Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

“Sure. Something happen to Nina?”

“Not yet. And I want to make sure it doesn’t. I got wind that she’s doing a little drifting.”

The lanky man emitted a soundless whistle. “Johnny’ll knock her ears off. Who with?”

“That I didn’t hear. I want to make sure the scoop is right before I got off half-cocked by giving her the Dutch uncle bit. Johnny would blow his lid if I stuck my nose in and it turned out there was nothing to it.”

Bulletin Willie nodded sagely. “Yeah, I can see how it’d be a kind of delicate spot for you. You’d like to nip it, but you can’t just walk up to Nina and start accusing her. If she’s innocent, she’d run crying to Johnny and he’d come down on you with both feet.”

“You get the picture. I have to know for sure before I make a move. If it’s a bum steer, I’ll keep my trap shut, but if she is drifting, I want to know it. You follow me?”

“Sure. You want me to do some tailing.”

“I want you on her every night. Days don’t matter, because she won’t be playing footsie while the sun’s out, but you have her staked out by dusk every night. I want to know everywhere she goes and everybody she sees.”

“You can count on me, Barney. I’ll stick to her like a can tied to a cat’s tail.”

Barney took out his wallet and removed a fifty-dollar bill. “Here’s something for your trouble. Do a good job and I’ll match it.”

That took care of that, he thought as he left the pool hall. Even if the rumor was traced back to its source, which was unlikely, no one could say that Barney Stroud had ever mentioned Mark Drennan and Nina Nash in the same breath. All he had to do now was relax and let nature take its course.

Four nights later, on a Sunday, Bulletin Willie phoned him at home.

“Anybody listening?” he asked.

“Yes,” Barney said. Phyllis was seated not ten feet away.

“Then I’ll hold it until morning. About nine o’clock at the pool hall?”

“Okay,” Barney said, and hung up.

“Who was that?” Phyllis asked.

“Business,” he said, which killed her interest.

At nine Monday morning he found Bulletin Willie waiting for him at the pool hall. The lanky man was so bursting with news, he could hardly contain himself.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “But it’s gospel truth. Saturday she spent the whole blame night at a guy’s place.”

“What guy?”

Bulletin Willie grinned, drawing it out in order to increase the suspense. “You’re never going to believe it.”

“Try me,” Barney said impatiently.

The lanky man let a pause build before saying with relish, “Mark Drennan.”

Barney let his eyes register shock, then narrow. After a moment of silence, he took out his wallet and gave the man another fifty-dollar bill.

Bulletin Willie pocketed the bill. “Johnny will kill him,” he commented.

“Not if he never finds out,” Barney said. “I’ll take it from here. Just keep your mouth shut.”

“Sure, Barney. I wouldn’t say anything.”

Except to your friends, in strict confidence, Barney thought. He gave the gossip three days to spread all over the grapevine.

His estimate was conservative. Within two days he had heard the news from three different sources that Mark Drennan was carrying-on an affair with Nina Nash.

The following Saturday was Phyllis’ party, and both the Nashes and Mark Drennan were there. In public Nina and Drennan were being very cautious, Barney noted. Except for one duty dance, Drennan didn’t go near the woman all evening.

Johnny Nash, big and wide-shouldered and somehow rumpled-looking despite his perfectly pressed two-hundred-dollar suit, as usual spent most of the evening at the bar. About midnight Barney drifted over next to him.

“Having fun?” he asked.

The big man shrugged. “You know me, Barney. These friends of yours ain’t exactly in my class. I come because Nina likes to rub shoulders with the aristocracy.”

“Oh, they’re not so bad when you get to know them,” Barney told him. “Buy you a drink?”

“Sure,” Nash said, draining his glass and setting it on the bar.

The white-coated bartender Phyllis had hired for the evening was snowed under. Barney walked behind the bar and personally mixed Nash a new drink, using a fresh glass.

As he handed it to Nash, he said, “Nina seems to be having a good time.”

Nash turned to look toward his wife, who was dancing with a portly stockbroker named Myron Wood. With a paper napkin protecting his fingers, Barney quickly lifted the used glass and set it in the waste receptacle beneath the bar. He dropped the napkin over it.

He hadn’t definitely devised a murder plan yet, but a glass with Johnny Nash’s fingerprints on it might come in handy.

Hours later, after everyone had gone home, he retrieved the glass and hid it behind some bottles in the liquor storage cabinet.

Before he was able to devise a workable plan, Barney had to postpone the whole thing. The syndicate which furnished the combine its turf news and form sheets announced a hike in price. The syndicate was headquartered in Kansas City and the local branch printery claimed it had no control over the decision. Mark Drennan sent Barney to Kansas City to register an objection and try to dicker the price back down. It took him three weeks to work out a compromise deal.

The evening he got back, he found Phyllis all dressed to leave the house.

“Where we going?” he asked. “I planned to spend tonight at home.”

“You are,” she told him. “Mother’s not feeling well. She asked me to spend the night with her.”

Phyllis’ father had died about six months before, and her mother wasn’t in very good health. With increasing frequency the old lady asked her only daughter to spend nights with her. Barney could hardly object, but he often wished Phyllis would be as conscientious about his welfare as she was about her mother’s.

His first night back he had to sleep alone.

The front for the combine’s business ventures was the Drennan-Nash Realty Company in downtown St. Vincent. Mark Drennan didn’t show up the next morning, and as operation costs was something in Drennan’s province instead of Nash’s, Barney phoned his home at noon. Drennan sounded as though he had been awakened from a sound sleep.

“I was in an all-night poker game,” he informed Barney. “Tell Johnny I won’t be in today. Want to drop by here tonight to make your report?”

“All right,” Barney said. “See you about nine.”

Phyllis didn’t make her usual objection to his going out at night when she learned his business was with Drennan instead of Nash. Barney arrived promptly at nine and found Mark Drennan at home alone.

“Come in,” Drennan said cordially, and led Barney back to the play room. “Drink?”

“A little bourbon and soda,” Barney said.

Drennan went behind the bar to mix two drinks, then rested his forearms on the bar.

“Any success?” he inquired.

“Some. They’re willing to split the difference. They claim rising printing costs.”

Mark Drennan pursed his lips. “Everything’s going up,” he conceded. “But how do we know they won’t hike the price again a month from now?”

“I got a two-year contract.”

Drennan’s expression cleared. “That’s pretty good work, Barney. I guess you were worth developing. I told Johnny when you first came to work for us that you were a sharp kid.”

Barney merely smiled modestly.

By the time he had explained the new contract in detail, their glasses were empty and Drennan mixed another drink. “Long as you’re here, Barney, want to do me a favor?”

“Sure, Mark. What?” Coming from behind the bar, Drennan disappeared into the other room. He returned carrying a German Borchardt-Luger. Drawing back the slide to lock it open, he checked to make sure it was empty and handed it to Barney.