Dead, She Was Beautiful Page 15

  How had it been administered? There was just one glass on the night-stand but beside it a second circle of wetness had dried, leaving its tell-tale ring behind. Of course, that might indicate only that Jack had put his glass down in a second place. But Hagen thought not. The way he reconstructed the affair, Jack had been slipped a mickey under the cover of a little social drinking.

  After that, the archer had simply waited for Jack to nod. Then—the bowstring. Despite himself, Hagen shuddered slightly. It wasn’t a very pleasant thought, two people drinking together, maybe laughing and exchanging a few wisecracks, then one getting sleepy while the other eyed him speculatively. Hagen’s collar felt a little tight and he loosened it. Any murder was bad enough but to be struck down while you were sleeping, cut off without even a chance …

  “Don’t worry, buddy,” he told Jack. “Somebody’ll pay for it.” Hagen had made the same promise to himself only yesterday, but then Jack had been the intended recipient of his vengeance. That showed you how the world changed.

  Since he and Jack were on the same side at last, in a manner of speaking, Hagen felt no qualms about searching the dead man’s belongings.

  Jack had brought a suitcase with him and had unpacked most of it, but neither the suitcase nor the bureau drawers yielded Hagen anything of much interest. Jack had bought his clothes in Los Angeles stores, which indicated that was his home. He used a popular brand of toothpaste and razor blades, plus a sweet-smelling shaving lotion so strong it made Hagen’s eyes water. But there was nothing among his clothing or toilet articles to indicate that he was anything but Jack Ferreira, Stranger from Los Angeles.

  So, reluctantly, Hagen turned again to Jack himself. His reluctance didn’t spring from any fear of the dead but he had hoped he wouldn’t have to move Jack, since Troge would surely have something to say on that score later. But there was no other way to get into the man’s trouser pockets, so he hauled Jack forward and removed his wallet. Then he let Jack plump back into his original position. The false teeth fell to the carpet but Hagen let them lie there. Jack’s dentures were hardly of any importance to anyone now.

  He sat down on Jack’s bed and looked carefully through the wallet until he found what he had been looking for. It was a small official card, laminated in plastic to avoid wear. Hagen was quite familiar with the card; he carried one himself. All private detectives licensed in California did.

  “Well, that settles that,” he said. “Just another crummy private cop, left with the dirty end of the stick.”

  Now that he knew this, even Jack alive could hardly have told him very much more, with the exception of the identity of his drinking partner. And Hagen thought that he would know that himself before the day was over.

  He didn’t bother to restore the wallet to Jack’s pocket. He tossed it carelessly on the top of the dresser instead. Nor did he bother to remove his fingerprints from the many objects he had touched. When the time came to explain to Troge, it wouldn’t matter.

  However, the time was not now. Hagen remembered too keenly his humiliation of a few hours before to go running to Troge with information that was as yet incomplete. He told me I was a sucker to believe I could out-think the police department, Hagen reflected. All right, let him stew. I’ll give it to him all in one nice neat little package. That included Jack.

  He opened the hall door cautiously and listened. There was no sound from the corridor. Reassured, he slipped out and locked the door behind him. On the knob he hung the cardboard Do Not Disturb sign that the hotel provided. That would suffice for a few hours, he thought, long enough for me to wrap this thing up.

  Hagen hesitated a while by the elevator doors, eyeing the fire escape thoughtfully. He finally decided against it. He would be sure to be noticed by people on the street and while by using the elevator he might encounter the desk clerk in the lobby, the odds were less. He rang for the car.

  The odds paid off for him. He stepped off into a deserted lobby, crossed it quickly and plunged into the protective cover of hurrying pedestrians. He didn’t look like a man who had just left a corpse and was en route to trap a murderer. He looked just about like anyone else, perhaps a little happier than most. It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between a smile and bared fangs.

