Date for Murder Page 5

  “Now I am.”

  He heard the door open and her bare feet pattering. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He put his arms around her, closed his eyes and fell asleep.

  The pounding on his door drew him achingly from the beginning of hard, complete sleep. Slowly he opened his eyes to stare into the near darkness of the room. He realized someone was at the door and turned to look that way.

  “What the hell?” he called sleepily.

  “Telephone, Mark.” It was the voice of his ancient landlord. “Some woman. Says it’s important.”

  “Right with you,” Mark called. He noted without surprise that Babe had gone.

  He stumbled to the door, found slippers and bathrobe in the dark and opened the door. The heat and blinding sunlight made him throw one hand before his eyes. He took it away slowly, opening his fingers one at a time to let the light filter in slowly. When his eyes were better adjusted to the glare, he staggered through the sand to the office, a hundred yards away.

  “Hello?” His voice was still thick with sleep, but his eyes were opened enough for him to see it was eight-thirty. He had had forty-five minutes of sleep, and now this!

  “Mark? This is Idell Manders.” He caught no lightness in her tone. And without even seeing her he could guess that the cord in her throat would be pounding and the depths of her dark eyes would hold those pinpoints of fear he had seen before. It was thick in the timbre of her voice.

  “Yes, Miss Manders.”

  “You said once you would help me if I needed it. I do need it.”

  “Right away?” he asked.

  “Please,” she said. “At once, Mark. I can’t tell you now. Hurry.”

  He heard the click of the receiver at the other end and hung up. He yawned and scratched his tousled yellow hair. Now what the hell? And what would Babe say?

  He went back to his room and raised the shade nearest his closet. Babe’s voice came sleepily from her room. “Now what?”

  “I’m going to the Manders’,” he said. “Some trouble.”

  “You bastard,” she said cheerfully, frowned and went to sleep.

  Mark slipped into fresh duck pants, a clean polo shirt and thrust his stockingless feet into a pair of hard-soled moccasins. He grabbed up his Panama style hat, patted his pockets to make sure he had transferred everything from his other trousers and went out.

  The coupé rumbled angrily beneath the unaccustomed pressure on its throttle, but it made the mile trip in good time, coming to a stop with a gravel-spitting skid at the top of the drive. Mark hopped out and started up the front steps. He turned as Idell came around the corner of the house.

  “Thank you,” she said, squeezing his fingers. And somehow he felt this was a different kind of squeeze from the others she had given him. That had been flirtation; this was something warmer, more intimate.

  He followed her silently around the back, along a concrete walk through groves of desert shrubs and cacti, past occasional upthrust palms to where the swimming pool shimmered through the semi-tropical plants set around it on three sides. He looked curiously at the house. He had never seen it from all sides, and the more he looked the more amazed he became.

  It was built in a perfect rectangular box, but the offset heights of the firewall and the balconies with metal stairways running down the sides of the building to the ground kept it from the dull squareness so many adobe structures have. There was a balcony on each corner, with the stairs running toward one another and hugging the side wall. In the rear an iron stairway curved from the large balcony shared by Grant and Idell and another from the balcony which opened into the stitting room of the Major’s suite. Around the base of the stairs rich, imported soil held sweet peas that climbed and wound their way up the ornate iron. Everything was well-groomed, perfectly kept.

  Mark followed Idell through a wooden gate set in the four foot high adobe wall that continued from the house line and walled in the patio on three sides, reaching from the house to the edge of the date groves at the rear.

  The path carried him onto the tiles surrounding the swimming pool before he saw the body. It lay face down as she had left it, the towel covering the head and neck. Mark knew before he lifted the towel whose face he would see.

  Link’s features had lost none of their horrible contortion. If anything, they were more horrible now that a ray of sunlight streaked across his sightless, staring eyes. Mark dropped the towel with a little shudder.

