‘And then he ran.’
‘Where?’
‘Out into the other room.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then I called Sandra. We turned on the lights, and looked through the apartment. Nothing was disturbed.’
‘Did you find how he got in?’
‘It must have been the fire escape because the door was locked.’
‘Was he dressed?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see him. It was dark.’
‘But you could feel, couldn’t you?’
‘Well, yes, in a way.’
‘And you never did see him? You wouldn’t recognize him if you saw him again?’
‘No, it was dark as pitch.’
‘Look here, Alma,’ I said. ‘You’re nervous. There’s more to this than you’re telling me. Why don’t you give me a chance to help you?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I can’t-I mean, there isn’t-I’ve told you everything.’
I sat back and smoked a cigarette in silence. After a minute, she said, ‘You’re really truly a detective, aren’t you? I mean legally?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you have a right to carry a gun?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Could you-could you get a gun if I gave you the money, and let me carry it for a while?’
‘Why?’
‘Protection.’
‘Why the gun?’
‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Good Lord, if you’d wakened in the middle of the night and found someone leaning over you, and then hands clutching at your throat and–’
‘Then you think it’s going to happen again?’
‘I don’t know, but I want to stay with Sandra, and I think she’s in danger.’
‘What’s she in danger of?’
‘I don’t know. I think someone’s trying to kill her.’
‘Why her?’
‘You see, I was sleeping in her bed.’
‘Her husband perhaps?’
‘No, I don’t think it’s her husband, but-well, it might have been.’
‘Leave her,’ I said. ‘Go get a room by yourself and—’
‘No, I couldn’t do that. I’m her friend. I’m going to stand by her. She’s stood by me.’
‘Has she?’
‘Yes.’
‘I gathered from her brother she was rather selfish, a woman who—’
‘Well, she isn’t,’ she interrupted. ‘What does her brother know about her? My God, he’s never paid the faintest attention to her. I don’t think he’s written to her once in five years.’
‘He seemed to know a lot about her.’
‘That’s what makes me think he’s standing in with Morgan. I think Morgan put those ideas in his head. Morgan’s been talking about her, saying the most horrible things, that she’s sex-crazy and has a new man on the string all the time, and all that sort of stuff, things that no man should say about a woman, least of all about his wife.’
‘I gather their domestic life hasn’t been particularly happy?’
‘Of course it hasn’t. But that’s no reason a man should go around making a lot of false statements about the woman he’s sworn to love and protect-sometimes men make me sick.’
‘Let’s go back to the reason for your interest in Mrs. Cool’s marital venture.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I thought you took an unusual interest in it.’
‘It was interesting.’
‘Doubly interesting to one who is contemplating marriage.’
‘Or running away from marriage,’ she said, smiling up at me.
‘Is that what you’re doing?’
She nodded.
‘Want to tell me about it?’
She hesitated a moment, then said, ‘No, Donald, I’d rather not-not right now, anyway.’
‘From Kansas City?’ I asked.
‘Yes. One of those crazy, insanely jealous men who are always looking for an excuse to get drunk and smash things.’
‘Don’t waste time on him,’ I said. ‘I know the breed. They’re all the same. They have a fierce, possessive desire to own a woman, body and soul. He probably tried to tell you that his jealousy is only because he really doesn’t have the legal right to love and cherish you the way he wants, that if you were only his wife, he wouldn’t mind, that if you’d marry him, things would all be hunky-dory; and whenever you refuse, he goes out and gets drunk. He comes back and makes a scene, smashes glassware, and’
‘You sound as though you knew him,’ she interrupted.
‘I do, not as an individual, but as a type.’
‘And your advice is to lay off?’
‘Absolutely. Any time a man can’t show his strength of character by beating down his own faults, and then tries to get his self-respect back by smashing a dish, you want to lay off of him.’
‘His particular yen is smashing glasses in a bar,’ she said.
‘You’re not going to marry him?’
