Lay Her Among The Lilies

made of Canadian knotty pine with a garden the size of a pocket handkerchief, kept

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LAY HER AMONG THE LILIES

reasonably tidy by Toni, my Filipino boy. A hundred yards from my front door is the blue

Pacific Ocean, and at the back and to the right and left are scrub bushes, sand and a half-circle of blue palmetto trees. It is as lonely and as quiet as a pauper’s grave, but I like it. I

have lived and slept there for more than five years, and I wouldn’t care to live or sleep

anywhere else.

After I had left Finnegan’s bar, I drove along the sandy road, heading for home. The time

was twenty minutes to midnight. There was a big water-melon moon in the sky, and its fierce

white rays lit up the scrub and sand like a searchlight. The sea looked like a black mirror. The

air was hot and still. If there had been a blonde within reach it would have been a romantic

night.

Tomorrow, I told myself as I drove along, would be a busy day. Paula had promised to

check both Macdonald and Janet Crosby’s wills as soon as County Buildings opened. I

wanted to see Nurse Gurney again. I wanted to find out who Maureen Crosby’s lawyer was

and have a talk to him. If I could I wanted more information about Douglas Sherrill. If the

wills didn’t produce anything of interest, if Maureen’s lawyer was satisfied with the set-up,

and if there appeared to be nothing sinister about Douglas Sherrill then I decided I’d hand

back the five hundred dollars and consider the case closed. But I was pretty sure at the back

of my mind that I wouldn’t close the case, although I was open to be convinced I was wasting

my time.

I pulled up before the pine-wood hut that serves me as a garage, ploughed through hot loose

sand to open the doors. I got back into the Buick, drove in, switched off the engine and

paused to light a cigarette. As I did so I happened to look into the driving-mirror. A

movement in the moonlit bushes caught my eye.

I flicked out the match and sat very still, watching the clump of bushes in the mirror. It was,

at a guess, about fifty yards away, and in direct line with the back of the car. It moved again,

the branches bending and shivering, and then became motionless once more.

There was no wind, no reason why those bushes should move. No bird could be big enough

to cause a movement like that, and it seemed to me someone—a man or possibly a woman—

was hiding behind them, and had either pushed back the branches to see more clearly, or else

had lost balance and had grabbed at the branches to save himself from falling.

I didn’t like this. People don’t lurk in bushes unless they’re up to no good. In the past Paula

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had repeatedly told me the cabin was dangerously lonely. In my job I made enemies, and

there had been quite a few who had threatened at one time or the other to rub me out. I

reached forward and stubbed out my cigarette. This spot was temptingly isolated for anyone

with evil intentions. You could have started a miniature war right here without anyone

hearing it, and I thought regretfully of the .38 Police special in my wardrobe drawer.

After I had cut the car engine I had dowsed the headlights, and it was pitch dark in the

garage. If whoever was lurking in those bushes planned to start something, the time to do it

would be when I stepped out of the garage into the moonlight to shut the doors. As a target in

that light and from that distance I couldn’t be missed.

If I was to surprise the hidden hand I would have to do something fast. The longer I sat in

the car, the more alert and suspicious he would become—if it was a he. And if I didn’t buck

up he might even start blazing away at the back of the car in the hope a stray slug might find

me, always supposing he had a play-pretty, and I fervently hoped he hadn’t.

I opened the car door and slid out into the darkness. From where I stood I could see the

stretch of beach, the thick shrubs, the trees startlingly sharp in the moonlight. It would be a

crazy thing to walk out there into that blaze of white light, and I wasn’t going to do it. I

stepped back and ran my hands over the rough planks of the rear wall. Some time ago, after I

had had a night out with Jack Kerman, I had driven a little too fast into the garage and had

very nearly succeeded in driving right through it. I knew some of the planks had never

recovered, and the idea now was to force an opening and slide out that way.

I found a wacky plank and began to work it loose. All the time I was doing this I didn’t take

my eyes off that clump of bushes. Nothing moved out there. Whoever was lurking behind the

bushes was lying very, very doggo. The plank gave under my pressure. I pushed a little more

and then, turning sideways, edged through the opening.

At the back of the garage there was an expanse of sand, and then bushes. I legged it across

the sand and got under cover without making any noise, but losing a considerable amount of

breath. It was a little too hot for that kind of exercise, and, panting, I sat down on the sand to

figure things out.

The sensible thing to do would be to creep around to the back of the cabin, keeping out of

sight, get in and collect the .38 from my wardrobe drawer. Once I had that I felt I’d be able to

cope with anyone looking for trouble. A shot fired from my bedroom window a couple of feet

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above that clump of bushes would very likely take the starch out of whoever was lurking

there.

The only snag to this idea was that as I hadn’t appeared from the garage the hidden hand

might guess I had spotted him and he might be moving in this direction to cut me off. One the

other hand he might think I was still in the garage, scared to come out, and was prepared to

wait until I did come out.

I rose slowly to my feet and, keeping my head down, began a quiet creep towards the cabin,

sheltering behind the bushes and treading carefully. That was all right so long as the bushes

lasted, but ten yards ahead they petered out and started again after a gap of twenty feet or so.

That gap looked distressingly bare, and the light of the moon seemed to be pointing directly

at it. By now I had left the protecting screen of the garage. The lurker in the clump of bushes

couldn’t fail to see me if I crossed that open space. I kept on until I was within a few feet of

the gap, and then paused and peered through the scrub. The only consoling thing about this

new set-up was I had greatly increased the distance between the clump of bushes and myself.

Instead of being fifty yards away, I was now something like a hundred and twenty, and to hit

a moving target even as big as me at that distance called for some pretty fancy shooting. I

decided to take a chance.

I took off my hat and, holding it by its brim, sent it sailing into the air towards the clump of

bushes in the hope it would distract attention. Then, before the hat settled on the sand, I

jumped forward and ran.

It is one thing to get up speed on firm ground, but quite something else when your feet sink

up to your ankles in loose sand. My body went hurtling forward, but my feet remained more

or less where they were. If it hadn’t been for the diversion of the hat as it sailed into the

moonlight I should have been a dead duck.

I sprawled on hands and knees, scrambled up somehow, and dived for cover. The still, quiet