The Devil To Pay (14 page)

Ellery frowned. “I’m not a newspaperman, and she knows what I look like.”

“She wouldn’t know a newspaperman if she fell over one. And how well does she know you?”

“She’s seen me twice.”

“Hell,” said Fitz, “we can fix that.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ellery, alarmed.

“Keep your pants on. The set-up’s perfect, that’s why I doped this out. You told me you don’t normally wear a beard. So if you shaved it off Val wouldn’t recognize you, would she?”

“Shave off this beautiful thing?” said Ellery in dismay, caressing it.

“Sure! It’s old-fashioned, anyway. Show a clean mug, comb your hair on the side instead of straight back the way you’ve got it now, dress a little differently, and she’ll never get wise. Even your voice will fool her—she’s only heard that croak you were using Monday.”

“Hmm,” said Ellery. “You want me to stick to Miss Jardin, find out what she knows, and crack the case if her father’s innocent?”

“Right.”

“Suppose he’s guilty?”

“In that case,” said Fitz, taking another drink, “let your conscience be your guide.”

Ellery drummed for some time on the cloth. “There are other objections. I can hardly pose as a Los Angeles reporter; I’ve never been here before.”

“You’re new from the East.”

“I don’t know the lingo, the habits, the hangouts—”

“Oh, my God,” said Fitz. “You’ve been reading about reporters in your own stories. Believe it or not, newspapermen talk just like anybody else. Their habits are the same, too—maybe a little better. As far as hangouts are concerned, this is a funny town. L.A.’s the largest city in area in the United States—covers four hundred and forty-two square miles. After we go to press the boys scatter to the four winds—Tujunga, Sierra Madre, Altadena, Santa Monica Canyon, Brentwood Park. Hangouts? You don’t hang out anywhere when you’ve got to drive sixty miles to get home to the wife and kids.”

“I’m convinced. How about a name?”

“Damn. That’s right. Let’s see. Ellery—”

“Celery….”

“Pillory….”

“Hilary! That’s it. Hilary what? Queen—”

“King!”

“Hilary King. Ingenious.”

“Then it’s all set,” said Fitz, rising.

“Wait a minute. Aren’t you interested in the financial aspect of the deal?”

“Are you going to blackjack me, too?” growled Fitz.

Ellery grinned. “I’ll take it on for nothing and expenses, you lucky dog.”

Fitz looked suspicious. “Why?”

“Because I’m sick of Messrs. Butcher and Hugger. Because there are things about the Spaeth case that positively make my mouth water. Because I like the people most directly involved. And because,” said Ellery, jamming on his hat, “I’ve got a score to settle with the High Hocus-Pocus of the Homicide Detail!”

“An idealist, b’gorra,” said Fitz. “Be in my office at two o’clock.”

W
HEN
Val left the Los
Angeles Independent
building, she hunted up a shop, spent a few minutes there, hurried out, and made her way to the City Jail. There was a great deal of concealed official emotion when she announced her identity. Val, holding her package casually, pretended not to notice. It was all rather worse than she had imagined, but somehow things were different this morning. Lovelace’s lines popped into her mind—what a fanatic Miss Prentiss had been on the subject of “recitations” in the ancient pigtail-and-governess days! “Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage.” No, stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.

A uniformed man said to her: “You’ll have to empty your pockets and purse, Miss,” and Val obeyed, raising her smooth brows. He seemed disappointed at finding no revolver underneath the vanity-case.

“What’s in that bundle?” he asked suspiciously.

“Bombs,” said Val.

He opened the package, glaring at her. “Okay,” he said shortly.

Val gathered her purchases up and said with a sweet smile: “You have to be
so
careful with these desperate criminals, don’t you?”

Another man, in an unpressed business suit, trailed along, as a guard conducted her to a remote cell block. Val’s brows went up again. And there he was, sitting on his pallet playing solitaire with a fuzzy, dirty old deck of cards which looked as if they had been used by four generations of prisoners. He did not notice their approach and Val studied his profile for a moment, trying to adjust her own expression. He was so calm, so unconcerned; he might have been lounging in his club. “Here’s your daughter,” said the guard, unlocking the barred door.

Rhys looked around, startled. Then he bounced to his feet and held out his arms. The keeper locked the door again and said to the shabby man who had followed Val: “Come on, Joe, let ’em alone. Man’s got a right to talk private, ain’t he?”

