Джеймс Чейз - The Flesh of the Orchid

‘Come on,’ Max called impatiently from the head of the stairs.

‘There’s someone here...’ Frank quavered, groped into the darkness.

‘Come on, you fool!’ Max said sharply, then stiffened as Frank suddenly gave a blood-curdling scream.

Even Max’s iron nerves flinched at the sound, and he stood for a moment in dread. Something brushed past him and instinctively he jumped back. Hooked fingers grazed his neck, and he fired blindly: the crash of the gun reverberated through the house, and he heard footsteps running lightly down the stairs. He fired shot after shot, blindly and with growing panic. In the hall gunfire cracked in reply as Kamp and Lofty tumbled through the front doorway.

Max wheeled, crashed into Frank, caught hold of him as he began to scream again. Without hesitation, Max shortened his grip on his gun, hit Frank across the face with the barrel, stooped, slung him across his shoulder, darted along the passage.

He reached a window, lowered Frank to the sloping roof, scrambled through the window himself.

Frank lay on the tiles, only half conscious.

‘I’m blind!’ he moaned. ‘My eyes... she got my eyes...!’

On a dull, airless afternoon, a month after the death of Steve Larson, a battered Cadillac swept up the drive and came to rest before the front door of the house on Grass Hill.

Veda, who had been watching from a window for the past half-hour, came quickly out on to the terrace and ran to meet Magarth as he climbed from the car.

‘Hello, honey,’ he said, pulled her to him and kissed her. ‘I’ve got it all fixed up for her, and it’s been some job.’ He linked his arm through hers and walked with her into the house. ‘How has she been?’

‘Just the same,’ Veda returned unhappily. ‘You’d never believe it was the same girl, Phil. She’s grown so hard and strange. She rather frightens me.’

‘That’s bad. Does she still sit around brooding and doing nothing?’ Magarth asked, taking off his hat and coat and following Veda into the sitting-room.

‘Yes, and I can’t interest her in anything. I tried to keep the newspapers from her, but she managed to get hold of them, so she knows now about herself. It’s awful, Phil. After she read the papers she locked herself in her room, and I heard her pacing up and down for hours. I’ve tried to persuade her to confide in me, but she so obviously wants to be left alone that I haven’t the heart to worry her.’

‘She was bound to find out sooner or later, but it’s bad she had to find out through the papers. They didn’t pull any punches,’ Magarth said, frowning. ‘Well, I’ve fixed everything up for her now. The money’s hers. She’ll have about four million bucks, which isn’t so bad. Hartman has been helping himself, but we were in time to save the bulk of it.’

‘Any news of him?’

‘He’s skipped. He knew the game was up when we began the investigation. The Federal agents are after him, but I bet he’s out of the country by now. Well, I’d better go up and see her.’

‘Now she has her freedom and her money I have a feeling she plans to leave us,’ Veda said. ‘I do hope she won’t go just yet. Will you try to persuade her to stay a little longer? She’s not fit to be on her own, and she has no friends and nowhere to go. Do be firm with her, Phil.’

‘I’ll do my best, but I have no hold on her. She’s free to do what she likes now, you know.’

‘Well, do try. It’d worry me to death to think of her on her own with all that money and no one to advise her.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Magarth returned. ‘Has Dr. Kober seen her?’

‘Only for a few minutes. He’s uneasy about her and suspects bone pressure after that truck accident, but she refused to be examined. Dr. Travers has also been here, but I wouldn’t let him see her. He says he won’t be responsible for what may happen if she is allowed to be free. I told him I didn’t believe she’s dangerous. But I do think she’s become a little queer, Phil. She’s not a bit like she was when we first saw her.’

‘I’ll go up.’

He found Carol alone in her big, restful room. She was sitting by the window, and she didn’t turn her head as he came in. There was a cold stillness about her that made Magarth uneasy. He pulled up a chair near her, sat down and said with forced brightness: ‘I have good news for you, Carol. You’re a rich young woman now.’

At the sound of his voice she gave a little start, turned. Her large green eyes stared mechanically at him.

‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ she said in a flat, hard voice. ‘Did you say good news?’

Magarth gave her a quick searching glance. The changeless stillness on her white face and the icy blankness in her eyes perplexed and worried him.

‘Yes, very good news. The money is now in your name. I have all the papers with me. Would you like to go through them with me?’

She shook her head.

‘Oh, no,’ she said emphatically, paused, then went on: ‘You say I’m rich? How much is there?’

‘Four million dollars. It is a lot of money.’

Her mouth tightened.

‘Yes,’ she said, laced her slim fingers and stared out of the window. There was a bitter, brooding look in her eyes now, and she remained so still and silent that Magarth said quietly: ‘Are you pleased?’

‘I’ve been reading about myself in the papers,’ she said abruptly. ‘It’s not pretty reading.’

‘Now, look, Carol, you mustn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers...’ he began, but she silenced him with a movement of her hand.

‘I’ve learned things about myself,’ she said, still staring out of the window. ‘I am insane. That was news to me. I am also the daughter of a homicidal degenerate who caused the death of my mother. I have been in an asylum for three years, and if it wasn’t for the law of this State I’d be there now.’ She suddenly clenched her hands. ‘I’m dangerous. They call me the homicidal redhead. They write of my love for Steve, and say that, if he had lived, I could never have married him. They describe that as a lunatic’s tragic love affair—’

She broke off, bit down on her lip and the knuckles of her hands showed white.

‘Please, Carol,’ Magarth said. ‘Don’t torture yourself like this.’

‘But you tell me you have good news... that I’m worth four million dollars, and you ask me if I’m pleased. Yes, I am; very, very pleased,’ and she laughed, a cold bitter laugh that sent a chill up Magarth’s spine.

‘You mustn’t go on like this,’ he said firmly. ‘It’ll get you nowhere. Veda and I want to help you—’

She turned, caught hold of his wrist.

‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll do something evil to you?’ she demanded. ‘They say I am dangerous... like my father. Do you know what they say of my father? It’s here in the paper. I’ll read it to you.’ She picked up a creased and badly folded newspaper that was lying on the floor by her side. ‘This is what they say:

‘Slim Grisson was a killer: born a mental degenerate, his love of cruelty got him into trouble at an early age. His schoolmaster caught him cutting up a live kitten with a pair of rusty scissors, and he was expelled from school. When he was fifteen he abducted a little girl, who was found a week later half crazed with terror. She had been a victim of a particularly brutal assault. But Grisson was never caught, for his mother, the notorious Ma Grisson, smuggled him out of the town.

‘Ma Grisson built her son into a gangster. At first he made mistakes and drifted in and out of prison on short sentences, but Ma Grisson would wait patiently until he was free and then continue her coaching. He learned not to make mistakes and got in with a powerful gang, working bank hold-ups. He climbed slowly into the saddle of leadership by the simple method of killing anyone who opposed him, until the gang finally settled down and accepted him as their leader. There has never been in the history of American crime a more vicious, more deadly, more degenerate criminal than Slim Grisson—’