against the breaking surf, he saw someone moving toward the water’s edge.

  He started to run, some new fear building swiftly amid his thoughts. He could tell, even at a distance, that there was something odd about the way the figure walked. It did not look like Betty and yet he knew she must be there.

  He yelled then, calling against the night breeze. He saw the figure stop, and called again. This time he was heard, for suddenly he realized that what he had thought was a person was in reality two people, separating now, one bent over and sprinting along the beach and the other sinking inert and motionless to the sand.

  After that, panic drove him forward because now, without yet knowing what had happened, he knew why.

  Diagonally to the right a fleeing figure grew indistinct and shapeless in the night, but Dave kept straight on, afraid now to think or even to speculate until he reached the still figure on the sand and dropped down beside it.

  “Betty!”

  He slid one arm beneath the limp shoulders and his voice shook.

  “Betty!”

  He lifted her to a sitting position and took her face in his hand, holding her close while the thin line of the sea creamed in and died in the sand five feet away. He knew then that she was breathing, and he could see no mark of injury, and so he talked to her, not knowing what he said until she sighed and her lids fluttered. For a moment when her eyes opened there was only horror and suspicion in their depths. When he felt her stiffen he spoke quickly.

  “It’s all right, darling. It’s all right.”

  She understood then. He saw the gleam of recognition. He felt the shudder run through her body and then she was clinging to him and he was lifting her in his arms, still talking as he carried her back to her robe and towel.

  When they reached the dune she said she could stand up and he let her try, supporting her for another moment before he reached for the robe. When he held it for her he asked what had happened and she could not tell him.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I didn’t see or hear a thing until he grabbed me. I don’t know who it was. Some man. I tried to scream—”

  “You did.”

  “I tried to wrench his hand from my face and I kicked and then something hit me on the back of the neck. That’s all I can remember.”

  Dave looked back at the low-rolling surf as she spoke. He touched the back of her neck. There was no swelling here, and all he could think of then was that a sharp blow with the edge of the hand would bring unconsciousness to a woman like Betty, that it took very little water to drown a person. Some time later, perhaps in the morning, there would be a body on the beach, rolled there by the tide and surf. The verdict would be accidental drowning just as the night before it might have been a traffic accident.

  The very thought of this sickened him until, presently, a healthy anger began to churn and spread through his chest, bringing with it a turn of mind that was at once logical and coldly calculating.

  When they had walked slowly back to the motel’s grounds he saw that there was only one light burning: in Stinson’s apartment. The rest of the units were dark and quiet, and again the transients’ cars filled the ports.

  “Do you know who’s in Stinson’s place?” he asked.

  “I thought it was a policeman.”

  A policeman, Dave thought bitterly. A policeman right on the premises. Less than an hour ago policemen all over the place and yet the attempt had been made. A gamble, boldly taken. A simple risk once the circumstances were known, prompted by a shrewd and calculating mind. It was luck, not the odds, that spoiled it.

  “Get dressed,” he said. “I’ll speak to the cop. And look, Baby.” He took her hands in his after he had opened the door and turned on the light. “Stay here, please. Until I come for you. I’m going to get Workman too. I’m going to need some help.”

  When she closed the door he went across the lawn to Stinson’s place and knocked. A man he had never seen opened the door and Dave asked if he was working for Captain Vaughn.

  “See if you can get him on the phone,” Dave said. “If you can’t maybe the station can reach him on the radio but get hold of him some way. Tell him Dave Barnum wants to see him. It’s important.”

  He turned without waiting for an answer, walked behind the office and the empty carport which had been Stinson’s. He stopped at the next on
e to strike a match and glance at the license plate, and then he recrossed the lawn to Workman’s door. He knocked twice before the door opened and then Workman was looking out through the screen, a blinking, rumple-headed figure clad in pajamas.

  “You’d better get dressed,” Dave said. “Somebody tried to get Betty again.”

  “What?”

  “Betty,” Dave said patiently. “Someone tried to kill her on the beach.”

  “Tonight?”

