THE telephone bell rang sharply as Janey Conrad came briskly down the stairs. She was wearing her new evening dress: a strapless, sky-blue creation, the bodice of which was covered with silver sequins. She was looking her best, and she was aware of it.
At the sound of the telephone bell she stopped in mid-stride. Her animated expression turned to exasperated anger: a transformation as swift and as final as the turning off of an electric lamp.
“Paul! Don’t answer it,” she said in the cold quiet voice that always came with her anger.
Her husband, a tall, loose-limbed, powerfully built man in his late thirties came out of the lounge. He was wearing a tuxedo and carried a soft black hat in his hand. When Janey had first met him he had reminded her very sharply of James Stewart, and the resemblance had been the main reason why she had married him.
“But I’ve got to answer it,” he said in his soft, drawling voice. “I may be wanted.”
“Paul!” Her voice rose a little as he walked over to the telephone and picked up the receiver.
He grinned at her, motioning with his hand for her to be quiet.
“Hello?” he said into the mouthpiece.
“Paul? This is Bardin.” The Lieutenant’s voice boomed against Paul’s ear and spilt into the quiet tense hall.
As soon as Janey heard the voice, she clenched her fists and her mouth set in a hard, ugly line.
“You’ll want to be in on this,” Bardin went on. There’s been a massacre up at Dead End: June Arnot’s place. We’re knee deep in corpses, and one of them is June’s. Brother! Is this going to be a sensation! How soon can you get out here?”
Conrad pulled a face and looked at Janey out of the corners of his eyes. He watched her walk slowly and stiffly into the sitting-room.
“I guess I’ll be right over,” he said.
“Swell. I’ll hold everything until you get here. Snap it up. I want you here before the press get on to this.”
“I’ll be right over,” Conrad said, and hung up.
“Goddamn it!” Janey said softly. She stood with her back to him, facing the mantelpiece.
“I’m sorry, Janey, but I’ve got to go…”
“Goddamn it, and you too,” Janey said without raising her voice. “This always happens. Whenever we plan to go out, this happens. You and your stinking police force!”
“That’s no way to talk,” Conrad said. “It’s a damn shame, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We’ll go tomorrow night, and I’ll make certain we do go.”
Janey leaned forward and with the back of her hand she swept the ornaments, photograph frames and the clock off the mantelpiece, to crash into the hearth.
“Janey!” Conrad came quickly into the room. “Now stop that!”
“Oh, go to hell!” Janey said in the same cold, quiet voice. She stared at Conrad’s reflection in the mirror, her eyes hostile and glittering. “Go and play cops and robbers. Never mind about me, but don’t expect to find me here when you get back. From now on, I’m going to have fun without you.”
“June Arnot’s been murdered, Janey. I’ve got to go. Now look, I’ll take you to the Ambassador’s tomorrow night to make up for this. How would you like that?”
“You won’t take me so long as there’s a telephone in this house.” Janey said bitterly. “I want some money, Paul!”
He looked at her. “But, Janey…”
“I want some money now: at this minute! If I don’t get it I’ll have to hock something, and it won’t be anything belonging to me!”
Conrad shrugged. He took a ten-dollar bill from his billfold and handed it to her.
“All right, Janey. If that’s the way you feel about it. Why don’t you give Beth a call? You don’t want to go alone.”
Janey folded the bill, looked up at him and then turned away. It was a shock to him to see how impersonal and indifferent her eyes were. She might have been looking at a stranger.
“You don’t have to worry about me. Go and worry about your silly little murder. I’ll get along fine on my own.”
He started to say something, then stopped. When she was in this mood there was no reasoning with her.
“Can I drop you anywhere?” he asked quietly.
“Oh, drop dead!” Janey said violently, and walked over to the window.
Conrad’s mouth tightened. He went across the hall, opened the front door and walked quickly down to his car, parked at the kerb.
As he slid under the driving-wheel he was aware of a tight feeling across his chest that restricted his breathing. He didn’t want to admit it, but he knew Janey’s and his sands were running out. How long had they been married now? He frowned as he trod down on the starter. Just under three years. The first year had been pretty good, but that was before he had become Chief Investigator to the District Attorney’s office. That was when he kept regular hours and could take Janey out every night.
She had been pleased enough when he had got promotion: overnight his salary had doubled, and they had moved out of the three-room apartment on Wentworth Street and had taken a bungalow on the swank Hayland’s Estate. This was a big move up in the social scale. Only people earning five-figure incomes and more were accepted on Hayland’s Estate. But Janey wasn’t so pleased when she began to realize that he was on call any time of the night and day. “For heaven’s sake,” she had said, “anyone would think you were a common policeman instead of a Chief Investigator.”
“But I am a policeman,” he had explained patiently. “I am the D.A.’s special policeman, and if a big case breaks I have to represent him.”
