Nothing to Lose But My Life Page 14

  “All right, Lowry.”

  I spent most of the return trip thinking. When I had some sense out of the jumble of information, I outlined what I thought to Tanya. She listened to me and nodded. “I think you’re right, Lowry. But how could you ever prove it?”

  I told her that too. She didn’t like the idea but she couldn’t think of a better way to play out the hand. After that, neither one of us said anything until we were back on the Hill, moving cautiously now. At my direction, Tanya stopped at a public telephone booth.

  I went in, hesitated before dialing. My first problem was Enid. If I could get a couple of answers from her, I’d be more sure of myself, and then I would really have something to go on. But first I had to find her.

  I called the Conklin residence. My watch said that it was past eleven so I wasn’t surprised when Sofia Conklin herself answered rather than one of the servants. I had a handkerchief over the mouthpiece and I made my voice nasal.

  “I’d like to talk to Miss Proctor, please. This is Duval at police headquarters in town.”

  “At this hour? Surely it can wait until tomorrow.” Sofia’s voice was disapproving. I felt like cheering. Obviously Enid was there. I shifted gears, putting Plan Two into operation.

  “One of our stool—er—informants has reported Lowry Curtis has been seen. We thought perhaps your sister could tell us where to find him.”

  “Are you suggesting that my sister is acquainted with Mr. Curtis’ habits?”

  Brrr! “I’m sorry,” I said placatingly, as a cop would to a Proctor-Conklin. “We thought he might have told her something.”

  “You may speak to her tomorrow, Mr. Duval.” The phone went down.

  I made it back to the car as fast as my condition would permit. I was excited now, my heart racing, and I fought that lightheadedness that threatened to come back. I said to Tanya. “She’s there. Drive like hell.”

  Tanya knew how to go. We got onto the gravel road that led along the edge of the timber bordering the Conklin estate and when we reached the right spot, Tanya pulled quietly into the trees, lights out, going forward until we could see the lighted windows of the house.

  “Lowry …”

  “This I do alone,” I said to her. I slipped to the edge of the timber and started across the lawn. There were two lights, one downstairs and one up. As I catfooted across the lawn, the upstairs light went out. A moment later I heard a powerful car motor being revved up fast. I couldn’t see the garages from where I was but I knew their location. The car was leaving from back there.

  I didn’t need to see to guess what had happened. I had taken less than five minutes to get here from the telephone call but it had been too long. I was almost back to the trees when a second car took over with as much power as the first. I had taken much too long. My idea hadn’t worked; it had backfired.

  I piled in beside Tanya. “She’s gone,” I said, “and someone went after her.”

  Tanya had no time to answer. I hadn’t finished talking when she was backing out onto the gravel. We headed for the highway, hesitated only long enough to let a truck and trailer go by, and then took off across the flat. Both of us knew where Enid would go. I just hoped whoever was chasing her wouldn’t, and that she could shake them.

  We went up the Slope the back way, taking the same route we had come down the night before. Going up through the cut nearly tore my side apart but I hung on, teeth clenched, and took it. Tanya parked before her own garage after turning so that she was headed down, and left the motor ticking over softly. Below, a car turned and slowed before Enid’s garage. A faint glow from headlights flared up and died. The car stopped.

  I wiped clammy sweat from my forehead. I just hoped I could hold onto myself long enough for this job. Otherwise we had a choice of running to Mexico or going to jail.

  “I go this one alone too,” I said.

  “Lowry …” She had a hand on my arm.

  “If it is Enid and she’s all right,” I said, “three will be a crowd.”

  “Do what you have to, Lowry.”

  Chapter XIII

  I GOT OUT and walked into the darkness of Tanya’s flat, using her key. I went on to the back and down the service steps that led to Enid’s porch. There I stopped, spent a moment getting hold of myself, and then attacked the lock on the kitchen door. It wasn’t a difficult job and I eased the door open and stepped into blackness.

