Three
She came down and let me in when I rang the
buzzer. Neither of us said anything until we were
back up in the living room. She sat down in the same
place she’d been before, across the coffee table, and
smiled at me, the eyes cool and a little amused.
“I wondered if you’d be back,” she said. “And how
soon.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She lit a cigarette and looked thoughtfully at the
smoke. “Let’s put it this way: If you didn’t have
sense enough to see it, you wouldn’t be smart
enough to be of any help. This is no child’s game,
you know. And it could be dangerous as hell.”
“There’s one thing I’m still not too sure of,” I said.
“And that’s why you’re so certain she’s the one that
killed him and left his car in front of your apartment.
Wasn’t there anybody else who could have known he
was going to run off with you?”
“It’s not likely. And nobody but that vindictive
bitch would have gone to that much trouble and risk
of exposure just for the pleasure of letting me know.
I mean, leaving the car right out front here. She
would do that.”
“How about telling me the whole thing?” I said.
A Touch of Death — 21
“Suppose you tell me something first,” she said
coolly. “Do you want in this, or don’t you?”
“What do you think? I came back, didn’t I?”
“Not worried about breaking the law?”
“Let’s put it this way: Whoever’s got that money is
outside the law himself, or herself. So he or she
can’t yell cop. And as far as conscience is concerned,
you can buy a lot of sleeping pills with sixty
thousand dollars.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Who said anything
about sixty thousand? I’m offering you a third.”
“And you know what you can do with your third.
It’s half or nothing.”
“You’ve got a nerve—”
“What do you mean, nerve? I’m the one that has to
go up there and stick his head in the lion’s mouth
and search the place. You don’t take any risk.”
“All right, all right,” she said. “Relax. I just
thought I’d try. A half it is.”
“That’s better. Now, tell me about it.”
“All right,” she said. “You know now why I’m so
certain he’s dead. He has to be, or he’d have shown
up here. Butler was no fool. He knew he didn’t have
a chance unless he had a place to hide. So he and I
worked it out. I got this apartment several months
before he pulled it off. When he took the money and
made the break he was to come here, hide in this
apartment without even going out on the street for
at least two months, until some of the uproar had
died down and we had changed his appearance as
much as possible. Then we were going to get away
to the West Coast in a car and trailer, with Butler
riding in the trailer. He’d turn up in San Francisco
with a whole new identity. It was a fine idea, of
course, except that he never did show up here. His
car did, but somebody else drove it.”
“That’s right.”
“So you believe me now?” she said.
A Touch of Death — 22
“Yes. Certainly. That was the thing that made the
difference. The other story didn’t make any sense.
As soon as it soaked into my head that you were the
woman he was running off with— And, of course, if
he didn’t show up here, it was because he couldn’t.”
“So the money’s still right there in the house in
Mount Temple,” she said.
“That I’m not so sure of. Anybody might have
killed him, for that much.”
“No. Nobody else could have known about it. But
she did. The last time I saw him he was afraid she’d
put detectives on our trail.”
“How long have you known them?” I asked. “Were
you actually a nurse there in Mount Temple?”
“Yes. But that was last fall and winter. I’d been
back here four months when he actually pulled it
off.”
“He was pretty gone on you?”
“Maybe. In a way,” she said.
“You after him? Or the money?”
“Let’s say both. We believed in taking what we
needed, and what we needed was each other. What
do you want? Tristan and Isolde?”
“And now that he’s dead, you’ll settle for the
money?” Then I changed it. “For half the money.”
“That’s right. What should I do? Throw myself off a
cliff?”
“We’ll get along,” I said.
She crushed the cigarette out with a savage slash
at the ashtray. “There’s another thing, too. She’s not
going to get away with it. The drunken bitch.”
Well, I thought, I’ll be a sad. . .
“Get this through your head,” I said. “Once and for
all. This is a business proposition, or I’m out, as of
now. There’ll be no wild-haired babes blowing their
tops and killing each other in anything I’m mixed up
in. I thought you were tough.”
She glared at me. “I am,” she said. “What I mean
is she’s not going to get away with the money.”
A Touch of Death — 23
“That’s better. Just keep it in mind.”
“Mount Temple’s about two hundred miles away,”
I said. “I can drive it in four hours.”
She shook her head. “You’ll have to go on the
bus.”
“What do you mean, go on the bus?”
