James Chase - Safer Dead

‘I can’t imagine why men go for her. I think she’s nothing but a horrible, oversexed animal.’

‘I like animals,’ I said, ‘I once got a medal for saving a dog from drowning. Who is she?’

‘I thought everyone knew her. My goodness! Even if I did have her money, I would know better than to make an exhibition of myself the way she does. Why Piero doesn’t go down on hands and knees when he shows her to her table I can’t imagine. He does everything else.’

I leaned forward and trying, without a lot of success, to keep my voice from shouting, repeated, ‘Who - is - she?’

‘I’m not deaf,’ Suzy said, recoiling. ‘Cornelia Van Blake if you must know.’ She lifted her elegant shoulders. ‘I should have thought even someone from New York would have known that.’

‘Cornelia Van Blake?’

I stared at Suzy, frowning. Where had I heard the name before? In what connection had I heard it?

‘Does she live in Tampa City?’

‘Of course. She has a house on West Summit and an estate of ten acres. In case you don’t know, West Summit is the high tone district of Tampa City. Only millionaires can afford to live there.’

Millionaires.

I felt a sudden creepy sensation crawl up my spine.

Of course! I remembered now. Cornelia Van Blake was the millionairess Joan Nichols had met in Paris. I remembered Janet Shelley’s exact words: Joan 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.

I looked again at the dark girl who was scanning the menu that the maître d’hôtel was holding for her. She didn’t look the type to me who would fraternize with an unsuccessful showgirl: she didn’t look the type to fraternize with anyone. If she ever sat next to an iceberg I would bet even money the iceberg would be the first to stoke up the fire.

‘Which one of those well fed guys is her husband?’ I asked.

Suzy wriggled impatiently.

‘My dear man, she is a widow. Her husband died last year. Don’t you know anything?’

‘That was his hard luck,’ I said, and making an effort, I dragged my eyes away from Mrs. Cornelia Van Blake and continued to bone my river trout.

I found I wasn’t hungry any more - anyway, not for the trout.

CHAPTER NINE

I

It wasn’t until Suzy and I had been dancing for some little time and had broken off to go to the bar for a drink that I brought Mrs. Cornelia Van Blake up again as a subject for conversation. Suzy had discovered I could dance. I haven’t a lot of talent beside concocting a good yarn, but dancing is one of my specialities. Suzy was pretty good herself, and after we had done one circuit of the floor, she unbent enough to say I was good. A second circuit found her unbending even more, and at the end of a particularly dashing tango, she was behaving almost like a human being.

‘Let’s get outside two big highballs,’ I said, ‘then we’ll come back and show them how it really should be done.’

‘Where did you learn to dance like that, Chet?’ she asked, linking her arm through mine.

Chet.

Well, it takes different ways and means to break them down. I wondered under what conditions, if any, Cornelia Van Blake would break down.

‘My dear woman, it’s not something you learn; it’s something you’re born with,’ I said airily.

Suzy giggled.

‘That serves me right. All right, I apologize for being high hat, but the men Hart asks me to take out sometimes are really the limit. You can’t imagine.’

‘Think nothing of it. A girl’s got to keep her dignity if she doesn’t keep anything else.’

She gave me an old-fashioned look.

‘And don’t think because you can dance, there’s anything else to it, because there isn’t.’

I pushed open the bar door.

‘Don’t start screaming for help until you’re being crowded,’ I said. ‘Who said I wanted anything else?’

‘I know an opening gambit when I hear one,’ she returned and climbed up on a stool and flapped her hands at the barman.

‘Two highballs,’ I said, climbing up on the stool beside her. I took a quick look around the crowded bar in the hope of seeing Mrs. Van Blake again, but she wasn’t in the room. ‘I’ve often thought it would be nice to be a millionaire. If I wasn’t naturally lazy, I’d do something about it,’ I said after I had paid three times too much for the highballs. ‘Take that Van Blake girl. How much did you say she was worth?’

‘I didn’t say. No one knows. Her husband is supposed to have left her five million, but everyone thinks there was more than that. He invented some gadget to do with oil drilling, and they say the royalties on that alone are worth thousands a year. She’s lousy with money. Van Blake put the money up for this club. He had a controlling interest in it, but when he died, Cornelia sold out to Royce. He owns and runs it now.’

‘I wonder what he paid her?’ I said, looking around the plush bar.

Suzy shrugged.

‘Plenty. She wouldn’t part with anything for nothing.’

‘You said her husband died last year?’

‘That’s right. He was murdered.’

I nearly dropped my highball.

‘Murdered? How come? How did it happen?’

She stared at me.

‘The papers were full of it. Why don’t you read them if you have such an inquisitive nature?’

‘Never mind my nature. I bet the New York papers weren’t full of it. Anyway, I have better things to do than bother to read newspapers. I listen to the radio and let it go at that. Who murdered him?’

‘A poacher. Van Blake hated poachers. He used to ride over his estate every morning before seven o’clock, believe it or not and if he caught a poacher after his game, he set about him with his riding whip. Well, he did it once too often. He got shot, and served him right.’

‘He sounds like the Feudal type. What happened to the poacher?’

She shrugged. The subject obviously didn’t interest her.

‘I don’t know. He got away. The police never found him.’

She finished her highball and slid off the stool. ‘Come on; let’s dance. I can’t be too late tonight. I’ve got to pose for Hart tomorrow around noon, and I don’t want to look like a corpse.’

‘That, madam, you could never do,’ I said gallantly, and followed her back to the restaurant.

We danced until one o’clock, and then Suzy said she had to go home.

All the time I had been in the club I had kept my eyes open for Hamilton Royce, but I didn’t see anyone who looked remotely like what I imagined he would look like.

As we were leaving the restaurant, I asked, ‘Isn’t Royce on show tonight? I wanted to catch sight of him.’

‘I haven’t seen him. He’s not always on show,’ Suzy said indifferently. She paused in the lobby. ‘Wait for me here. I won’t be long.’

I watched her disappear into the Ladies retiring room. Quite a crowd were leaving by now, and the lobby was pretty congested. I backed against the far wall to get out of their way. To my right was a passage, and at the far end, I saw an oak-panelled door. It was a pretty plush looking door, and it aroused my curiosity. Behind such a door the owner of a nightclub as gaudy as the Golden Apple might conceivably dwell. I had come to the club for the express purpose of getting a look at Mr. Hamilton Royce and so far I had been unlucky.

I didn’t hesitate for more than a couple of seconds. I could always say I thought the door led to the gentlemen’s retiring room.

I looked quickly around the lobby. The receptionist was busy totting up the night’s loot. The hat check girl was surrounded by departing members, all clamouring for their hats. Juan, still flashing the knife blades in his eyes, was bowing to a fat, important looking man, obviously a Senator, who was leaving. Three flunkeys were occupied on the steps of the entrance, whistling up cars.