‘No.’
‘He’s in Kansas City?’
‘Yes-that is, he was when I left. If he knew where I was, he’d follow.’
‘And then what?’
‘I don’t know, smash some dishes perhaps.’
‘Those men are poison,’ I said. ‘They’ll pay any price for the opportunity to assert themselves.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘You read about them every day in the papers, the men who track down estranged wives, shoot them, and then commit suicide-the final gesture of futility— I hate it, and I’m afraid of it.’
I looked at her sharply. ‘And is it because of that you want the gun?’
She met my eyes then, and said, ‘Yes.’
‘Do you want to buy one?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘You have the money?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s going to take about twenty-five dollars,’ I said.
She opened her purse, took out two tens and a five, and gave them to me.
‘I can’t get it right now,’ I told her, ‘because we’re going to have to watch for that Durke girl to come out. I wonder why Bleatie was so positive she’d go somewhere to get in touch with Morgan Birks. You’d think she’d use the telephone.’
‘Probably her line’s tapped,’ Alma said.
‘No, the police don’t know anything about her. If they did, they’d shadow her.’
‘Well, she probably thinks the telephone’s tapped, or perhaps Morgan thinks so.’
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ I said, ‘but then in real life things seldom do make— There she comes!’
Sally Durke walked out of the apartment house with an overnight bag in her hand. She was tailored up to the minute in a blue skirt and jacket. The skirt was cut short, and her ankles were enough to make any man turn around. She wore a closefitting blue hat tilted at an angle with a rakish little bow of blue velvet. Her flaxen hair, peeking out from under the hat, showed up soft and golden against the blue.
‘What makes you think she’s peroxide?’ Alma Hunter asked, as she started the motor.
‘I don’t know. Something about the color of her hair. It’s—’
‘She looks like a natural blonde from here-looks pretty.’
‘Far be it from me to argue about feminine beauty with an expert,’ I said. ‘Careful not to crowd too close. She’s headed for the boulevard. Let her get enough of a lead so she won’t look back and see us crawling along. That’ll make her suspicious.’
‘I thought I’d run out into the street and then stop until we can see what she does.’
‘Okay, good girl. Want me to drive?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like it a lot. I’m nervous.’
I said, ‘All right. Come out from behind the wheel, and I’ll slide under.’
She moved over from behind the wheel, raised herself, and I slid under. I slipped the gears into mesh, then kicked out the clutch, and let the machine inch along close to the curb.
Sally Durke
walked to the corner and flagged a passing taxi-cab. I speeded the car and made the turn into the boulevard not over fifty feet behind the cab. Then I gradually dropped behind, waiting to see if she looked back.
She didn’t. Her head showed through the rear window in the cab, her eyes apparently fixed straight ahead.
‘Looks like a cinch,’ I said, and closed the distance between the car and the cab.
The cab rolled smoothly along, made no attempt to shake off pursuit, turned to the left when it got to Sixteenth Street and went to the Perkins Hotel. There wasn’t any parking place in sight. I said to Alma. ‘This is where you have to pinch-hit. Get in behind the wheel and keep driving around the block. I want to get in there right after she registers and see what room she gets. I’ll give her time enough. to get out of the lobby and that’s all.’
Alma Hunter said, ‘Look here. I want to be in on this thing.’
‘You’re in on it,’ I said.
‘No, not that way. I want to be in at the finish. What are you going to do?’
‘Find out what room she has, and get a room directly across from it if possible.’
‘I want to stay with you.’
‘No chance,’ I said. ‘Sorry, but that’s out. The better-class hotels get snooty when a man starts entertaining women in his room. The bellboys try to work a little blackmail, and—’
‘Oh shucks,’ she said, ‘don’t be like that! Go register as man and wife. What name are you going to use?’
‘Donald Helforth.’
‘All right, I’ll be Mrs. Helforth. I’ll come in later and join you. Get started.’