“Look. You’ll be in that house two days. Maybe
three. Where are you going to leave your car? In the
drive?”
“I’ll park it somewhere else in town.”
“No. In that length of time somebody might notice
it. The police might impound it. A hundred things
could happen.”
I could see she was right. A car with out-of-town
tags sitting around that long might attract attention.
But the bus idea wasn’t much better.
“I’m supposed to get in there and out without
being seen by anybody who could identify me
afterward. The bus is no good.”
She nodded. “That’s right, too. We can’t be too
careful about that. I think the best thing is for me to
drive you up there.”
“Listen,” I said. “Here’s the way we work it. You
drive me up there, drop me off in back somewhere
where there’s no street light, then come back and
keep an eye on Mrs. Butler. This is Tuesday night. If
the house is as big as you say it is, I’ll want two full
days. So at exactly two o’clock Friday morning you
ease by in back of the place again and I’ll be out
there waiting for you. We’ll either have the money,
or we’ll know it’s not there.”
“Right.” She leaned back in her chair and stared at
me with her eyes a little cool and hard. “And just in
case you haven’t thought of it yet,” she said, “don’t
get any brilliant ideas about running out with all of it
if you find it, just because I’m not there. You know
how far you’d get as soon as the police received an
anonymous phone call.”
She had it figured from every angle. “You’re
sweet,” I said. “Who’d run off from you?”
A Touch of Death — 24
“For that much money, you would. But don’t try
it.”
“Right,” I said. “And while we’re on the subject,
don’t try to double-cross me, either.”
* * *
I held my wrist under the dash lights and looked at
the watch. It was three-ten.
We had left Sanport at midnight, after I had put
my own car in a storage garage and bought a few
things I’d need. I checked them off in my mind:
flashlight with spare batteries, small screwdriver,
Scotch tape, half a dozen packs of cigarettes. It was
all there.
She was driving fast, around sixty most of the
time. There was very little traffic, and the towns
along the highway were asleep. We came into one
now, and she slowed to thirty-five as we went
through.
“It’s the next one,” she said. “About thirty miles.”
“You won’t get back until after daylight.”
“It doesn’t matter. Nobody knows me there. And
Mrs. Butler probably won’t be up before noon.”
“The police may be tailing her. Just on the chance
she might be meeting Butler.”
“I know.” She punched the cigarette lighter and
said, “Give me a cigarette, Lee. But what if they are?
They don’t know anything.”
When the lighter popped out, I lit the cigarette and
handed it to her. We were running through a long
river bottom now, with dark walls of trees on both
sides. I looked at her. She had put on a long, pleated
white skirt and maroon blouse. She was a smooth
job, with the glow of the dash highlighting the
rounded contours of her face and shining in the big
dark eyes.
I lit one for myself. “There’s one thing I still don’t
like,” I said. “There may be a lot of that money in
negotiable securities instead of cash. I mean, he was
A Touch of Death — 25
a banker and he’d know how to convert ‘em without
getting tripped up, but we wouldn’t.”
“No,” she said. “He was going to get it all in cash.
He was going to pick the time when he could get it
that way.”
“Good,” I said. “God, that’s a wad of dough.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It would be a pretty good-sized briefcaseful,
figuring a lot of it would be in tens and twenties.
What kind of hiding place would you look for, if you
had to stash it around a house?”
“It’s an old house,” she said. “A very old house,
and a big one. The only thing to do is start at the
attic and work down, taking it a room at a time. Look
for places that appear to have been repapered
recently or where there’s been some repair work,
like around window sills and doorframes. Trap doors
above clothes closets, in the floors or walls. And
remember, she’s plenty smart. She’s just as likely to
wrap it in old paper and throw it in a trunk or a
barrel of rubbish. Take your time, and tear the house
apart if you have to. She’s in no position to call the
police.”
“We hope,” I said.
“We know.”
“All right,” I said. “But I still don’t want her to
catch me in there just to see if we’re right. So I’ve
been trying to figure out some way you can tip me
off if she gets away from you and you think she’s on
her way home. I think I’ve got it. Call the house,
long-distance, and—”
“But, my God, you couldn’t answer the phone if it
rang. There’s no way you could tell who it was.”
“Wait till I finish,” I said. “Of course I won’t
answer until I’m sure it’s you. Here’s the way. Call
right on the hour. I won’t answer, so put the call in
again at a quarter past, as near as you can make it. I
won’t answer then, either, because it still might be a
coincidence. But repeat it again, as near half past as
you can, and I’ll pick it up. Just ask if Mrs. Butler is
A Touch of Death — 26
better. I’ll say yes, and hang up and get the hell out
of there.”
