Puzzle for Fiends (24 page)

“Let’s drink to that,” I said. “To get rid of the Friends.”

She laughed and, twisting around, picked up the two drinks. She handed me the one she thought was mine. We raised our glasses. Her dark red lips were parted affectionately. I thought: 
If there was poison in that drink
,
I’m a murderer.

“Down the hatch,” I said. My voice sounded strange and harsh.

She tilted the glass to her lips and swallowed. So did I.

“Brr, that was strong.” She grimaced and, taking the two empty glasses, put them down on the table. As she eased around, to slip her arm behind my neck again, her face was grave, almost wistful.

“Baby?”

“Yes, Selena.”

“I meant that, you know.”

“Meant what?”

“That I love you.” She gave a funny little laugh. “Know something? I’ve never loved anyone before. I’m an awful bitch really. Oh, yes, I am. I know. I was poor, you see.” Her hand was straying over my tie. “I always thought the world owed me a living. I despised everyone really and used them. And then you came along.”

I was watching her, seeing what would happen. I could feel the skin across my forehead growing tight.

“I came along?” I said.

“With you, it’s different. Darling, this is different. I’m not used to it yet. It hurts. Baby, it hurts.” Her eyes, watching mine, were almost pleading. “Tell me. That is love, isn’t it? When it hurts?”

“I’m supposed to know?”

Her lids were drooping as if they were too heavy for her. A dazed quality was creeping into her stares.

“You don’t love me, do you? Funny. I’ve just realized that. You don’t love me. That’s funny, isn’t it?” She laughed. It was a thick, muddled laugh. “But it doesn’t matter. When you love someone, you don’t care if they love you. Because you want me. I know that. I’ll be like those songs. Darling, won’t I be like those songs?”

“What songs, Selena?”

“Songs. You know the songs. He can come home as late as can be… he’s my man… Cindy Lou belongs to Joe… can’t help…”

She swayed forward, her lips finding mine and pressing against them.

“Darling, I love you. I love you. I…”

She was warm and heavy against me. I could feel the weight of her breasts through the scarlet towel. Her bare shoulder brushed against my chin. She was still clinging to my neck. Then I felt the fingers loosen their grip. Her hand trailed around my throat. With a little sigh, she drooped backwards and slid off my lap.

She was lying at my feet. The scarlet towel had folded back. Her hair had broken loose and swirled over the green carpet like gleaming filaments of wire.

She was asleep, not poisoned.

She hadn’t tried to murder me and I hadn’t murdered her.

I felt a terrific sense of relief.

But what I felt about Selena was too complicated to matter. The danger was the only thing now. I wheeled my chair around her and around the beds to the table where Gordy’s gun was kept. I’d feel a lot better with a gun.

I pulled the drawer open. The gun was not there. With a growing sense of futility, I searched every conceivable hiding place in the room, including Selena’s tumbled clothes.

I didn’t find anything, of course.

It was only too clear now that someone other than Selena had been selected to carry out “the way that wasn’t painful”. It was equally clear that the “way that wasn’t painful” was going to be achieved with Gordy’s gun.

Gordy committing suicide with his own gun. What method could be more impressive for Inspector Sargent tomorrow?

I wheeled the chair out of the room into the passage, closing the door behind me. There was no light, but there were many windows and a California moon outside. It was easy to find my way along the heavy carpet without making any noise. I reached the corner that led to the other wing and turned it. Marny’s was the first door to the left. Mrs. Friend’s room was next to it. I’d noticed that when Marny had taken me down to Jan.

I turned the handle of Marny’s door noiselessly and pushed the door inward. The room was in darkness. I wheeled the chair in and closed the door as gently behind me. I pushed myself to the bed. Moonlight streamed in through the parted drapes. I could trace the outlines of Marny’s face, young and quiet in sleep.

I tapped her shoulder lightly. She did not stir. I tapped again. I felt her body grow rigid. I knew she was awake and about to scream.

I said: “It’s okay. It’s me.”

“You…” Her voice was uncertain. She twisted over on her side and snapped on a bedside lamp.

The black hair was tousled around her oval face. Without her make-up she looked about fifteen. She stared up at me, her eyes ready to be suspicious. I was just as suspicious of her. A misplaced confidence at this stage of the game would cost me my life.

