1958 - Not Safe to be Free (11 page)

Joe kept walking: his brain frozen and numbed.

It wasn’t until he had reached the Beau Rivage hotel, a fifth-rate hotel in Rue Foch, where he was staying and had got up to his bedroom that he recovered sufficiently from the shock to begin to analyse what he had seen.

Twenty years ago, Joe had been the crime reporter on the New York Inquirer. During the four years he had worked on the paper, he had photographed innumerable bodies, murdered violently. He had become hardened to the horrors he had had to see. Also, he had been able to tell at a glance how the unfortunates he had had to photograph had died.

He knew that Lucille Balu had been strangled by a cord that had been looped around her throat and then pulled tight. From her congested face, the marks around her throat and her expression of agony, he had no doubt that she had been murdered.

His first and immediate reaction was to talk to Manley. A story as big as this needed cooperation and he was about to reach for the telephone to put through an unheard-of-expensive call to Hollywood, when he paused. An idea dropped into his mind and he leaned back to consider it.

Floyd Delaney was a millionaire four or five times over. In Joe’s Rolliflex was incontestable evidence that Lucille Balu had entered Delaney’s suite at four o’clock. Any police surgeon worth a damn could tell within a half an hour when she had died and Joe was pretty sure the girl had been murdered between four and four forty-five, when Jay Delaney had been in the suite.

That meant either young Delaney or Sophia Delaney had murdered her and Joe thought it wasn’t likely that Sophia had done it, but obviously she was an accessory.

Here then was a situation that could be turned into profit.

Why call Manley? Why bother to write the story? All Joe had to do was to talk to Delaney, come to a financial understanding with him to keep his mouth shut and he would be on easy street for the rest of his life.

Joe’s raddled face lit up at the thought and he shifted the grimy pillow at his head, making himself more comfortable. Delaney might be persuaded to part with half a million.

With that Joe could retire and settle somewhere on the French Riviera. He could buy a small villa, get a housekeeper to look after him and give up the struggle of competing with the smart young punks who were trying to push him out of his job. What a terrific kick he would get out of telling Manley to go jump in a lake!

He frowned, stroking his red, raddled nose.

A half a million! With that money, he could get a villa with a view of the sea; he could afford a comfortable armchair, a good radio and a continuous flow of whisky. Pretty good, he thought and no more work.

As he lay thinking about this, a sudden uneasy thought came into his mind.

Technically speaking, if he went to Delaney and asked him for half a million in return for his silence, he would be committing blackmail. If Delaney wasn’t prepared to make a deal with him, he might find himself in the hands of the police. Also, by keeping silent, even if Delaney parted with the money, he would be making himself an accessory to murder and if he were found out, he could be faced with a stiff prison sentence.

Joe flinched at the thought of getting into trouble with the police and again he was tempted to call Manley, to give him the story and let him handle it, but, as his hand moved to the telephone, he again hesitated.

“Take it easy,” he said aloud. “Wait and see how this thing develops. You’ve got the pictures. You mustn’t rush this. If the police get a lead on the boy, Delaney might jump at the chance of buying the pictures off me. The thing to do is to take it nice and easy and wait. It’ll be tricky, but you can cope with it. This could be the biggest thing that has ever happened to you if you don’t make a mess of it.”

He reached up and turned off the light. The time was now twenty minutes past four. His body ached for sleep, and, as soon as the sordid little room turned dark, he closed his eyes and slept. He dreamed he was carrying his wife’s crushed and bleeding body along a corridor in the Plaza hotel.

Lucille Balu, giggling excitedly, walked by his side.

Chapter Six

I

A
t 6.15 a.m., a waiter making his way to the Service room on the third floor of the hotel noticed the elevator door was standing open and he went over to close it.

A few minutes later, in response to his frantic telephone call, Vesperini, the assistant manager and Cadot, the hotel detective, came hurriedly upon the scene.

Vesperini had been about to leave the hotel for the flower market. He was freshly shaven and immaculate, wearing a dark, well-cut suit and a carnation in his buttonhole.

