Эллери Куин - The Devil To Pay

“I bought you die king size — they last longer, don’t they?”

“You’re simply wonderful.” Rhys gathered up the old cards and began to pat them into a neat pile. “I was beginning to think you’d run out on me. In durance vile for thirty-six hours, and not a peep out of you!”

“I tried last night, but they wouldn’t give you a telephone message.”

“Nasty of them. Here, take these damned shingles and burn ’em.” He handed her the old deck of cards and she furtively put it into her purse.

Rhys leaned back with a long sigh. Valerie closed her purse with a snap. “Did they — did they do anything to you that—”

He waved his hand. “They’re cooking up an arraignment or indictment or whatever they call it, and I suppose I’ll have to attend. There’s been a good deal of questioning, of course.”

“Questioning,” said Val in a faint voice.

“Nothing brutal, you understand. You really should meet Van Every — charming fellow. I must say I like him better than that ogre Glücke.”

Chit-chat, inconsequentials, to deceive the man in the next cell. To deceive her, too? To deceive her, too? Val suddenly leaned over and kissed him. They were both silent for a moment.

Then Val said: “I’ve got something to tell you.”

He shook his head in warning. But Val reassured him with a glance and went on: “I’ve taken a job with Fitz.”

“A job?”

She told him the story of her interview with Fitzgerald. “It’s... well, it’s money, pop. We’ve got to have some.” He was silent again. “And don’t you think we ought to pay back — that other money we owe?”

“Yes. Of course.” He knew which money she meant, but somehow neither seemed to want to mention Walter’s name. “But not now. It can wait. Naturally I won’t touch it.”

“Naturally.” Val understood. To return Walter’s money now would raise all sorts of questions. Walter’s sympathy with Jardin was better kept secret — for Walter’s sake. For Walter’s sake! Everything, everything was for Walter’s sake.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” asked Val.

“No, Val. I’m really quite comfortable.”

They looked deeply into each other’s eyes. Val kissed him again. Then she rose and said hurriedly: “I’ll see you later,” and ran to the door and began shaking the bars like a young female monkey.

“Guard!” called Rhys with a curious smile, and the keeper came running. “It’s a funny feeling, isn’t it, puss?”

“Goodbye, darling,” said Val without looking around, and she followed the man out with her head held high but seeing very little of the massive masonry and ironwork that escorted her to the very street.

Val had taken no more than twenty steps on First Street when she knew she was being followed.

To make sure, she headed for the lot where she had parked her car. There, while the attendant hunted through the rows. Val became busy examining her face in her mirror and incidentally watching the street. Yes, there was no doubt about it. A long black sedan with two men in it had inched away from the curb across the street from the Jail and had followed her walking figure at five miles an hour. Now it was waiting unobtrusively before the parking lot, as if held up by traffic. But there was very little traffic.

The attendant brought up her car and Val got in, feeling her heart beat fast. She clutched her purse tighter and drove out of the lot with one hand.

The black sedan began to crawl again.

Val set her bag down and began to dodge in and out of traffic.

Fifteen minutes later, after a circuitous route, she found herself on Wilshire Boulevard near LaFayette Park — and the big sedan was still fifty feet behind her.

There was only one thing to do, and Val did it. She sped west on Wilshire, bound for home. North on Highland, past Third, Beverly, Melrose, Santa Monica, Sunset... the sedan followed grimly, maintaining its distance.

Val drove up to the La Salle , parked the car, snatched her purse from the seat, slipped into the lobby by the side-entrance and dodged up the stairway to 3-C. She locked her door with shaking fingers.

She flung her hat aside and sat down for a moment to catch her breath. The apartment was quiet, the Venetian blinds tipped down. She rose and went to the breakfast-room window and peered out. There, in the back street, stood the sedan; its two occupants were still sitting in it, smoking.

Val hurried back to the living-room and tore open her purse. In her nervousness the cards cascaded to the floor. She sat down cross-legged and picked them up.

She began quickly to separate the suits — clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades. When all the clubs were in one pile, she arranged them in descending order — ace on top, then king, queen, jack, down to the deuce. She repeated this curious procedure with the three other suits. When this was finished she took up the thirteen spades, then the hearts, then the diamonds, and finally the clubs.

Val turned the rearranged deck over in her hands, frowning. Something was wrong. Along both sides appeared pencil marks — dots, dashes, and on some card-edges nothing at all. It looked like a telegraph code. But that couldn’t be.

Oh, she was stupid! Some cards were turned one way, the rest the other. She would have to turn each card so that its marked edge coincided with the marked edges of the cards above and below it. That was what she had had to do as a little girl, when Rhys amused her with what had then seemed a fascinating trick of secret communication.

There! The thing was done. All the marked edges lay one way, and the pencilled dots and dashes became parts of an intelligible message written in simple block letters over the tightly compressed side of the deck.

There was not enough light on the floor. Val scrambled up and ran to the breakfast-room window, careful to remain invisible to the watchers below.

She breathed a little harder as she read the clear, tiny letters. The message said:

SS PHONED AR MON AM COME

OVER URGENT BETW 5–5.30 PM

Val slowly sat down on the breakfast-nook bench. SS — that stood for Solomon Spaeth. AR — Anatole Ruhig. Solomon Spaeth had telephoned Anatole Ruhig Monday morning to call at the Spaeth house between five and five-thirty Monday afternoon on an urgent matter?

So that was the clue. Rhys had gone over to Spaeth’s house Monday morning; they had had their argument in Spaeth’s study. It must have been during this visit that Spaeth had telephoned his lawyer, and Rhys had overheard.

Between five and five-thirty Monday afternoon . But Spaeth had been murdered at five-thirty!

Val clenched her hands under her chin. What had Ruhig told Glücke? Yes, that he had appeared at Sans Souci a few minutes past six Monday afternoon. But that must have been true, otherwise Walewski would have called him a liar. Unless Walewski...

Val frowned. Spaeth had commanded his lawyer to appear between five and five-thirty, and Ruhig had simply been more than a half-hour late for the appointment. That was the reasonable explanation. Besides, had Ruhig really been on time, wouldn’t Frank — on duty at the gate — have seen him and reported his visit to Inspector Glücke? Unless Frank...

Val was so disappointed she flung the cards from her and glowered at them as they lay strewn about the kitchen floor. She could have wept for sheer chagrin.

But she did nothing of the sort. She got down on her hands and knees and picked the cards up one by one, getting a run in one stocking in the process; and when she had them together again she rose and went into her bedroom and stowed them away in the bureau under the chemises.

Then she undressed, washed her face and hands, changed her stockings, made up, put on her black silk print with the magnolia-petal design and the last expensive hat she had bought — the one that looked so fetchingly like a modernistic soup plate — transferred her vanity and key-case and money to the alligator bag, and departed, a lady with a mission.