  19

  IT was mid-afternoon when he arrived at the Wishart house. The intervening hours had been spent telephoning various people in Los Angeles. His hand felt as if it might stiffen permanently into a claw from clutching a receiver so long, but his bleak sense of satisfaction made up for that.

  There was a tow-truck parked in the driveway and he could see men in greasy overalls fussing with the automobiles in the garage. Hagen didn’t bother to tell them where the trouble lay. For one thing, he wasn’t sure they didn’t already know and weren’t just running up the bill. And for another, he had more important business inside.

  He very nearly didn’t get past the front door, however. A Mexican girl in a maid’s uniform answered his ring, took his name and carried it back into the house without inviting him in. A few moments later Mrs. Rosemary Wishart appeared, looking hostile.

  “Whatever you have in mind, the answer is no,” she told Hagen. “Go away and don’t bother to come back.”

  “I want to see Wayne.”

  “He doesn’t want to see you—not after reading the papers.” She started to close the door but Hagen put his foot against it. “Did you hear me?”

  “I think you’d better let me in,” he advised softly. “I’ve just seen Jack.”

  Her harsh face became uncertain. She hesitated, glancing around as if for advice from the air, then opened the door wider. When Hagen had already stepped inside, Rosemary Wishart recovered her balance enough to ask, “Jack who?”

  Hagen didn’t answer. Instead, he hold her, “Get rid of your maid and anybody else who’s here—except Avis. We’ve got some plain talking to do and it’s the kind that’s best not overheard.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, although it was plain that she did. “Well—all right, if you think …” And she trotted away to do his bidding.

  Since Wayne Wishart wasn’t visible anywhere in the big living room, Hagen went down the long hallway and entered the bedroom where he had carried Wishart the night before. His client was there, in bed, sitting up with pillows propped behind him. Copies of the daily papers, including the noon editions which Hagen hadn’t seen yet, were strewn around.

  Wishart was still pale from his ordeal of the night before but at the sight of Hagen he flushed angrily. “Are you back? “he demanded. “I didn’t think you’d have the gall to stick your nose in here again after all this.” He indicated the newspapers with a vicious sweep of his hand.

  Hagen sat down on the edge of the bed. “You forget that you’re my client.”

  “Not any more. You’re fired, Hagen.” Wishart leaned forward belligerently. “And if you think you can blackmail me—or my mother—by what happened here last night, you’re mistaken. It’ll be our word against yours and I’ll bet that the police will—”

  “You may be an authority on blackmail,” Hagen interrupted him wearily, “but save your breath. Fire me if you feel like it. I don’t really need you as a client any more. But I don’t think you want to lose me now.”

  Wishart was a little taken aback. He had obviously given a good deal of thought to what he intended to tell Hagen. The only trouble was that Hagen wasn’t picking up his cues. Wishart took refuge behind a weak, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it’s really in your best interest to have me on your side. That’s not blackmail, that’s just common sense. You need a lot of protection, Wishart. I can’t promise to give you as much as you need, but I can give you some.”

  “What do I need protection for?” Wishart demanded, recovering his truculence.

  “Jack,” said Hagen simply and watched his client subside. “And that’s just one item.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” murmure
d Wishart, but there was no conviction in his tone. His hands fought with each other nervously against the covers.

  Mrs. Wishart came in at that moment, trailing Avis Gill. The secretary looked preoccupied. Her fixed smile was absent and she didn’t meet Hagen’s gaze or answer his greeting. Mrs. Wishart said, “I did what you told me. We’re alone in the house now.”

  Just in case, Hagen got up and shut the door. “Better make yourselves comfortable. We’ve got a lot to talk about.” He gazed pointedly at Avis. “Don’t take notes if you know what’s good for you.” He remained standing, the better to dominate the group. “Let’s start with Hilda, shall we?”

  Wishart looked at his mother for support. For perhaps the first time in his life, he didn’t get it. She put him on his own with a shrug that said: it’s up to you now. He muttered, “What about Hilda?”

