And that was all that he knew until the masseur-attendant dragged him out of the steam room and under a cold shower. Peel revived with a gasp.
“Can’t take it, eh?” said the masseur.
“Where’s the fellow who hit me?” Peel demanded.
The Masseur held him steady under the shower. “What fellow? You passed out in the steam room.”
“I passed out because somebody smacked me,” Peel retorted.
The masseur looked closely at Peel. “You got a kinda bruise on your chin, but that musta been where you fell…”
“What about this eye?” Peel snarled, touching his right optic.
The masseur exclaimed. “Say… that is somethin’!”
“I got that by falling, too,” Peel snapped. He stepped out from under the shower and strode into the dressing rooms. The Masseur followed.
“If you mean the other guy, he just left. He didn’t want no massage…”
“He gave me one,” said Peel. He glowered at the attendant. “D’you know him? He looked like a regular…”
“He’s been in once or twice, but I never got to know his name. He paid cash…” He threw a rough bath towel over Peel and began to rub him dry.
“He followed me here,” said Peel. “I remember now seein’ him on the bus…”
The masseur looked suspiciously at Peel. “What’d he wanna follow you for?”
“Because he didn’t like me.”
The masseur fanned Peel with the towel. “How about the rubdown, now? You need it, after what happened to you…”
Peel was quite willing to agree. What he had just suffered after the night before was enough to make any man want a rubdown. He went into a booth and climbed up on the rubbing table. The masseur poured olive oil on his hands and began to knead the muscles of Peel’s arms.
“You’re in pretty bad shape,” he observed. “I don’t mean on accounta what just happened, but in general. You oughta come here for a few weeks and I’ll get you in condition.”
“I’m in good enough condition,” Peel said crossly.
“Yeah? That guy who banged you up wasn’t so big. I coulda tied him in knots myself. Look…” he flexed his biceps. They were very nice to look at, but Joe Peel wasn’t in the mood.
“He took me by surprise,” he said.
“Nobody could surprise me,” the masseur said. “Why, I was reading a story in Adventure Magazine where this sailor went into a dive in Panama and four natives jumped him. The sailor picked up the first guy and used him as a club to knock out the other three…”
“That was in a story.”
“Yeah, but I could do the same thing. I had a little scrap myself down on Olvera Street a coupla months ago. A big Mex pulls a knife on me and I take it away from him and knock out four of his teeth and I hardly hit him at all.”
“Pretty strong, are you?”
The masseur began to work on Peel’s stomach. “Oh I do all right,” he said modestly. “I don’t smoke or drink and I take a swim in the ocean every mornin’ of the year — even in winter. And this work keeps me in trim. By the way, what’s your line?”
“I’m a detective!”
The masseur stopped kneading. “A detective! Well, whaddya know? I wouldn’t a guessed it. I always thought I’d like to be a dick myself. I was readin’ a piece in Clever Crimes Cases only last week where it says there’s a lot more murders committed in this country than people realize. Some of the suicides, this piece says, ain’t suicides at all — they’re clever murders, but the cops don’t know it. There was a case in the paper this morning — a suicide the cops say, but it looked to me like murder…”
“What case was that?”
“Some guy right over here in Beverly Hills. I forget his name, Wilmer Jolley or something like that.”
“Jolliffe.”
“Yeah, that’s it — Wilmer Jolliffe. According to the paper the guy knocked himself off, blaming Otis Beagle for some trouble he was supposed to be in. I remember the case on account of Beagle. He’s a client of mine…”
“Oh, is he?” asked Peel, suddenly interested. “What sort of a fellow is he?”
“A big shot. He ain’t been in lately, but he useta come in every week, sometimes two-three times and he never tipped less’n two bucks. Knows everybody. Solved some of the best cases in this town. He’s told me about a lot of them. Remember the Onthank Affair last year? He broke that.”
Peel remembered the case only too well. He had never worked harder on anything in his life. Beagle hadn’t lifted a finger toward helping him.
“I’m glad to hear that about Beagle,” he said to the masseur. “Then I guess he hasn’t got anything to worry about in this Jolliffe affair.”
“Not a thing. Somebody’s trying to do him dirt, but you watch, in a day or two, maybe four-five days, Beagle’s gonna prove that Jolliffe didn’t commit suicide at all. It was murder and he’ll have the guy that done it in the clink.”
“You may be right. What’s your theory about it?”
“A dame,” said the masseur promptly. “This Jolliffe was married to an old dame with dough. He was doing a little chasing on the side and he probably told the dame he’d divorce his wife and marry her. But he couldn’t divorce the old lady on account of she had the money. The dame finds this out and she knows she ain’t gonna get any big pile of dough. So what does she do? She goes up to Wilmer’s house at night and they have a big row and she plugs Wilmer, see…”
“The she writes the suicide note?”
“Yeah, sure…”
“And all this while she’s having a fight with Wilmer, shooting him and writing on the typewriter. Wilbur’s wife is quietly sleeping…”
“Naw, naw, she’s in on it. Don’t you see — she knows Wilbur’s a two-timing no-good. If the other dame’ll knock him off, that’s fine, but the old lady’s society, see — she don’t want the stuff spread all over the papers. A suicide, y’understand, don’t get the notice that a murder does and in a day or two people forget it. But no murder.”
“I see,” said Peel, “but if this, uh, dame wrote the suicide note after knocking off Wilbur, how come she mentioned Otis Beagle in it? How come she even knew Beagle?”
“I ain’t figured out that angle yet.”
“Neither have I,” said Peel.
“Huh? You interested in the case yourself?”
“Kinda. On account of I happen to be Otis Beagle’s partner.”
“Huh?”
“Peel’s the name — Joe Peel. And the next time Beagle comes in here, tell him he’s a big stuffed shirt and it’s Peel who solves the cases and not Beagle. Tell him that from me, will you?”
“Quit your kiddin’!”
“I’m not kidding. That Onthank Case you mentioned — it was me solved it, not Beagle.”
“That ain’t the way I heard it. I know Beagle; he’s class with a capital K. He never tips, less’n two bucks.” The masseur dug his fingers into Peel’s stomach, causing him to emit a sudden groan. “Now, turn over.”
Peel turned over onto his stomach and the masseur gave his spinal cord a savage massaging. In this position Peel could not defend himself and the masseur spent ten minutes extolling the virtues of Otis Beagle. Finally he slapped Peel’s shoulder and exclaimed, “There you are!”
Peel went into the main room and saw the clock on the wall. He gasped. “Hey — it’s ten after one. I had a lunch date at one o’clock.”
“You didn’t tell me,” said the masseur.
Peel jumped into his clothes and whipped out some money. “How much?”
“Four bucks.”
Peel handed the masseur a five dollar bill and waited. The masseur scowled. “I’ll see if I got some change.” He went into the other room, finally came back with a half, a quarter and a quarter’s worth of small change. He dumped it into Peel’s hands. Peel handed him back a quarter.