As we stared at each other, I noticed something lying on the bed beyond her, propped against the wall. It was a large pink wool rabbit with shabby, drooping ears. She’d been lying there in the dark asleep with a toy rabbit! Suddenly, I wasn’t suspicious any more.

“Remember our bargain?” I said. “If Selena poisoned me I was to run screaming to you for an emetic?”

I took the “suicide” note out of my pocket and tossed it to her. She pulled the sheet of paper out of the envelope and, holding it under the light, pored over it. Slowly she looked up, her face paling.

“You—you found this?”

I told her all about it. I concluded: “Selena wrote it. I can tell that from the spelling. You said she was up to something. See what it was? I’m supposed to commit suicide tonight and have everything nice and tidy when Sargent shows up with the autopsy report tomorrow.”

She didn’t seem to be listening while I told her about what I’d done to Selena and about the missing gun. She just sat there, staring at me, clutching the letter.

Suddenly she dropped the letter and threw her arms around my neck.

“Thank God you found out in time.”

She gave a little sob. Her lips, young and clumsy, were pressed against my cheek.

“And you came to me, didn’t you? When you were in trouble, you came to me.”

She
clung to me. It was as if a dream she had never really believed in had come true. Behind my anxiety I felt rather proud and rather ashamed. In the last few days my masculinity had been disastrously undermined by Selena and Mrs. Friend. Having this young kid trembling against me, frightened for me, brought my self-confidence back. Life seemed to be that way. The people you fell for betrayed you. The people you didn’t bother with were there waiting when you needed them.

“Don’t worry, baby.” I stroked her thick, black hair. “I’m not dead yet.”

She stared at up me, her pupils wide with horror. “But they can’t be that bad. They can’t.”

“You were the one who called them fiends. Remember? You hadn’t guessed about this?”

“Of course not. I knew Selena was up to something, but I never dreamed…”

“They didn’t hint at it?”

“As if they would! You’ve seen how things are between us. You know they’d never dare hint at anything.” She shivered. “What are you going to do? Call the police?”

“And get myself arrested for conspiracy against the League? It’s not that bad yet.”

“But they’ll be trying to kill you.”

“They’ll have to catch me off my guard first. And I’m not off my guard.” I grinned at her. “Besides, I’ve got an ally now.”

She answered my grin with a pale smile. She was still frightened. I could tell that.

I nodded at the wall. “Mimsey sleeps in there, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like the idea of her ear clamped against the wall. Put on some clothes. We’re moving to the living-room.”

“To do what?”

“Talk.”

Obediently she slid out of bed. Her small feet wriggled into worn felt slippers. A drab grey wrap that looked as old as Marny lay on a chair. She put it on, smiling self-consciously.

“I haven’t got used to being glamorous in private yet.”

“I’m glad. I’ve learned not to trust glamour.”

“But you do trust me?”

“I think I do.”

She looked at me thoughtfully. “I guess you’ve got to, haven’t you? There’s no one else to trust.”

She moved to the door and opened it, glancing down the corridor. She nodded like a conspirator and I wheeled myself out of the room. She ran back, turned out the light and closed the door. Noiselessly she wheeled me down the moonlit passage to the living-room. It looked too big and exposed. We went into the little sitting-room where I had had my fateful talk with Inspector Sargent. Marny turned on one light and shut the door.

“You’d better lock it,” I said, thinking of Gordy’s gun.

She did. Then she crossed the room and curled up in a chair, watching me. She had given up trying to be a sophisticated imitation of Selena. She was just a quiet, pretty kid. I liked her a lot better that way.

“Well?” she said.

I’d been doing some thinking. Things were a little straighter in my mind.

“Okay,” I said. “In the first place we know from the note that Selena knows the autopsy report’s going to show poison tomorrow. That means she’s known all along that Mr. Friend was murdered. When you went back to your father’s room after Gordy passed you in the hall, Selena was there, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Then either one of two things happened. Either Selena went in just as Gordy was pouring the overdose and saw him. Or the two of them murdered him together. I think it’s more likely they worked it together. Maybe it wasn’t premeditated. Mr. Friend had told them he was cutting them out of the will. He called Mr. Petherbridge to prove it. He asked for the medicine. They gave him the overdose.”

