In a minute or so MacCrae answered; Druse said: “You’ll find a stiff in Mrs Dale Hanan’s apartment on the corner of Sixty-third and Park, Mac. She killed him — self-defense. You might find his partner downstairs at my place — waiting for his boss to come out... Yeah, his boss was Hanan — he just went down — the other way... I’ll file charges of attempted murder against Hanan, and straighten it all out when you get over here... Yeah — hurry.”
He hung up and went down to the dining room. He tipped the table back on its legs and picked up the rubies, put them back into the case. He said: “I called up a friend of mine who works for Mahlon and Stiles. As you probably know, Mister Hanan has never made a will.” He smiled. “He so hated the thought of death that the idea of a will was extremely repugnant to him.”
He picked up her chair and she came slowly across and sank into it.
“As soon as the estate is settled,” he went on, “I shall expect your check for a hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars, made out to the insurance company.”
She nodded abstractedly.
“I think these” — he indicated the jewel case — “will be safer with me, until then.”
She nodded again.
He smiled. “I shall also look forward with a great deal of pleasure to receiving your check for twenty-five thousand — the balance on the figure I quoted for my services.”
She turned her head slowly, looked up at him. “A moralist,” she said — “morbid — and mercenary.”
“Mercenary as hell!” He bobbed his big head up and down violently.
She looked at the tiny watch at her wrist, said: “It isn’t morning yet, strictly speaking — but I’d rather have a drink than anything I can think of.”
Druse laughed. He went to the buffet and took out a squat bottle, glasses, poured two big drinks. He took one to her, raised the other and squinted through it at the light. “Here’s to crime.”
They drank.
Hunch
Brennan turned off Sixth Avenue at Forty-Ninth Street and walked towards Broadway. It was a few minutes before seven; there were little knots of men around the tinhorn bookmakers who used the street as an office. Brennan elbowed his way through one of the groups, went into the drugstore of the Valmouth Hotel, sat down at the soda fountain and said: “Small glass of milk with a shot of chocolate in it.”
He watched the soda-squirt pour milk into the glass, squeeze the dark cloud of chocolate into its whiteness, set the glass on the green marble counter.
A woman sat next to him and put her hand down on the counter near the glass; her hand was very white and her nails were long — bright scarlet.
She said: “You wouldn’t high-hat an old pal, would you?”
Brennan turned his head slowly, smiled faintly with his mouth, said: “H’ are ya, Joice?” He picked up the glass. “What do you want to drink?”
“I want to drink Piper Heidsick Nineteen-eleven,” she said slowly, “but I will drink a lemonade — with plain water.” She spoke more to the soda-squirt than to Brennan.
The soda-squirt smiled, nodded.
Brennan sipped his milk. He asked: “How’s business?”
“Lousy.” She took a cigarette out of a small black suede bag. “Got a match?”
Brennan shook his head.
The soda-squirt took a paper of matches out of his shirt pocket, scratched one, lighted her cigarette.
She inhaled deeply, blew a thin gray cone of smoke at the electric fan on the end of the counter. “I guess I’ve lost my dewy freshness.”
Brennan nodded slowly, emphatically. “An’ if you don’t lay off the weed, and start taking care of yourself, you’re going to lose whatever you’ve got left.”
She said: “I haven’t had any weed for five weeks — an’ I’ve been getting a load of sun, on the roof, every day the sun’s been out.” She watched the soda-squirt serve her lemonade with a broad flourish, tasted it. “It’s not me — it’s a jinx.” She smiled without mirth. “Or all the chumps are still out at the World’s Fair.”
Brennan finished his milk, put a quarter on the counter.
She set down her glass, said: “That’s terrible,” turned to Brennan. “Come on upstairs — I want to show you something.”
Brennan grinned. He said: “I’ll buy you another drink, but I won’t go upstairs.”
“That’s not funny.” She smiled faintly and stood up, and Brennan stood up and they went through the lobby to the elevator, up to the sixteenth floor. She fumbled in her bag for the key; Brennan noticed that her hands were trembling, that she had suddenly paled until the deep red rouge on her cheeks looked black against the icy whiteness of her skin.
He said: “What the hell’s the matter?”
She put the key in the lock, turned it, swung open the door; Brennan went into the dimly lighted room. She followed him, closed the door. The shade was tightly drawn on the one window; a brightly figured negligee had been thrown over the lamp. There was a very slender, very beautiful girl lying across the bed; her head hung in a strange and broken way, down backward over the edge of the bed; her long straw-colored hair hung to the floor, made a twisted yellow pool on the dark rug.
Brennan knelt and put out his hand and stroked two fingers Hunch across her forehead, turned to stare expressionlessly up at Joice Colt.
“How come?”
Joice Colt shook her head. She was trembling violently; her eyes moved back and forth swiftly from Brennan to the girl on the bed. “I don’t know,” she said. “I came in about ten minutes ago an’ she was like that. I called Ed Harley, but he wasn’t in. I was afraid to call the police — her being in my room an’ everything. I couldn’t think. I went downstairs an’ went into the drugstore an’ tried to think — an’ then you came in...”
“Go on.”
Joice Colt shrugged, shook her head slightly, stood staring vacantly down at the girl on the bed.
“So now I’m supposed to do the thinking.” Brennan stood up, moved towards the door. He smiled, shook his head slightly. “Nuhuh, baby — I’m a busy man.”
Joice Colt laughed suddenly. She said: “You damned fool! — don’t you realize this is a swell story? I thought you were a newspaperman — or have you passed that up for straight P.I.?”
“Story!” Brennan grinned slowly. “Blond Beauty Bumps Herself Off in Forty-ninth Street Hotel — that kind of story is a dime a dozen. This” — he jerked his head towards the girl on the bed — “is probably the sixth today. Any leg-man can cover it.” He drew himself up with exaggerated pride, tapped his chest with a blunt finger. “I’m doing features.”
He put his hand on the doorknob, smiled gently at Joice Colt. “I’m sorry about the gal, but being sorry for her won’t help her now. I don’t quite see how you’re jammed up because she decided to commit suicide in your room. If you’re telling the truth, I think you’d better call the police. I’ll call my paper from downstairs and have them send somebody over that likes this kind of thing.” He half opened the door.
Joice Colt said slowly: “This is Barbara Antony, Lou Antony’s wife. Lou got out of Atlanta this morning. Maybe it wasn’t suicide.”
Brennan closed the door. “Now you’re talking sense,” he said. “When you give me that wide-eyed ‘that’s the way she was when I came in’ business, an’ then close up like a clam, I pass. You’re a lousy liar.”