Cadot, roused out of his bed, wore jacket and trousers, hastily pulled over his pyjamas. His fat face was unshaven and still puffy from sleep.

The two men looked at the dead girl and reacted in different ways. Vesperini immediately thought of the hotel’s reputation and what must be done to cause the hotel’s clients the least inconvenience.

Cadot, on the other hand, had difficulty in concealing his leased excitement. Nothing had happened in the hotel since his appointment to give him a chance to exercise his talents as a detective. Here was his big chance and he was already visualizing his photograph in all the newspapers.

Cadot said: “If Monsieur would be good enough to notify Inspector Devereaux, I will remain here. It would be better to arrange to have ‘out of order’ signs put on the elevator doors on all floors in case someone wishes to use this elevator.”

Vesperini instructed the staring waiter to get this done and then, leaving Cadot, he hurried away to call the police and inform the management.

Left on his own, Cadot examined the girl, being careful not to move her. He recognized her and he thought how fortunate it was that she was not without some fame. The murder, when the news broke, would cause a major sensation.

He lightly touched the girl’s arm. From the hard, board-like feel of her flesh, he judged she had been dead for at least twelve hours.

Had she been strangled in the elevator? This seemed unlikely. As she wasn’t a resident of the hotel, she must have come here to visit someone.

He closed the elevator door and leaning his fat back against it he speculated on whom the girl could have visited and why she had been strangled.

He was still cogitating ten minutes later when Inspector Devereaux of the Cannes Homicide hurried out of the elevator at the far end of the corridor with four plainclothes men at his heels.

There was a brief consultation, then Cadot asked for permission to dress and shave while the Inspector made his preliminary investigation.

The inspector agreed to this and Cadot hurried away to his quarters in the basement.

Inspector Devereaux was a short, thickset man, in his late forties. He had a round face with a small beaky nose, a thin, hard mouth and bright, small black eyes. He was an efficient police officer with a reputation for thoroughness. As he looked down at the dead girl, recognizing her from the photographs he had seen in Jours de France and Paris-Match, he realized that this case would receive enormous publicity and it was going to be difficult to solve.

He realized that the girl couldn’t have met her death in the elevator. She had been murdered in one of the hotel’s five hundred bedrooms. Since all these bedrooms were occupied by people of wealth and importance, the investigation would have to be handled with extreme tact and caution.

It was necessary that the girl’s body should be removed from the elevator as quickly as possible and he gave orders for the body to be immediately photographed and then walking over to Vesperini, who was hovering in the background, he asked him if there was an unoccupied room where the body could be removed as soon as the police photographer had completed his task.

Vesperini suggested one of the bathrooms since all the bedrooms were occupied and Devereaux agreed to this. Within ten minutes, the girl’s body had been photographed and then carried into a bathroom and laid on the floor. By this time the police surgeon had arrived and Devereaux left him to his examination.

His men were examining the cage of the elevator, dusting the surfaces for fingerprints.

“I want every print you find recorded,” Devereaux told them. Then, leaving them to work on this, he and Henri Guidet, his assistant, went down to the lobby with Vesperini.

Vesperini put his office at the inspector’s disposal and as soon as the Inspector had seated himself behind the big mahogany desk he asked for the hall porter.

From experience Devereaux knew that the most observant member of any hotel staff was the hall porter. He had found they made excellent witnesses and many a hotel case had been solved because of information supplied by these observant men.

The hall porter had just come on duty and he entered the office and shook hands with Devereaux, with whom he occasionally played boule when the Inspector had an hour to himself.

The hall porter had already heard the news so it wasn’t necessary for Devereaux to waste time explaining what had happened. He immediately launched into his interrogation.

“Can you tell me when this girl came into the hotel?”

The hall porter screwed up his eyes while he thought.

“It would be about four o’clock in the afternoon,” he said finally.

This surprised Devereaux.