  “Just this,” said Hagen. “When did you discover that she was a kleptomaniac?”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. I found out today in a sporting goods store. It was pretty plain that your wife had swiped a cheap shiny knife she had no possible use for. How long have you known about her weakness?”

  Wishart’s shoulders slumped as if a huge weight had suddenly been lifted. He raised his head and looked straight at Hagen. “For nearly a year.”

  “I’ll have to hand it to you,” Hagen said. “I was married to her a lot longer than you were, and I didn’t tumble until today.”

  “Perhaps you didn’t have my opportunities,” said Wishart quietly. “Hilda’s tastes grew more expensive as she grew older. And there’s the law of averages. The longer you keep on with something like that, the more people know.”

  “The police know, don’t they? Troge hinted at it this morning.”

  “And most of the department stores,” Wishart agreed. “They just added whatever she took to my bill and I paid it. The museum affair was the worst. I’m on the board of directors and we closed it down temporarily when we thought a teen-age gang was rifling the archaelogical displays. Then Hilda came out to dinner one evening dressed head to toe in ancient jewellery. I returned the jewellery but it was a terrible matter to hush up. She did look attractive in it.” He spoke without any bitterness at all. Hagen liked him better than he had ever liked him before. “You see, I was unfortunate enough to love her.”

  “Unfortunate. That’s a good word where Hilda was concerned. It works both ways, for herself and for the rest of us who knew her.” He could understand so much that had been inexplicable about her until now and, by understanding, forgive. “I should have guessed. Maybe if she and I had had a real marriage I would have guessed. I could have helped her. She didn’t have any secret lover. All those presents she got and couldn’t explain she stole for herself. Anything that she thought was pretty, she couldn’t resist. And she preferred that I should think she was unfaithful rather than tell me what her real weakness was.” He smiled wryly. “I guess she knew that it was all over between us, anyway.”

  “I don’t think you could have helped her,” insisted Mrs. Wishart remorselessly. “Nobody could help her because she didn’t really want to be helped. She laughed in my face when I tried.”

  “We all tried,” murmured Avis Gill.

  Hagen regarded the young woman steadily. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Was it part of your secretarial duties?”

  She didn’t flinch. “No, it was a matter of friendship.”

  “For whom?”

  “Really!” interposed Mrs. Wishart. “I think it’s obvious that we all wanted to help Hilda.”

  Wishart sighed. “Well, she’s at peace now.” He sounded envious.

  “So is Jack,” said Hagen. “I wish somebody would deign to tell me about Jack.”

  Nobody offered to.

  “Okay,” he said, “then I’ll speak my piece. In the first place, Wishart, you lied to me last night. I’m not yelling foul, because I bulldozed you into hiring me and I can’t expect the usual sort of trust. You told me that you found the diary yesterday. But that’s impossible. The diary is the reason you went to Los Angeles. So when did you find it?”

  “Last week, obviously,” said Mrs. Wishart. “I found it, Hagen. I just happened to be going through Hilda’s room.”

  Hagen said carefully, “I presume you were seeing whether the cleaning girl had got at all the odd corners. That diary wouldn’t have been left lying around in the open.”

  “It was hidden in a hat box in the closet,” Mrs. Wishart grinned. “I was snooping. I found it and I read it and I took it. A mother has some rights, you know. There was never a peep out of Hilda. She was in no position to complain.”

  “Maybe she never knew it was missing.”

  “Mother brought it to me, naturally,” said Wishart. “You can imagine what my reaction was. I was willing to forgive Hilda’s kleptomania—it’s really a form of sickness and should be regarded that way—but I couldn’t just shrug off a murder. What would you have done, Hagen?”

  “The same as you. Gone to L.A.”

  “Yes, I went to L.A. I felt I needed some skilled help, someone to keep an eye on Hilda until I could make up my mind how to deal with the situation.” He rubbed his forehead uncertainly. “I suppose I should have gone to the police right away. Maybe she would still be alive. But, God, the thought of her behind bars, the publicity …”

  “Not to mention that Oakmar is just getting under way.”