I thought about it again. “No. Wait. There’s no
reason I should have to answer at all. Those three
calls, fifteen minutes apart, will be the signal. When
I hear the third one, I scram.”
“That’s good,” she said, nodding. “You know how
to use your head. It’s funny, but in a lot of ways
you’re just like Butler.”
“Not too much, I hope.”
“Why?” she asked.
“He’s dead. Remember?”
She fell silent. We came up out of the river country
and ran through rolling hills with dark farmhouses
here and there along the road. In a few minutes she
said, “We’re almost there. It’s on the left as we go
into town.”
I looked, but it was too dark to see much. All I got
was the shadowy impression of a house set far back
from the street among the darker gloom of big trees.
There was no light anywhere. We made a gentle turn
to the right and then were on the street going into
town, with houses and lawns on both sides. About
three blocks up a street light hung out over an
intersection. She turned left before we got to it,
went a block down a side street, and turned left
again.
“When I stop,” she said, “we’ll be right behind the
place. There’s a big oleander hedge and a wovenwire
fence, but the gate probably won’t be locked.
Or if it is, you can climb over or go around in front.
Good luck.”
“Check,” I said. “Friday morning at two o’clock.
Right here.”
She was slowing. The car came to a standstill for
not more than two seconds. I slid out and eased the
door shut. Her hand lifted and the car slid away. I
was on my own.
The red taillights of the car swung left and
disappeared. I stepped off the street and stood for a
A Touch of Death — 27
moment while my eyes adjusted themselves to the
darkness. There was no moon, and the night was hot
and still. Somewhere across town a dog barked. I
could see the dark line of the oleanders in front of
me now, and started walking toward them, putting
out my hand. I touched the fence, and walked
parallel to it, looking for the gate and a break in the
hedge.
I’d forgotten to look at my watch again before I got
out of the car, but I should have nearly two hours
until daybreak. It was plenty of time to find a way
into the house.
I went twenty steps along the fence. Thirty. There
had to be a gate somewhere. She’d said there was. I
came to a corner. There was no opening. I had gone
the wrong way. I turned and went back, touching the
fence with my hands. It was six feet high, with steel
posts. The oleanders were on the inside, a solid wall
of them nearly fifteen feet high.
I found the gate. It rattled a little when I put my
hand on it. I felt along one side for the latch and
located it. Apparently there was no chain or padlock.
I eased it open. A dry hinge squeaked in the silence.
I stopped, then pulled it open very slowly.
I could see the dark bulk of the house looming
ahead of me now across the expanse of rear lawn. It
was enormous, two stories and an attic, probably,
with high gables running off into the big
overhanging trees at each end. Off to the right was a
smaller pile of blackness, which I took to be the
garage.
I stepped inside, through the break in the hedge,
and studied the blank windows carefully for any
sliver of light at all. There was none. The whole
place was as dark and deserted and silent as if it had
been vacant for twenty years.
I eased across the grass toward the back porch.
Then, suddenly, I thought of something we had
overlooked. We hadn’t thought of the grounds
themselves. There were probably two acres of trees,
flower beds, shrubs, and lawns around the place. If
A Touch of Death — 28
the money—or even Butler’s body—had been buried
out here somewhere, it would take a gang of men
with a bulldozer a week to search it all. We’d been
stupid.
But what could we do about it, if we had thought
of it? Our only hope was that the stuff was in the
house. If I didn’t find it there, we were whipped. The
only thing to do was go on.
I came to the corner of the porch and went around
it to the rear of the house itself. In the darkness I
could just make out the forms of two windows set
close to the ground and partially screened by
shrubs. They were just what I had been hoping to
find—basement windows.
I slipped up to the first and took out the small
flashlight. Standing close to shield it with my body, I
shot the tiny beam inside. The screen and the
window were both dirty, but I could see the latch
where the top and bottom sashes met. It was closed.
I moved to the other window. It was latched too.
Probably they all are, I thought. I stood back a
little and sized them up. This one was better
screened behind the shrubs. Getting down on my
knees, I turned the light on again and shot it in on
the hook at the bottom of the screen. I took out the
screwdriver, pushed the blade in through the wire,
and pried at the hook. It slid out, and the screen was
free. I swung the bottom of it outward against the
shrub and got in behind it.