There had been quarrels which at first didn’t seem to Paul to amount to much: just natural disappointment when a sudden emergency call spoilt an evening out. It was understandable, he had told himself, but he wished she would be more reasonable. He had to admit that emergency calls always seemed to turn up just when they were going out, but that was something they both had to put up with. But Janey wouldn’t put up with it. The quarrels developed into rows, and rows into scenes, and now he was getting tired of it.
But this was the first time Janey had asked for money to go out on her own. This was a new development, and it worried Conrad more than all the rows, the breakages and scenes of the past.
Janey was far too attractive to go out by herself. Conrad was aware of the reckless streak in her. From some of the things she had let slip in off-guarded moments, he had gathered she had led a pretty hectic life before they married. He had decided that what load happened in her past was none of his business, but now, remembering some of the stories she had told him of wild parties, and the names of past boy friends she had sometimes taunted him with when she was in a rage, he wondered uneasily if she were going on the war-path again. She was only twenty-four, and sex seemed to mean much more to her than to him, and this surprised him, for he had the normal appetites of the male. Then there were her looks. With her forget-me-not blue eyes, her silky blonde hair, her perfect complexion and her cute retrousse nose she was a temptation to any man.
“Oh, goddamn it!” he muttered under his breath, unconsciously repeating her cry of exasperation.
He raced the engine, engaged gear and swung the car away from the kerb.
For the past three years June Arnot had been rated the most popular actress in motion pictures, and she was said to be the richest woman in Hollywood.
She had built for herself a luxurious home on the promontory of the east arm of Tammany Bay, a few miles outside Pacific City and some ten miles from Hollywood.
The house itself was a show piece of luxury and blatant ostentation, and June Arnot, who was not without a sense of humour, had named it Dead End.
As Conrad pulled up outside the small creeper-covered guardhouse where all visitors had to book in before going on up the mile-long drive to the house, the bulky figure of Lieutenant Sam Bardin of the Homicide Bureau loomed out of the darkness.
“Well, well,” he said when he caught sight of Conrad. “You didn’t have to dress up like that for my benefit. Was that what kept you so long?”
Conrad grinned.
“I was about to take the wife out to a party when you called. This has put me in the dog-kennel for weeks. McCann shown up yet?”
“The Captain’s in San Francisco, worse luck,” Bardin said. “He won’t be back until tomorrow. This is a hell of a thing, Paul. I’m glad you’re here. We’ll want as much help as we can get before we’re finished.”
“Let’s make a start, then. Suppose you tell me what you know and then we’ll take a look around.”
Bardin wiped his big red face with his handkerchief and pushed his hat to the back of his head. He was a tall, heavily built man, ten years older than Conrad, which made him around forty-five.
“At eight-thirty we got a call from Harrison Fedor, Miss Arnot’s publicity manager. He had a business date with her for tonight. When he arrived here he found the gates open, which is unusual as they are always kept locked. He walked into the guard-house and found the guard shot through the head. He telephoned the house from the guard-house, but could get no reply. I guess he lost his nerve. Anyway, he said he was too scared to go up to the house and see what was wrong, so he called us.”
“Where’s he now?”
“Sitting in his car fortifying himself with whisky,” Bardin said with a grin. “I haven’t had time to talk to him properly yet, so I told him to stick around. I’ve been up to the house. The five servants have been wiped out: all shot. I knew Miss Arnot was somewhere on the estate as she had this business date, but she wasn’t in the house.” He took out a pack of cigarettes, offered one to Conrad and lit his own. “I found her in the swimming-pool.” He made a little grimace. “Someone ripped her wide open and hacked her head off.”
Conrad grunted.
“Sounds like a maniac. What’s happening now?”
“The boys are up at the house and at the swimming-pool doing their stuff. If there’s anything to turn up, they’ll turn it up. Want to have a walk around and see for yourself?”
“I guess so. Can Doc fix the time?”
“He’s working on it now. I told him not to move the bodies until you arrived. He should have something for us before long. Let’s have a look at the guardhouse.”
Conrad followed him through the doorway into a small room equipped with a flat-topped desk, a chair, a padded settee and a battery of telephones. On the desk was a big leather-bound Visitors’ book open at that day’s date.
The guard, in an olive-green uniform and glittering jack boots, lay half under the table, his head resting in a crimson halo of blood. He had been shot at close quarters, and one quick glance at him was enough for Conrad.
He moved over to the desk and bent to look at the Visitors’ book.
“The killer isn’t likely to have signed himself in,” Bardin said dryly. “Just the same, the guard must have known him or he wouldn’t have unlocked the gates.”
Conrad’s eyes took in the almost empty page.
15.00 hrs. Mr. Jack Belling, 3 Lennox Street. By appointment. 17.00 hrs. Miss Rita Strange, 14 Crown Street. By appointment. 19.00 hrs. Miss Frances Coleman, 145 Glendale Avenue.
