Saint Goes West (17 page)

“Surprise, surprise,” he said. “Superman has a nose like a bloodhound, on top of everything else. We were just starting to celebrate. Come in and help us.”

“I didn’t get your invitation,” said the Saint genially, “so I didn’t know what time to come.”

“Somebody has to be first,” Kendricks said.

He led the way into the Tudor bar which appeared to subнstitute for a living-room, and Vic Lazaroff raised bis shaggy gray head from some intricate labors over a cocktail shaker.

“Welcome,” he said. “You are going to study genius in its cups. We shall reciprocate by studying you in yours.”

“It’s a great event,” Simon said.

“You bet it is. Once again the uncrowned kings of Hollywood are on the throne—”

“That’s quite definite, is it?”

“Everything but the signatures, which we shall write toнmorrow if we can still hold a pen.”

Simon settled on the arm of a chair.

“Goldwyn must think a lot of you.”

“Why shouldn’t he? Look at all the publicity he can get out of us.”

“But it does seem like going a bit far.”

“What does?”

“Murdering Ufferlitz,” said the Saint, “so he could get you back.”

Neither of them spoke at once. Kendricks stood still in the middle of the room. Lazaroff carefully put down the bottle from which he had been pouring. The silence was quite noнticeable.

“It’s a deep gag,” Kendricks said finally.

“Of course,” said the Saint imperturbably, “if it wasn’t so obvious that Sam Goldwyn must have bumped him off so he could get his two favorite writers back, some people might think the writers had done it to get free again.”

“Very deep,” said Lazaroff.

“The only thing I don’t get,” Simon said, “is why you thought it would be clever to hang it on me.”

“We what?”

“Why you sent me that note and phoned the police about a prowler, pretending that you were Ufferlitz, so that I’d be caught in the house with his body and very probably sent to jail for a week or two for killing him.”

This silence was even deeper than the last one. It grew up until Simon was conscious of making an effort to hold the implacable stillness of his face and force them to make the first movement.

At last Lazaroff made it.

He stretched up a little, as though he were lifting a weight with his hands.

“Better tell him, Bob,” he said.

Kendricks stirred, and the Saint looked at him.

“I guess so,” he said. “We did send you that note.”

“Why?”

“For a laugh.” Kendricks was like a schoolboy on the carнpet. “One of those crazy things we’re always doing. You could have made the front pages all day, too. Banners when you were arrested, and a double column when they found out it was all a mistake.”

“And how were they going to find that out?”

“I tell you, when we planned it we didn’t know Ufferlitz was going to get killed.”

“So you only thought of that afterwards.”

Lazaroff dragged his fingers through his hair and said: “Good God, we didn’t kill him.”

“You were just playing rough, and he couldn’t take it.”

“We never saw him.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything? You expected me to be there, and get caught by the police. If you were surprised to hear Ufferlitz had been murdered, weren’t you surprised that I wasn’t in jail?”

“We were,” said Kendricks. “When I saw you in the office this afternoon I nearly fell over backwards.”

“But you never said anything.”

“We sort of hinted-to try and find out where you stood.”

“But you didn’t care whether I was in a jam.”

“We didn’t know. You mightn’t have fallen for that note. Anything might have happened. You mightn’t have gotten home at all last night—”

“But you knew I’d received the note and fallen for it,” said the Saint coldly. “You saw me drop April Quest and go home. Your car drove by when we were saying goodnight.” It was another fragment of the jigsaw that fitted accurately into place now. “After that you saw me arrive at Ufferlitz’s. That was when you phoned the police. But you still didn’t think I was in a jam.”

Kendricks made a helpless movement.

“You’re getting me tied up,” he said. “Just like a lawyer. The whole truth is that we didn’t know what had happened to you. You’ve got a great reputation for getting out of jams -you might have dodged that one. We didn’t know. But we couldn’t come out and say anything, because if the cops knew we’d framed you like that they’d naturally think what you thought-that we’d murdered Ufferlitz and tried to make it look like it was you. We were in the hell of a jam ourselves. It was a gag that fate took a hand in, or something. And we were stuck with it. We just had to shut up and hope someнthing would happen.”

“But you weren’t in the house yourselves.”

“Not once.”