  “About ten minutes ago. We’ll be at my place,” Dave said. “There’s a phone there and a bottle. I think she could probably use a drink.”

  Back at the bungalow he went to the telephone and asked for long-distance.

  “I want to place two calls,” he said and gave his name and number. “One to Tampa. I can’t give you the number but I want the Gulf Drive-Urself and I’ll speak to anyone there…. Also, I want to put in a person-to-person call to Mr. Willie Shear,” he said and gave the address he knew. “If he’s not there try to locate him. I’ll take whichever call you get first.”

  Betty was dressed and waiting when he returned to her unit. She was still a little pale and her hazel eyes were uneasy even as she smiled at him. She kept glancing down at one hand as she made ready to leave, turning it palm up with fingers bent.

  “Hurt yourself?” Dave asked.

  “Broke a nail. When I tried to get away from him, I guess.”

  Dave took her arm. He said that Vaughn should be along after a while and until then they could wait at his place.

  “I think,” he said when they went inside, “that a drink for you might be in order.”

  “I think it might.”

  “For medical purposes,” he added.

  “Oh, of course.” She smiled again to show she appreciated his attempt at humor.

  He made the highball and then the telephone rang. He motioned her toward the corner chair.

  “Just relax,” he said, “and drink your drink like a good girl, and don’t ask questions…. Hello,” he said to the operator.

  “Ready with Tampa. Go ahead, please.”

  “This is Sergeant Kelly of the Vantine police department,” Dave said. “Just wanted to check on a car you rented a few days ago,” he said, and gave the license number. “No … No trouble. Just want to check on the name and address of the person you rented the car to…. Yeah, sure.” He waited, reaching for a pencil. When the information came he wrote it down.

  Betty was watching him from her corner seat when he hung up. She was being a good girl. She was sipping her drink, her eyes full of questions, but making no sound. Two minutes later the telephone shrilled again.

  “Hi, kid,” Willie Shear said. “You still having trouble?”

  “Plenty,” Dave said in the same conversational way. “I think maybe you can help me.”

  “I don’t know why I should,” Willie said, “but I’ll listen. What’s on your mind?”

  “First off I want to tell you that this is a private conversation between you and me. No one’s listening in. No tape recorder’s taking it down.”

  “That’s interesting if true.”

  “I want to ask you some hypothetical questions,” Dave said. “I want to put a hypothetical premise to you and you can give me an answer based on the premise. Is that clear?”

  “I know what hypothetical means,” Willie said, “if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  “You were here the other night.”

  “Says you.”

  “Yeah. That’s the hypothetical part. I’ve no way of proving it since you had that little bonfire in your ash tray”—he heard Willie chuckle—“but you know and I know you were. You didn’t know someone was going to give me a Mickey or that John Gannon would be alone, which means that either you were up this way and decided to stop by to see if he’d signed that agreement I’d drawn up, or you had a date with him, in which case it wouldn’t have mattered whether I was around or not because John would have sent me into my room if he didn’t want me to know what Was going on.”

  “That’s quite a mouthful,” Willie said, “but I’m still with you. Let’s say I had the date, hypothetically.”

  “So what I have to find out is how and why you got that stack of bills and the agreement back.”

  “We could say John gave them to me.”

  “We could,” Dave said, “but if we do it means he was alive at that time. It means that one way or another you’ll have to stand a murder investigation whether it can be proved or not.”

  “I see what you mean. That’s a good answer.” There was a pause. “Okay. You tell it your way. I’ll listen.”

  “In my premise John was dead when you got here. You knew nothing about it. You hadn’t been seen; you could probably get out without being connected with the murder. But there was this agreement, and for all you knew, since I drew it up after you’d been here the other day, it might have your name on it, which would mean questions and possibly some suspicion. There were also five thousand bucks that belonged to you.”

  Dave took a breath and said: “Now that’s not much money to you but still it’s yours. And you know that when the safe is opened that money automatically becomes part of the estate. To get it you would have to prove it was yours and you had no receipt because while Gannon was alive you didn’t need one. His word was good with you and you’d proved it by giving him the cash to prove you meant business…. Are you still listening?”