Taking the Scotch tape out of my pocket, I began
peeling it off and plastering strips of it across the
glass of the upper sash, crisscrossing it in all
directions. Then I reversed the screwdriver and
rapped smartly with the handle right in front of the
latch. The glass cracked, but the tape kept it from
falling. I slid the screwdriver blade through against
the latch, and pushed. It slid open.
I raised the bottom sash, swung the beam of light
down inside, and dropped in. Pulling the screen back
in place, I hooked it and closed the window. I took a
quick look around the basement. This must be only
A Touch of Death — 29
part of it. It was a big room with a furnace in the
center. Against the opposite wall was a coal bin, and
beside it were some old trunks and a pile of
magazines and newspapers. I saw a door, and went
through it. This room held a washing machine and a
lot of clotheslines.
There was no use trying to search this now. What I
had to do first was take a quick look at the whole
house and size up the job—and make certain that
maid wasn’t here. Diana James had said she’d be
gone, but it wasn’t Diana James that was going to
wind up behind the eight ball if she happened to be
wrong.
I went back in the first room and started swinging
the light around, looking for the stairway. I’d just
spotted it, over against the rear wall, when I stopped
dead still and cut the light. I held my breath,
listening. I could hear my heart beating in the dead,
oppressive silence, and the hair along the back of my
neck was still prickling. The place was making me
jumpy.
What I’d thought I heard was music.
Music at four o’clock in the morning in an empty
house? Nuts. I listened for another full minute and
then flicked the light on again. I went up the stairs.
There was a door at the top of them. I opened it
softly and went through. I was in the kitchen.
There was a window over the sink, but the curtains
were drawn. That was something I had to check in
all the rooms, so I could move around freely during
the day. I examined the rest of the room. The door
by the sink must be the one going out onto the back
porch. The one on this side, beyond the stove,
apparently led into the dining room and the front of
the house. This left one more, besides the cellar door
I’d just come through. It was at the end of the
kitchen, and it was closed. I had to see in there. It
should be the maid’s room.
I eased over to it, got my hand on the knob, and
cut the light. I turned it slowly, very slowly, and
pushed. It swung open into more of the same
A Touch of Death — 30
impenetrable darkness. I stood perfectly still,
listening for the sound of breathing. It was the
maid’s room, all right.
The room was full of her, but that didn’t mean she
was here now. What I was smelling was the place
she lived in. But I had to know, and know now,
before it was daylight and too late to get out. I
flicked the light on, pointed straight down, my
nerves tightened up for the scream that would split
the night. Or the gun blast that’ll blow my stupid
head off, I thought, if she’s here and she’s got
company. I was sweating. I eased the beam forward.
It hit the end of a bed, climbed it. The bed was
empty. I breathed again.
I closed the door and walked back through the
kitchen. The drapes were drawn in the dining room.
The table and sideboards were old, massive, and
very dark. One of the sideboards was covered with
an ornate old silver service that had probably cost
somebody’s ancestor a young fortune.
I walked on into the living room and inspected it in
the beam of light. No wonder Mrs. Butler’s a lush, I
thought. Living in a mausoleum like this would make
anybody take to the juice. It was an enormous room,
furnished the same way the dining room was. The
woodwork was all mahogany and walnut, and dark
with age. The drapes, which were drawn, looked like
wine-colored velvet, and the sofas and chairs were
upholstered in maroon plush—the ones that weren’t
black leather. One whole wall was covered with
books.
I stopped the light suddenly, staring at the rows of
books. I backed it up a little. Then I brought it
ahead, very slowly, watching. It was odd. The
volumes of the encyclopedia were all jumbled, in no
order at all, and there were other books sandwiched
in between them.
I began to have an odd hunch then. I threw the
light around over the rest of the room again.
Everything else seemed to be in order and in its
place. I got down on my hands and knees beside one
A Touch of Death — 31
of the sofas and looked at the dents in the rug where
the feet rested. It had been moved recently, all right.
But that didn’t mean anything. The maid had
probably done it, cleaning.
Picking up one end of the sofa, I swung it away
from the wall and looked at the back of it. I saw it
then. It was a long slash in the cloth, made by a
sharp knife or razor blade. I began snatching up the
cushions. They were all slashed on the undersides.
So were the ones in the chairs.