  I didn’t know what I would find. The car could have been Enid’s; it could have been the one that took out after her. There was no way to tell. The flat was cold and empty-feeling, the draperies all drawn.

  I stood in the middle of the kitchen floor trying to hear something over my own breathing beating in my ears. There was a footstep and then Enid’s voice, quivering with rising hysteria. “Stand still. I have a gun.”

  I let out my breath gently. “It’s Lowry.”

  The light came on, blinding me, showing me briefly Enid in a dressing gown over pajamas. I made a jump for the light switch and snapped us back into darkness. Enid didn’t even wait for me to turn around before she was all over me.

  “Lowry, Lowry. I knew you’d come for me when I heard you on the telephone.” She giggled. “Duval! Lowry, I listened on the extension. I listened to all the calls that way because I knew you’d try to reach me.”

  I held her against me; it was the least I could do. I said, “Someone else is coming for you too. Let’s get out of here.”

  She was shivering; I hoped the excitement wouldn’t set her off. “It’s all right, Lowry, now that we’re together. Anyway, I dodged them.”

  There was no sureness in her tone though. I opened my mouth and shut it again. A car was grinding up the Slope. Both of us were rigid, listening. The car went along just below us, passed without even slowing down. We relaxed together.

  “Who followed you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m sure I shook them.”

  I was trying to urge her toward the kitchen door but she wanted only to cling to me, as if our being together made everything safe.

  I said, “Let’s get out of here where we can talk. I have a lot to talk about.”

  “So do I, Lowry. I’ve been thinking. I know you didn’t kill the Colonel and I want to prove it.”

  I had her almost to the kitchen door and I stopped. “Prove it how?”

  She wasn’t so scared or excited that she couldn’t think. She snuggled up against me. “When you’re cleared, we’ll go away, won’t we? We’ll go away together?”

  “If I get cleared,” I said pointedly. I reached for the door knob but she held me back.

  “Promise, Lowry?”

  “Look,” I said, “we can plan later. Right now I have to know some things.”

  “All right, Lowry.”

  She was too docile but I took a chance, jabbing my first question at her. “How did you know that Conklin was pressing Tanya to marry Hoop?”

  “I heard them arguing,” she said. “I was behind the library door that went up to the Colonel’s bedroom the night he was killed. They were in the library.”

  I wasn’t too surprised. I said, a little too bluntly, “You were sleeping with him again, Enid?”

  “Lowry!” She jumped away from me.

  I caught her and drew her back. “Damn it, these are things I have to know. It makes no difference between us, Enid.”

  She said, “No, Lowry. Honest. Not for a long time. Not since Tanya came. Sis found out then and—and stopped us.”

  The poor damned kid. I asked, “Was it Charles Conklin after that?”

  “I’m sorry, Lowry. But I wanted to get back at Sis and Charles was good to me. He got me this place and kept Sis from getting mad at me too much and—”

  I squeezed her hand, slowing her down. It worried me when she started talking fast. “I understand.” I got the door open and steered her onto the porch. “Now,” I said, “give me the rest of it. Why are you so sure that I didn’t kill Hoop?”

&nbs
p; “Lowry, where are we going?”

  I stopped and took her in my arms. It may have been a heel’s trick but I have never been sorry for having done it. “Away,” I said softly. “Away together, Enid.” I kissed her and then we started together up the service steps. “Away as soon as I clear myself, Enid.”

  “All right, Lowry. I was there behind the door and—”

  She got no further. There was a single hard, chopping sound that ripped apart the darkness. It came from behind us. Enid made no sound at all, just went backward, out of my encircling arm, back down the steps we had climbed, to land with a thud on the porch.

  For an instant I couldn’t react at all. Then I threw myself flat. A second shot came, whining through the air above where I lay flattened on the steps. There was no sound except a soft pattering. It could have been someone running in rubber soles or it could have been the blood tapping in my ears. But a moment later a car motor whined up from below and farther along the street.

  I was crouched over Enid’s body like an animal guarding its young when Tanya called from the top of the stairs.

