Джеймс Чейз - There’s Always A Price Tag

‘Must we bring Burnett into this?’

‘Yes. If we don’t, he’ll be the first to make trouble. The police will want to talk to him and he has to know the background. He’s got to accept me. When the showdown comes, it’s essential we have him behind us.’

‘All right: I’ll call him on Monday. But suppose the police find out Erle hasn’t been to the sanatorium? They’re certain to check.’

‘Don’t worry about that. You can leave me to fix it. There is one more thing. Tomorrow you must get a servant. There’s an agency on 35th Street that provide staff at short notice. Call them up tomorrow and ask them to send a girl who can help you run this place.’

She stared at me.

‘I can run it myself. I don’t want anyone.’

‘Use your brains. Can you imagine what the police will think if they find out that you and I are living under this roof on our own? They’ll know we’re lovers and that’s something they’ve just not got to know. When they start their investigation they will find you and a servant and Dester sleep here, and I sleep in the apartment over the garage. I come over during the day when the servant is about. We never close a door. We never have a chance of making love. Do you understand? We must do it or we’re heading for trouble.’

‘I don’t like it, Glyn. It’s dangerous.’

‘Not half so dangerous as not having her. When she arrives you must take her into your confidence. You must tell her Dester isn’t well. He’s in his room and he mustn’t be disturbed. You are hoping to get him away for a change in a day or so. On Wednesday, he’ll go to the sanatorium, providing I am satisfied we can go ahead. She must see him get into the car so she will swear she did see him leave the house.’

‘You mean you’re going to let her see his dead body?’ Helen said, her voice shooting up.

‘No. For the love of mike, don’t be so goddamn dumb. She’ll see me come down the stairs wearing his hat and coat. We’ll fix it so the light is bad. She’ll see a man come down. With any luck she will never have seen Dester so she won’t know the difference.’

‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘It’s not dangerous at all. I’m fixing it. Don’t keep raising objections. Get the girl. That’s all I want you to do. I’ll do the rest of it.’

‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ she said uneasily. ‘If she’s in the house how are we to get him out of the deep-freeze?’

‘That’s something I’ll have to work out. One thing at a time.’

‘She could look in the deep-freeze.’

‘Yes, she could do that, but she won’t. I’ll fix something about that tomorrow before she comes. Right now I’ve got a lot of thinking to do. I’ve had a tough day. You’d better get some sleep.’

‘Are you sleeping here?’

‘No. We’re going to start right now as we will have to go on.’

‘You’re leaving me alone here?’

I moved to the door. ‘You don’t have to worry about him. He won’t get up and bother you in the night.’

I went into the hall, opened the front door and walked out into the cool, dark night.

As soon as I got into the apartment above the garage and had locked myself in, I undressed and got into bed. I lit a cigarette and began to grapple with my main problem: the foolproof, safe murder plan.

Sooner or later I would have to get his body out of the freezer, and put him somewhere where the police would find him. Having a servant in the house would complicate things, but I knew we had to have her. It would be quite an achievement to get the body away from the house to some place without anyone seeing me, even if they didn’t see the body which could be hidden under a pile of rugs at the back of the Buick. It couldn’t be the Rolls: that was too well-known.

At least I had time to concoct a plan. I had also to fake an alibi while I was planting his body, and the alibi had to stand up.

I had to think for Helen. I had to make sure she was also covered. I didn’t kid myself that she would accept the situation if she slipped up and was caught. She would pull me in too. I was sure of that.

So I wrestled with the problem.

Soon after nine o’clock the next morning, I went over to the house and up the stairs to Dester’s bedroom. As I reached the door, Helen appeared in the doorway of her room. She was still in her nightdress, over which she wore her oyster-coloured wrap.

I was tempted to dally: she looked pretty good in that getup, but there was work to do. I pushed the temptation behind me.

‘You’d better get dressed. We have a lot to do,’ I said, and went into Dester’s room. I took from the bottom of his wardrobe the two suitcases in which I had brought back the whisky, put them on the bed and then taking down the bottles of whisky from the top of the wardrobe I put them into the suitcases.

Helen came to the door. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Sealing up the deep-freeze cabinet,’ I said.

‘You’re what?’

I turned to look at her.

‘I’m demonstrating to you that I have a few brains. That cabinet has got to stay closed, but at the same time, it mustn’t be locked. Okay. The safest way to keep the lid shut is to put something on top of it that will cause an effort to remove. I’m stacking all these bottles on top of it so it will stay shut.’

‘It wouldn’t be all that difficult to remove those bottles.’

‘That’s right. It wouldn’t be difficult, but no one in their right mind would do it. You’ll tell this girl the deep-freeze is empty. Make it sound casual. She’s not going to shift all these bottles to prove you are a liar. No one would be that dumb.’

‘It would be safer to lock it.’

‘That’s what you think. It would make her curious. Ever heard of Pandora’s box? It’s the same setup. Why lock an empty freezer? This is the way to do it, and this is the way it’s going to be done.’

By the time I had carried the bottles into the kitchen and set them out on top of the deep-freeze cabinet, Helen had put on a sweater and slacks and had joined me. She stood looking at the rows of bottles and at the cabinet. I saw the tenseness go out of her face. She could see now I was right.

‘Did you look inside?’ she asked.

‘Yes. I looked inside. He’s fine. You don’t have to worry about him,’ I said. ‘Now come on, we’ve got things to do. We’ve got to put this house in order. When this girl comes, she’s got to find a normal house in working order.’

We slaved until midday. We cleaned, polished and aired the rooms. I went out into the garden and collected an armful of flowers. I left them with Helen while I went upstairs and got the room ready for the girl. I intended to put her in the room at the other end of the corridor because it was away from Helen’s room, and the window looked out on to the east side of the garden away from the garage. While I was making up the bed I heard the telephone bell ring. I went to the head of the stairs, my heart thumping.

Helen came out of the dining-room and looked up at me, her face pale and set.

‘Go on — answer it,’ I said.

She went into the lounge.

I lit a cigarette and waited. I heard her talking, but I couldn’t hear what she said. As I started down the stairs, I heard her hang up. She came out of the lounge.

‘That was the Hollywood Recorder, ’ she said as I joined her in the hall. ‘They wanted confirmation about the television job. I told them he was out of town and I knew nothing about his business.’

‘That’s right.’ I thought for a moment. Hammerstock had certainly started to shoot his mouth off ahead of the gun, but that didn’t matter so long as we knew. ‘Don’t kid yourself they’ll be content with that. They’ll come out here. The rest of the Press will come too. I don’t want them to find me here. You’ll have to handle them. I’m going to take the Buick and clear out for the rest of the day. I’ve things to do. Get on to the agency now and get a girl. Call Burnett and fix a date for tomorrow. Call the Belle View sanatorium and ask them if they can take your husband. If they say they can take him right away, stall. We don’t want to start anything until the end of the week. Will you do that?’