  He looked at Idell, still without speaking. She said, “I found him in the pool.” The remembrance whitened the edges of her lips. “I got up, and the pool looked inviting, so I thought I would have a swim. I dove in and—and I opened my eyes, and there he was. His face was—like that. Just floating there with his hair streaming out and waving up and down like—” She shuddered and buried her face in his chest. He held her quietly, both hands flat against the warm, moist back of her shirt. He heard soothing noises coming from his own throat, but they sounded foolish and he stopped.

  A cool, low voice from behind him made him drop his arms. Idell straightened and wiped her fingers across her eyes. Leona stood there, looking quite calm in her pale green hostess gown, her hair glinting like a mass of tiny jewels where a ray of sunlight caught it. She indicated the tray on the table.

  “You need a drink,” she said. “He is quite nasty-looking,” she went on, going to the table and pouring a good jigger into a tall glass. “Or should I say ‘it’?”

  Mark looked at her oddly, receiving an amused curl of her lips for an answer.

  “Why did you call me?” he demanded. “The police are the ones to notify.”

  “Must this be a case for the police?” Leona asked quietly.

  Mark looked at the rope still about Link’s waist. “Was that about him, or did you put it there to pull him from the water?”

  “He was tied to the ladder with it,” Idell said. “I suppose we should have left him just like he was.”

  Mark shrugged. “They won’t kick up too much of a fuss.” He looked at Leona. “It is too obviously murder, I’m afraid. Even without the rope.”

  “It was only justice,” she said.

  “What do you mean by that?” he demanded.

  “He was a beast,” she said coolly.

  “Nevertheless,” Mark said, “he was murdered, and the police would find out sooner or later. You could never fake this. It wasn’t drowning—it was poison. Cyanide.”

  “You know?” she asked.

  “Look at his face,” Mark said. “Someone must have thought the contortion of his features looked a little like drowning and tried to pass it off, but that never works.” He lit his pipe and sat down in the chair next to Idell. “Why did you call me instead of the police?” he asked again.

  “I went to call them,” she said with a slow smile. “But I got so frightened at the thought of publicity and everything and—well, after last night, you were the first person to pop into my mind.”

  “Her private trouble-shooter,” Leona said. She leaned against the table smoking quite casually and apparently undisturbed by the horror that gripped Idell spasmodically and made her shudder and go white.

  “Were you here when Idell found him?” Mark asked her.

  “Yes. I helped drag him out. He was beastly heavy and unmanageable,” she said.

  “I gave him respiration,” Idell put in. “I thought there might be a chance—not really, but I had to make sure. There was no water in his lungs. I smelled the cyanide then.”

  “He’s been dead some time,” Mark said. “You had just got up when Idell did?” he asked Leona.

  “Yes,” she laughed. “Are you going to play detective, Mr. Warren?”

  He flushed beneath his reddish tan. Force of habit cropping up after a two year lay-off, he knew. “Sorry,” he said, “but these things are sure to be asked by the police. You might as well get them straight.”

  “You are helpful,” Leona murmured. “I’ll call, if you wish.”

&n
bsp; “They’ll probably be sore because you put it off for so long,” Mark said. “Call the sheriff sub-station. They’ll handle it up here. It’s out of the city limits.”

  Leona moved slowly across the patio. He watched her, entranced with the slow gliding motion that spoke of rhythm in every muscle.

  “She’s inhumanly beautiful,” Idell said.

  “She draws one,” he admitted. “Just who is she?”

  “A friend of Link’s and Grant’s,” she said. “I don’t really know much about her. I think she is—or was—a showgirl.” She smiled thinly. “An exclusive strip teaser, or some such thing.”

  He closed his eyes and decided he had left New York too soon. He would have liked to see Leona Taylor do a strip-tease.

  “I wonder how he got the cyanide,” he said. “Or I should say how it got him.”

  Idell shook her head. “I’m not sure. After I called you I played detective, though, and I have an idea.” She straightened in her chair and finished her drink. He took the glass and set it down. “I went to my room and showered—I had to get that water off me—and then went into his room. The door was unlocked, and the key was on the inside. There was a whiskey glass and an ashtray on his nightstand. That was all I saw; I just took a quick look. I locked the door behind me.” She took a plain key from the pocket of her shirt and handed it to him.

