Oh, Murderer Mine, Norbert Davis [best romance ebooks TXT] 📗

which is a very light gun, but it really doesn’t matter how big a hole you get punched in you if it’s in a vulnerable place. Last night he was shooting in the dark—he couldn’t see his sights—and he couldn’t have seen more of me than just a blur, and he shot awfully fast, but even at that he would have hit me all three times if I hadn’t moved in the wrong direction at just the right time. I’d hate to meet him when he could see well.”

“You’re scaring me now.”

“I’m trying to. Think back again. What was he doing when you first saw him?”

“It sounds silly, but he was looking at a pair of my stockings as though he’d never seen any before.”

“He didn’t take anything?”

“No.”

“What else did he disturb—besides your bureau or dresser or whatever?”

“Nothing. Just that one drawer.”

“Yeah,” said Doan absently.

“Are you really considering Beulah as a suspect?”

Doan frowned. “I don’t see how it could have been her. She had the time, all right. You were still unconscious when she turned up, and Trent thinks it was about seven or eight minutes after I started chasing. But he was so busy dithering around over you it might have been an hour for all he’d know. I made some experiments. In her apartment, with the door closed, it would be hard to hear a fire siren in your apartment. None of the other tenants heard you. We did because your door was open, and the hall funnels the sound. But if Beulah Porter Cowys has a stocking mask around, she’s carrying it with her. Along with an automatic and a knife, and that doesn’t seem reasonable. She does have a pair of black leather gloves, though.”

“Did you search her apartment?”

“Sure.”

“How’d you get in?”

“The locks in that building are easy to pick. Of course, too, she could have circled around and gone in the front of the building after she shot at me—it’s physically possible—but I don’t believe she could have done it without Carstairs spotting her.”

“Why don’t you let Carstairs just sniff around until he locates whoever it was?”

“Carstairs?” Doan said. “He’s not that kind of a dog. He can’t smell any better than I can. He operates with his ears and his eyes.”

“Look here,” said Melissa. “Why are you so interested in me and in my prowler?”

“Why, Melissa,” Doan chided. “I love you. Did I forget to tell you?”

“Pooh,” said Melissa. “We can’t use that. Come on. I’ve cooperated. Now, give.”

Doan said slowly, “I noticed something I don’t think Humphrey spotted. You know that directory in the lobby of the Pavilion? The one that lists the names of the tenants opposite the number of the apartment each lives in? Well, the manager or someone had already put Trent’s name opposite your apartment and yours opposite Trent’s last night. You know, because Trent insists on exchanging apartments with you and—”

“I know all about who wants to exchange apartments and why.”

“Oh,” said Doan. “Well, that chesterfield in Trent’s apartment is too damned short. Now if you’d just let me sleep in that pull-down bed in your living room…”

“I wouldn’t care for that arrangement.”

“Okay,” said Doan.

“Just a minute here!” said Melissa. “Don’t try to get off the subject. You’re so concerned about this because you think—on account of the directory—that the prowler made a mistake in the apartments. You think he intended to get into Trent’s apartment instead of mine!”

“Yes,” Doan admitted. “And I think that’s why he was staring at your stockings in such a dumbfounded way when you came in, he naturally didn’t expect to find a drawer full of women’s stuff in Trent’s apartment.”

“Well, what do you think he did expect to find?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I’m worried about. This bird is no ordinary prowler—no garden variety of sneak thief. And anyway, Trent has no dough, aside from a big gob of back Navy pay which is in the bank. He hasn’t any rajah’s rubies or any secret plans for atomic bombs. I can’t figure out what the prowler was after, and why he was willing to go to such lengths to keep from being caught. I mean, look at it this way. Suppose I had caught him—or rather, suppose Frank Ames had. The prowler hadn’t stolen a thing. All he could possibly have drawn would be a couple of years for breaking and entering. And yet, he was willing—and ready to commit murder to dodge that. It doesn’t make sense.”

“So you think it was a woman.”

Doan grinned. “Not for that reason. But sometimes they do funny things when they get bitten by the love bug, and Trent is dynamite in that direction.”

“Oh-_ho!_” said Melissa suddenly.

“What now?” Doan demanded warily.

“I’m just getting the drift of all these sly, snide questions of yours. I know who you’re eyeing.”

“Just relax, now,” Doan advised.

“I won’t. You’re thinking about somebody whose name starts with H and who hangs around in Hollywood.”

