Dan Marlowe - The Fatal Frails

“Seems comfortable enough,” Johnny said lazily. He folded his hands behind his head.

“I want style!” Gloria said emphatically. She punched her pillow with a soft thump. “I want an apartment like Madeleine's, but paid for by me. I like independence.” “You should've gotten your name on the list for some of Claude's variations on the theme,” Johnny told her. He turned his head to try to see her face. “Or did you?”

“Sometimes I wonder what you think you know,” the soft voice said resentfully. “And sometimes I wonder if you know anything at all. How much time do you think Claude had for me with Madeleine all over him all of the time?”

God pity the man if he'd been burning that candle at both ends, Johnny thought to himself. Even a bullet in the head might have seemed like sweet, sweet peace. Max Stitt had said that Claude Dechant had lacked perspective where women were concerned. Johnny remembered the importer's face as he had seen it that last night at the registration desk, worn and weary. “What I saw of him, I'd have thought Dechant stressed the dollar sign,” Johnny said lightly. “But then I guess you ladies saw another side of him.”

“After we saw the dollar-sign side,” the redhead said grimly. “Speaking personally, anyway. Of course I'm not qualified to speak for the chief whore.”

He was surprised at the venom in her tone. “Strong language for a stockholder of the company that hires you,” he suggested.

“I hate her!” Gloria Philips sat up and drummed on her knees with clenched fists. “I've always hated her. That sneaky smile of hers, the cat-that-just-swallowed-the-canary look, the things she says about me she doesn't think I know. If it wasn't for that stinking money of hers, she'd be nothing but a skinny, washed-out, peroxided bitch.” Her tone changed. “Money,” the redhead said softly. “That's what I want.”

“So what's the master plan? Marryin' Palmer? Or Tremaine?”

“Palmer!” she sniffed. “The blonde has him wrapped around her little finger. “And Jules has no money.” She said it impatiently. “Jules and I understand each other, but Jules has no money.” She stretched out on her back again. “I had hopes for you when you first came bursting into view,” she said sulkily. “But you talk, and talk, and nothing happens. I wouldn't have thought one little bullet in the side would have so discouraged a great big man like you.” Irony flavored her tone.

“You never know, do you?” Johnny said amiably. “You don't hate the blonde so much you'd give Tremaine an alibi he wasn't entitled to for that job, would you?”

The glowing tip of her cigarette described a flashing arc as she turned to try to see his face. “How did you know-” The anger ebbed from the husky voice. “Not that it matters, since you do. Anyway, it wasn't Jules who did it. I can vouch for that.”

“You did,” Johnny pointed out. “It helped him. Who's your candidate?”

“Max Stitt.” Gloria said it with no hesitation at all. “Although he didn't mean it for you. He meant it for Madeleine.”

“You don't like Stitt, either, so-”

She interrupted him. “My not liking him hasn't a thing to do with it. He tried to kill her because he knew she'd turned him and Claude in to customs a month ago.”

“On this unchanged-over symbol business?”

“No. I told you before that Stitt had nothing to do with that. This was much more elaborate. Three months ago Claude bought ten thousand cheap watch movements in Switzerland. Packed five hundred to a case, it made twenty cases. On a big shipment like that, the customs inspectors spot check. That is, they'll open each case, but they won't examine each movement. They might look at the whole top layer of one case, and on the next they might remove the top layer without checking it and check one movement in each succeeding layer all the way to the bottom of the case. Now suppose you knew that a customs team would inspect all the even-numbered cases by checking the top layer only, and all the odd-numbered cases by checking the bottom layers only, what would you do?”

“Put the biggest diamonds I could buy in each of the movements I knew wasn't going to be checked, I guess,” Johnny said drily.

“Or at least substitute a very expensive movement for the cheap ones,” Gloria agreed. “There's no difference in size.”

“But there's a big difference in the duty. That must have run into some money,” Johnny said thoughtfully. “Why the hell would she turn them in on it?”

“Because they tried to pull it off without saying a word to her, and it had been her idea originally. She had had the first contact with the air-customs team, and the word got back to her. She just didn't realize they'd find out where the tipoff came from. In some manner that I don't understand Stitt was in the clear, but Claude would have been indicted.”

Johnny threw back the covers, sat up on the edge of the bed and stretched slowly. He began to dress. “You think that's why he killed himself?”

“If he knew, I think it very likely. It would have been the end of the line. I don't see how he could have known, though, just off the Swiss plane as he was.”

Johnny thought of the importer standing at the desk the night of his return and separating one letter from his stack of mail. Had the police ever found that letter? “The shipment was knocked off?”

“Impounded under Treasury seal in a government-bonded warehouse. Forty-two thousand dollars of Harry Palmer's dearly beloved money tied up.”

“How is it that you know all-” Johnny began, and stopped. “Oh, sure. Dear Ernest is still unravelin' the kinks. It must be aging the poor boy.” He bent over and groped for his shoes. “Put the light on, will you?” He blinked in the soft rush of light. The shoes tied, he turned to the bed to find Gloria Philips chastely beneath the spread, her blue-gray eyes steadily upon him.

“You don't have the monstrance,” she said suddenly. “I don't know why I didn't see it before. You should have told me. I've been wasting time. Since I thought you had it, I wasn't watching anyone else. If you'd told me, I could probably have steered you to it by now.”

Johnny stared down into the wise eyes. “You're with me, is that it?”

Her upper lip curled. “If I'm with you, it's because nobody else is with me. I couldn't get a dime out of the whole crowd put together.” She smiled at him. “Faint hope is better than no hope. You're my faint hope. But you should have told me.”

“If you're right, I should have told you.”

“I'm right,” she said confidently.

“Dechant was really overboard on the blonde?”

She was suddenly angry again. “It was almost pathological, the hold she had on him! I've never-”

“Okay, okay. Don't blow your boiler, little sister. Thanks for the entertainment. Send me a bill sometime.”

“No need.” She stretched luxuriantly beneath the spread, her smile impish. “My accountant says it comes under tax-deductible depreciation of a business asset.”

He had to smile. “Now I've heard it called everything. Toodleoo, queenie.”

“Johnny!” she called from the bedroom when he had a hand on the doorknob in the hall. He went back and looked in the door. She was kneeling up in the bed. “If you find out anything, call me,” she said earnestly. “I might have an idea that could help.”

“You never know,” Johnny agreed, and retraced his steps. In the corridor he looked at his watch and avoided the elevator. He ran lightly down the stairs.

The night air was mild. The stars were out, he noticed. Warm day tomorrow. Make that hot. Tough on night workers trying to sleep. Not as-

His feet did an instinctive shuffle to put himself on balance as a dark shadow detached itself from the building wall and loomed up in his path. “What are you doing snooping around up there, Killain?” Jules Tremaine demanded in a tight, hard tone. Even in the comparatively poor street light Johnny could see the heavy scowl on the handsome face.