For an instant I wanted to throw the flashlight
through the window. Then I settled down a little,
and squatted on my heels to light a cigarette. Who
was it? No, the question was: Had he found what he
was looking for? There was a chance he hadn’t.
But, if not, why wasn’t he still here, looking for it?
That was the one you couldn’t get around.
Was there a chance it was just the search the
police had given the place, two months ago? No.
They wouldn’t have cut things up that way. And Mrs.
Butler or the maid would have put the books back in
some sort of order by this time. This had been done
recently.
But there was one thing about it. The fact that
somebody else had been searching the place proved
we were right. Apparently we weren’t the only ones
who had reason to believe Mrs. Butler had killed her
husband before he could get away.
And I was here, wasn’t I? And I was going to be
here until Friday morning. What did I want to do—
quit before I’d even got started? What the hell. Go
ahead and search the place. That was what I’d come
for. Maybe the other people hadn’t found it. I
located an ashtray and crushed out the cigarette.
The thought of the money was making me itchy
again.
I went out through an archway at the end of the
living room. There was a short hall here, or entry,
with the front door at one end and the stairs at the
other. I started up the stairs.
A Touch of Death — 32
The steps were carpeted, but halfway up one of
them creaked under my weight. I stopped, cursing
silently; then I shook off the jumpiness. What was I
worried about? I had the whole place to myself,
didn’t I? The maid was gone.
I reached the top. I started to turn, sweeping the
flashlight beam ahead of me. Then I froze dead and
snapped it off, staring down the hallway. A door was
open on one side of it, and I could see a very faint
glow of light spilling out into the hall. I put my other
foot down silently and eased the awkward position I
was in. I wanted to turn and run, but something
about the light fascinated me. I remained
motionless, hardly breathing.
It was too dim to be an electric light of any kind,
and it seemed to flicker. Was it a match? Maybe
whoever it was was setting fire to the place. But no,
it didn’t seem to grow, as a fire would. I waited. It
remained the same. Then I knew what it was. It was
a candle.
That didn’t make any sense. Who’d be wandering
around with a candle, with flashlights selling for
forty-nine cents? But before I could even start to
think about it, I became conscious of something new.
It was a sound. It was a faint hissing noise, coming
from the room.
Then, at almost the same time I guessed what it
was, the music started. It had been the needle riding
in the groove, of a phonograph record. The music
was turned down very low, and it was something
long-hair I didn’t recognize.
I knew I should run, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had
to look in there. It was only three or four steps down
the hall. There was a carpet to muffle the sound of
my steps.
I stopped just short of the door. This was the
dangerous part of it. Whoever was in there would be
able to see me when I looked in if he happened to be
facing the door. The music went on very softly, but
there was no other sound. I put my face against the
doorframe and peered around it.
A Touch of Death — 33
It was a strange sight. At first there was an odd
feeling about it, as if I had wandered into some kind
of religious ceremony. Then I began to get it sorted
out. It was a bedroom. The candle was burning on
the floor in a little silver dish, and beside it was the
record player. Phonograph records were scattered
around on the rug, and in the middle of them,
alongside a low couch, a girl in a long blue robe sat
on the floor and swayed gently back and forth as she
listened to the music.
I saw her in profile with the candlelight softly
touching her face and the cloud of dark hair that
swirled about it. She was almost unbelievably
beautiful, and she was drunk as a lord.
I remained very still outside the door, thinking
coldly of Diana James. Mrs. Butler was like hell in
Sanport.
A Touch of Death — 34
Four
Had she thrown that curve deliberately, or had it
just been a mix-up? She’d lied right at the beginning,
because she didn’t want to tell me any more about
the thing than she had to. Maybe she’d lied again.
But maybe it had just been an accident. Mrs.
Butler must have come back from Sanport
unexpectedly, without her hearing about it. It made
sense that way. We wanted the money. To find it, we
had to search the house. So there was nothing she
stood to gain by getting me to come up here to try to
shake it down with Mrs. Butler in it.
Was there?
I couldn’t see anything. But the next time I took
anybody’s word… I was still burning.
Well, we could kiss off any chance of finding it
now. The thing I had to do was get out of there as
fast as I could, before daylight. If I waited too long,
somebody might spot me leaving. Once I got off the
grounds I’d be all right. I could walk into town and
hang around until there was a bus leaving for
Sanport. And when I got back there I’d break the
news to Diana James as to what I thought of her and
her information.
