One Hour to Kill

by George Harmon Coxe

  “How the devil did you get in here?”

  “Drove.”

  “But what about that fancy guard at the gate?”

  She gave his cheek a pleased and affectionate pat as she stepped on the starter.

  “I gave him my nicest smile and said “I wanted to see the Inspector.”

  “What inspector?”

  “I didn’t say, and he didn’t ask. He just waved me right on in. . . . Where do we go now?”

  Wallace sighed and leaned back. He said they would pick up his car, and by the time they located it the fine edge had gone from the brief but welcome feeling of pleasure that Ann’s appearance had brought. For he was thinking now and he knew what he wanted to do.

  Asking her to wait until he made a telephone call, he found a booth and listened to the distant ringing of the number he dialed. Sure then that it would not be answered, he came back to Ann and told her to follow him, moving quickly to his own car before she could voice a protest. When, ten minutes later, he stopped on Western Main Road he signaled her to pull up in front of him.

  They were not far from the yacht club now and close to the road that wound upward on the right along the left side of a thickly wooded valley. The hills on the left, and extending some distance inland, formed the acreage Joe Anderson was developing and now, leaning on the lowered window of Ann’s car, he told her what he was going to do. She took off her dark glasses and put them away as she listened. He could see the worry forming in the hazel eyes but she answered readily enough when he finished.

  “All right, I’ll go with you.”

  “No, you won’t. I’m going to search the place and there’s a chance I might get caught.”

  “But why?” The smooth brows grew furrowed. “I mean, what do you hope to find?”

  Wallace hesitated as he wondered how he could phrase his answer. He could not tell her of Superintendent Perkins’s implied warning that he might be jailed in the morning; neither could he tell her that her uncle had seen Anderson’s car the night before.

  “Call it a hunch,” he said, trying to be patient. “Anderson was giving Fay a check for a hundred dollars a week. I know he was at the bungalow last night. Someone broke into Fay’s hatbox. I don’t know what was taken, but if anything was, Anderson could be my boy.”

  She nodded, the furrows digging deeper as she tried to follow him. “You think she might have been blackmailing him? You want to search his house to see if you can find out why?”

  “That’s about it, and it’ll be dark before long, and I don’t want to turn on any lights.”

  “And I’m to sit here and wait?”

  “I still have to locate that private detective from Barbados— Leon Doucette—and you can help. Go to the bungalow and look up the Victoria and Flamingo Hotels. Write down the addresses and check with the desk clerk to see if Doucette is registered. Then sit tight. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

  “David!” she spoke sharply as he turned away. He kept moving but he glanced over his shoulder and she shook her finger at him, her tone severe. “You be careful!”

  Wallace always felt better when he had been with Ann and there was a new confidence in him as he drove the little sedan upward along the hillside in third gear. About a quarter of a mile from the highway a bulldozer, through for the day at this hour, stood in a clearing where a homesite was being prepared. There was room here to park but Anderson’s place was only a short distance farther on and he drove up to reconnoiter.

  It was a new and rather strange-looking house that Anderson had built out of the hillside. Fashioned of concrete and dark-stained wood, the front half had been cantilevered from the steep terrain so that the living room and porch seemed to be hanging in space. An attached garage had been cut into the hill at the lower level. The upper half of this was glass and Wallace could see as he stopped that there was no car inside. Satisfied now that no one was home, he turned round in the short drive and eased the sedan fifty yards down the hill so he could pull off the narrow road into the opening the bulldozer had made.

  Steps led steeply upward between the garage and the house to a square platform that made the front entrance, but Wallace had lived here long enough to know that the island abounded in people with light-fingered tendencies. When you left your house you locked it and he did not even consider the front door. He was tall enough to see into the garage and he knew there were inner stairs here because he had come once for cocktails soon after he had arrived on the island. He tried the garage door, found it locked as he had expected, and now, swinging left, he started to climb upward through the underbrush alongside the garage.

  He had been told that poisonous snakes were indigenous to the island—the fer-de-lance and bushmaster among them—and now he moved his hands and feet with care until he reached a narrow porch at the rear. Again he found the door locked but next to it a window was open a few inches and he considered the screen that protected it. When he saw the catch at the bottom on the inside he took out his pocket knife and began to saw away. Fortunately the screen was fine-meshed and he had no trouble cutting three sides of a small square. This he bent down until he could reach the catch and, once inside, he pushed the flap back in place, well pleased with the effort, his confidence intact.

  He was in a modem kitchen now, with a small dining room ahead on the left where a half-wall separated it from the broad living room. On the right were two bedrooms separated by a large bath, the front room extending over the garage with its tall windows opening on the porch. The floors were terrazzo and the living-room furniture was new-looking but tastefully selected, some of it native-built and some imported from Canada or the States. There was an overstaffed divan and two matching chairs, mahogany end tables, lamp bases, a heavy refectory table against one wall, a knee-hole desk in one corner, and three handsome fiber rugs that had been woven by some native artisan, probably in Dominica.

