I watched him drive away smoothly in his expensive imported car. I didn't try to follow. My own car was two blocks away. Anyway, I didn't think that as Dave Clevenger, private dick, I was supposed to ever recognize Mr. Ruyter, let alone tail him. And as Matt Helm, agent of the U.S. government, I was under strict orders not to interfere with him, quite the contrary. The fact that I was anxious to stay and find out what he'd been up to in Elaine's room had, I hope, no influence on my decision, since it was more or less a private worry.
I forced myself to give the Mercedes plenty of time to get clear, while I bought the magazine I'd been examining, finished my drink, and asked the lady at the desk where she wanted me to dispose of the bottle. She graciously consented to take care of it for me. I went out of the office and walked slowly back to the door I had passed twice before. I don't suppose I really expected an answer to my knock. There had been a certain stiffness in Hans Ruyter's bearing, a desperately strained naturalness, that had said quite clearly that here was a man who expected hell to break loose behind him, and hoped to get far away before it did.
There was no response to my knock and no sound of movement inside the room. I drew a long breath and glanced around casually. Everything was quiet I reached in my pocket for my wallet and got out the piece of plastic I'd used once before here in Canada, the one masquerading as a credit card. As I shielded the lock with my body, I carefully avoided remembering the last time I'd opened a door in this illegal manner, and what I'd found on the other side. At least I tried.
The lock was easy. The door swung back. I took extra precautions, going in. The fact that one man had left didn't guarantee that the place was safe; and I wasn't carrying my revolver today. It was hidden away in the VW where nobody was likely to find it without dismantling the car. With the highways full of convict-hunting policemen-we'd hit two roadblocks on the way-wearing an undeclared firearm in what was, after all, a foreign country, had been too much of a risk. However, I did have a rather special little knife, and I had it ready as I entered, fast. Nothing happened. I got the door closed and went once more through the routine of checking closet and bathroom. Then I shut the knife and put it away and went over to the bed where she lay.
I won't say I'd been expecting it, but after seeing Ruyter I wasn't really surprised. So there was no excuse for the sick, shocked feeling I experienced, looking down at her. Actually, it was very peaceful. No acid had been used here. There was a small-caliber automatic pistol in her hand, the little.25 that will hardly shoot through a heavy overcoat, and there was a dark spot on her temple, that was all. There were some powderburns-there always are, with a contact wound-and there was a little blood, but nothing like the mess you get with the larger calibers.
She was wearing a dress tonight, perhaps put on for my benefit: a gay summery print that made her small tomboy face look very pale. A pair of high-heeled white pumps stood neatly on the rug beside the bed. Her eyes were closed. Except for the pallor, and the gun and the wound, she could simply have slipped off her shoes and lain down to take a nap. He'd set the scene carefully. A portable typewriter, presumably hers, stood open on the long, glass-topped gizmo along one wall, that served as combination dresser and writing table. The machine had a piece of paper in it, displaying one line of writing: I'M SORRY I MUST HAVE BEEN CRAZY GOODBYE.
Beside the typewriter stood an empty chemical reagent bottle with a glass stopper. The label had been defaced by the potent liquid that had run down it in streaks, but I could still read the words: Acid Sulfuric, cone., USP. Beside the bottle lay a small hypodermic syringe containing a residue of drug that, I had no doubt, would check out the same as the stuff that had killed Greg.
I didn't believe it for a minute, of course, but the picture was clear enough for the stupidest policeman: unable to live with her guilt, Elaine had set out all the evidence, typed her farewell note, and shot herself. Well, she was the logical fall guy for Greg's murder, if you had to have a fall guy. I'd suspected her myself.
I went back to the bed. The shock was wearing off. I suppose I should have been feeling grief in its place. Well, when the job was over, I could get drunk and cry in my beer, or whiskey, or gin. Right now I had other things to do, and I took from my pocket the stained white kid glove I'd found in Greg's room and tried it on the right hand. It was much too large, it slipped on and off loosely, which was just as well, since the operation wasn't one I found particularly enjoyable. I looked at the damaged glove, frowning, trying to reconstruct the murder in which it had figured, and the murder in which it had not, and the stages by which one had led to the other.
A plausible sequence of events wasn't hard to imagine, if you dismissed the notion of a frame-up and took the glove to be exactly what it seemed: a betraying clue dropped at the scene by the real murderess, call her Genevieve Drilling for convenience. Afterwards, realizing that she'd left it, Genevieve could have made contact somehow with her accomplice, Ruyter, and explained the spot she was in. He could have agreed to clean up after her, by giving the police a solution of the case so simple and tidy that they'd be glad to overlook the minor discrepancy of a glove that didn't quite fit. In any case, whatever his reasons, he'd obviously come here to tie up the loose ends of one murder by committing another.
Of course, neither Genevieve nor her Hans knew that the police didn't have the missing glove: I had it. Perhaps Elaine would not have died if they'd known that. And perhaps she would not have died if she had not been expecting me and therefore, perhaps, despite my warning, had not been quite as careful about opening the door as she should have been. I grimaced and shoved the glove back into my pocket. You can take the guilt of the whole world on your shoulders any time you want to try, and many people do, but I didn't have time for the sackcloth-and-ashes routine just then.
As I started for the door, the telephone rang. I hesitated, but it seemed useful to know who was calling, so I took out my handkerchief and used it to pick up the instrument on the third ring. A young male voice I'd heard before in some wet woods in the dark, said:
"Elaine? We just got word from Denver on this Clevenger character you're seeing tonight. He seems to be okay, a real, honest-to-God private eye… Elaine? Who's there?"
The decision wasn't hard to make. I could hang up and leave Larry Fenton and Marcus Johnston guessing, but Elaine had obviously told them she was expecting me-which answered one of Mac's questions. All three of them had apparently been working together. Under the circumstances, the remaining two would be bound to come around to question me when they learned what had happened to Elaine. It was better to give an impression of boyish frankness.
I said, "This is the Clevenger character. If you're the Larry character, you'd better get over here. Bring a shovel, you've got something to bury. If you want me afterwards, I'll be out at the campground. If you don't know where, it's time you found out."
"Listen, you stay right where you-"
I put the phone down. I looked at the bed, but there wasn't anybody there to talk to. I mean, sentimentally telling a dead girl goodbye, or dramatically promising to avenge her, is just a way of talking to yourself, and they lock people up for that. Besides, I reflected grimly, I wasn't being paid to wield the sword of retribution. On the contrary, I was under strict orders to help the murderers escape free and clear.
IX
THE LAST pink glow of sunset was just fading from the sky when I came out of there. I reached my car without incident, drove away, and stopped at a filling station after a dozen blocks. While the attendant was putting gas into the Volks, I went into the restroom, locked the door, took out the stained white glove and my knife, and cut my private murder clue into small pieces, which I then flushed down the john a few at a time, not wanting to risk clogging the plumbing.