I remained standing there, sick with rage at the
idea of having to give up. Somehow it seemed I had
A Touch of Death — 35
already come to consider the money as mine, as
already found and safe in my pocket, and now that it
was snatched away I was wild with a sense of loss,
as if somebody had robbed me. Why didn’t I lock her
in a closet and go on with the search as soon as it
was light?
No. That would be too dangerous. Discovery was
almost certain. The maid would come back. She
might have visitors. I’d be caught. I discarded the
idea, but I did not leave.
There was no danger. Not from her. She was too
plastered to notice anything, or to do anything about
it if she did see me. If I walked in and started talking
to her, she’d probably just think I was another form
of the jim-jams. I could see the half-empty bottle,
and the glass that had fallen over on its side. She
wasn’t a noisy drunk, or a sloppy one. It was just the
opposite. The thing that tipped you off was the
exaggerated dignity, and the slow, deliberate way
she moved, as if she were made of eggshells.
The record ran out to the end and ground to a stop
as the machine shut itself off. It was deadly silent
with the music gone. She made no attempt to put on
another record. She was still swaying a little, and I
could see her lips moving as if she were singing to
herself or praying, but no sound came out. Then,
very slowly, she turned the upper part of her body a
little and collapsed against the low divan beside her.
Her face was pressed into the covering, the dark
hair aswirl, and one arm stretched out across it.
I started to turn away. It was time to get out of
there. Then I stopped suddenly and swung my head
around, listening. What I’d heard wasn’t repeated. It
didn’t have to be; I knew what it was. It was that
step, the same one that had creaked under me.
Somebody was coming up the stairs.
There was another room opening off the hall, but
the door was closed. He’d hear me open it. I didn’t
have all night to make up my mind. I slid inside,
leaned over Mrs. Butler, and blew out the candle. I’d
already seen the closet door partly open beyond her.
A Touch of Death — 36
When the blackness closed in I kept the picture of
the room in my mind long enough to turn ninety
degrees to the right, slip past the end of the divan,
and grope for the door of the closet. I touched it,
eased it open, and stepped inside. Clothes brushed
against my back. They smelled faintly of perfume in
the hot, dead air.
There was no sound. But the hallway was
carpeted. Whoever it was could be anywhere out
there. I waited, keeping an eye to the crack in the
door. A beam of light appeared in the doorway of the
room and swung around the walls. It hit a mirror
and splashed, then swept on. It dipped, catching the
pile of phonograph records and the whisky bottle,
and came to rest at last on the sprawled figure of the
girl. It remained fixed, like a big eye, while whoever
was holding the flashlight walked on into the room.
It was so still I tried to quiet the sound of my
breathing.
He was squatting down now, and seemed to be
changing hands with the light. Then I saw why. Just
for a second the gun passed through the beam,
steadying up against her temple. The cold-blooded
brutality of it made me come out of the closet
without even stopping to think.
I was driving, the way they teach you to get up a
head of steam in the first three strides. But I forgot
the end of the divan. My legs hit it, and I went the
rest of the way in by air. He was under me and
trying to turn when I sifted down on him, and from
then on it was confused, and rough. When nothing
crunched, I knew he was no flyweight himself, and
as we rolled across and demolished the record
player I could feel the tremendous surge of power in
the arm about my neck. The light had gone out when
it hit the floor, so we were in absolute darkness, and
I didn’t know what had become of the gun.
The arm was pulling my head off. I broke it up by
getting a knee into his belly and starting to move it
down to where he didn’t like it. He scuttled away
from it and landed a big fist on the side of my face. It
rocked me. I could feel it going all the way down to
A Touch of Death — 37
my toes and back up again like a shock wave. I
shook my head, trying to clear it, and swung blindly
in the dark. I missed. I heard him scrambling away.
He was on his feet. He crashed into the doorframe,
and then he was gone down the hall.
I sat up dizzily and dug my own flashlight out of
my pocket. He might or might not leave the house,
and it made a lot of difference now who had the gun.
I held the light out from my side and snapped it on,
shooting it around the floor. The gun was lying in a
hash of broken phonograph records, and his light
was on the floor the other side of what was left of
the player. I picked up the gun, checked the safety,
and put it in my pocket, conscious of the heavy way I
was breathing. It had been short, but it had been
rugged.