“This mean anything?” he asked. This girl Coleman was here about the time of the killings.”
Bardin shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno. We’ll check on her when we’ve got the time. If she had something to do with it you can bet she would have ripped out the page.”
“That’s right: unless she forgot.”
Bardin made an impatient gesture.
“Well, come on; there are lots of other pretty sights for you to look at.” He moved out into the growing darkness again. “May as well run up in your car. Take it slowly at the second bend. The gardener was shot there.”
Conrad drove up the drive, flanked on either side by giant palms and flowering shrubs. When he had driven three hundred yards or so, Bardin said, “Just round this bend.”
They came upon a parked car by the edge of the drive. Doc Holmes, two interns in white coats and a couple of bored-looking patrolmen were standing in a group with the car’s headlights lighting up their backs.
Conrad and Bardin walked over and joined them. They were grouped around an old, shrivelled-up Chinese, who lay on his back, his yellow, claw-like fingers hooked in his death agony. The front of his white smock was dyed red.
“Hello, Conrad,” Doc Holmes said. He was a little man with a round pink face and a fringe of white hair to frame his bald head. “Come to see our massacre?”
“Just slumming,” Conrad said. “How long has he been dead, Doc?”
“About an hour and a half: not more.”
“Just after seven?”
“About then.”
“Same gun as killed the guard?”
“It’s probable. They were all butchered by a .45.” He looked at Bardin. “This looks like a professional job, Lieutenant. Whoever shot these people knew his business. He killed them instantly with one shot.”
Bardin grunted.
“Doesn’t mean much. A .45 will kill anyone whether it’s in the hands of a professional or an amateur.”
“Let’s go up to the house,” Conrad said.
A three-minute drive brought them to the house. Lights were on in every room. Two patrolmen guarded the front entrance.
Conrad and Bardin walked up the steps and into the small reception room and down into the inner well of the house, a mosaic-paved patio. The rooms of the house surrounded the three sides of the patio which provided a cool and sheltered courtyard in which to sit.
Sergeant O’Brien, a tall, thin man with hard eyes and a flock of freckles, came out of the lounge. He nodded to Conrad.
“Found anything?” Bardin asked.
“Some slugs, nothing else. No finger-prints that aren’t accounted for. It’s my guess the killer just walked in, shot down everyone in sight and then walked out again without touching a thing.”
Paul wandered to the foot of the broad staircase and stood looking up at it. At the head of the stairs lay the body of a young Chinese girl. She was wearing a yellow house-coat and dark blue silk embroidered trousers. A red stain made an ugly patch in the middle of her shoulder blades.
“Looks like she was running for cover when she was shot,” Bardin said. “Want to go up and look at her?”
Conrad shook his head.
“Exhibit number four is in the lounge,” Bardin said, and led the way into a lavishly furnished room with leather settees and armchairs that afforded sitting room for thirty or forty people.
In the centre of the room was a large fountain on which played coloured lights, and in its illuminated bowl tropical fish added their charm to the effect.
“Nice, isn’t it?” Bardin said dryly. “You should see my sitting-room, Paul. I must tell my wife about the fish. They might give her ideas: she could do with a few.”
Conrad moved farther into the room. By the casement windows leading to the garden, June Arnot’s butler sat huddled up on the floor, his back resting against the tapestry wall. He had been shot through the head.
“Spoilt the tapestry,” Bardin said. “Pity. I bet that stuff costs a whale of a lot of dough.” He dropped his cigarette into an ash-bowl, went on, “Want to see the kitchens? There are two more of them in there, a chink cook and a Filipino. They were both running for the exit, but neither of them ran fast enough.”
“I guess I’ve seen enough,” Conrad said. “If there’s anything to find, your boys will find it.”
“I’ll put that little sentiment in my birthday book and show it to you the next time I pass up a clue,” Bardin said. “Okay, we’ll go down to the pool.”
He went over to the casement windows, opened them and stepped out on to the broad terrace. The full moon was rising and shedding its hard, cold light over the sea. The garden was heavy with the scents of flowers. In the far distance an illuminated fountain made a fairy-land scene below them.
“She went for lights and pretty colours, didn’t she?” Bardin said. “But it didn’t get her anywhere. It’s a pretty crude way to finish your life: having your head hacked off and your belly ripped open. I guess even all this display of wealth wouldn’t compensate me for an end like that.”
“The trouble with you, Sam,” Conrad said quietly, “is you’re class conscious. There are plenty of guys who would envy you your way of life.”
“Show them to me,” Bardin returned with a sour smile. “I’ll trade with them any day of the week. It’s easy for you to shoot off your mouth. You’ve got a glamorous wife, and she can take your mind off things. I’d put up with a shabby home and lousy meals if I’d got me a little glamour. You want to look over my garden fence when the washing is hanging out if you’re interested in female museum pieces. I bet your wife goes in for those nylon nifties that keep knocking my eye out every time I pass a shop window. That’s as close as I’ll ever get to them.”