  “You keep it,” he said. “Did you remember about fingerprints?” He smiled as he said it. Speaking of fingerprints always sounded so melodramatic, so like a skulking policeman with a magnifying glass.

  “Of course,” she said. Her voice grew lighter and gayer as she seemed to draw relief from his nearness. “I was very careful, Mister Detective. I used the bottom of my shirt and turned the very outer end of the knob on the door.”

  He laughed. “All right, Miss Sherlock, what else do you remember? Was there anything in the wastebasket? In the ashtray? Was the room torn up? Signs of a scuffle?”

  “One at a time,” she said. “I didn’t look in the wastebasket,” she added ruefully. “But I did in the ashtray. It held some cigaret stubs and date pits. No lipstick on the stubs. The room was quite dark. The shades were down, so I really saw nothing more. I’m sorry—but I did peek in just for a moment.”

  Mark nodded. “You said you had an idea about the way he was poisoned.”

  “Those date pits,” she said. “Link loved dates. He ate a pound package a day. The Queen put one in his room every evening. There were only a few pits in the ashtray and no dates at all on the nightstand. He always kept them there and nibbled on them when he was in bed.”

  “Well, then, he ate the dates.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. Her breath came a little quickly now. “There were only a few pits and no signs of the dates at all. I know he kept them on the nightstand. Where were the other pits? Did he swallow them?”

  “In the wastebasket?” Mark suggested. He was beginning to see her point.

  “It’s across the room, by the dresser. They all are.” Idell lit a ciga ret with fingers that shook slightly. “I think whoever—well, whoever poisoned him took those dates out of the room when they took his body downstairs. It’s only an idea, of course, but Link loved dates so and everyone knew of it and—”

  “You think then someone put cyanide into his dates,” Mark said, “and stole the dates after Link died to hide the evidence?”

  Idell nodded. “He ate one too many dates.”

  Leona’s voice spoke from behind them. How silently the woman moved! “You might say he was dated to death.”

  Chapter VII

  THE Manders’ ranch was out of the city limits of Indio, so Chief Deputy Sheriff Tom Rourke came plodding out with two assistants shortly after nine o’clock. After a half hour’s careful interrogation of Idell, Leona and Mark, which elicited little in the way of information, he suddenly demanded, “Where in hell is everybody?”

  He was rather short and thick-set, and the summer heat made rivulets run down inside his collar and stain his face with sweat. He wore a straw hat pushed back on his head and a white shirt open at the neck and a pair of whipcord breeches and boots. He mopped at his face with a soiled handkerchief while he talked.

  Mark grinned at the Chief’s explosive question. “As far as I know, Chief, they’re still sleeping it off.”

  “Party, huh?” he said, his moon of a face holding a wise look.

  “We went to bed around four this morning,” Idell said. “All but Uncle Frank, that is. He went to bed an hour before.”

  “Any drunks?”

  Leona’s lips curled slightly. “Miss Manders and myself were sober, I think,” she said.

  The Chief looked at Mark. “You covering this story?” He referred to two newspaper features Mark had done on him when he had wanted a little extra money. He had flattered the Chief almost beyond human consumption, and they had been warm friends ever since.

  “You aren’t a newspaper man?” Idell sounded frightened.

  “Not for two years,” Mark assured her. “I used to be a New York police reporter. But now I’m on space rates like any other country correspondent. I do very little, though, even now.” He knew what she was thinking, and he wanted her to know that he was not there for that, but because he wanted to help her; he hoped she caught the personal note his voice held.

  Idell threw back her head and laughed, a genuine warm bit of laughter that helped release the tautness built inside her. It was much more relaxing than the drinks had been, she thought suddenly. The others looked at her suspiciously, as if they thought she would go into hysterics. She didn’t bother to explain; she couldn’t, very well. It would be too much for her to tell Mark she had thought him a local boy!

  “She found him,” Mark told the Chief doubtfully. He looked toward the body.

