Beagle looked at the five hundred dollars in his hand and swallowed hard. “I don’t think I understand...”
“My wife and I worked the badger game on a man. I want to make restitution.”
“But you said retribution!”
“Retribution for me.”
“But...” Beagle floundered, “but you’re the crook in this.”
“That’s right.” Temple pointed at the money in Beagle’s hand. “That’s five hundred dollars — and there’s another five hundred when you find the — the victim and I give him back his money.”
“How much money?”
Temple shrugged. “Five hundred.”
“You’re willing to spend a thousand dollars just to pay back five hundred to a man?”
“It’s not the money, Beagle, it’s my conscience. This thing has been preying on my mind for years. I want to make restitution.”
Beagle looked at Charlton Temple. The words he spoke were the right words, but the tone was wrong. And so was Temple’s appearance. In fact, everything about Charlton Temple was wrong.
Except his money. The hundred-dollar bills were real.
Beagle said, “What’s the man’s name?”
“Seymour Case.”
“And his address?”
“If I knew that I wouldn’t be here, would I?”
“I meant, what was his address at the time you, ah, perpetrated this crime?”
“Los Angeles.”
Beagle winced. “It’s a big town. Let me put it this way, what was your address at the time?”
Temple pursed up his lips. “The Masterson Hotel.”
“How did your wife happen to meet this man, Seymour Case?”
For the first time Temple’s face began to show concern, slight, but still concern. “Excuse me,” he said, sighing. “The affair brings back such... such dismal memories. My wife was a very beautiful woman—”
“Was?”
“I haven’t seen her in over three years — since this affair.”
Beagle hesitated. “How did you separate?”
“How do any man and woman separate? We quarreled. As a matter of fact, we quarreled over the affair.”
“Your wife didn’t like it?”
“I mean my wife thought I should have gotten a thousand dollars, instead of a measly five hundred. One word led to another and the next day she was missing. And so was the five hundred dollars.” Temple took out his wallet again, reached into a compartment and brought out a snapshot. “This is a picture of my wife...!”
Otis Beagle took the snapshot, glanced at it and half rose from his chair.
It was a picture of Susan Sawyer.
7
Peel passed the garage entrance of the Hillcrest Towers and saw the denim-coated attendant polishing down a car. He walked a half block, then turned and passed the door again. The man was at a telephone.
Peel went on, heard a car coming out of the garage. The attendant was driving it, apparently taking it around to the front for a guest of the Towers.
Quickly he entered the garage and walked forward until he came to the elevator. The indicator showed that the elevator was on the fourth floor. He pressed the button and waited, shooting nervous glances at the door to the rear.
The elevator finally came and the door opened. Peel stepped in quickly and, as the door closed, pressed the button for six. A moment later he stepped out on the sixth floor. The elevator door closed again and Peel stopped and listened carefully. A vacuum cleaner hum came from one of the rooms.
Nodding in relief, he climbed the stairs quickly to the seventh floor and proceeded to the door of Apartment C. He listened with his ear to the door, then took out Beagles ring of master keys. The first would not even fit into the lock. The second and third went into the slit, but did not spring the lock. The fourth turned it.
He pushed open the door, closed it and stood for a moment with his back to the door, while his heart pounded madly and he cursed Otis Beagle silently.
Then he stepped away from the door and made a quick circuit of the apartment. It consisted of a rather large, beautifully furnished living room, a dining room alcove off the living room, a rather small kitchen beyond the dining room. Circling back he stepped into the fourth room, a square bedroom with twin beds and a huge closet.
On the walnut dresser stood a framed portrait of a somewhat petulant-looking man in his early thirties. Peel studied the picture closely and finally grunted. Except that he was probably a rather large man, Peel did not think much of him.
There were four drawers in the dresser. Two of them contained clothes, unmentionables and the like. A few pieces of costume jewelry. The two lower drawers contained similar clothes, bought from a more moderately priced store. There were also a few letters from a man named Alan Prescott. Peel looked at the portrait on top of the dresser.
“Harya, Prescott,” he said.
He left the dresser and tried the clothes closet. There was a long row of womens clothing, three or four cloth coats, a sheared beaver of knee length and an expensive mink stole. A row of shoes stood on the floor. Four traveling bags, two of them bearing the initials S.S. and two without any initials. Peel opened the bags and found them empty.
He left the closet and tried the nightstand between the two beds. It was filled with knick-knacks and a single letter from Alan Prescott, dated two months previously.
With rising panic, Peel left the bedroom and went into the living room. There was a writing desk near the window. He searched it thoroughly, lifted the blotter. He tried the vases standing over the fireplace mantel.
His search failed to yield Otis Beagle’s — rather, Joe Peel’s — letters. In desperation he ransacked the dining room and even the kitchen.
He returned to the living room, stood in the center of the beautiful deep-piled rug and let his eyes make a complete circle of the room.
Nothing.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror over the fireplace, suddenly darted to the mirror and lifted out the bottom. A pamphlet fell out from behind the mirror.
A copy of Heart Throbs.
He stuffed it into his pocket, took a last quick look in the bedroom, then finally went to the door. He listened carefully for a moment, then opened the door a crack and peered out. The corridor was deserted and he stepped out.
Swiftly he climbed the stairs to the eighth floor and went to the door of Apartment D. He repeated the listening at the door, then unlocked it with the same key he had used on the seventh floor.
A swift survey told him that the apartment had not been cleaned since the day before, probably due to the orders of Lieutenant Becker of Homicide. Evidences of the police were obvious. The mirror had been dusted for fingerprints, as were dishes in the kitchen. Drawers were pulled out in the bedroom, clothes in the drawers merely thrown back.
Peel nevertheless searched the drawers and found them, save for man’s clothing, as barren as the apartment below. There were no letters of any kind. The clothes closet contained a half-dozen tailored suits, seven or eight pairs of shoes, each with a shoe tree, a raincoat, an overcoat and two bathrobes, one a woman’s. Peel blinked. He took out the bathrobe. It was of terry cloth and could have been a man’s except for its size. He whistled softly and wondered if Becker had overlooked that. Suddenly whirling, he went into the living room and raised the bottom of the mirror. Three envelopes fell out, and Peel yipped in relief.
They were addressed to a box number care of Heart Throbs. Two were addressed in longhand, the third typed. Peel whisked out the contents and his relief changed to dismay. None of the three letters bore his name.
He stared at the letters and suddenly his blood pounded through his veins.