James Chase - This Way for a Shroud

“You like it?” he asked, watching her face, seeing her amazed expression.

“I think it’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

“It was given me by a Rajah for a little job I once did for him,” Ferrari said carelessly. He took the case from her, rubbed it on his sleeve and regarded it with smug satisfaction. “I have many things like this. Are you interested in diamonds?”

“Who isn’t?” she returned, looking at him with new respect. Neither Maurer nor Gollowitz for all their money had anything to touch that case. This little horror might be a dwarf, but he had power and money. It might be interesting to find out if his power were greater than Gollowitz’s.

“I have a diamond collar that would interest you,” Ferrari said. “You must see it.” He sipped his whisky while he studied her. “You are friendly with Gollowitz?”

Dolores stiffened; startled by the unexpected question.

“He’s Jack’s friend,” she returned, her voice cold. “Jack’s friends are my friends.”

“That’s very nice.” He leaned forward so his death’s-head face was close to hers. “But you shouldn’t rely on him too much.”

“I don’t rely on him at all,” Dolores said sharply.

Ferrari smiled.

“Then perhaps he is relying on you. I had the impression that one of you or both of you were relying on each other, and my impressions are never wrong.”

Dolores felt frightened. Had she and Gollowitz been so obvious? Was Seigel suspicious of them too?

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, and looked away.

“And yet you strike me as an exceptionally smart woman,” Ferrari returned. “Well, never mind. So long as you don’t pin your faith on Gollowitz you won’t come to any harm.”

She felt a chill run through her. Was he warning her?

“I don’t like riddles,” she said, swinging round to face him. “Suppose I do pin my faith on Gollowitz as you put it — and I most certainly don’t — but suppose I do, what then?”

“You will be disappointed, that’s all.” He finished his whisky. “Can you keep a secret?”

She felt then he wasn’t talking idly. He had a reason for asking.

“Yes,” she returned. “I can keep a secret." “Gollowitz thinks he will take over this organization if anything should happen to your husband. I see no reason why anything should happen to your husband,

but one never knows. Gollowitz will be disappointed. He is a good lawyer, but a bad leader. So don’t pin your faith on a fading star.”

Dolores stared at him. So he had guessed she was preparing a back door. But this information he had just given her was so valuable that she forgot to feel frightened.

“You would know, of course?”

Ferrari smiled.

“I would know.”

“You would know, too, who will take over the organization?”

Ferrari nodded.

“I should know.” He patted himself on his chest, looked at her and smiled. “I don’t say anything will happen to your husband, but if something did happen, would you mind very much?”

She realized this wasn’t the time to conceal her cards.

She shook her head.

“Not very much.”

Ferrari nodded.

“It’s time I had someone to take care of my leisure moments,” he said. “I’ve been looking around. There are plenty of good-looking women in this town, but I only want the best, and I’m in no immediate hurry. I can wait.” He slid off the stool. “Would you be interested to see the diamond collar? I have it in my room upstairs. You might like to try it on. One of these days you might even own it.”

She sat motionless, staring at him. She knew there would be more to it than trying on a diamond collar.

“And at the same time I could satisfy myself that what I’m now looking at is gold and not brass,” Ferrari went on, confirming her suspicions. “You don’t have to come up unless you want to. You are following what I’m saying, or do I still speak in riddles?”

Dolores struggled with a sense of revulsion. To let a little horror like this touch her, and yet was he any worse than fat, oily Gollowitz?

She didn’t struggle for long.

“I wasn’t born yesterday,” she said, and gave him a long stare from her big exciting eyes. “You won’t be disappointed. Where’s your room? I still have to be careful. I’ll come up in a few minutes.”

Conrad pushed open the door of the changing room and groped for the light switch. He could hear O’Brien’s heavy breathing just behind him.

“Where the hell’s the switch?” he asked, still groping.

O’Brien turned on a flash-light and swung the big beam around the room.

“Bit more to your left.”

Conrad turned on the lights and walked into the luxuriously furnished room. Facing him were the shower cabinets, each equipped with a fitted wardrobe, a chair and a shower. In one of these cabinets, he thought, Frances had hidden and had watched Maurer wash his blood-stained hands.

Mallory, a police photographer, came in and set up his camera. He looked inquiringly at O’Brien who was examining the floor.

“This must be it, Paul,” O’Brien said, and pointed to a brass grill that covered a six-inch-square hole in the floor.

Conrad joined him, and O’Brien directed the beam of his flash-light down into the drain. The light picked out a mass of dry leaves that lay at the bottom of the drain.

“I wonder where they came from?” Conrad said. “Must have been washed in from an outside vent. Doesn’t look as if any water’s passed through the drain for some time. If the pencil is down there, it should be dry, and the blood won’t have been washed off.”

O’Brien examined the grill covering the drain.

“Cemented in. No wonder Maurer couldn’t retrieve his pencil. Did you bring the tools, Mallory?”

“I dumped them just outside. I’ll get them.”

Conrad sat back on his heels and lit a cigarette.

“If the pencil’s down there, we’ve got him,” he said quietly. “I can’t believe it. I’ve been after that thug for years.”

“You haven’t got him yet,” O’Brien reminded him. “Don’t be too hopeful.”

“Sergeant…!”

The sharp note in Mallory’s voice made both men straighten up.

“There’s someone outside.”

Mallory was standing in the doorway of the changing room, silhouetted against the light. Even as he spoke there came a crash of gunfire and he staggered back, holding his arm.

With a muttered oath O’Brien jumped forward and flicked up the light switch, plunging the changing room into darkness.

“You hurt?” he asked, pulling Mallory away from the door.

“Got it in the arm,” Mallory said, and sat down abruptly on the floor.

Conrad had gone over to the door, and keeping well back, he peered into the darkness. He couldn’t see any tiling.

O’Brien joined him.

“Maurer’s mob,” Conrad said, and groped in his hip pocket for his gun. “There’s a telephone somewhere around, Tom. Better get some boys up here.”

O’Brien grunted and closed the door.

“Watch out how you use the light,” Conrad went on. “I think I spotted the telephone standing on a table to your left.”

O’Brien snapped on his flash-light and located the telephone. Out in the darkness a riot gun started up. The black of the night was split by yellow flashes. Lead smashed a window and scattered a shower of glass that whizzed over Conrad’s and O’Brien’s ducking heads. Plaster came down from the opposite wall, filling the room with dust.

“Hell!” O’Brien muttered, flattened out and began a slow crawl across the room to the telephone.

Conrad aimed at where the flashes had come from and fired a probing shot into the darkness.