“Then how,” Simon asked very placidly, “did you know, when you wrote that note, that the front door would be unнlocked?”

There was stillness a third time, a stillness that had the explosive quality of a frenzied struggle gripped in immovable chains. Lazaroff finally made a frustrated gesture, as if his hand had turned into lead.

“It sounds worse and worse; but we just happened to know.”

“How?”

“I heard Ufferlitz telling his secretary about working there last night. He said ‘The door’ll be open as usual.’ She said ‘Don’t you ever lock your door?’ and he said ‘I haven’t locked my house up for years. I always lose keys; and what the hell, if anybody’s going to get in they’ll get in anyway and leave me a busted window on top of it.’ I don’t suppose you’ll beнlieve that, but you can check on it.”

Simon held his eyes and moved to another seat by the teleнphone. He picked up the directory, and found Peggy Warнden’s number. He put the telephone on his knee and dialled it.

Lazaroff went on looking at him steadily.

“Hullo,” she said.

“This is Lieutenant Condor,” said the Saint, and his voice was a perfect imitation of the detective’s soured and dismal accent. “There’s one thing I forgot to check with you. When you left Mr. Ufferlitz’s house last night, did you leave the door unlocked?”

“Why, yes. It was unlocked when I got there. He never locked it.”

“Never?”

“No. He said he always lost his keys, and if a burglar really wanted to get in he’d just break a window or something.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“It was only yesterday, as a matter of fact. But the door was unlocked the last time I went there, to bring him some letters.”

“Had you been there often-of course, I mean on business?”

“Only once before. I just took him some letters one Sunday morning, and he signed them and I took them away with me.”

“Did anyone else know about him never locking the door?”

“I don’t really know, Lieutenant.”

“Could anyone have heard him telling you?”

“I suppose so.” She hesitated. “Those two writers had been in the office-yes, Mr. Lazaroff was still there. But —”

“But what?”

“You don’t really think they could have had anything to do with it, do you?”

“I can’t make guesses, miss,” he said. “I’m trying to get facts. Thanks for your information.”

He hung up. Lazaroff and Kendricks were watching him.

“Well,” he said, “she confirms your story.”

“It’s true,” said Kendricks.

“But it only proves that you knew the door would be open- so you could be sure of putting your scheme through.”

“Look, for Christ’s sake. We aren’t dopes. We’ve kicked plots around. If we’d really wanted to frame you, we could have done more than that. We could have put you in a much worse spot. We could have left your trademark drawing on Ufferlitz, if we’d killed him, so you’d really have had someнthing to explain. Now don’t do another of those lawyer tricks and ask how we know there wasn’t a drawing. I’ll bet there wasn’t, or Condor would certainly have had you in the cooler.”

It was true there had been no drawing; and it was a point. Simon took out a cigarette.

“You don’t owe us anything,” Lazaroff said. “We’re screwнballs and occasional heels and a few other things, but we’ve never murdered anyone or tried to put anyone in a spot like you’re in. You call Condor if you want to. Tell him the whole story. Bob and I’ll admit it. It won’t be much fun for us, but I guess we’ve got it coming. Anyhow you’ll be in the clear.”

“You’d better do it,” said Kendricks resignedly. “Get yourнself out of the mess.”

“And still leave it looking as if it was just a coincidence, and you guys had nothing to do with the murder.”

“By God,” said Lazaroff, “we didn’t kill Ufferlitz! But you don’t have to cover us up. Tell this guy Condor what you think. We can take it.”

His square florid face was screwed up like a baby preparнing to cry. All at once he looked ludicrous and defeated and curiously pathetic, and at the same time desperately sincere.

It had to be genuine. Simon realised it with a hopeless sense of relaxation. Lazaroff with a real crime on his conнscience would have responded in any way but that. He wasn’t a dope. He was an irresponsible practical joker and a facile professional story-weaver as well. Between the two characнteristics he would have been glib or indignant or bluffingly calm or angry. He wouldn’t have been deflated and frightнened, as if he had pointed a supposedly unloaded gun once too often and heard it thunder in his hand.