  The front of the room was mostly glass and he stood a moment to glance out over the valley. Diagonally to the right and across the highway he could see the roofs of a development known as Bayshore where families of Alcoa employees lived; beyond was the Gulf, dark gray now and getting darker. It was getting darker in here too and he turned now, still not knowing what he wanted, and moved to the desk.

  The drawers were not locked and he went through them systematically, finding a lot of papers but realizing that for the most part they held reports and plans and blueprints pertaining to Anderson’s land development scheme. When he could see nothing in the room that seemed important to him he moved on to the back bedroom. He could tell at once that this was not at present occupied so he hurried to the front room, which was larger and somewhat more opulent with its massive double bed, a comfortable-looking upholstered chair, a tall chest, a dresser, and a television set.

  The closet set in one wall had sliding doors and was well filled with Anderson’s suits and slacks and jackets, but it was the three traveling bags on the floor that claimed his attention. Two of these were large but the third was more of an overnight size, and as he hunkered down for a closer look he was reminded of his wife’s two bags and what had happened to the smaller one. For he saw now that the situation was much the same and he could feel some new excitement stirring inside as he realized that only the small case was locked.

  He knew almost at once that his pocket knife would not be strong enough to force the case and he stood up and glanced round for some implement that would serve. A growing urgency magnified this new frustration and he hurried finally to the kitchen and began opening cabinet drawers and pawing through their contents. He was swearing softly as he found the screwdriver, and a prickle of perspiration had begun to work on his hairline and the back of his neck. But the screwdriver did the job and as he opened the case he felt a quick surge of encouragement that told him his hunch had been right.

  It was nothing that he saw that drove him on, not the passport and visas and stubs of used airline tickets and the two legal-sized envelopes, or the she
af of new American fifty-dollar bills. It was the smell.

  Faint at first but utterly distinctive to one who had lived with it for three years, he knew there could be no mistake. Frangipani or tuberose or whatever it was, it was Fay's, and now he reached for the first envelope, sniffed it, put it back, and snatched up the second one.

  The odor that still clung to this envelope was strong and unmistakable. He was positive that it must have been taken from his wife’s hatbox, the smell absorbed from its interior over a period of time. He was on his feet now and opening the flap and taking out a thick packet of clippings. Some were from newspapers, some from news magazines, two or three of which had pictures. The headlines already cued him in and, selecting the best picture, he made the mental comparison as he closed the case and slid the closet door shut. He could see, in fancy, Joe Anderson’s close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair, the tanned, compact face, the prominent nose, the full-lipped mouth beneath the mustache, the tinted glasses. The face in the pictures showed no tan or mustache or glasses. The hair was black and thick and longer, but the features were the same and there was no doubt in his mind.

  The clippings had to do with a man named James Adderly and Wallace had only to scan them to understand who Anderson was and why the envelope was important. Because he had already read a great deal about the famous, or infamous, Mr. Adderly. The newspapers had been full of it for a week or more, particularly the New York City papers.

  What Mr. Adderly had done was news in itself but this had been compounded by his penchant for personal publicity. For Adderly had a duplex on Sutton Place in New York, a house in Palm Springs, a leased estate on the Italian Riviera. His wife, who had since divorced him, collected art and jewelry, and Adderly, an ardent social climber, first-nighter, and night-club patron, was given to hundred-dollar tips so long as someone besides the headwaiter or maitre d’ was aware of his largess.

  Originally a hand-to-mouth speculator, he had ridden the stock market up over a period of years. He had also accumulated, with the help of friends, a major interest in a cosmetics company and made it prosper. In his ambition, or greed, he began to buy the stock of a competitor on margin in the hope of merging the two companies, with him in control.

  Unfortunately, the stock market never being a one-way street, his timing was bad. To keep his position in the second company he had to raid the treasury of the first to cover margin calls, and such continuing demands had, in the end, proved too much for his resources. Matters had come to a head in the spring of 1961 and, in desperation, he had grabbed what cash he could get his hands on and taken off on a flight to Brazil even as the District Attorney was preparing an indictment. At present, according to the clippings, he was charged with misappropriating something like two and a half million of company funds and now faced a six-count Federal indictment for fraud and misappropriation, plus a New York indictment on twelve counts of larceny. . . .

  Wallace was in the living room when he heard a thumping sound that seemed to jar the house from somewhere below. He knew almost at once what had made that sound and as his expanding doubt and apprehension fused in quick alarm he realized that Anderson’s car must have coasted silently into the drive. What he heard was the garage door and he wheeled and streaked for the kitchen, the envelope and clippings still in his hand.

  He did not bother with the screen now, but unlocked the rear door and stepped out on the narrow porch. The air felt cool on his hot face and served to steady him. He took a moment to replace the clippings and pocket the envelope and then he moved to the corner of the house. Unmindful of possible snakes now, he started down the slope using whatever bushes or branches he could find to help him move silently.

  There was no alarm in him now. The excitement was still with him but it had a pleasant, welcome tingle because he knew Anderson would be using the stairs from the garage, and it would be impossible to see him unless Anderson stepped out on the porch immediately he reached the floor above. Taking no chances as he came to the front of the garage, he paused a moment to make sure the door was closed; then he jogged toward the road, his tiptoes making little sound on the asphalt paving.

