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

He leaned forward and listened, but he couldn’t hear anything. Then just as he was about to leave his hiding-place and go and listen at the door, he saw Sophia Delaney coming briskly down the corridor.

For a moment he couldn’t believe his eyes. His run of bad luck had been so consistent that he couldn’t believe he was getting a break and what a break!

Step-son lures starlette up to Papa’s luxury suite, then, at the psychological moment, step-mother arrives! It was the kind of stuff Peep lived on!

Joe lifted his camera as Sophia knocked on the door.

As Jay swung the scarlet cord, he saw Sophia follow each swing.

He felt very sure of himself. He had seen that he had frightened Sophia and he knew it wasn’t easy to frighten his father’s wife. He had also seen that he had disconcerted her by his bare-faced admission that he had brought a girl to the suite.

I had better not overdo it, he thought. I’d now better begin to reassure her. I mustn’t let her imagine that there is anything seriously wrong. I had her worked up just now so badly she looked as if she were going to bolt out of the room. She must be very sensitive to atmosphere. I wonder how she guessed about the girl. Maybe it was the perfume. Women notice things like that. The girl had been over-scented.

“Do you mean to tell me you have a girl in your bedroom?” Sophia said and he could see she was now trying to whip up her anger again, which had been cooled by her fear.

“I’m sorry, Sophia.” He spoke gently. “It was one of those stupid impulses.”

He moved away from her, tossing the curtain cord onto the settee; then he sat on the arm of a lounging chair.

He had now to persuade her to come over to his side. He had to appeal to her sympathy and understanding. He must get her to promise not to tell his father.

It was fantastic, he thought, that she should have returned like this. For three days she had remained with his father throughout all those dreary performances, but on this day, when it had been so vitally important that he shouldn’t be disturbed, she had to return.

But, now he had recovered from the shock of hearing her angry rapping on the door, he found the situation exhilaratingly exciting.

It had certainly been a shock when she had rapped on the door. He had been kneeling beside Lucille’s lifeless body, loosening the cord around her throat. The knocking sound had paralysed him. His heart seemed to stop beating. The blood in his veins seemed to congeal. His mind had gone blank with panic. It had been a bad moment, but it also had been a test.

He had known from the beginning that if he did this thing, sooner or later, he would be challenged and he would have to rely on his nerve and his wits to save himself, but who would have imagined the challenge would have come so quickly? The girl was scarcely dead when the knocking had come on the door.

He had got his panic quickly under control. He had known that he had only a few seconds in which to act. He had picked up the girl’s body. She had been surprisingly heavy and awkward. He had staggered with her into his bedroom and dumped her on his bed. Then he had returned to the lounge and snatched up the curtain cord and stuffed it into his hip pocket.

There had been an added complication: during the very brief but violent struggle, the string of the girl’s necklace had broken and the beads had shot about the floor.

They were big blue beads, the size of small walnuts and although they were easy to retrieve, he had had to do it at lightning speed.

He had just picked up the last bead in sight when he heard a key being pushed into the lock of the door.

He had darted into his bedroom and closed the door soundlessly as the door leading into the suite had opened.

He had had no time to compose himself when he heard Sophia call him.

He had been thankful for his dark glasses. He was confident that he could control the expression on his face, but he knew that his eyes would have given him away could she have seen them.

“A stupid impulse,” he repeated. “I’m really sorry, Sophia. She looked so attractive and I was bored.” He reached for his cigarette case lying on the table and opened it. “Will you?” He offered the case.

She shook her head.

“I can’t understand you doing such a thing,” she said and her voice was cold.

He lit a cigarette and he was pleased and not a little proud to see how steady his hands were.

“I don’t think you realize how lonely I am sometimes,” he said, feeling sure this would be the right approach. “After all, Sophia, you have father, but I have no one. Father doesn’t care about me. He’s too busy to care about anyone but you. This girl was on her own in the lobby. She looked lonely too. So I talked to her. It was she who suggested we should go somewhere together. Don’t think I’m trying to excuse myself. She appealed to me, and, if I had had the nerve, I would have made the suggestion. I didn’t know where to take her, so I brought her up here.” He looked at Sophia from behind his dark glasses. She was relaxing and she had moved over to the table and now rested her hips against it. He could see he had her interest. “It’s a funny thing, but although I thought she was attractive down in the lobby, as soon as I got her up here, I realized she wasn’t attractive at all. I suppose it was seeing her in this familiar room. Anyway, I realize now what a fool I’ve been to have brought her up here.”

“I can understand that, Jay,” Sophia said and he was quick to notice that her voice had softened.

“My one thought was to get rid of her,” he went on. “I didn’t know how to do it. I was scared she would make a scene. Then you knocked. I can’t tell you how glad I was that you came back. I honestly don’t know how I would have got her out of here without making a scene.”

Sophia moved uneasily.

“Can she hear what you are saying?” she asked and looked at his bedroom door.

“Oh, no.” He leaned forward to flick ash into the ash-tray. “I bundled her into the bathroom and locked the door.” Then he couldn’t resist making the gruesome joke. “She can’t hear anything — she might just as well be dead.”

Sophia wasn’t listening. She walked over to the window and stared down at the sea glittering in the sunshine.

“I must say this does surprise me, Jay,” she said. “It wasn’t nice of you to bring a girl up here.”

“I know and I’m ashamed of myself. I’m sorry, Sophia.”

She turned then and her lips made a movement of a stiff smile.

“Let’s forget it. I’m sure it won’t happen again.” She began to cross the room to her bedroom. “I’m going for a swim. I just looked in for my swim-suit.”

Jay felt a surge of triumph run through him. He had come through the first test. It had been unbelievably easy. He was willing to admit it had been a very dangerous moment. If he had lost his nerve, it would have been disastrous.

“Thank you, Sophia, for being so nice about it,” he said and gave her a lost, very young smile. “Will you have to tell father?”

“No, I won’t tell him.”

A blue object lying under a chair caught her attention and she bent and picked it up.

“Where did this come from?” she asked and put on the table one of the beads from the broken necklace.

Once again panic nibbled at the edges of Jay’s mind as he looked at the bead.

“It’s a pretty thing, isn’t it?” he said, trying to speak casually. “Are you sure it isn’t yours?”

“Of course it’s not mine!”

The snap in her voice warned him not to overdo his casualness.

He pointed to his bedroom door, lowering his voice as he said: “It must be hers. She probably dropped it.”