Эллери Куин - The Devil To Pay

Val whispered: “Yes, Walter.”

“Wait for me at the La Salle ,” said Walter’s funny voice. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” His voice sank. “Val. Please. Don’t mention this call to any one. No one!”

Val whispered again: “Yes, Walter.”

She heard the click; it sounded very loud. She hung up and said slowly: “Let’s sit down.”

At 6.30 Val said in a hoarse voice. “I can’t stand it any longer. He told me not to tell — He’s in trouble.”

“Now, puss—” said Rhys uncomfortably.

She whispered: “Something awful. That’s what Walter said. Something awful.”

Her father looked at her with concern. “All right, Val. We’ll go over there.”

He drove up into the hills at fifty miles an hour. Val hung out of the car. Neither said a word.

The moment they swung into the road outside the gate of Sans Souci they knew something was wrong. The crowds which had swarmed there for weeks were gone. In their place were the running lights of many large, official-looking cars. It was growing dark.

“I told you,” said Val. “Didn’t I tell you? Something... something—”

The gate was opened by a policeman. There was no sign of Walewski, the night gateman, near his pillbox. But there were other policemen.

“What’s happened, officer?” demanded Jardin. “I’m Rhys Jardin.”

“Oh, are you? Hold it a minute.” The policeman said something to another policeman, and the second man went into the pillbox; and they heard the twinkle of Walewski’s telephone. Then he came out and jerked his finger.

Jardin shifted into first and drove through the gate. The second policeman hopped onto the running-board and stayed there.

Val, on the edge of her seat, was conscious of a long howling in her ears, as of winds.

At the Spaeth door they were met by three men, all in plain clothes. The three looked them over coldly. Then one, taller than the rest, with a nose like an arrowhead, said: “Come in, please.”

They were surrounded by the three and marched through the house. On the way they passed Winni Moon, who sat on the lowest step of the stairs which led to the upper floor staring with horror at her long feet while Jo-Jo chattered on her shoulder.

Solomon Spaeth’s study was packed with men — men with cameras, men with flash-bulbs, men with tape measures, men with bottles and brushes, men with pencils. The air was thick and blue with smoke.

And there was Walter, too. Walter was sitting behind his father’s desk, pushed away, with a large man over him. His face was drawn and pale. And there was a crude bandage wound around his head which would have given him a rakish look if not for the ragged blob of blood which had soaked through from his left temple.

“Walter!”

Valerie tried to run to him, but the tall arrow-nosed man put his hand on her arm. Val stopped. She felt really very calm. Everything was so water-clear — the smoke was so blue and the bandage was so red, and Walter’s head moved from side to side so very definitely as he looked at her.

From side to side. Like a signal. Or a warning.

The room misted over suddenly and Val leaned back against the nearest wall.

“You’re Miss Jardin?” said the tall man abruptly.

“Yes,” said Val. “Of course I am.” Wasn’t that an absurd thing to say?

“My name is Glücke — Inspector, Detective Division.”

“How do you do.” That was even more absurd, but it was the strangest thing. Her brain had no control over her mouth.

“Were you looking for Mr. Walter Spaeth?”

“Inspector,” began Rhys. But the tall man frowned.

“Yes,” said Valerie. “Yes, of course. Why not? We had an appointment for dinner. We looked for Mr. Spaeth in his apartment but he wasn’t there so we thought perhaps he had gone to his father’s house and so we came over—”

“I see,” said Glücke, looking elsewhere with his brilliant eyes. It seemed to Val that Walter nodded the least bit in approval. It was all so queer — everything. She mustn’t lose her head. It would come out soon. Glücke — that was a funny name. Until she found out what...

Jardin said: “That’s right, Inspector. My daughter has told you... May I ask what’s happened?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Well,” said the tall man dryly, “they don’t send for the Homicide Detail in petit larceny cases.”

He stood still. Then he made a sign, a small sign with no question in it, as a man would make it who is accustomed to be instantly obeyed. A group of men crowded together before the ell beside the fireplace separated.

A dead man was sitting on the floor in the angle of the ell, one foot doubled under him. A reddish, brownish, ragged stab-wound marred the otherwise immaculate appearance of his dove-gray gabardine jacket. As he sat there in the corner he looked like a small fat boy who has been slapped without warning; there was an expression of pure surprise on his unmoving face.

Val yelped and spun about to hide her eyes against her father’s coat.

A reporter with a cigaret cached above his ear shouted into the telephone on the desk: “Benny! For the love of Mike, do I get a rewrite or not? Benny!.. Get this. Act of God... No, you dope, act of God! Solly Spaeth’s just been murdered!”

Rhys’s heart was a church bell resounding, a measured gong. Val pressed her head against it.

And suddenly it skipped two whole beats.

Val pushed away and looked up into her father’s face. Rhys’s lips parted and framed the word: “Coat.”

“Coat,” said Val, almost aloud.

Coat? Her father’s coat!

They stood still in the bedlam. Inspector Glücke was pinching the tip of his sharp nose and regarding Walter with absorption.

Rhys’s coat, that Walter had taken from the La Salle by mistake. By mistake .

Where was it?

Walter sat stonily behind dead Solly’s desk. His hat, out of shape and streaked with dirt, lay near his left fist. But he was not wearing a topcoat. The camel’s-hair coat, Rhys’s coat, was not on the desk. Nor was it on the back of the chair.

Val no longer feared the dead man. She could return his round frog-eyed stare now without flinching. The coat. Rhys’s coat. That was the important thing. That was the thing to be afraid of.

Casually, carefully, they both made a slow survey of the study. The coat was nowhere to be seen.

Where was it? What had Walter done with it?

The Jardins drew closer together by an inch. It was necessary to concentrate. Concentrate, thought Val desperately. This is murder. Keep your mind clear. Listen.

“Get that reporter out of here,” Inspector Glücke was saying. “How you boys fixed?”

The Surveyor was already gone. The photographers, other men, dribbled off. The room began to enlarge. Then a gaunt young man swinging a black bag came in.

“There’s the stiff, Doc. See what you get.”

The coroner’s physician knelt by Solly’s squatting remains and detectives made a wall about the dead man and the living.

“Take their prints, Pappas.”

“Prints?” said Rhys slowly. “Isn’t that a bit premature, Inspector?”

“Any objection, Mr. Jardin?” rapped Glücke.

Rhys was silent.

The fingerprint man approached with his paraphernalia. Inspector Glücke pulled the tip of his nose again, almost in embarrassment. “It’s only routine. We’ve got the whole room mugged. There are a lot of prints. Weeding ’em out, you understand.”

“You’ll probably find some of mine about,” said Rhys.

“Yes?”

“I was in this room only this morning.”