Conrad felt a sudden wave of irritation run through him. He knew Bardin’s wife. She wasn’t anything to look at; she wasn’t smart, but at least she did try to run her home which was more than Janey ever did.
“You don’t know when you’re well off,” he said curtly, and walked down the gently sloping steps towards the swimming-pool.
Close by the forty-foot-high diving-board, Doc Holmes, the two interns, a photographer and four policemen stood on the edge of the swimming-pool, looking down at the water. That section of the water was dyed crimson, the rest of the water was a vivid blue.
As Bardin and Conrad came through the cocktail lounge on to the blue-tiled surround of the pool, Bardin said, “I’ve had one look at this, and I can’t say I’m looking forward to seeing it again.”
They joined the group under the diving-board.
“Well, there she is,” Bardin went on, and waved his hand to the water.
Paul looked at the headless, naked body that lay on the floor of the shallow end of the pool. The savage way it had been mutilated made his stomach suddenly contract.
“Where’s the head?” he asked, turning away.
“I left it where I found it. It was on a table in one of the changing-rooms. Want to look at it?”
“No, thank you. You’re sure it’s June Arnot?”
“No doubt about it.”
Conrad turned to Doc Holmes.
“Okay, Doc, I’ve seen all I want to are. You can get busy now. You’ll let me have a copy of your report?”
Doc Holmes nodded.
Bardin said, “Okay, boys, get her out. Careful how you handle her.”
Three of the policemen moved forward reluctantly. One of them pushed a long boat-hook into the water and groped for the body.
“Let’s talk to Fedor while this is going on,” Conrad said. “Have him up to the house, will you?”
Bardin sent one of the policemen to fetch Fedor.
As he and Conrad mounted the steps on their way back to the house, he asked, “Well, what do you make of it so far?”
“Looks to me as if it was done by someone who is a fairly frequent visitor to the house. The fact he was admitted by the guard puts him out of the stranger class, and the fact he wiped out the whole of the staff who probably could have identified him, points to it too.”
“Unless some maniac got in and ran amok.”
“The guard wouldn’t have opened the gates to him.”
“He might have. Depends on the story the guy told him.”
As they reached the house two policemen came through the front entrance, carrying a stretcher on which was a covered body.
That’s the lot, Lieutenant,” one of them said. The house is clear now.”
Bardin grunted and walked up the steps and down into the patio.
“Do you think Fedor’s in the clear?” Conrad asked as he sat down in a basket chair.
“He’s not the type to cut loose like this. Besides, if he did do it, he’d have to have a damned strong motive. She was his only client, and he made a small fortune out of her.”
“A woman like her would have a lot of enemies,” Conrad said, stretching out his long legs. “Whoever did it certainly hated her guts.”
“She seems to have had some pretty horrible acquaintances,” Bardin said, rubbing his hand across his eyes. “From the hints I’ve picked up from time to time, there was nothing too bad for her to dabble in. Did you know she was supposed to be a special friend of Jack Maurer?”
Conrad stiffened to attention.
“No. How special?”
Bardin grinned. Thought that would make you sit up. I can’t swear to it, but I’ve heard plenty of rumours. She kept it very quiet, but the story has it they were lovers.”
“I wish I could believe that. This is the kind of job Maurer might pull. He’s ruthless enough. Remember that gang massacre he engineered a couple of years back? Seven men machine-gunned against a wall?”
“We don’t know for certain Maurer did pull that one,” Bardin said cautiously.
“Who else did, then? Those men were muscling in on his territory. He had everything to gain by getting rid of them.”
“The Captain wasn’t convinced. He thought it was Jacobi’s mob trying to hang something on Maurer.”
“He knows what I think of that cockeyed theory. It was Maurer, and this killing could fit Maurer too.”
“You’ve got a bug about Maurer,” Bardin said, shrugging. “I believe you’d sell your soul to get him behind bars.”
“I don’t want him behind bars,” Conrad said, a sudden savage note in his voice. “I want him in the chair. He’s been in the world a damned sight too long.”
A policeman came to the patio door, coughed and jerked his thumb expressively.
“Here’s Mr. Fedor, sir.”
Conrad and Bardin got to their feet.
Harrison Fedor, June Arnot’s publicity manager, came across the mosaicpaved floor with a bouncing little rush. He was a small thin man with steady hard eyes, a rat-trap of a mouth and lantern jaws. He grabbed Conrad’s hand and shook it violently.
“Nice to see you here. What’s been happening? Is June all right?”
“Far from it,” Conrad said quietly. “She’s been murdered: she and the whole staff.”
Fedor gulped and his face sagged, then he got hold of himself and sat down in one of the basket chairs.
“You mean she’s dead?”
“She’s dead all right.”