I went across to the hotel. Sally Durke wasn’t in sight. I told the bellboy to get me the bell captain, and took the captain off into the executive session. ‘A blonde in a blue outfit came in about two minutes ago,’ I said. ‘I want to know what name she registered under, where she’s registered, and what rooms near her are vacant. I’d like to get one across the corridor from her if I can.’
‘What’s the idea?’ he asked.
I took a five-dollar bill from my pocket, folded it, twisted it around my fingers, and said, ‘I’m a committee of one, working on behalf of the government, trying to get deserving bellboys into the higher income brackets so we can collect more tax.’
‘I always co-operate with the government,’ he said, grinning. ‘Just a minute.’
I waited in the lobby until he came back with the information. She was Mrs. B. F. Morgan and was in 618. She expected her husband to join her shortly. The only vacant room anywhere in that part of the hotel was 620, and Mrs. Morgan, it seemed, had reserved 618 earlier in the day by telephone, said she might want 620 as well, and had asked the management to hold that. When she registered, she said she’d changed her mind about 620 and would only want 618.
‘I’m Donald Helforth,’ I said. ‘My wife, about twenty-five, with chestnut hair and brown eyes, will be coming in within five or ten minutes. Keep an eye out for her, and show her up to my room, will you?’
‘Your wife?’ he asked.
‘My wife,’ I said.
‘Oh, I see.’
‘And here’s ore other thing. I want a gun.’
His eyes lost their friendliness. ‘What sort of a gun?’
‘A small gun that fits in the pocket nicely, preferably at automatic. And I want a box of shells for it.’
‘You’re supposed to have a police permit in order to get ; gun,’ he said.
‘And when you have a police permit, you buy your gun at ; store and pay about fifteen dollars for it,’ I said. ‘What tine hell do you think I’m paying twenty-five bucks for a gun for?’
‘Oh, you’re paying twenty-five bucks for it?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
I didn’t give him any chance to tip off the room clerk, but walked directly to the desk. The clerk handed me a card, and wrote, ‘Donald Helforth and wife,’ and gave a fictitious address ‘Something at about seven dollars a day, Mr. Helforth?’ the clerk asked.
‘What do you have on the sixth floor? I don’t want to be to high, and yet I want to be far enough above the traffic to keel the street cars out of my ears.’
He looked at the chart and said, ‘I could give you 675.’
‘Which end of the house is that?’
‘The east.’
‘What do you have on the west?’
‘I could give you 605, or I can give you 620.’
‘What about 620?’
‘Twin beds and a bath. The rates are seven and a half double.’
‘Can’t you make it seven?’ I asked.
He looked me over, and said he’d make a special concession.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘My wife will be in later with my baggage but I’ll pay for the room now.’
I gave him the money, took a receipt, and went up to m room with the bell captain. ‘You can’t get a new gun for twenty five bucks,’ he objected.
‘Who said anything about a new gun? You’re getting on from a second-hand store somewhere. Twenty-five is my limit and don’t try to chisel too much profit. Get one that costs a least fifteen.’
‘I’d be breaking the law,’ he said.
‘No, you wouldn’t.’
‘Why not?’
I took from my pocket the authorization Mrs. Cool had signed for me. ‘I’m a private detective,’ I said.
He looked it over, and the perplexity left his face. ‘All right, boss. I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Make it snappy,’ I told him, ‘but don’t go out until my wife comes in. I want her to be taken right up here.’
‘Right,’ he said, and went out.
I looked around the room. It was an ordinary twin-bed affair in an ordinary hotel. I went into the bathroom. It was designed so that 618 and 620 could be opened up together as adjoining rooms with the bath in between. I tried the knob on the connecting door slowly and carefully. The door was locked. Listening, I could hear the sounds of someone moving around in the adjoining room. I went back to the telephone and called Sandra Birks. When I had her on the line, I said, ‘Everything seems to be okay. I’ve followed her to the Perkins Hotel. She’s in 618, registered, under the name of Morgan, and has left word at the desk her husband is joining her. Alma and I are here at the hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Donald Helforth in 620.’