  “Lowry?” There was suppressed hysteria in her voice.

  “Here.”

  She came down. She was crying. She knelt, looking at Enid, faintly outlined by the night. There was a hole in the back of Enid’s head. She was thoroughly dead. Tanya touched my cheek with cold fingertips.

  “Who, Lowry?”

  “In that car that went below,” I said. “It fooled me, going on past.” I paused. “I don’t really know who, Tanya. I think I do but now I’m not sure.”

  She was silent. I rose. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “And leave her?”

  In the distance sirens were wailing. Someone had reported the shots. “There’s no time for anything else,” I said. “The cops will take care of her.”

  We went up the stairs as fast as I could manage. Tanya drove back the way we had come. We were at the foot of the Slope when the sirens stopped howling. Enid had been found.

  I told Tanya to get me to a telephone again. When we were on the way, I said, “I almost learned enough, Tanya. She was going to tell me who killed Hoop.”

  “If she knew,” Tanya said. “If she really knew. Enid had dreams and mixed them up with life.”

  “I know,” I said, “no testimony of Enid’s would hold up in court. It’s just that I’d be more certain. I was certain until this happened—now I’m not.”

  “I don’t see that it changes anything,” Tanya said.

  “Perhaps not.” I brooded about it while we worked our way back to the Hill. I began to feel like a shuttle service, going there so often in such a short space of time. By the time we got the same telephone we had used before, I had stopped brooding. Tanya was probably right: Enid’s death hadn’t changed the situation a great deal. I decided to play it as I had planned before.

  In the booth, I called the Conklin house. This time I got a masculine voice. It was Charles Conklin. I said nasally, “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Conklin. This is Duval from headquarters. It’s urgent.”

  “How urgent? Mrs. Conklin has retired.”

  There was a click on the line as an extension was lifted. We could hear Sofia Conklin’s crisp voice. “I’m awake, Charles. I can take the call. Yes, Mr. Duval?”

  She paused. I waited. Conklin lowered his telephone. I said, using my normal voice, “This is Lowry Curtis. I think we’d better have a talk.”

  Another pause, longer this time. When she answered, her voice was cool. “About what, Mr. Curtis?”

  I said, “I can’t hide forever, you know. Sooner or later the police will pick me up. When they do, I’ll have to give my story to them to protect myself. But to make sure that my story is used, I have a statement written out for the press.”

  “Just what has this to do with me?” she asked. There was hardly a flutter of curiosity in her voice. But she wasn’t hanging up, and that was something. It meant a great deal where I stood.

  “Just this,” I said. “Your husband killed Colonel Hoop—or had him killed. It’s the same thing.”

  She gasped, and I was willing to swear that it was genuine. “That’s absurd!”

  “Is it, Mrs. Conklin?” I kept my voice level, low. “You’re aware, I’m sure, that Charles Conklin is head of the local Syndicate.” Silence. I went on, “The Syndicate made the mistake of pushing Hoop too far. He wanted out from under and he began gathering data he could use to fight when the time came.”

  Still silence. I said, “When the time came, he didn’t go to your husband, he went to you. He knew you well enough to be sure that you would do almost anything to preserve your name and social position. He figured that if he told you about your husband’s connection with the Syndicate and about his own plan for making their operations public, you would force your husband to let him alone just to make sure there would be no bad publicity.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  She was right, it was. I went on, “So you told your husband what Hoop was going to do. But instead of acting as Hoop expected him to act, your husband took a chance and killed Hoop. Hoop was a prominent man; he never expected Charles Conklin to take the risk of bringing public scrutiny to bear either on Hoop’s past or on their partnership. But Hoop forgot one thing.

  “Yes, Mr. Curtis?”

  God, she was cool. “I came to town,” I said. “And there I was, the perfect patsy. Your husband took advantage of the situation and tried to pin the murder on the man whose hatred of Hoop was open knowledge.”

  I paused. She didn’t answer. “That’s the story,” I said. “I have it ready for the papers.”