“For God’s sake!” Fedor took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thinning locks. “Dead, eh? Well, goddamn it! I can’t believe it.”
He stared first at Bardin, then at Paul. Neither of the men said anything. They waited.
“Murdered!” Fedor went on after a pause. “What a sensation this is going to be! Phew! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
“What does that mean?” Bardin growled, his face heavy with disapproval.
Fedor grinned wryly.
“As you didn’t have to work for her for five interminable years you couldn’t know what it means.” He leaned forward and jabbed his forefinger in Bardin’s direction. “I’ll be damned if I’ll cry. Maybe I’ve lost my meal ticket, but I’ve also lost a goddamned pain in the neck. That bitch has been riding me to death. It was either her or me in the long run. I’ve got an ulcer because of her. You don’t know what I’ve had to put up with from that woman!”
“Someone hacked her head off,” Conrad said quietly. “Not content with that, he ripped her as well. Can you think of anyone who would do that to her?”
Fedor’s eyes popped.
“Good grief! Hacked her head off! For God’s sake! Why did he do that?”
“For the same reason he ripped her: he didn’t like her. Know anyone who’d dive off the deep end like that?”
Fedor’s eyes suddenly shifted.
“Can’t say I do. Hell! Have the press got this yet?”
“No, and they won’t get it until I have some more facts to work on,” Bardin said grimly. “Now look, if you do know someone who might fit, you’d better spill it. The quicker we shut this case down, the better for everyone, including you.”
Fedor hesitated, then shrugged."I guess that’s right. Ralph Jordan was her current lover. They have been having some mighty awful quarrels recently. This picture he’s making with June is his last. Pacific Pictures have torn up his contract. They’ve had more than enough of him.”
“Why?” Conrad asked, lighting a cigarette.
“He’s been living on a diet of reefers for the past six months, and boy! does that guy hit the roof after a reefer session!”
“In what way?”
“He runs amok.” Fedor took out his handkerchief and blotted his face with it. “He set fire to one of the studios the week before last. Then last week, at Maurice Laird’s swim party, he started something that took Laird everything he had to hush up. Jordan had some kind of acid he went around splashing on the girl’s swim-suits. The stuff started burning, and Bingo! there were no swim-suits. You’ve never seen anything like it. Some thirty of our best-known stars were running around without a stitch on. Okay, it was pretty funny for us guys, and we appreciated the joke until we found the stuff hadn’t only taken off the swimsuits. It took off a few yards of skin as well. Five girls had to go to hospital. They were in a terrible state. If Laird hadn’t paid up handsomely Jordan would have been prosecuted. Next morning Laird tore up his contract.”
Conrad and Bardin exchanged glances.
“Sounds as if we might go along and talk to this guy,” Bardin said.
“For the love of mike don’t tell him I said anything about him,” Fedor said feverishly. “I’ve enough on my hands without having to cope with him.”
“Apart from Jordan,” Conrad said, “does anyone else come to your mind who might have done this?”
Fedor shook his head.
“No. Most of June’s friends were pretty rotten, but not all that rotten.”
“Is there anything in the story that she and Jack Maurer were lovers?”
Fedor suddenly looked down at his hands. A cold, remote expression came over his face.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“You could make a guess. Did she ever mention Maurer to you?”
“No.”
“Did you ever hear his name coupled with her?”
“I guess not.”
“Did you ever see him with her?”
“No.”
Conrad looked across at Bardin.
“Isn’t it wonderful that as soon as Maurer’s name is mentioned everyone clams up? You’d think the guy didn’t exist.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Fedor said hastily. “If I knew anything I’d tell you. I don’t know a thing about Maurer except what I’ve read in the papers.”
“The same old song and dance,” Conrad said in disgust. “One of those days, with any luck, I’ll come across someone with a little guts who isn’t scared of Maurer, and who knows something : one of these days but, God knows when.”
“Take it easy,” Bardin said. “If the guy doesn’t know he doesn’t know.”
Sergeant O’Brien came down .the steps of the patio.
“Can I have a word, Lieutenant?”
Bardin took his arm and walked with him into the lounge.
“Stick around,” Paul said to Fedor, and went after them.
“He’s found the gun,” Bardin said, his heavy face more cheerful. He held out a .45 Colt automatic. “Look at this.”
Conrad took the gun and examined it. Engraved on the butt were the initials R.J.
“Where did you find it?” he asked O’Brien.
“In the shrubbery about thirty yards from the main gate. I’ll bet a dollar it’s the gun. It’s empty; it’s been fired very recently, and it’s a .45.”
“Better get it checked, Sam.”
Bardin nodded. He handed the gun to O’Brien.
“Take it down to headquarters and have it checked against the slug you’ve found.” He turned to Conrad. “R.J. That’s easy, isn’t it? Looks like I’ve got me an open and shut case. Looks like Jordan’s got some talking to do. Coming?”
