Leadbetter lay flat on his back. There was a hole in the middle of his forehead like the hole you make in a sheet of asbestos if you hit it hard with a hammer. He had bled a lot, and the blood was only just beginning to clot. One thing was certain, he wouldn’t peep at any more courting couples through his telescope: not ever again.
‘Gawd!’ Benny said and clutched hold of my arm.
Chapter Four
I
The clock on my desk showed ten past five. Sunblinds making the office dim and airless were drawn against the sun that sizzled the sidewalks in an unexpected and premature taste of the coming summer.
While I wandered about the room, my jacket off, my collar undone and my tie hanging loose, Paula sat at her desk and looked as cool as a block of ice.
‘There was no sign of him,’ I said, moving to the climax of my story, ‘so we went up on the roof. He was there all right.’ I paused to mop the back of my neck, pausing by the window to look into the hot street below. ‘He had been shot through the head with a .45 as he was looking through his telescope. The slug made a hole about an inch wide in his skull and I’d say he’d been dead about twenty minutes — not more.’
Paula didn’t get excited. She held her lower lip between finger and thumb and pulled gently: a sure sign she didn’t like what I was telling her.
‘There’s a big clump of mangroves near the house’ I went on. ‘I reckon the killer hid there, waiting for Leadbetter to show himself and then shot him. It was nice shooting. The slug’s still in his head. It’s my bet they’ll find it’s the same gun that killed Dana.’ I stubbed out my cigarette, yawned and rubbed my eyes. ‘Well that’s about all. We came away quick. There was no one to see us. I’m sure of that.’
Paula gave me a long worried stare, reached for a cigarette, lit it and flicked the match into the ashtray.
‘I don’t like it, Vic,’ she said. ‘Maybe we could have prevented this killing if we’d opened up to Brandon about the Cerfs.’
‘Maybe, but I doubt it,’ I said. ‘Anyway, Leadbetter had it coming to him. He could have told the cops what he knew; he could have told Jack, but he didn’t. He preferred to deal with the killer. I bet he thought he would make himself a little money, only he stopped a slug instead.’
Paula nodded.
‘That could be it.’ She twisted around in her chair and looked through the slots in the sunblinds, thinking. ‘Brandon will turn on the heat when the news breaks. We’re going to be right in the middle of the squeeze.’ She brooded for a long minute, then shrugged, turned to face me. ‘What now, Vic?’
‘I’ve sent Benny to Frisco to see if he can dig up anything about Anita. It certainly looks as if she was on the scene of the murder. My next move is to have a talk with Barclay.’
‘You have a tricky job there,’ she pointed out. That suit of Dana’s was evidence only so long as it was in the cupboard. Taking it puts Barclay in the clear. He can always deny knowing anything about it.’
‘Sure, but it was a risk I had to take. I was hoping we might find something from the suit. Clegg’s working on it now. Besides, Mills might have been looking for it for all I know. When I have Clegg’s report I thought I’d sneak it back and then confront Barclay with it.’
‘Risky, but I suppose it’s the only thing you can do. What happened to her underclothes, shoes and stockings?’
‘I don’t know. They may be hidden in Barclay’s place somewhere. I hadn’t much time before Mills arrived. That’s something I can look for when I go back.’
‘Are you going to Mills’s place?’
I grimaced.
‘I guess so. I’m not over anxious to run into him again, but I’ll have to go out there. He may have nothing to do with the killing. I’m beginning to think he hasn’t, but we’ll have to be sure before we drop him.’
‘It’s all a question of time, isn’t it? We’ve got to get this business straightened out before the police do.’
‘Just as soon as Clegg is through with that coat and skirt I’ll go back to Barclay. Right now it looks as if he’s the killer. If I can crack him it’s in the bag. Give Clegg a ring, will you, and see what happening?’
While she was phoning I went over to the window again. There were a lot of things that puzzled me. Why was Dana stripped? Why had Anita given her the necklace? To part with twenty grand worth of diamonds seemed cockeyed to me for the return she got. On the other hand she may not have given the necklace to Dana. She may have asked her to look after it for her. She may have been meeting the blackmailer and was scared he might take it from her. Somehow I couldn’t see Dana taking the necklace as a bribe. It looked that way, but the more I thought about it the less likely it seemed. It didn’t fit in with her character.
Paula said, ‘Clegg’s on the line. He wants to speak to you.’
I reached for the receiver. Clegg said he could find no bloodstains, no sand, nothing to give me a lead at all. I thanked him, said I would collect the suit on my way down town and hung up.
‘Nothing,’ I said in answer to Paula’s inquiring look. ‘Then she couldn’t have been wearing it when she was shot. The front of her skull was smashed in. Whatever she was wearing had to get stained.’
‘Maybe he made her strip before he shot her,’ Paula said.
‘If he did, surely there would have been some trace of sand in her clothes.’
‘She might have undressed in the car.’
‘Yeah,’ I ran my fingers through my hair. ‘I better see Barclay. I’ll take Kerman with me. We may have to push that guy around a little, and I have an idea he might be difficult to push.’
As I was moving towards the door the telephone buzzer sounded.
Paula cradled the receiver in her slim white hand and looked at me.
‘Tip from the porter’s office. Brandon’s on his way up.’
I grabbed hold of my coat and hat.
‘Stall him, Paula,’ I said, making for the door. ‘Tell him you don’t know where I am, but I’ll be in some time tomorrow morning. I’ll use the rear exit.’
I jerked open the door and shot into the corridor. I had just reached the bend in the corridor when I heard the elevator doors swing back. I nipped out of sight as Brandon went stamping over to my door and rapped with impatient knuckles.
II
I parked under the same beech tree at the entrance to Wiltshire Avenue, removed the registration card from the steering post and climbed out of the car into the solid heat of the sun. ‘We walk from here,’ I said. ‘It’s just at the top of the road.’
Kerman reluctantly got out of the car, adjusted the blue-and-red silk handkerchief that peeped out of his top left-hand pocket, ran his thumb along the edge of his dapper moustache and stifled a groan.
‘As far as that?’ he said, staring. ‘Jeepers! My feet feel as if they’ve been scuffling in a bed of red-hot embers. Think he’ll give us a drink?’
‘He’s more likely to bend a two-handed sword over our skulls,’ I returned, tucking under my arm Dana’s coat and skirt I had made into a brown-paper parcel. ‘He’s a collector of medieval weapons.’
‘Well, that’s nice,’ Kerman said. ‘A two-handed sword, huh? That’s something I’ve never been hit with.’
We walked side by side up to the long avenue, keeping in the shadow of the trees.