Then-it was true. A coincidence that had gotten itself enнtangled with real murder, that had distorted the whole picнture of plotting and motive. Now the Saint was trying to shake his head clear of all the assumptions and misconceptions that had rooted themselves into his mind because he had leapt on to the premise that two things were inseparably reнlated when actually they had no connection at all.

“Give me that drink,” he said. “I’m going to start trying to use my brain for a change.”

“Let’s all have one,” said Lazaroff fervently.

Kendricks went over and switched on the radio. A musical theme ended, and an unctuous announcer began to discourse on the merits of a popular intestinal lubricant.

“How bad a spot are you really in?” Kendricks asked.

“Not so bad yet. I was in Ufferlitz’s house when the police came, but I managed to get away. Naturally I didn’t tell Condor about having been there. That note would have looked like as bad an excuse for being there as your explanation sounded. So I don’t want to drag you into it now, if you’ll go on leaving me out.”

“You bet we will. But could Condor find out any other way?”

“You never know. That’s why I still want to find the murнderer first.”

“Haven’t you any idea now who it was?” pleaded Lazaroff.

The Saint stared at his cigarette. He had to begin all over again. But now things forced themselves into the front of his mind that he had not been able to see clearly before.

The radio said: “And now, here is Ben Alexander with the news.”

“Good evening, everyone,” said a new voice. “Before we turn to the European headlines, here’s a flash that has just come in. Orlando Flane, the movie star, shot himself at his home at Toluca Lake this afternoon. His sensational rise to world-wide fame began when he was featured in…”

9

APRIL QUEST poured two Martinis from the shaker and sat down beside the Saint. Her beauty still gave him that unнearthly feeling of having stepped out of ordinary life into a dream-the perfect harmony of her dark copper hair, the exнquisite etching of emerald eyes, the impossible sculpture of her features, the way her body flowed into every movement and disturbed the mind with its unconscious suggestion of the fulfilment of all the hungers known to all men.

She said: “Well, you louse, I suppose you’ve stopped feeling human so now you feel safe.”

He said: “That’s a sad reward for being a gentleman.”

“Nuts,” she said. “A gentleman is anyone who does what you want them to do when you want them to do it A swine is the same guy who does the same thing when you don’t want him to do it. Or who won’t do it when you want him to.”

Simon smiled and tasted his drink.

“You’re a philosopher too, darling. Was that why you wouldn’t talk to me this afternoon?”

“I didn’t want to talk to you in front of all those jerks.”

“That’s nice. But afterwards —”

“Then you were on the phone.”

“You must have been in an awful hurry.”

“If you wanted to see me, you knew where to find me. I- I was hoping you would.”

The Saint lighted her a cigarette, and one for himself. He watched the smoke drifting away, and said: “April, what do you think about Ufferlitz getting bumped off?”

“I haven’t thought much,” she said. “It’s just something that happened. He might have caught pneumonia jumping out of a warm bed.”

“Doesn’t it make any difference to you professionally?”

“Not very much. I told you I was under contract to Jack Groom. He gets half of what he can sell me for, after he’s reimbursed himself for what he’s paid me when I haven’t been working. So he’ll get me another job, just to make his half good.”

“He sort of hinted to me,” Simon said, “that Ufferlitz’s backers might give him Ufferlitz’s job. Then I suppose he might be able to make a better deal for both of you.”

“He might be.”

She was quite disinterested.

“Don’t you care?”

“Christ,” she said, “why should I get any gray hairs? If he makes a better deal, okay. If he doesn’t, I won’t starve. I’m pretty lucky. I’ve got a beautiful puss and a beautiful body, and not too much talent and goddam little sense. I’m never goнing to be a Bette Davis, and I’m not going to screw up my life trying to be a prima donna. I can eat. And that means plenty.”

“You don’t care about seeing Jack Groom get ahead?”

“Why the hell should I? He can take care of himself. Don’t let that spiritual-hammy act of his fool you. He knows all the angles. He can play politics and connive and lick boots in the best company.”

“I asked you last night,” said the Saint, “but you wouldn’t tell me. So I was still wondering if there was anything perнsonal between you.”

It was amazing that such a face could be so passionless and detached.

“He took me to Palm Springs one weekend, and he was lousy. He’ll never have the nerve to try it again. But I’ve been a good business proposition, and that’s a lot in his life.”