According to Fedor, Ralph Jordan had a penthouse apartment on Roosevelt Boulevard. He had taken the apartment soon after June Arnot had got rid of her Hollywood home, and although he had kept on his own luxurious home in Beverly Hills, he seldom lived there.
Conrad swung the car up the circular drive leading to Jordan’s apartment block and pulled up in the shadows. Near by was a row of garage lock-ups. A big black Cadillac, parked half in and half out of one of the lock-ups attracted his attention.
“Someone wasn’t looking where he was driving,” he said as he got out of the car. He walked over to the lock-up. Bardin followed him.
The Cadillac’s off-side wing had crashed against the side of the lock-up, splintering the wood. The wing was pushed in and the off-side headlamp was smashed.
Bardin opened the car door and inspected the registration tag.
“Might have guessed it,” he said. “Jordan’s car. Who said he wasn’t hopped to the eyebrows?”
“Well, at least he’s home,” Conrad returned, and walked over to the entrance to the apartment block. He pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby, followed by Bardin.
A stout pink-and-white reception clerk in a faultlessly fitting tuxedo rested two small white hands on the polished top of the reception desk and raised his pale eyebrows at Conrad with a touch of hauteur.
“Is there something I can do?”
Bardin pushed his bulk forward. He flashed his buzzer and scowled. When he wanted to, he could look tough and ferocious, and he was looking tough and ferocious now.
“Lieutenant Bardin, City police,” he said in a grating voice. “Jordan in?”
The reception clerk stiffened. His small hands fluttered.
“If you mean Mr. Ralph Jordan; yes, he is in. Did you wish to see him?”
“When did he get in?”
“Just after eight o’clock.”
“Was he drunk?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t notice.” The shocked expression on the clerk’s face made Conrad grin.
“What time did he go out?”
“Just after six.”
“He’s on the top floor, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. We’re going up. Keep your hands off the telephone if you know what’s good for you. This is a surprise visit. Anyone up there with him?”
“Not as far as I know.”
Bardin grunted, then tramped across the pile carpet that covered the halfacre of lobby to the elevator.
“So he went out just after six and got back at eight. That would have given him plenty of time to get to Dead End, do the job and get back again,” he said as the elevator took them swiftly and silently to the top floor.
“Keep your eye on him,” Conrad cautioned as the elevator doors slid back. “If he’s still hopped up he may be dangerous.”
“He won’t be the first hop-head I’ve had to handle, and I bet he won’t be the last — worse luck.”
Bardin paused outside the front door to the apartment.
“Hello: the door’s open.”
He thumbed the bell-push. Somewhere in the apartment a bell rang sharply. Bardin waited a moment then shoved the front door wide open with his foot and looked into the small lobby.
A door facing them stood ajar.
They waited another moment or so, then Bardin walked into the lobby and pushed open the inner door.
They looked into a big, airy lounge, ablaze with lights. Wine-coloured curtains covered the windows. The walls were grey. There were armchairs, settees, a table or two and a well-equipped cocktail-bar. A television set and a radiogram stood side by side, and on the mantelpiece were glass ornaments, beautifully fashioned and blatantly obscene. Bardin stood looking round, breathing heavily through his nostrils.
“Isn’t it wonderful how these punks live?” he said savagely. “The guy who said virtue is its own reward should take a look at this joint.”
“Your time will come when you get to heaven,” Conrad said with a grin. “You’ll be given a gold-plated revolver and diamonds on your badge. Doesn’t seem to be anyone around.”
“Hey! Anyone here?” Bardin bawled in a voice that rattled the windows.
The silence that greeted his shout was as solid and as engulfing as a snowdrift, and as cold.
They exchanged glances.
“Now what?” Bardin said. “Think he’s hiding up some place?”
“Maybe he went out again.”
“That queen would have seen him go.”
“Then let’s take a look.”
Conrad crossed the room, rapped on a door to the left, turned the handle and looked into a big airy bedroom. The only furniture except for a white pile carpet was a twelve-foot-wide bed that stood on a two-foot-high dais and looked as lonely as a lighthouse.
“No one here,” Conrad said as he walked into the room.
“Try the bathroom,” Bardin said, his voice sharpening.
They crossed the room to the bathroom door and opened it. They looked into the most elaborately equipped bathroom they had ever seen, but their eyes had no interest for the luxury nor the glittering plumbing. Their attention became riveted on the sunken bath.
Ralph Jordan lay in the waterless bath, his head sunk on his chest. He was wearing a wine-coloured dressing-gown over a pair of pale blue lounging pyjamas. The walls of the bath and the front of his dressing-gown were stained red. He held in his right hand an old-fashioned cut-throat razor. The blood on the thin blade looked like scarlet paint.
Bardin pushed past Conrad and touched Jordan’s hand.
“Deader than a joint of beef: chilled beef at that.”
He took hold of a long lock of Jordan’s hair and lifted his head.