Thoughts were coming at an almost hectic rate.

“Once they’d done it, they’d have realized the terrific danger. They couldn’t be sure Dr. Leland would sign a death certificate as heart failure. Obviously. So what would they have done? Gordy, the black sheep, was bound to be the most likely suspect if the murder was discovered. Gordy was famous for going off on drunken bats. Okay. So Gordy was to pretend to go off on a drunken bat. If everything worked well with Dr. Leland, he could come back any time. If the murder broke, he’d be hidden somewhere where the police couldn’t find him. It was sticking Gordy with all the danger, of course. But that’s typical of Selena.”

Marny was watching me in bright-eyed silence.

“As it turned out,” I went on, “Dr. Leland signed the death certificate. Not only that. When the will was read, Selena realized that none of you would get any money unless Gordy came back. It was fairly safe for him to come and he was probably planning to. But, as it happened, Nate found me. Selena realized it was a much better bet to exploit me. I could go through the act with the League. And, if the murder should break after all, I could be made to commit suicide as Gordy. That would make everyone happy. Selena could pick up the money. Gordy would be perfectly safe. They could start off somewhere else under a different name.” I paused. “Does that make sense?”

“I suppose so,” said Marny. “It’s the sort of devious thing Selena could think up.”

“Okay. Then it comes down to one question. Where’s Gordy? Did your mother really put private detectives on him in Los Angeles? Or was that just a little bit of propaganda for my benefit?”

“No. She did. They came to the house. I saw them—two broken-down men with cigars.”

“Then it looks as if Mimsey wasn’t in on the scheme. Not then, anyway.” A new thought had come, bringing a tingle of excitement. “If Gordy had ever been in Los Angeles those boys would have picked up his trail. So he probably wasn’t in Los Angeles. And he must have been somewhere where he could keep in contact with Selena. Isn’t there only one place he could be? Somewhere near and yet somewhere where no one would dream of looking for him?”

She stared at me blankly. “You can’t mean in the house.”

“No. But I can mean in the grounds. Your mother told me yesterday that there was an old farmhouse way off at the back of the property—a house belonging to some old farmer your father bought off when he took this place. You know it?”

“Of course I know it.”

“It’s way back in the middle of nowhere on the track over which Jan was going to take me to Nate’s cabin, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s…”

“And this evening when you were trying to explain to Jan that he was to use the back way to drive me out tomorrow, you kept saying Gordy’s way. Remember? And when you said Gordy, Jan drew a cross on the map. Did the cross coincide roughly with the position of the old house?”

Her face was dark with amazement. “Yes, yes, it did. But how could Jan…?”

“Someone would have to take food to Gordy,” I said. “And someone would have to take messages from Selena. You said yourself that Jan would do anything for anyone without asking questions. And, if Selena and Jan were carrying on…” I broke off awkwardly. “I’m ready to bet ten to one that Gordy’s been hiding in that house all this time.”

Marny jumped up excitedly. “Then if—if you’re right… what?”

“We’ll think about that later. Meanwhile we’re going to prove whether I’m right or not. Baby, you’re going to drive me down there—now.”

She said explosively: “Are you crazy? In that cast? You couldn’t get out to the car even.”

“A crutch,” I said. “There’s a pair of them in the store-closet off the library. I think I can work it with a crutch.”

“But if he’s there, maybe he’s got the gun. How could you protect yourself with only one arm and a crutch?”

“It’s safer than sitting around here waiting for them to bump me off in their own sweet time, isn’t it?”

She took my hand and clung to it. “Please, please, let me go along. I know the house. I can move awfully quietly. I can creep up the back way. I can tell whether there’s anyone there.”

I shook my head. “This is my danger. I feel badly enough having to ask you to drive me.”

“But...”

“Listen, baby, you want to help me, don’t you?”

She nodded passionately: “Of course. Of course I do.”

“Then do it my way, yes? Run along, put on some clothes, get a crutch and a flashlight. The sooner we start the better.” She looked so forlorn and worried that I reached up with my left hand, drew her down and kissed her on the cheek. “Be a good girl. Run along.”