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

For a second or two he remained motionless, then he moved silently to the door leading to the outside corridor and turned the key. Would she forget to lock the door between her room and his father’s room?

Moving softly, he crossed the lounge and opened the door into his father’s room. Leaving the door open so he could see where he was going, he crossed the room to the door that led into Sophia’s room. He listened, his head against the door panel. He could hear Sophia moving about in the inner room. He looked at his watch: the time was now ten minutes to one. His margin of safety was running out.

He put his hand on the door-handle and began to turn it very slowly. It seemed to take a long time before the handle fully turned.

Had she locked this door?

He pulled gently and as he felt the door move towards him, he stopped pulling and his lips curled into a triumphant grin.

Again he listened.

He heard Sophia clear her throat and then put something down on the dressing table.

He eased the door open a crack, his right hand gripping the paperweight so tightly his knuckles turned white.

He could see into the room now.

Sophia had taken off her evening dress and was peeling off her stockings.

Jay measured the distance between them. It was too great. She would have time to start to her feet and scream before he could reach her.

He watched her slip on a wrap, then undo her suspender belt and toss it on a chair, then she walked into the bathroom.

He heard the bath water running.

Better wait for her to get into the bath, he thought. He remembered she would be sitting with her back to the door once she was in the bath.

All he would have to do then was to move in silently and hit her before she even knew he was in there.

He waited, his breathing fast and hard, his heart thumping. He glanced at his watch. It was now three minutes to one. The margin of safety was narrowing.

He stiffened when he heard the bath water stop running and then he heard the unmistakable sound of splashing.

She must be in the bath!

His lips moved into his meaningless smile as he opened the door and moved silently across the bedroom to the bathroom door.

He reached for the handle, turned it and pushed gently.

The door swung silently open.

Never before in the sordid history of the Beau Rivage hotel had the hotel been so quiet and dark as when Inspector Devereaux drove up in his car.

A small crowd stood outside the entrance, held back by three sweating gendarmes.

Guidet stood just inside the dark entrance and came across the pavement to meet Devereaux.

“Why in darkness?” Devereaux asked, staring up at the dark outline of the building.

“The lights have fused. As soon as we put in a new fuse, it blows.” Guidet sounded exasperated. “I’ve got an electrician checking the wiring. In the meantime we have candles.”

“So he is dead?” Devereaux said, walking into the lobby.

“Yes, he’s dead,” Guidet said. “He hanged himself.”

On the reception desk were five flickering candles that threw a yellow circle of light on Madame Brossette’s gross body lying where it had fallen at the foot of the stairs.

“Hello!” Devereaux exclaimed, coming to an abrupt stop. “What happened here?”

“My guess is she found Kerr, rushed downstairs to call the ambulance and fell,” Guidet said indifferently. “The stairs are dangerously steep. Anyway, it’s saved her getting into trouble with us. She deliberately lied when we asked her if Kerr was here.”

At this moment the Medical Officer, Dr. Mathieu, came in.

He went immediately to the body and made a quick examination.

“Her neck is broken,” he said, looking at Devereaux. “A woman of such a weight... such a fall... ” He shrugged his shoulders.

“And Kerr?” Devereaux asked.

“Upstairs.”

Guidet turned on a powerful electric torch and guided Devereaux up the narrow stairs.

“So he was here all the time,” Devereaux said as he walked into the room beyond the broom cupboard. “No wonder we didn’t find him.”

Lemont was in the room, lighting more candles.

Guidet threw the beam of his torch on Joe Kerr.

Joe hung from the scarlet cord that was fastened to a hook on the back of the door. His long, bony legs were curled up so that the weight of his body had tightened the running noose of the cord. His raddled face was a pale mauve colour; his lips were drawn off his teeth in a snarl of terror.

“He hanged himself with the missing curtain cord,” Guidet said. “I’ve been through his pockets. In one of them I found a blue bead.” He went over to the bedside table and pointed to the bead. “It’s from the girl’s necklace.”

Devereaux glanced at the bead, then back to Joe.

“No confession or suicide note?”

“No.” Guidet picked up the half empty bottle of whisky. “Looks as if he had been drinking heavily.”

“Well, there doesn’t seem much doubt that he killed the girl and in a drunken fit of remorse, he hanged himself,” Devereaux said.

While he was speaking the lights went on.

“Ah! That’s better,” Guidet said. “I’ll have the body photographed and then taken down.”

Devereaux nodded. He was feeling tired, but satisfied. The case had cleared up nicely.

“I wonder why he did it,” he said. “You know, Guidet, this seems almost too simple, but it often happens this way. Just when one thinks one has a difficult case on one’s hands, the thing solves itself. Still, we’d better be on the safe side. Take his fingerprints. Let’s see if they check with the print we found on the other bead.”

Guidet shrugged his shoulders.

“All right, but I don’t think there’s any doubt about it — he’s our man.”

Lemont, who had gone downstairs to fetch the police photographer, now returned, followed by the photographer.

Devereaux moved out into the passage to give the photographer room in which to work.

A man, carrying a metal toolbox, came out of a room at the head of the stairs. He paused when he saw Devereaux.

“The blown fuse was caused by this, monsieur,” he said and handed Devereaux a ten franc piece. “It was screwed into the light socket in that room.”

Devereaux thanked the man. When the electrician had gone, Devereaux beckoned to Lemont.

“Did the lights go out before or after you heard the woman fall?”

“Some minutes after. They went out when I was examining the body. I imagine one of the men caught here fused the lights in order to get away. As soon as the lights failed, there was a rush for the exit. Farcau had no chance of stopping anyone.”

Devereaux grinned.

“I can’t say I blame them.”

He dropped the ten franc piece into his pocket.

Dr. Mathieu came up the stairs.

“Another customer for you, doctor,” Devereaux said. “Take a look at him. I don’t think there’s any doubt he’s the one who killed the poor girl.”

Dr. Mathieu nodded and went into the room beyond the broom cupboard. The photographer had completed his work and Guidet and Lemont got Joe’s body on to the bed.

Ten minutes later Mathieu came out into the passage, a puzzled frown on his face.

“Well?” Devereaux asked. He was leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette, thinking longingly of his bed.

“I’ll arrange to have him taken to the mortuary, Inspector. I want to check him over much more thoroughly. There are a couple of points that puzzle me. He has a bruise in the middle of his back. It’s a recent one and I’m wondering how he got it. I’ve seen a bruise like that before and it is consistent with a knee being forced between the shoulder blades.”

Devereaux stiffened.