  “Intently.”

  “All right. You know there’s a good chance you’ll never get the cash back, but you want it because it’s yours and the deal is off. Now in my premise the outer safe door was open. If this were true, would you have taken the necessary few seconds to take the key to the inner door from Gannon’s pocket and remove what was yours from the safe? Maybe it wasn’t smart but the risk was small and being a gambler you took the chance.”

  “Wait a minute,” Willie said. “I think I’m with you and your hypothetical reasoning bears out what I thought the other day: that you’re a pretty smart youngster. But let’s have the question again. Keep it simple.”

  “If you were there and saw a chance to get what was yours back with very little risk, would you have taken that chance?”

  “Hypothetically, yes.”

  Dave let his breath out slowly, and with satisfaction.

  “Was the radio playing, Willie? Still hypothetically.”

  “Yes.”

  “You left it that way?”

  Willie chuckled again. He said he would have left it that way if he had been there. Then, before Dave could hang up, he said:

  “One thing more. If you ever get tired of that Boston office you’ve been slaving in give me a buzz. I can fix you up at twice the dough for half the work.”

  When Dave hung up, Betty’s eyes were wide with wonderment and her half-full glass had been forgotten.

  “What,” she said bewilderedly, “was all that?”

  Dave grinned at her. He said he’d tell her one day but right now it would be better if she forgot all about the conversation and kept her mind blank.

  “On the advice of counsel?”

  He nodded and then, hearing someone at the door, went over and opened it. Carl Workman came in clad in slacks, loafers, and a blue Oxford shirt. His thinning brown hair had been hastily combed and his amber eyes blinked as he stepped into the light. He glanced at Betty and then back at Dave. He asked if she was all right and Dave said she was.

  “You call Vaughn?”

  “He’s on his way.”…

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CAPTAIN VAUGHN arrived before Dave could do more than give Workman the briefest outline of what had happened on the beach. There was another car behind Vaughn’s and when Dave went outside he recognized Sam Resnik’s sedan. Vaughn came to the door with the young officer named Steve.

  “I hadn’t finished with Sam,” Vaughn said, “so I brought him and the girl along. The man that called in said you sounded like it was important.”


  “I think it is,” Dave said.

  “Good. The more important the better.” Vaughn glanced at Resnik’s car. “We could bring them in too.”

  It was not the way Dave planned it but he said all right and presently the living room was crowded. When everyone had found a seat but Steve, who leaned next to the door, Dave told what had happened to Betty. When he finished, Resnik chuckled aloud, a surprising sound in view of what had happened. When Dave glanced at him the pale, mustached face was smooth and unworried.

  “That was how long ago?” he said. “This beach thing?”

  “About twenty minutes or a bit longer.”

  “For once”—Resnik gave Vaughn a look of veiled amusement—“I seem to be in the clear.”

  He exchanged glances with Liza Drake and hers was bright with approval. She leaned back in her chair, looking very striking in the clinging black gown that molded so effectively her full-breasted torso. She wore a comb in her shining black hair and carried a beaded evening bag; a mantilla-like shawl was draped over one bare shoulder.

  “I believe we were with you twenty minutes ago, Captain,” Resnik said.

  Vaughn was not amused. His dark gaze was bleak and he took time to direct it at Resnik and then at Liza before he turned to Betty and began to question her. What he heard added nothing to what was already known and now he looked at Dave.

  “This ties in with the murder, maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You got some ideas?”

  “A few,” Dave said, “but first there’s something I have to know about. That’s why I asked Carl to come over.” He glanced at Workman, and then at Betty, who had put her glass aside and was watching him attentively. “It concerns you,” he said, “but Carl has the answers.”

  Workman had been sitting with his legs crossed. Now he uncrossed them and leaned forward, brows warping in a frown.

  “About what?”

  “About the missing heir you’re looking for. The daughter of Albert L. Colby, isn’t she? Named Elise?”

  “That’s right.”

  Dave tipped one hand in a deprecating gesture. “The other afternoon I thought it might be Liza.”