Conrad grimaced as he caught sight of the deep gash across Jordan’s throat: so deep it had severed the wind-pipe.
“Well, that’s that,” Bardin said, stepping back. “Like I said: an open and shut case. He went out there, knocked her off, then came back here and cut his throat. Very considerate of him. It makes a nice tidy job — for me, anyway.” He groped for a cigarette, lit it and blew a cloud of smoke into the dead man’s face. “Looks like Doc Holmes is going to have a busy night.”
Conrad was moving around the bathroom. He discovered an electric razor on the wall.
“Odd he should have a cut-throat razor. You’d have to go to a good many homes these days to find one, and you wouldn’t have thought Jordan would have kept one so handy.”
Bardin groand.
“Now don’t start lousing up the issue. Maybe the guy cut his corns with it: people do.” He pushed open a door by the head of the bath and looked into an elaborately equipped dressing-room. On a chair was a suit, shirt and silk underwear. A pair of brogue shoes and socks lay near by.
Conrad walked into the room, then came to a sudden standstill.
“Now this will make you really happy, Sam,” he said, and waved to a bloodstained object on the floor.
Bardin joined him.
“Well, I’ll be damned! A machete!” He knelt beside the razor-sharp knife. “I bet it’s the murder weapon. It’s just the thing to cut someone’s head off with, and it would lay a belly open like you open a door.”
“It wouldn’t interest you to wonder why a guy like Jordan should have a South American jungle knife in his possession?”
Bardin sat back on his heels. His grin made him look like a wolf.
“Maybe he picked it up as a souvenir. I bet he’s been to South America or the West Indies: probably the West Indies. It’s the murder weapon all right, and I’ll bet the blood on it is June Arnot’s blood.”
Conrad was turning over the clothes on the chair.
“There’s no blood on these. I shouldn’t have thought it possible to cut off someone’s head and not get blood on you.”
“For crying out loud!” Bardin said impatiently. He stood up and stretched his big frame. “Do you have to lean so hard on your job? Maybe he had a coat on or something. Does it matter? I’m satisfied; aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Conrad said frowning. “It’s all very pat, isn’t it? The whole setup could be a plant, Sam. The gun with Jordan’s initials on it, the smashed car, Jordan’s suicide and now the murder weapon. Everything cut and dried and laid out ready for inspection. It smells a little to me.”
“It smells because you’re over-anxious to earn a living,” Bardin said, lifting his massive shoulders. “Forget it. It convinces me, and it’ll convince the Captain. It would convince you if you didn’t yearn to get Maurer into the chair. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Conrad pulled at his nose thoughtfully.
“Maybe. Well, okay. I guess there’s nothing here for me. Want me to drop you off at headquarters?”
“I’ll call them from here. I’ll want the boys to look this joint over. As soon as I get them working, I’ll go back to Dead End and give the press the story. You’re going home?”
Conrad nodded.
“May as well.”
“Lucky guy. No late work, a nice little home and lots of glamour to keep you warm. How is Mrs. Conrad?”
“Oh, she’s fine, I guess,” Conrad said, and was annoyed to hear how flat and unenthusiastic his voice sounded.
Driving just below the speed limit, Conrad cut through the back streets to avoid the theatre traffic. He wondered uneasily if Janey had made good her threat and had gone out, and if she had, whether she was back yet. He didn’t want to think about her just now, but inevitably, whenever he headed for home, she forced herself into his thoughts.
He slowed down to light a cigarette. As he flicked the match through the open window his eye caught the name-plate of the street: Glendale Avenue.
It was not until he had nearly reached the end of the street that he remembered the girl, Frances Coleman, who had called on June Arnot at seven o’clock this night, had given her address as 145 Glendale Avenue. His foot trod down hard on the brake and he swung the car to the kerb.
For a moment he sat still, staring through the windshield at the dark empty street. Doc Holmes had said June Arnot had died around seven o’clock. Was it possible this girl had seen something?
He got out of the car and peered at the nearest house. It was numbered 123. He walked for a few yards until he came to 145.
It was a tall, shabby, brown-stone house. Some of the windows showed lights; some didn’t.
He climbed the flight of steep stone steps and looked through the glass panel of the front door. Beyond was a dimly lit hall with stairs going away into the darkness.
He turned the door knob and pushed. The door opened and a violent smell of frying onions, virile tomcats and ripe garbage jostled past him as if anxious to reach some fresh air.
He tipped his hat to the back of his head, wrinkled his nose and moved farther into the hall. A row of mailboxes screwed against the wall told him what kind of house it was. The third mail-box belonged to Miss Coleman: that put her on the third floor.
Conrad climbed the stairs, passing shabby doors from which came the blare of radios playing swing music as if the listeners were stone deaf but determined to hear something.
The door facing the head of the stairs on the third floor told him this was where Miss Coleman lived. A neat white card bearing her name was pinned to the panel with a thumb tack.