I squatted on the floor to get my breath. Whoever
he was, he was probably gone by now. I had the gun,
so it wasn’t likely he’d tackle me again. I could
leave, provided, of course, I didn’t run into half a
dozen more on the way out.
I thought of Diana James. She was cute. She just
needed somebody to search this old vacant house.
There was nothing to it. And if the first sucker she
sent got killed, she could always find more. Well, she
was going to get a sucker’s full report when I got
back to Sanport.
I stood up. I’d better get started. Flicking on the
light again, I looked down at the girl. Her shoulders
had fallen off the divan and she was lying on the
floor beside it with her head on an outstretched arm.
She was going to have an awful headache in the
morning, I thought, when she tried to figure out how
she could have wrecked the room this way. It would
be a rough way to wake up.
I got it then. If I left, she wasn’t going to wake up.
That guy had come here to kill her. He’d wait
around until he saw me shove off, then he’d finish
the job I had interrupted. He didn’t need the gun.
She was asleep; he could kill her with anything. He
was good when they were asleep. You could see that.
A Touch of Death — 38
Well, what was I supposed to do? So I didn’t have
the stomach to sit there and see her butchered in
cold blood; so now I was the protector of the poor?
The hell with it. If I hung around here until she
sobered up, she’d probably have me arrested for
burglary. And I could just tell the cops how it
happened, couldn’t I? They didn’t get many laughs in
their work. Housebreaker saves woman’s life. Hey,
Joe, come listen to this one.
Then a very chilling thought caught up with me.
Suppose they found her in here murdered, tomorrow
or the next day? Maybe nobody on earth knew that
other guy was here. But there was one person who
knew damn well I’d been here, because she’d
brought me here. And if she ever leaked, I’d be in
the worst jam I’d ever heard of.
I had to do something. Time was running out. I
squatted there in the dark, thinking swiftly. I began
to see it then. It was the answer to everything.
Here was where I went in business for myself.
All I’d accomplished in this thing so far was to get
shoved around. I’d been played for a sucker by a
smooth operator who’d told me about 10 percent of
the whole story, but now the program was going to
change.
We were all looking for that money. And the only
person that really knew whether or not it was in this
house was Mrs. Butler. She was the key to the whole
thing. I didn’t believe now that it was here, but she
knew where it was, or where it was last seen. So
what I wanted was Mrs. Butler. If I left her here
she’d be killed, but if I took her with me I’d have the
exact thing I needed: information.
And I knew just where to take her where we
wouldn’t be interrupted. I could sober her up, and
maybe if I kept asking the right questions long
enough, I might find out a little about this. Of
course, if she didn’t have anything to do with killing
Butler, I was laying myself wide open to arrest for
kidnapping, but I could see the way out of that. I
A Touch of Death — 39
tried to visualize the road map in my mind. It
couldn’t be much over fifty miles…
It collapsed on me then. Take her? How? I didn’t
have my car. Load her on my shoulder like a sack of
oats, and walk through town with her? I cursed
under my breath. I was right back where I’d started.
But wait. She had a car, didn’t she? She must have
come back from Sanport in it.
I’d have to leave her while I went out to the
garage to look. But that joker probably wouldn’t try
to ease back until he was sure I was gone. I went out
and down the stairs, hurrying. I unlocked the
kitchen door leading onto the back porch, cut the
light, and went out. It was a few seconds before I
could see anything in the dark. It’d be a nice time, I
thought, for the gruesome bastard to try to clobber
me with an ax.
When I could make out the squat shadow of the
garage off beyond the corner of the house, I groped
my way over to it. The big overhead door was
locked. I went around to the side. There was a small
door there. I tried the knob. It was unlocked. I went
in and closed it. When I switched on the flashlight I
was standing beside a ‘53 Cadillac. I poked the beam
in on the dash. The keys weren’t in it. All I had to do
now was find them. In a house of about twenty
rooms. I looked at my watch. It was four-twenty.
Maybe I couldn’t make it now, even if I already had
the keys.
I’d never pretended to be able to think like a
woman, but I knew a little about drunks. It paid off. I
covered the area between the front door, where she
would come in, and the kitchen, where the bottle
would be, and I found the purse on a table by the
dining room door. Her key case was in it.
I left it where it was and went back upstairs. I had
picked her up and started out of the room when ]
thought of something else. Putting her down on the
divan, I flashed the light around on the floor, looking
for the bottle. It had been knocked over during the
fight, but it was corked and none of it had spilled. It
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