“Sure,” said Joe heartily. “That’s right, Grady.” To deceive her, too? Val suddenly leaned over and kissed him. They were both silent for a moment. Then Val said: “I’ve got something to tell you.”

He shook his head in warning. But Val reassured him with a glance and went on: “I’ve taken a job with Fitz.”

“A job?”

She told him the story of her interview with Fitzgerald. “It’s—well, it’s money, pop. We’ve got to have some.” He was silent again. “And don’t you think we ought to pay back—that other money we owe?”

“Yes. Of course.” He knew which money she meant, but somehow neither seemed to want to mention Walter’s name. “But not now. It can wait. Naturally I won’t touch it.”

“Naturally.” Val understood. To return Walter’s money now would raise all sorts of questions. Walter’s sympathy with Jardin was better kept secret—for Walter’s sake. For Walter’s sake! Everything, everything was for Walter’s sake.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” asked Val.

“No, Val. I’m really quite comfortable.”

They looked deeply into each other’s eyes. Val kissed him again. Then she rose and said hurriedly: “I’ll see you later,” and ran to the door and began shaking the bars like a young female monkey.

“Guard!” called Rhys with a curious smile, and the keeper came running. “It’s a funny feeling, isn’t it, puss?”

“Goodbye, darling,” said Val without looking around, and she followed the man out with her head held high but seeing very little of the massive masonry and ironwork that escorted her to the very street.

Val had taken no more than twenty steps on First Street when she knew she was being followed. To make sure, she headed for the lot where she had parked her car. There, while the attendant hunted through the rows. Val became busy examining her face in her mirror and incidentally watching the street. Yes, there was no doubt about it. A long black sedan with two men in it had inched away from the curb across the street from the Jail and had followed her walking figure at five miles an hour. Now it was waiting unobtrusively before the parking lot, as if held up by traffic. But there was very little traffic.

The attendant brought up her car and Val got in, feeling her heart beat fast. She clutched her purse tighter and drove out of the lot with one hand. The black sedan began to crawl again. Val set her bag down and began to dodge in and out of traffic. Fifteen minutes later, after a circuitous route, she found herself on Wilshire Boulevard near LaFayette Park—and the big sedan was still fifty feet behind her. There was only one thing to do, and Val did it. She sped west on Wilshire, bound for home. North on Highland, past Third, Beverly, Melrose, Santa Monica, Sunset… the sedan followed grimly, maintaining its distance. Val drove up to the
La Salle
, parked the car, snatched her purse from the seat, slipped into the lobby by the side-entrance and dodged up the stairway to 3-C. She locked her door with shaking fingers. She flung her hat aside and sat down for a moment to catch her breath. The apartment was quiet, the Venetian blinds tipped down. She rose and went to the breakfast-room window and peered out. There, in the back street, stood the sedan; its two occupants were still sitting in it, smoking.

Val hurried back to the living-room and tore open her purse. In her nervousness the cards cascaded to the floor. She sat down cross-legged and picked them up. She began quickly to separate the suits—clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades. When all the clubs were in one pile, she arranged them in descending order—ace on top, then king, queen, jack, down to the deuce. She repeated this curious procedure with the three other suits. When this was finished she took up the thirteen spades, then the hearts, then the diamonds, and finally the clubs. Val turned the rearranged deck over in her hands, frowning. Something was wrong. Along both sides appeared pencil marks—dots, dashes, and on some card-edges nothing at all. It looked like a telegraph code. But that couldn’t be. Oh, she was stupid! Some cards were turned one way, the rest the other. She would have to turn each card so that its marked edge coincided with the marked edges of the cards above and below it. That was what she had had to do as a little girl, when Rhys amused her with what had then seemed a fascinating trick of secret communication. There! The thing was done. All the marked edges lay one way, and the pencilled dots and dashes became parts of an intelligible message written in simple block letters over the tightly compressed side of the deck. There was not enough light on the floor. Val scrambled up and ran to the breakfast-room window, careful to remain invisible to the watchers below. She breathed a little harder as she read the clear, tiny letters. The message said:

SS PHONED AR MON AM COME

OVER URGENT BETW 5-5.30 PM

Val slowly sat down on the breakfast-nook bench. SS—that stood for Solomon Spaeth. AR—Anatole Ruhig. Solomon Spaeth had telephoned Anatole Ruhig Monday morning to call at the Spaeth house
between five and five-thirty Monday
afternoon
on an urgent matter? So that was the clue. Rhys had gone over to Spaeth’s house Monday morning; they had had their argument in Spaeth’s study. It must have been during this visit that Spaeth had telephoned his lawyer, and Rhys had overheard.