  The Chief’s eyes followed his gaze. “Bayless called Doc Nesbit. He’ll be up to take a look pretty soon. And Riverside is sending the boys down.” He sighed ponderously as if the whole affair were already a trial. “I suppose,” he said, “we ought to wake ‘em up and start moving.”

  “Breakfast, please,” Sing chanted from the doorway behind them.

  The Chief jumped and turned quickly. “For gosh sakes!”

  “Our cook,” Idell smiled. “We may as well eat and get it over with.”

  “I ate,” the Chief said.

  “Coffee then,” she offered. “And it’s much cooler in the house.”

  The Chief nodded almost enthusiastically. “Okay. Bayless,” he said to the taller of his two men standing by, “stay here and watch that—the remains. And, Henderson, prowl around and see if you can spot signs of anyone having got in the house last night, huh.”

  The breakfast room was large and airy, with a definite movement of cool air coming at them from grilles in the wall. Sing brought in iced melon, coffee and sweet rolls.

  “If you want anything more, ask,” Idell said. They all refused.

  “I thought Catrina Curtis was the maid up here,” the Chief said.

  Idell asked, “You know her?”

  The Chief flushed at Mark’s soft laugh. “Well, sort of,” he said.

  Idell looked inquisitively at Mark. He told her, “Catrina is very popular with the boys—all the boys.”

  Idell’s lips formed a round, silent “oh.” She said, “I don’t know where she could be, Chief, unless she’s sick. I haven’t seen her since I arrived.” She called to Sing, and when he came in said, “Have you seen Catrina, Sing?”

  “She woke me up this morning,” he said, either forgetting or refusing to use his sing-song. “It was just past seven, and I saw no reason for her to wait, so I suggested she return to bed. I assumed, Miss Manders, that no one would rise before nine at the earliest.”

  The Chief stared at him with his mouth slightly agape. A large piece of the melon he had taken on Idell’s suggestion showed between his teeth. He swallowed it hastily. “You mean she came in at seven and went back to bed, huh?”

 
“Exactly,” Sing said. He went back to the kitchen.

  Sing’s story seemed to remind the Chief of something. He set down his coffee cup and bit into a plug of tobacco. He said, “Miss Manders, what time did you come down for that swim this morning?”

  “At eight,” she said. They had gone over it before and she was puzzled. Was he trying to catch her? “I remember hearing the clock chime as I went past the landing.”

  “She called me at half past,” Mark said.

  The Chief could be penetrating on occasion. His placid, moon-like face and rather awkward grammar hid an efficient and agile brain.

  “Why did you call him instead of me, huh?” he demanded.

  “I was a bit hysterical,” Idell said. “If you had seen his face all screwed up like that, what would you have done?”

  “Thought he drowned,” the Chief said. He did not point out that Idell had worked over Link for some time before she called Mark. He had an idea why she had let the police wait. “But he didn’t.”

  “The murderer wanted to make us think he had,” Mark said. “I suppose because to some cyanide and strangulation appear alike.”

  “Then why tie him down with a rope, huh?”

  “To make sure it was recognized as murder,” Mark hazarded. “Our murderer wants everyone to know that Link was killed—did not die accidentally. As the melodramas would put it, he received his just deserts.”

  “Meaning,” the Chief said, “lots of people didn’t like the guy.”

  “You are being quite kind to Link when you put it that way,” Leona said. “I would say there were few who didn’t hate him.”

  The Chief finished his coffee, waved another cup aside and rose ponderously to his feet. “I’m going to look at his room,” he said. “Hey, Bayless,” he bawled suddenly. The man on duty at the pool came inside through the French doors that opened into the patio. “Go wake everybody up and get ‘em down here. Leave ‘em dressed like they are. Pajamas and such. Let ‘em put on bathrobes, of course. Miss Manders, if you’ll go with him to show him who’s got which room, it would help. Get ‘em in here Bayless.” He finished divesting himself of his orders and started for the front hall. Mark rose and tagged along.