  She knew as well as I that if such a story were ever released, her name would land somewhere besides the society page for a change. And it wouldn’t matter if I were proved right or wrong. In the long run, she would be hurt. Since Conklin’s connection with the Syndicate could be proved by any competent detective, there would be a blot on her name no amount of scrubbing could erase. I was in a very nice position at the moment.

  “Why are you telling me this, Mr. Curtis?”

  “Because I want you to do for me what you couldn’t do for Hoop. I want you to deal with your husband on my behalf.”

  “In what manner?” There was caution in her voice now.

  “I want the records he has on Tanya Mace and Nikke destroyed. I want him to put the blame for Hoop’s death on someone else—I don’t care who. He can do it; he has the organization to do it. I want to be cleared of the charge of killing Jake and Perly. And I want Tanya cleared as well.”

  If she had agreed, I would have been stumped. But she followed the pattern I expected of her. She said, “Mr. Curtis, I feel that we should discuss this monstrous accusation with my husband.”

  I swallowed a sigh of relief. “Of course. In fact, I’ll meet him right now.” No answer. I added, “I don’t believe I need to remind you that my written statement for the press is somewhere besides on my person. Getting rid of me won’t help any.” I said it in a formal tone, using formal words—an old legal habit.

  “I realize that, Mr. Curtis.”

  “How shall I come?”

  She understood that. “The French doors on the south side of the house open into his study. Come in that way, please.”

  I hung up and went back to the car. “Same place,” I told Tanya.

  She turned on the dome light for a moment. “For a sick man you look pleased with yourself, Lowry.”

  I wasn’t sick. Not any longer. I was in the pink. I told her so. A little sore along the ribs, but my head was clear, my legs strong. I had it wrapped up, in the palm of my hand. I even sang a little to let her know how good I felt about it all.

  Tanya parked at the edge of the trees as before. “This time …”

  “This time I go alone again,” I said firmly. “You hotfoot it back and tell Nikke what we’re doing—if you can get to him. Tell him to have that escape hatch ready—just in case.”

  “Lowry …
”

  I got out. “There’s really no need. But just in case …” I left it hanging, going without even kissing her goodbye. That would have been too final a gesture. And despite the way I had sounded off, I didn’t feel a bit sanguine.

  Only one light was on, the one coming through the French doors. I went up to them and tried to peer through. But the curtains were too well drawn. I rapped.

  The door was opened by Conklin. He stepped aside and I went in. He shut the doors quickly, turned a latch and then returned to his desk. It was very long and expensively plain. It fit very well into the room which was also long. The walls on two sides were lined with filled bookcases. At one end was a collection of pictures, at the other a huge, now cold fireplace. There were two chairs, one at each corner of the desk, besides the one where Conklin sat. When at the desk, he had his back to the French doors. His wife occupied one of the chairs. She was not looking at me but at the telephone which he had apparently been using. It lay off the cradle on the desk top.

  “Take that chair,” he said, indicating the one at the opposite corner from where Sofia sat. He picked up the telephone. “He’s here now, Emmett. Get the setup ready and wait for me to call you. You know how I want Lowry taken care of.”

  I was smiling but my mouth and throat were dry as I sat down and watched him hang up the telephone. He looked at me and he was as pink and bland as ever. This might have been a social evening, for all his expression showed.

  Sofia on the other hand was obviously angry. “Charles, you’re being a fool.”

  “This is my affair, Sofia. I didn’t ask you to come into it.”

  “Hardly,” I said dryly. “This is her affair now. Remember the precious name of Proctor-Conklin.”

  “He’s quite right, Charles. It is my affair. If you had told me your business sooner, none of this would have happened.”

  I began to understand what she was driving at, and I had to admire her if only because she made such a magnificent iceberg. Sofia wasn’t perturbed because her precious husband was running nasty rackets. She just didn’t like the way he went about it, and she was cutting herself in. She was going to tell him how to do it!