Between five and five-thirty Monday afternoon
. But Spaeth had been murdered at five-thirty! Val clenched her hands under her chin. What had Ruhig told Glücke? Yes, that he had appeared at
Sans Souci
a few minutes past six Monday afternoon. But that must have been true, otherwise Walewski would have called him a liar. Unless Walewski… Val frowned. Spaeth had commanded his lawyer to appear between five and five-thirty, and Ruhig had simply been more than a half-hour late for the appointment. That was the reasonable explanation. Besides, had Ruhig really been on time, wouldn’t Frank—on duty at the gate—have seen him and reported his visit to Inspector Glücke? Unless Frank…

Val was so disappointed she flung the cards from her and glowered at them as they lay strewn about the kitchen floor. She could have wept for sheer chagrin. But she did nothing of the sort. She got down on her hands and knees and picked the cards up one by one, getting a run in one stocking in the process; and when she had them together again she rose and went into her bedroom and stowed them away in the bureau under the chemises. Then she undressed, washed her face and hands, changed her stockings, made up, put on her black silk print with the magnolia-petal design and the last expensive hat she had bought—the one that looked so fetchingly like a modernistic soup plate—transferred her vanity and keycase and money to the alligator bag, and departed, a lady with a mission. The information about Counselor Anatole Ruhig was the only clue she had; and, for better or worse, it had to be traced to its bitter end.

At two o’clock precisely the door of Managing Editor Fitzgerald’s office flew open and an apparition appeared, making Mr. Fitzgerald choke over a hooker of eighteen-year-old whisky which he was in the process of swallowing. “Hi, Chief,” said the apparition, swaggering in.

“Who the hell do you think you’re impersonating,” spluttered Fitz, “a burlycue comic?”

The apparition was a tall lean young man with a clean-shaven face and features just a trifle too sharp to be handsome. But Fitzgerald was examining the costume, not the face. The young man was attired in shapeless slacks of a dingy gray hue and the loudest sport coat Fitzgerald, who had seen nearly everything, had ever laid eyes on. It was a sort of disappointed terra cotta, with wide cobalt stripes slashing through an assortment of brown plaid checks. His shoes were yellow brogues. His red-and-blue plaid socks curled around his ankles. On his head he wore a tan felt hat with the fore part of the brim sticking straight up in the air. And his eyes were covered by blue-tinted sun-glasses. “Hilary ‘Scoop’ King, the demon of the city room,” said the apparition, leering. “Hahzit, Fitz?”

“Oh, my God,” groaned Fitz, hastily shutting his door.

“What’s the matter? Don’t I look the part?”

“You look like a hasheesh-eater’s dream of heaven,” cried Fitz. “That coat—jeeze! It must have come down to you straight from Joseph.”

“Protective coloration,” said Ellery defensively.

“Yeah—your own father wouldn’t know you in that get-up. And with the beaver gone you don’t look the same man. Only for cripe’s sake don’t go around telling anybody you work here. I’d be laughed out of the
pueblo
.”

The door opened a little and Val said timidly: “May I come in?”

“Sure,” said Fitz in a hearty voice, and he glared at Ellery, who hastily got off the desk. Val slipped in, and Fitz shut the door behind her. “Don’t let the get-up scare you, Val. This is Hilary King, the man I told you about. He’s new to L.A. and he thinks the local men dress like a shopgirl’s conception of Clark Gable relaxing. King, Miss Valerie Jardin.”

“How do you do,” said Val, trying not to giggle.

“Hi,” said Ellery, removing his hat. But then he remembered that newspapermen in the movies never remove their hats, so he put it on again.

“I decided not to use a local man after all, Val,” said Fitz, “because the boys would know him and get wise to what’s going on. King’s just in from—uh—Evansville; great record out there, especially on police work.”

He bustled to his desk and Val eyed her new colleague sidewise. He looked like a perfect idiot. But then Fitz was smart, and appearances
weren’t
always to be trusted. She also thought she had seen the creature before, but she couldn’t decide when or where.