James Chase - The Guilty Are Afraid

I waited until she had sat down on the settee opposite before I dropped into the chair she had indicated.

“Five days ago, Miss Creedy,” I said, “my partner Jack Sheppey came here from our office in San Francisco on an assignment he received over the telephone. The caller didn’t give his name to the girl who handles our switchboard. I was away at the time. Sheppey left without saying who the caller was, but he did write your father’s name on his blotter.”

While I talked, I watched her and I could see I was holding her attention. She was thawing out.

“Sheppey sent me a cable asking me to come down here. I arrived this morning. I went to the hotel where he was staying but he had gone out. A little later, the police came for me to identify him: he had been murdered in a bathing cabin out at Bay Beach.”

Her eyes widened.

“Why, of course. I saw it in the evening paper. I didn’t realize . . . was he your partner?”

“Yes.”

“You say he wrote my father’s name down on his blotter?” she said, frowning at me. “Why should he have done that?”

“I don’t know unless it was your father who called him.”

She looked away then and began to turn the ruby ring around on her finger. I had an idea she was suddenly uneasy.

“Daddy wouldn’t do that. If he wanted an inquiry agent, he would get his secretary to do it.”

“Unless it happened to concern a matter of an extremely confidential nature,” I said.

She continued to look away.

“I really can’t see what all this has to do with me,” she said. “I am going out in a few minutes . . .”

“I saw your father this afternoon,” I said, and saw her stiffen. “I asked him if he had hired Sheppey and he said he hadn’t. He was very emphatic about it. He produced what looked like an ex-fighter named Hertz and told him to take a look at me. He implied if I didn’t mind my own business, Hertz would discourage me.”

A slight flush mounted to her face.

“I still can’t see what this has to do with me. So if you will please excuse me . . .”

She got to her feet.

“I am trying to trace Sheppey’s movements, Miss Creedy,” I said, standing up. “Apparently he went to the Musketeer Club and I want to find out who he went with. You are a member of the club. I was wondering if you would sponsor me at the club so I could make a few inquiries.”

She stared at me as if I had suggested she should take a trip to the moon.

“That’s quite impossible,” she said, and she sounded as if she meant it. “Even if I did take you into the club and I have no intention of doing such a thing, they wouldn’t tolerate you asking anyone questions.”

“I’m with you there, Miss Creedy,” I said. “From what I hear of the place it seems pretty high-toned, but if you were to ask the questions, I’m sure you’d get the answers.”

She stared at me, biting her underlip.

“That is impossible. I’m sorry, Mr. Brandon, I must ask you to go now.”

“This isn’t a frivolous request,” I said. “A man has been murdered. I have reason to believe the police won’t make much effort to find his murderer. I realize that’s a pretty sweeping thing to say, but I’ve talked to Captain Katchen of the Homicide Department, and he more or less told me if I didn’t keep clear of this business he would make me sorry. I’m not kidding myself that he wouldn’t do it. A little less than an hour ago I got involved in a fight because I was asking questions. Someone in this town is anxious to have Sheppey’s death hushed up. Sheppey was my friend. I don’t intend to let anyone hush up his death. I’m asking you to help me. All I want you to do . . .”

She reached out and touched a bell push on the wall near her.

“This has nothing to do with me,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I’m unable to help you.”

The door opened and the maid came in.

“Oh, Tessa, Mr. Brandon is leaving now.”

I smiled at her.

“Well, at least you haven’t threatened me as Captain Katchen did, nor have you as yet sent a thug after me as your father did,” I said. “Thank you for giving me your time, Miss Creedy.”

I went out into the hall, picked up my hat and, opening the door, I set off down the corridor. It had been a long shot, and it hadn’t come off, but at least I hadn’t wasted my time. I had an idea that Margot Creedy knew just why her father had hired Sheppey. If she knew, it meant that Sheppey was hired on a matter concerning the family. I decided to take a look at Bridgette Creedy’s new boyfriend, Jacques Thrisby.

Maybe Sheppey had been hired to find out just how friendly these two were. That could make sense. Creedy would naturally clam up and turn tough if he thought he might have to tell a court that he had hired a private eye to watch his wife: that was something no man would want to broadcast.

The time now was ten minutes past eleven: a little early for me to return to the hotel. I got back into the Buick and sat for a long moment, thinking, then I trod on the starter and headed down to Bay Beach.

II

As I drove along the promenade, I could see people still bathing in the sea. In the light of the big white moon the water was the colour of old silver.

I reached Bay Beach after a ten-minute drive. This part of the beach was away from the fashionable end and I found the bathing station was closed, and the row of cabins, under the shadows of the palms, in darkness.

I left the Buick in a side street just beyond the bathing station, then I walked down to the beach. Apart from a few cars, drifting along the beach road with nowhere to go and all the time in the world in which to get there, this section of the promenade was as quiet and as deserted as a railroad waiting room on a Christmas morning.

The gate down to the beach was closed and locked. I looked to right and left, satisfied myself there was no one watching me, then put my hand on the top rail and vaulted over. I landed in soft sand with no noise. Moving fast, I reached the sheltering shadows of the palms and then paused.

I had no concrete idea why I should have come down here except that I hadn’t anything better to do, and I wanted to see again the place where Sheppey had died. Keeping in the shadows, I looked over at the row of cabins.

There was a chance that Rankin had left a cop on duty and the last thing I wanted at this moment was to run into the law. But there was no sound nor movement on this strip of lonely beach except from the murmur of the sea and the occasional car that drove along the promenade above me and out of my sight.

Satisfied I had the place to myself, I moved down the row of cabins until I reached the second one from the end. In that one, Sheppey had died.

I pushed against the door, but found it locked. Taking a flashlight and a gadget of thin steel from my hip pocket, I examined the lock. Then I inserted the gadget between the lock and the doorpost and levered hard and pushed. The door swung open.

I paused in the doorway, feeling the pent-up heat of the little room coming out at me like the blast from a fierce oven. I stepped just inside, turned the beam of my flashlight on and swung it slowly around the room.

There were two stools, a table and a divan bed. In the corner where Sheppey had died, there was a big dark stain on the floor that gave me a cold, creepy feeling.

Opposite me were two doors, leading into the changing rooms. One of them Sheppey had used: the other, the girl who had been with him.

I wondered about her. Had she been a decoy to get Sheppey down here? He had been mug enough about women to have fallen into that kind of trap. Had his death nothing to do with Creedy? Had he been fooling around with the girl belonging to some thug who had caught up with them?