‘Mr. and Mrs.?’,Sandra Birks asked with rising inflection.
‘Yes. Alma wanted to be in on it.’
‘In on what?’
‘On the service of the papers,’ I said.
‘Well, I want to be in on it, too. I hate to interrupt your honeymoon, but Bleatie and I are coming up.’
‘Now, look here,’ I objected, ‘if Morgan Birks should happen to be hanging around the hotel and sees you drive up, it’ll just be too bad. We’ll never get a chance to serve him again.’
‘I understand that,’ she said. ‘I’ll be careful.’
‘You can’t be careful. You can’t tell whether you’ll run into him in the lobby, in the elevator, or in the corridor. He may be watching the place now for all you know. He—’
‘You shouldn’t have let Alma share the room with you,’ Sandra Birks said in a dignified voice. ‘After all, you know, Mr. Lam, this thing may come up in court.’
‘Bosh. I’m simply serving papers,’ I said.
‘I’m afraid,’ she cooed, ‘you don’t understand. Alma simply can’t afford to have her name in the papers. Bleatie and I will be right up. Good-by.’ And the telephone clicked.
I hung up the receiver, took off my coat, washed my face and hands, sat down in the chair, and lit a cigarette. Someone knocked on the door. Before I could get up, the bellboy opened it and said, ‘Here you are, Mrs. Helforth.’
Alma came in, saying, in a voice she tried to keep casual, ‘Hello, dear. I thought I’d better park the car before I came in.
They’re going to deliver some packages for me later on.’
I walked over
to the bellboy whose expression showed that Alma’s amateurish attempt at domestic deception was giving him a quiet laugh. ‘Some other people are coming in,’ I said. ‘They’ll probably be here within ten or fifteen minutes. I want that gun before they get here.’
‘I’ll have to have some money. I’
I gave him the two tens and a five. ‘Make it snappy,’ I said, ‘and don’t forget the shells. Have it done up in brown paper. Don’t give the package to anyone but me. Get started.’
‘On my way,’ he said, and shot out of the door.
‘What gun are you talking about, the one you were getting for me?’ Alma asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Sandra and Bleatie are coming up here. Your friend Sandra seems to think I’ve irrevocably ruined your good name in letting you in on this. She refers to it as “sharing my room.”’
Alma laughed. ‘Good old Sandra,’ she said, ‘is so scrupulously careful about protecting my good name, yet she—’
‘And yet she does what?’ I asked as her voice faded out like a distant radio station.
‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘Come on, let’s have it.’
‘No, nothing. Honestly, I wasn’t going to say anything.’
‘Much,’ I said. ‘I’d like to know what Sandra does.’
‘It isn’t important.’
‘Anyway, she’s coming up here. Before she arrives, I want to take a look at your neck.’
‘At my neck?’
‘Yes, at those bruises. I want to see something.’
I stepped forward and slid my left arm around the back of, her shoulder, fumbled with the silken loop which circled some ornamental buttons on the collar of her blouse.
‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Don’t. Please—’ She raised her hand to push me away, but I slipped the loop over the button and opened her blouse. Her head came back. Her lips were close to mine. Her arm slid over my shoulders, and I pulled her to me. Her lips were warm and clinging. This time there was no taste of salt tears. After a while, she drew away and said, ‘Oh, Donald, what must you think of me?’
‘I think you’re swell,’ I said.
‘Donald, I don’t usually do this. I have been feeling so lonesome and all alone-and from the first time I met you—’
I kissed her again. After that, I gently slid the blouse away from her neck and looked at the bruised marks. She stood perfectly still. I could feel her even, regular breathing, but a pulse in her neck was throbbing rapidly.
The Bigger They Come Page 7