  “Yes.” He smiled briefly. “I won’t pretend that Oakmar didn’t enter into it. My work is important to me, Hagen. Oakmar is my biggest gamble. If it goes bust, so will I right along with it. Should I have acted noble and gone to the police in the beginning and to hell with my wife and my reputation and the future of my entire family?”

  “Who am I to tell you anything? The point is that you didn’t call cops.”

  “I hired a private detective instead. I thought by bringing in a man from Los Angeles instead of using a local agency, I might avoid scandal.” Wishart sighed and made a small hopeless gesture with one hand. “That shows you how wrong you can be.”

  “The idea was sound. The big fault with it is that you picked the wrong man. How did you get on to Jack, anyway?”

  “Picked him out of the phone book,” Wishart admitted. “He looked and acted capable enough, didn’t ask too many questions, seemed reliable. I’d never had any dealings with a private detective before. I guess I should have shopped around.”

  “You should have,” Hagen agreed. “From what my contacts in L.A. tell me, Jack Ferreira has a pretty bad reputation. He was kicked off the police force. His private licence was suspended once for unethical behaviour, playing both sides. He got it back because the charges were dropped. But it shows you what he was like.”

  “I don’t have to be shown. I already know.”

  “I guess we both do.”

  “I hired him on Monday,” Wishart said. “He came here Monday night and went on duty then. I stayed over until Wednesday on some other business. When I got back Hilda was already dead, as you know.”

  “Well, that checks with Jack’s railroad ticket. Which means that Jack was busy watching Hilda before your impersonator hired me to do the same thing. So when I went on duty Tuesday afternoon, Jack followed the both of us around. We must have made quite a parade.”

  “He claimed to have been here Tuesday night when—” Wishart began dubiously.

  “Oh, he was,” Hagen assured him. “Jack was outside the wall, still keeping tabs on Hilda, while I was inside the wall talking to her. Makes a pretty picture, doesn’t it? Two detectives on the job and neither of them saw your wife die.”

  “Jack Ferreira said he did.”

  “I doubt it. I think he saw the archer sneak out the back gate and followed him. I’m pretty sure it was Jack’s legs I saw running away after the murder. He was trying to catch up with the archer. I heard a car start up. It might have been the killer’s but it was probably one that Jack had rented.”

 
Wishart frowned. “You mean he didn’t know who killed Hilda at all?”

  “Certainly he did,” said Hagen. “This morning proves that.”

  “Of course, I never saw Jack Ferreira in person after I hired him. He phoned me when I got back to town. He wanted me to pay him extra to keep his mouth shut.”

  “What was he bargaining with?”

  “He threatened to tell the police everything he knew. You see, I’d already told him how much I feared idle gossip. So there he was, ready to spread it around about my wife and how I had to have her watched. And he said he’d tell about Tuesday night in such a way that the police might think I killed Hilda myself.”

  Hagen chuckled. “Oh, he was an angular boy. When he found out from the papers what a spot I was in, he intended to try a similar shakedown on me. But I turned out to be more trouble than I’m worth. Jack had three suckers lined up, and the archer was the third. With the archer, he reached the final negotiations stage this morning. Jack should have known better than to shake down a murderer.” He shook his head sadly. “But that’s taking the broadest possible view.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There doesn’t have to be three suckers, Wishart. There only has to be two. Me and you. Jack would have had a lot more to threaten with if he’d said he saw you kill Hilda.”

  Wishart made a choked sound of surprise. Both Mrs. Wishart and Avis moved closer to him, protectively. Wishart sputtered, “But he never said that!”

  “Nobody’s going to contradict you,” said Hagen gently. “Yet we can’t overlook the fact that you’re a man who frequently acts on impulse. That’s the way you married Hilda. That’s how you hired Jack. That’s how you decided to dust yourself off last night when the going got complicated.” He paused. “These questions are bound to arise. The question of Hilda being in your way.”