Джеймс Чейз - Not Safe to Be Free [= The Case of the Strangled Starlet]

It was while she was in the cinema, her nerves tense, her mind far away from the lighted screen, that Madame Brossette told her daughter to take over the reception desk and then plodded up the steep stairs to see how Joe was getting on.

She was uneasy about Joe. The detective had said they had enough evidence to convict him for the girl’s murder.

What possible evidence could they have except that he had been seen on the second floor of the hotel at the time of the murder? And now Nice Matin had printed a description of him. If the two detectives continued to watch outside, how was she going to get Joe out of the hotel without his being seen?

She walked heavily down the passage to the broom cupboard. There she paused to listen and to look up and down the passage.

From a door close by she heard a girl protesting shrilly and a man cursing her. Shrugging, she opened the cupboard door and stepped inside.

Moving like a ghost, Jay stole out of his room and down the passage. He had taken off his shoes and he made no sound as he reached the cupboard door. It was shut now and he put his ear against the panel and listened. He heard a sharp clicking sound of a released spring, then a sliding noise. He waited, his heart beating fast, his ears straining.

“Anything I can get you, Joe?” he heard the woman ask. “Do you want something to eat?”

Jay’s lips moved into his meaningless smile.

So Kerr was in there!

He moved away from the door and walked silently back to his room, pushing the door nearly shut. Then, leaning against the wall, he waited.

Joe Kerr moved uneasily as he frowned up at Madame Brossette.

“I’m all right,” he mumbled. “What’s the idea? You woke me up.”

“I thought I’d see how you were getting on.” She patted his arm. “Are you hungry?”

“No. I’m all right.” He closed his eyes. She could see he was very drunk. “Just leave me alone, will you?”

“I’ll be up again,” she said and she remained at his side until he began to snore, then leaving him, she walked down the passage, down the stairs and back into the lobby.

“All right,” she said to her daughter. “You get off now. Don’t be back too late.”

Maria slid off the chair behind the reception desk.

“I won’t be back until two,” she said sulkily, “so don’t expect me before then.”

Madame Brossette grunted. She was long past worrying about her daughter. In another year the girl would be walking the back streets of Cannes and would be hiring a room at the hotel. Madame Brossette believed in sacrificing sentiment for profit. What had been good enough for her when she had been young should surely be good enough for her daughter.

She watched Maria leave the hotel, then, lighting a cigarette, she settled down on the chair her daughter had vacated and with a bored grimace, picked up her magazine and began to leaf through its pages.

Jay moved silently to the head of the stairs and looked down at her; then, satisfied she would be occupied for a while, he moved on bare feet down the corridor to the broom cupboard.

He paused to listen outside the door, then he put his hand on the door handle and turned it gently. He eased open the door a few inches and was surprised to find himself looking into total darkness. He listened and, hearing nothing, he moved into the cupboard, closing the door behind him. For some moments he remained motionless, his breathing coming hard and fast while he tried to pick up any sound that would tell him he was in the room in which Kerr was sleeping. Finally, hearing nothing, he took out his cigarette lighter and flicked the flame alight. Then he saw where he was — in a broom cupboard and seeing an electric light switch, he put on the light.

Madame Brossette’s conversation with Joe which he had overheard told him there must be a false wall in the cupboard and it didn’t take him more than a few minutes to discover the spring release that operated the false door.

He stood looking into a small room, not more than ten feet square. There was a bed, and, on the bed, lay Joe Kerr, his breathing heavy and punctuated with slow, strangled snores.

Jay moved back to the cupboard door and slid the bolt that was on the inside of the door, then he moved silently into the inner room until he reached the bed.

He stood looking down at Joe as he slept, the light from the outer room giving enough illumination for Jay to see the raddled, tired face in some detail.

He pulled the razor from his wrist-watch strap, then he sat on the bed and reaching out, gently shook Joe’s shoulder.

Joe was dreaming of his wife and for a change, the dream wasn’t a nightmare. He was seeing her, in slacks and a flowered patterned shirt, weeding the flagged path that led up to the cottage Joe had rented for their honeymoon and Joe smiled as he watched her in his dream.

Then he became aware of a hand on his shoulder gently shaking him and the dream was spoilt, stopping abruptly the way the picture on a movie screen stops when the film snaps.

Jeanne again! he thought angrily. Why can’t she leave a guy alone? He hunched his shoulders, mumbling a protest, then he tried to free himself from the persistently shaking hand.

Fingers gripped his coat more firmly and into his dream-dazed mind came a sudden sense of danger and a warning that these weren’t Jeanne’s thick, heavy fingers that had so often shaken him awake. Slowly he turned his head and opened his eyes.

He looked up at Jay, who sat motionless at his side, his left hand resting on Joe’s shoulder.

Joe couldn’t believe what he was seeing, then, with a gasp of fright, he started to sit up, but the fingers on his shoulder suddenly turned into steel claws and dug into his flesh, making him gasp with pain and fear and forcing him flat again.

He lay motionless, his heart thumping, sweat on his face, as he looked at the compact motionless figure who was sitting beside him and for the first time in his life, Joe experienced real fear: fear that turned him cold, that dried his mouth, that paralysed him.

The pale expressionless face with its dark glasses, the lips curved in a meaningless smile, struck a sick terror into him like a knife thrust.

“It’s Mr. Kerr, isn’t it?” Jay said, leaning forward slightly so Joe could see his own reflection in the two dark screens of the boy’s glasses.

“How did you get in here?” Joe croaked. “You... you’ve no business in here.”

The thin, pale lips moved into a smile that accelerated Joe’s heartbeat.

“Oh, but I have. I’ve come for the photographs and the negatives. Where are they?”

Joe tried to pull himself together. Again he attempted to sit up, but again the steel fingers bit into his flesh. He was horrified to realize this slight boy was so strong.

“Where are they, Mr. Kerr?” Jay repeated. “I want them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joe mumbled, shrinking back on his pillow. “You get out of here.”

Jay withdrew his hand from Joe’s shoulder. His very stillness made him seem more menacing to Joe.

“The photographs and the negatives, please,” he said softly. “I haven’t much time.”

There was a threat in his voice that made Joe touch his dry lips with the tip of his tongue.

“I haven’t got them. She’s got them. You ask her for them.”

Jay said gently: “I could persuade you, Mr. Kerr.”

He lifted his right hand so Joe could see it. The razor lay in his open palm and Joe suddenly felt very sick. He watched the boy open the blade that glittered in the electric light.

“The photographs, please,” Jay said. He lifted the razor. “Unless you give them to me... ” He paused and his pale lips moved into a smile that chilled Joe’s blood. “I wouldn’t wish to hurt you, Mr. Kerr.”