As he closed his hand into a fist to knock, he saw the door was ajar. He knocked, waited a long moment, and then stepped back, his eyes suddenly wary.
Was this going to be another body behind a half-open door? he wondered.
Already he had looked at six bodies this night, each of them in its own particular way, horrible and pathetic. He felt his nerves crawl under his skin and the hair on the nape of his neck move.
He took out a cigarette and pasted it on his lower lip. As he set fire to it he noticed his hands were steady enough, and he suddenly grinned.
He leaned forward and pushed the door open and peered into darkness.
“Anyone in?” he said, raising his voice.
No one answered. A solid silence came out of the room on a faint perfume of Californian Poppy.
He took two steps forward and groped for the light switch. As the light went on, he drew a deep breath of expectancy, but there were no bodies, no blood, no murder weapons: just a small, box-like room with an iron bedstead, a chest of drawers, a chair and a pinewood cupboard.- It looked as comfortable and as homely as a Holy man’s bed of nails.
He stood looking round for a moment or so, then he moved forward and opened one of the cupboard’s doors. Except for a far-away smell of lavender the cupboard was empty. He frowned, reached for one of the drawers in the chest and pulled it open. That, too, was empty.
He scratched the back of his neck with a forefinger, stared around some more, then lifted his shoulders and walked out into the passage.
He turned off the light and then walked down the stairs, slowly and thoughtfully. Back again in the hall, he inspected Miss Coleman’s mail-box. It was unlocked and empty.
A notice on the wall caught his attention. It read: Janitor. Basement.
“What have I got to lose?” he thought, and went along a passage and down a flight of dirty stairs into darkness.
At the foot of the stairs he collided with something hard and he swore under his breath.
“Anyone at home?” he called.
A door swung open and the light of a naked electric lamp flowed out, making him blink.
“No vacancies, pally,” a mild oily voice oozed from the doorway. “This joint’s fuller than a dog with fleas.”
Conrad looked into a small room that contained a bed, a table, two chairs and a worn rug. At the table sat a large fat man in shirt sleeves. In his mouth he held a dead cigar. Spread out before him on the table was a complicated patience game.
“You’ve got a vacancy on the third floor, haven’t you?” Conrad said. “Miss Coleman’s moved out.”
“Who says so?”
“I’ve just been up there. The room’s empty. Clothes gone. All the little knickknacks that make up a home gone too.”
“Who are you?” the fat man asked.
Conrad flashed his buzzer.
“City police.”
The fat man curled his upper lip into a complacent sneer.
“What’s she been up to?”
“When did she leave?” Conrad asked, leaning against the door post.
“I didn’t know she had left,” the fat man said. “She was here this morning. Well, that’s a relief off my mind. I would have had to put her out tomorrow: saves me a job.”
“Why?”
The fat man wheezed as he pushed a fat finger into his ear and massaged it briskly.
“The usual reason. She was three weeks behind on her rent.”
Conrad rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully.
“What do you know about her? When did she come here?”
“A month ago. Said she was a movie extra.” The fat man swept the spread-out cards into a little heap, picked them up and began to shuffle them. “Couldn’t get anything cheap in Hollywood: anyway, cheap enough for her. She was a nice girl. If I had a daughter I’d like her to be like her. Nice way of talking, nice looks, quiet, well-behaved.” He lifted his fat shoulders. “But no money. It’s the bad ones who have the dough, I guess. I told her to go home, but she wouldn’t listen. She promised to have the money for me by tomorrow morning for certain. Looks like she didn’t get it, doesn’t it?”
“That’s the way it looks,” Conrad said. He suddenly felt tired. Why should an out-of-work movie extra call on June Arnot, he wondered, except for a touch? She probably never got farther than the guard-house. It was unlikely June Arnot would have seen her.
He glanced at his watch. It was just after midnight.
“Well, thanks.” He pushed himself away from the door post. “That’s all I want to know.”
The fat man asked, “She isn’t in trouble, is she?”
Conrad shook his head.
“Not as far as I know.”
The night air felt cold and fresh after the fusty smells of the apartment house. Conrad drove home. Bardin had said he was convinced that Jordan had done the job. Why should he bother? He would talk to the D.A. tomorrow. If only he knew for certain that Maurer and June had been lovers. If they had been then there might be a chance that Maurer had engineered the job; might even have done it himself.
“Oh, the hell with Maurer!” Conrad thought as he walked up the path to his front door. “I’ve got him on my mind like a junkie’s got dope.”
He sank his key into the lock and moved into the dark little hall.
The house was very still and silent.
He went along the passage to the bedroom, pushed open the door and turned on the light. The twin beds had an empty and forlorn look about them.
So Janey had gone out and she wasn’t back yet.
He began to strip off his clothes. As he walked into the bathroom for a quick shower, he said aloud, “And the hell with her too!”