James Chase - Safer Dead

‘I know she fell downstairs,’ Janet Shelley said, looking questioningly at me. ‘It was an accident, wasn’t it?’

‘The coroner said so; the police think so, but I’m not so sure. She could have been pushed.’

‘But why - why do you think that?’

‘It’d take too long to go into now, Miss Shelley. I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. I’m trying to find out if Miss Nichols was a friend or just an acquaintance of Fay’s. Would you know?’

She shook her head.

‘She never mentioned Fay Benson to me.’

‘Were you and Miss Nichols friends?’

‘Not particularly. She was rather difficult. None of the girls got on well with her.’

‘In what way - difficult?’

She hesitated, then shrugged.

‘I don’t like gossiping about people, but as she’s dead, I don’t suppose it matters. She was always short of money. She tried to borrow from us. After all, we were all hard up, and we had to make do with what we were paid, but Joan would never stint herself. She was always in debt, always worrying someone for a loan. If she didn’t get it, she could be rather horrible. She had a very sharp tongue.’

‘What did she spend her money on?’

Janet Shelley shrugged.

‘What do girls spend their money on? She never went without a thing. Of course, she had to dress better than we other girls. She moved in a better circle. She had an amazing talent for making friends with people with money. When she was in Paris she got friendly with Mrs. Cornelia Van Blake, the millionaire’s wife. Don’t ask me how she did it, but she did. Twice she went to Mrs. Van Blake’s hotel and had dinner with her. She borrowed a dress from me for the occasion, and somehow she squeezed twenty dollars out of some of the girls to put on a front. They never did get their money back, and I had a lot of trouble getting my dress back.’

All this wasn’t interesting me very much, but I let her talk in the hope she would say something eventually that would be news to me.

‘Did you ever see her with a tall, suntanned guy around thirty-five who has an eyebrow moustache?’ I asked hopefully.

She shook her head.

‘No. She didn’t have any young boy friends. All her male friends were old: business men; sugar daddies if you like.’

For a girl who didn’t like gossiping about people she was doing all right, I thought.

‘Have you ever met a guy who fits that description? His name might be Henry Rutland. He owns a cream and green Cadillac.’

She laughed ruefully.

‘I wish I had. He sounds fun. My boy friends never run to more than a Ford.’

There didn’t seem any use my wasting her time or mine any further. I was getting nowhere fast.

‘Did Miss Nichols have any enemies, do you know?’ I asked as a final question.

‘I should say she had a flock of them, but none of them would want to kill her. All they’d want to do would be to avoid her.’

‘Okay,’ I said getting up. I was glad to be out of the armchair. ‘I’m sorry to have taken up your time, but it’s been nice to meet you.’ I looked around the austere room, then at her. ‘I’m going to embarrass you, Miss Shelley. My editor doesn’t expect me to waste people’s time asking all sorts of questions for nothing.’ I fished out two tens, folded them and put them on the table. ‘That represents a fee for information.’

If Fayette could have heard me he would have blown his top, but I liked this girl and it was pretty obvious she was having a thin time.

She blushed prettily.

‘Gee! I didn’t expect.’ She stopped short. ‘I haven’t told you anything.’

‘Call it a rain check. I might be back for more information,’ I said. ‘So long for now.’

Before she could protest further, I went into the hall, opened the front door and legged it down the path to the car.

CHAPTER SIX

I

I picked Scaife up at headquarters at seven-forty. It was a warm evening and the sky was cloudless. It looked as if we were going to have a nice night for the barrel-lifting job.

‘Did you see the Shelley girl?’ Scaife asked as he settled comfortably on the bench seat of the Buick.

‘I did, but I didn’t get much out of her.’ I gave him the gist of our conversation. ‘Do you know if any of your boys took Joan’s fingerprints before she was buried?’

Scaife shook his head.

‘I don’t know. I’d say they did, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Why?’

‘It might be an idea to check to see if she had a record. A girl who is always after money more often than not gets into trouble.’

Scaife nodded.

‘That’s an idea. Okay, when I get back, I’ll see if we have prints. If we have, I’ll get them checked.’

‘She interests me. She’s the only one so far in this setup who doesn’t make sense,’ I said. ‘Rutland could have been Fay’s boyfriend. Hesson and Farmer kidnapped her. Flemming killed her. Do you think Rutland paid those three to do the job? Do you think he’s the guy behind the killing?’

‘I don’t know. It doesn’t pay to make wild guesses,’ Scaife said. ‘I prefer to wait until the facts fall into line. We don’t even know the girl’s dead.’

‘Like to bet she’s not at the bottom of the lake?’

Scaife shook his head.

‘No, but until we find her, I’m keeping an open mind on the subject.’

‘There seems a lot of traffic heading this way,’ I said, slowing down as I came upon a long line of cars moving slowly towards Lake Baldock.

Scaife swore under his breath.

‘I wonder if someone’s talked? My stars! The old man will bust his truss! Look at this mob!’

There was no hope of overtaking the procession of cars ahead of us. We had to follow along behind them. About a quarter of a mile from the lake, the cars slowed to a crawl.

We could see three cops ahead in the road, holding up the traffic.

‘Let me get out a moment,’ Scaife said.

I stopped the car and waited while he spoke to one of the cops, then he came back, scowling.

‘There are about a couple of thousand sightseers around the lake and more coming every minute,’ he said, getting back into the car. ‘We’ve had to call out the reserve to handle them. Someone’s talked all right. We can go through. Mind how you go.’

I edged out of the stream of traffic and drove on until we reached the lake.

Six police cars and a couple of trucks stood under the trees. The ground around the water’s edge swarmed with pressmen and cameramen. There were even two units of the newsreel hawks busily setting up their cameras.

A squad of police was working on three powerful searchlights, directing their white, glaring beams on to the still surface of the water.

Harris was climbing into his frog outfit when Scaife and I joined the group at the water’s edge.

Creed glared at me.

‘Is this your doing?’ he demanded in a voice you could cut ham on.

‘Not guilty, captain. I haven’t said a word.’

‘That’s what everyone is saying. Well, I hope for someone’s sake we find this girl.’

He turned to Harris who was shivering in the still night air and snarled at him to hurry up.

Harris got into the boat; two cops shoved it off, scrambled aboard and began to row to the centre of the lake. Nearby was a powerful winch, anchored to a tree. At the end of the steel cable was a set of clamps. Three policemen were loading the clamps into another rowboat. They pushed off, and as they rowed after the first boat, two other policemen paid out the cable. Scaife and I kept away from Creed. We stood under the trees watching the two boats as they slowly neared the centre of the lake.

A couple of newspaper cameramen tried to put out their own boat with the view of getting photographs of Harris as he entered the water, but a squad of police blocked them off. One of the cameramen went over to Creed to protest, but he didn’t get anywhere. Creed vented his spleen on him, and the cameraman retreated, shaken.