James Chase - The Guilty Are Afraid

I took a flat jemmy from my pocket, inserted it between the french doors, exerted pressure while I pulled steadily on the door handle. There was a sudden clicking sound and the door swung open.

I pushed the door further open and stood listening, but I heard nothing. The room was in darkness. I took out my flashlight and shot the beam into the room. I was a little uneasy about the Packard being in the garage. It might be that Thrisby hadn’t left the house - but why the darkness? I told myself it was more than likely that someone had picked him up in their car, and that was the reason why his Packard was in the garage.

I stepped into the lounge, crossed to the light switch and turned it on. Then I got a shock. Standing across one of the corners of the big room was a desk. All the drawers hung open, and a mass of papers, letters, old bills, lay scattered on the top of the desk and on the floor.

Across the room was a cupboard containing a nest of drawers: these drawers hung open too and more papers were scattered on the floor. It looked as if someone had beaten me to it, and I swore softly under my breath.

I crossed the lounge to the door, opened it and stepped into a big hall. Facing me were stairs leading to the upper rooms. Across the way were two more doors. I opened one and looked into a fair-sized dining room. Here again the drawers of the sideboard hung open and table ware had been bundled out on to the floor.

I tried the other door and looked into a luxury equipped kitchen that hadn’t been disturbed. I returned to the hall and stood at the foot of the stairs, holding the beam of the light on the stairs while I listened.

Somewhere in the house a clock ticked busily, but otherwise there was an oppressive silence.

As I stood there, I wondered what it was the intruder had been looking for and if he had found it. I wondered, too, how Thrisby would react when he returned and found the disorder. It would be interesting to see if he called the police or if he did nothing about it.

I would be in an unpleasant position if he suddenly walked in on me, and for a moment I hesitated about going up the stairs. I was pretty sure that anything that might have interested me in this house had already been taken. But I finally decided to have a quick look over the rest of the house and then get out fast. I mounted the stairs two at a time and arrived on a broad, dark landing.

Then I got a shock that pretty nearly lifted me to the ceiling.

As I swung the beam of my flashlight around, I saw in a far corner of the landing the figure of a crouching man. He looked as if he were about to spring on me. My heart did a somersault. I jumped back and the flashlight fell out of my hand. It rolled across the floor and then went bumping down the stairs sending the beam flashing against the wall, then the ceiling, then the banisters, until it landed in the hall below, leaving me in total darkness.

I stood rooted, my breath whistling between my teeth, my heart slamming against my side.

Nothing happened. The clock downstairs continued to tick busily, making an enormous sound in the tomblike silence of the house.

I slid my hand inside my coat and my fingers closed around the butt of the .38. I eased it out of the holster and my thumb slid the safety catch forward.

“Who’s there?” I said, and I was annoyed to hear that I sounded like a flustered old maid who finds a man under her bed.

The silence continued to press in on me. I listened, standing motionless, my eyes staring into the darkness ahead of me where I had seen the crouching man. Was he creeping towards me? Would I suddenly have him on top of me with his fingers searching for my throat?

I suddenly remembered how Sheppey had died with an icepick driven into his throat. Was this Sheppey’s killer facing me? Had he an icepick in his hand?

Then something moved across my leg. My nerves leapt practically out of my body. My gun went off with a bang that rattled the doors and I sprang back, sweat starting out on my face.

I heard a low growling sound and a scuffle, and I knew the cat had come up in the dark and had rubbed itself against my leg.

I stood still, my back pressed against the banister rail, cold sweat oozing out of me, my heart hammering. I put my hand in my pocket, and took out my cigarette lighter.

“Stay where you are,” I said into the darkness. “One move and you’ll get it!”

Pushing the .38 forward, I lifted my left hand above my head and flicked the lighter alight. The tiny flame gave me enough light to see the man in the corner hadn’t moved. He still crouched there on his heels: a little, dark man with a brown wrinkled face, slit eyes and a big, grimacing mouth that showed some of his teeth.

There was a stillness about him that gave me the creeps.

No one could stay so completely still unless he were dead.

The lighter flame began to fade.

I moved to the head of the stairs, then went down them to where the flashlight lay, its beam pointing across the hall to the front door.

I picked up the flashlight, turned around and forced myself up the stairs again. When I reached the head of the stairs, I swung the beam of the flashlight on to the crouching man.

I guessed he was Thrisby’s servant. Someone had shot him through the chest and he had crawled into the corner to die.

There was a puddle of blood by his feet and a dark patch of blood on his black linen coat.

I walked slowly over to him, pushing the gun back into my holster. I touched the side of his face with my fingertips. The cold skin and the board-like muscles under the skin told me he had been dead for some hours.

I drew in a long slow breath and swung the beam of the flashlight away from the dead face. Two big sparks of living light lit up in the beam of the flashlight as the cat paused at the head of the stairs, crouching and growling the way Siamese cats do when they disapprove of anything. I watched the cat cross the landing, walking slowly, its head held low with the sinister wildcat movement, its tail trailing.

It passed the Filipino without even pausing and stopped outside a door, facing me. It reached up, standing on its hind paws and tapped the door handle with its front paw. It tapped three times, then let out its moaning growl and then tapped again.

I moved forward slowly, reached the door, turned the handle and gave the door a little push. It swung wide open.

Darkness and silence came out of the room. The cat stood on the threshold, its ears pricked, its head slightly on one side. Then it walked in. I stood where I was, my heart hammering, my mouth dry.

I turned the beam of the flashlight on the cat. The beam held it in its clear-cut circle of light across the room to the foot of the bed.

The cat jumped up on the bed.

I shifted the circle of light and my heart skipped a beat. Thrisby lay across the bed. He was still in his white singlet, his dark red shorts and his sandals.

The cat moved over to him and began to sniff inquiringly at his face.

In the beam of the flashlight I could see the terrified, fixed grimace on his face, the clenched hands and the blood on the bed sheet.

There was no sign of a wound or of blood on the white singlet, but I was sure if I turned him over I would find the wound.

Someone had shot him in the back as he had tried to get away. As he had died, he had fallen across the bed.

III

I swung the flashlight beam around until I found the light switch, then I turned on the lights.

I turned again to the bed.

Thrisby looked a lot more dead in the shaded lights than he had done in the beam of the flashlight. The cat moved slowly around his head, crouching, its tail outstretched, its ears flat. It stared angrily at me over the dead man’s face.

I looked around the room.