“Four o clock in the afternoon? So she had been in the hotel for over fourteen hours. Did she ask for anyone?”

“No. She crossed the lobby and made for the stairs as if she knew exactly where to go.”

“She didn’t use the elevator?”

“No.”

“Then it is possible the room she visited was on the first or second floor? If it had been on the third floor she would have used the elevator.”

The hall porter nodded.

“I agree.”

“Did anyone inquire for her?”

“At about half-past six; one of the press photographers asked if she had left the hotel,” the hall porter said after another long pause for thought. “I told him she hadn’t.”

“Who was this man?”

“Monsieur Joe Kerr,” the hall porter said and from the tone of his voice the Inspector gathered that he thought nothing of him. “He represents an American scandal sheet called Peep: a man I don’t care to see in the hotel. He is a drunkard and his appearance is distasteful.”

Devereaux made his first note on the sheet of paper he had laid before him. He wrote in his neat hand: Joe Kerr, drunkard, pressman, Peep. Asked information re L.B. 6.30 p.m.

“He didn’t say why he was interested in the girl?”

“No. Before then he had given me a thousand franc note to tell him when any of the Delaneys returned to their suite on the second floor. Knowing the man, I was surprised that

he should give me as much as a thousand francs.”

“The Delaneys?” Devereaux was a rabid film fan and his knowledge of film stars and producers was extensive. “Would that be the American producer?”

“Of course. Monsieur Delaney, his wife and his son have a suite on the second floor.”

Again Devereaux made a note.

“No one else inquired for the girl?”

“No.”

Devereaux frowned, fiddling with his pencil. He was a little disappointed. He had hoped for more useful information from the hall porter. At least he had something to work on, but he was pretty sure this Joe Kerr had only been interested in Lucille Balu from a professional point of view. After all, Kerr had made his inquiry at six-thirty and the girl had been in the hotel apparently for two and a half hours.

He thanked the hall porter and said that if he could think of any way he could be of further help, he would consult him again.

When the hall porter had gone, Devereaux picked up the telephone and asked to be connected with the bathroom on the third floor where the police surgeon was making his examination.

The girl on the switchboard, who had heard the news and had kept herself informed of what was going on, immediately connected him.

“Have you anything for me yet?” the Inspector asked when the police surgeon came on the line.

“You are always in such a hurry,” the police surgeon grumbled. “However, I can tell you when she died. It would be between half-past three and half-past four in the afternoon: not later and not earlier.”

“She arrived at the hotel a few minutes to four.”

“Then she was killed between four and half-past.”

“Anything else?”

“She was strangled by a brocaded cord—almost certainly a curtain cord. The pattern of the cord has made an impression on her skin. The cord shouldn’t be difficult to trace.”

“Tell Benoit to photograph it immediately. See if he can develop the plate and let me have a print at once. Tell him it doesn’t matter if it isn’t dry.”

“I’ll tell him, but it will delay my examination.”

“The print is important. Anything else to tell me?”

“There are some fragments of skin under the fingernails of the girl’s right hand. She must have scratched her assailant while he was killing her. From the amount of skin, I’d say he would have three pretty deep scratches either on his wrist or his arm.”

Devereaux’s eyes half closed as he nodded.

“That is very good,” he said and hung up. Turning to Guidet, who had been sitting on the edge of the desk, listening, he said: “This may be less difficult than I had thought. I want you to find out where the girl was staying. She worked for the Paris Film Company. They should know.

Find out what she was doing yesterday. I want her complete movements, especially between two and four o’clock. Put as many men as you need on the job, but do it thoroughly. I want all the boatmen, the beach attendants, the shop people questioned. They will know her and if she has been seen, they will be able to tell us. Find out where this man Kerr is staying and bring him here. As you go out, tell Cadot I want him.”

Guidet nodded and went quickly from the office.

A few minutes later, Cadot, freshly shaved and wearing his best suit, came in.

“Did you see this girl come into the hotel?” Devereaux asked as soon as Cadot had sat down.