  He did not slow down until the jungle-like foliage hid him from the front of the overhanging veranda. His breathing was still a little jerky as he approached his car in the growing darkness, but his muscles had an easy, relaxed feeling until a sudden half-seen movement startled him and told him he was not alone.

  He was reaching for his key with one hand and the door handle with the other when he saw the massive and threatening form take shape in front of the car. Then, as it moved toward him, he realized that the Negro, Jeff, had been crouched there in the shadows waiting for him.

  For a second or two as the man drew close Wallace was too intimidated by the sheer size of him to move. He knew he was trapped, that resistance would be futile, that he might as well make it easy for himself. Once again he had nearly made it. The evidence against Anderson was neatly put away in his pocket; unfortunately, he would never get the chance to use it.

  But this was his mind speaking and the message of defeat was instantly ignored. For suddenly there was a louder inner voice that was not born of logic or reason but came from pent-up emotions too long denied. Frustration and resentment nourished the feeling and this new bitterness had as its focus the pressures not just of the past twenty-four hours but of all the other times, with Fay. For years he had been denied the means to retaliate and now the long smoldering fires came to a climax that somehow made the odds against him unimportant.

  He dropped the keys into his pocket but clung to the edge of the door with his right hand. He shifted his weight slightly forward, intending to use the door hinges as a fulcrum. Some new desire he had never felt before loosened his muscles and left his body poised and controlled as he waited. When Jeff took his next step alongside the car, he swung the door with all his strength.

  It was a good move. His timing was right, and while the blow was not disabling it was effective. It caught the big man off guard, the edge of the door slamming into his chest and forehead and knocking his cap askew. More important, it left him momentarily defenseless and Dave slammed the hardest right hand he had ever thrown into the center of the flat stomach.

  The punch jarred his arm all the way to his shoulder. It felt like hitting a bag of wet sand but it bent the man, and as his head came within reach, Dave hooked his left. This time the cap fell off. He could see the eyes blink and the knees sag a little. The hands were still down. He slid his left foot forward, a wild exultancy driving him now. He had his right cocked when a voice that was curt, hard, and compelling stopped him.

  He stepped back and turned, his right still ready. Joe Anderson, who had been running down the road, slowed to a walk. He was about thirty feet away now but there was enough light left in the sky so that there could be no mistake about the gun he held in his right hand.

  “Just take it easy, Wallace,” he said, still advancing. “This is a gun.”

  “I can see it,” Wallace said, hope oozing from him as he let his hands swing down.

  “Let’s go back and talk it over,” Anderson said. “We’ll use the front door this time.”

  18

  By the time the three of them were back in the living room Dave Wallace thought he knew what had happened but he wanted to be sure.

  “I guess you recognized my car when you drove up the road.”

  “I thought it was yours. Fay used it two or three times and I’d seen you driving it. I knew damn well you weren’t exploring in the hills. I told Jeff to wait, just in case.”

  Anderson shifted the gun in his hands, his dark eyes busy behind the tinted glasses. “I know how you got in but I don’t know why yet.” He thought another moment before he said: “Watch him, Jeff. You don’t need the gun, do you?”

  The big Negro grunted softly. “Won’t need that, sir,” he said, his accent soft and thick so that the word “sir” came out like “sah.” He looked at Wallace. “You hit real good
, man. Not good enough for Jeff, though.”

  And this, Wallace knew as Anderson disappeared into the bedroom, was true. Under the Marquis of Queensberry rules, he would stand little chance with Jeff. He had surprised him before and if his luck had not run out he might have made it, but starting even, the only way to beat him without a club would be to bite him and hope he bled to death.

  A small smile was working on Anderson’s mouth when he came back but there was little mirth in it. “Search him, Jeff.” The envelope in Wallace’s inside pocket was the first thing Jeff found and Anderson’s grin spread a little more as he reached out for it.

  “So that was it?”

  “Smell it,” Wallace said.

  Anderson did so. “What about it?”

  “That smell sort of proves where you got it, doesn’t it?”

  “Does it?” Anderson said, a new wariness showing at the comers of his eyes.

  Wallace took time to explain about the distinctive perfume Fay had used for so long. “You could smell it as soon as you entered her room. That same smell was in the hatbox. It’s still on that envelope . . . How did Fay get it in the first place?” Anderson tucked the envelope into his inside jacket pocket and eased down on the edge of the divan. When he spoke his gaze was remote and there were overtones of annoyance in the cadence of his words.

  “She spent a night here once,” he said quietly. “That’s when I was nuts enough to think she might be kind of a good kid to have around once in a while. The next morning I got up at my usual time and went to work. She stayed in bed.”

  His eyes came back to Wallace and he grunted softly, an abrupt unpleasant sound.

  “I guess you know she was a snoop. I don’t think she was looking for anything special; she just couldn’t resist giving everything in the place the once-over. I didn’t have that envelope locked up then. It was in the bedroom chest under some clothes.”