Brett Halliday - Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve

“Do you think,” Mr. Porter asked, “that John suspected?”

“Something at least. And nosing around, he must have walked in on Ko and Morita just as I did. Which was why he was killed. But it was all planned from the start, of course: Nogami modeling and planting the doll with John, to ease Ko into the shipping job. So Ko could load the dolls nights and code the cartons for their men in your home factory. It all fits.”

Mr. Porter smiled wanly. “All but one thing,” he said. “On.”

Peter grinned. “Even that, if a bit in reverse. Certainly the police were right in thinking Tanizaki was worried about his debt to John. But not to the point of murder. His big worry was about something else. Where the local police were blind — if they really were — was in not seeing that Ko and Morita were the real backsliders. The moment I met them, I knew they were deep in some racket.”

Mr. Porter looked puzzled.

Peter explained: “Or Ko never would have submitted to such shame, and Morita would never have changed stations.”

“Umm,” said Mr. Porter. “Good lord, I could really use Tanizaki now.”

“I’ve talked to him,” Peter said. “I think he’ll come back. I think he sees it’s the only way he can ever repay his on to you. But you must never embarrass him by letting him know.”

“Know what?”

“That you know,” Peter chuckled, “where he was that night.”

“But I don’t.”

“He was at a wedding.”

“A wedding? Why the devil couldn’t he say so?”

“It was his own. And the girl was a geisha. There are geishas and geishas, and this one happens to be a nice one. But you’ll never convince Tanizaki’s straitlaced old papa of that.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Porter. And he did comprehend. Only a father could, who’d had such great hopes for a son.

There were four bodies at the bottom of the old well now. Alfred peered down into the brackish water. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there, lying sightless and silent in their cool, wet grave.

He counted them off on long fingers. Angela, Lucille, Susan and Tessie. It had been a long time since Tessie. He drew back from the well wall and a loose stone fell, making circles in the dark water.

It had been much too long since Tessie.

He sat, his back against the enclosure, and looked up at the hot yellow sky. He hoped he wouldn’t have to wait much longer. It had been so necessary. Each time he had placed their limp forms on the edge and pushed, each time he had heard the splash and looked down to see them slowly sinking beneath the surface, he had found a part of himself. A missing part.

Just before Angela he had found out what was wrong with himself. Somewhere, somebody had put him onto a merry-go-round spinning round and round and then, as he grew dizzy, the being at the controls had sped up the motion — more and more, faster and faster — until he was whirling so rapidly that the whole world was blurred and flashes of color made up all that he knew. It was then — on the merry go-round — that bits and pieces of himself flew off into space and he was no longer whole. He began looking for the parts of himself. He found a part with Angela.

She had wide blue eyes with little gold flecks in them. She had yellow hair, parted neatly down the middle and separated into two ribboned curls at the back of her head. She had had a red mouth and a soft, yielding body.

Her voice was annoying. Like a child’s, high-pitched and squeaky. At first it seemed to him that she did little more than make noises with her flowerlike mouth, but as they grew to know each other better, they began to communicate.

“I’ve been ill,” he told Angela. “I was forced to leave the university and come home to mother, to this farm. I have been recuperating here.” He took her hand, played with the stubby fingers. She hadn’t drawn it away. “But I’m much better now. I’ve been better since I found out about the merry-go-round.”

“What was it?” she murmured in the spring breeze. “Why were you ill?”

He pressed his hands to his head. “I can’t remember, exactly. I was working very hard. Mental work. Things like that happen sometimes to people who work their brains too hard. Someone gets jealous. That’s when they put me on the merry-go-round.”

“Who,” Angela had asked, “put you on the merry-go-round? Was it your mother?”

His head began to throb and he rubbed his thumbs along his temples. His mother? No, not his mother. She had been proud of his brain, not jealous of it. She had urged him not to work so hard. “There’s plenty of time, Alfred. You don’t look like you’ve been getting enough sleep. Are you getting enough rest, Alfred?”

He had been annoyed, he remembered. “Don’t be silly, Mother. I’ve a long way to go. I’ve the equipment, the ability. I must apply this ability. No matter who you are, you never get anywhere by being lazy.”

Worry shadows had dulled his mother’s dark eyes, but she had said no more. No — it wasn’t his mother. It was someone else. If he could only see into the dark spot in his mind. But it was heavily curtained.

He put out a finger, touching Angela’s pretty yellow curls. “You’re very pretty, Angela.”

The mouth looked haughty. “I haven’t a thing to wear.”

He had looked down then at the blue-checked dress. “It’s an attractive dress. It suits you.”

The thin voice grew into a fine line of noise. “That shows how much you know. Why do you think I bury myself out here, away from the world? I could never fit with your fancy, educated crowd. I haven’t a thing to wear.”

He thought he recognized a bit of himself then, flying above him like a tattered butterfly. He reached up for it, but it swirled about and floated gently down to Angela.

Her voice was going on. “It seems to me if you’re so fond of me you could prove it. I mean, after all, is it too much to ask that you apply yourself to earning a decent living rather than all this bunk about benefiting the world? Charity begins at home, you know.”

He moved closer to Angela. He must get his hands on the piece of himself. It was a shining piece. He must get it back in his head. He moved his long hands slowly. Mustn’t excite her. She might jump and it would flit away.

“For instance,” she was saying, “there’s a dance at the country club next week-end. All the right sort of people in the business world. The ones who could do you the most good. But how could we go? I haven’t a single thing to wear. Not a single thing.”

She wasn’t looking at him at all and then his hands were almost upon the missing piece of himself. But at the last second she had seen him, and she made that annoying, bawling sound and moved. The almost grasped piece had fluttered, and started to fly away.

He had reached and squeezed, his hands hard and tight on Angela’s throat. The section of Alfred stopped moving and settled down quietly on the blue-checked dress. When Angela, too, was quiet he had picked it carefully off and added it to the other parts of himself. Then there was nothing to do but consign Angela to the well.

Lucille had come out from the village with his mother. Her clothes were expensive and in the latest fashion and she had soft brown hair which curled all around her face. His mother had been quite pleased at bringing her. She seemed to think that Lucille would be good for Alfred.

Alfred had thought so, too. The getting acquainted process had begun, a process that he hated, but had always proved quite necessary.

“I wish you would take me into the city to the theater, Alfred. It’s terribly dull out here.”

He had looked around in the twilight, the soft shadows, the gently rolling land. “I find it peaceful.”