“There’s still a law against slander,” Doan warned.

“Pooh. No wonder you’re worried. You’re afraid you might be guarding Trent against your own boss.”

“You’ve got an evil mind, Melissa,” Doan told her.

“Haven’t I, just? But it works, doesn’t it? So Heloise is a crack shot with a pistol, is she?”

“I don’t know,” said Doan, “but she used to juggle knives.”

“She did? Really? Where?”

“In carnivals and at county fairs.”

“How do you know?”

“I investigated her. I always investigate the people who hire me. I want to know whether their checks are good.”

“She must have millions!”

“Maybe, now,” Doan said. “But back in the thirties there was a time when she was on the ropes financially. Her outfit nearly foundered under her.”

“What happened?”

“Her husband forged her name and misused a limited power of attorney to dribble all her assets into the stock market.”

“Her_ husband?_ You mean, another one? Has she been married before?”

“Oh, yes. To a guy named ‘Big Tub’ Tremaine. He was a spieler on a sick pitch.”

“What does that mean?”

“He sold medicines at carnivals and fairs—Kickapoo Joy Juice and Colonel Ouster’s Calibrated Cure-All and stuff like that. Heloise was his come-on. She used to dress in spangled diapers and a necklace and juggle knives to attract a crowd so Big Tub could work them over. He was good at it, from all accounts.”

“What happened to him?”

“He died.”

“Ah-ha,” said Melissa. “Mysteriously, I’ll bet.”

“Nope. He dunked himself in the drink of his own free will and accord—and right in front of about a hundred witnesses who were all chasing him to stop him.”

“Why did he do that? Kill himself, I mean?”

“Because he was smart,” said Doan. “He stole money from Heloise. That’s just about as serious an offense as there is. If she could have laid hands on him she’d have had him boiled in oil or, at the very least, drawn and quartered.”

“Have you ever heard about the other guy who stole money from Heloise?”

“No,” said Melissa, “I haven’t heard. Tell me about the other guy.”

“I’ve forgotten his name but he worked for her as a bookkeeper. He figured out a complicated and what he thought was a foolproof system for rigging the books. He’d embezzled the magnificent sum of one dollar and seventy-six cents when she got wise to him. He was bonded and Heloise forced the bonding company to prosecute, although they didn’t want to. The court, however, threw the case out. They said stealing a dollar seventy-six was hardly a misdemeanor, much less a felony. Whereupon, Heloise decided to prosecute in her own way—not through the courts…”

“Did she fire the fellow?”

“No, she kept him on—raised his salary, in fact, so high that the poor guy’s wife wouldn’t let him quit. Heloise wanted him right under her thumb where she could torture him. But she didn’t let him keep books any longer. She made him the manager of her complaint department, and if you want to live a life of hell and damnation just go get yourself a job in the complaint department of a cosmetics manufacturer.”

“I can imagine,” said Melissa.

“I wonder if you can,” Doan told her. “This poor ex-bookkeeper, with the sensitive soul you’ll find in most embezzlers, had to take lip from women all over the United States and some foreign countries who’d bought Heloise of Hollywood’s beauty preparations and hadn’t turned out as beautiful as the advertisements said they would. They stormed the poor guy by letter, telegram, telephone and in person. All of them were mad, some of them madder. His nerves gave out.”

“What finally happened to him?”

“He went off his bat, which is what Heloise had counted on. They’ve got him stuck away now in a nuthouse somewhere in a room wallpapered with mattresses. The doctors say he’ll never get any better.”

“Ugh,” said Melissa. “This Heloise must be plenty tough.”

“She is that,” said Doan, “but a good businesswoman. She built up her business all on her own, although she did and does use the sap bait Big Tub taught her. He had nothing to do with the management of it. She supported him in relative luxury until he started giving her money to the stockbrokers.”

“Where did he kill himself?”

“At Ensenada. He dove off a fishing pier after loading himself down with most of the liquor in the nearest bar and bidding all the patrons a fond farewell. They just thought he was crocked, until he actually did heave himself overboard, and then they had a hell of a time fishing him out again. When they did, he was deader than a kippered herring.”

“I’d really like to see Heloise,” Melissa said ruminatively. “I mean, in person. She interests me.”

“Is that a fact?” Doan inquired politely. “Heloise interests you?”

“Don’t get funny.”

“You’d better forget Trent. He’s out of your league.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“I’m just telling you,” Doan said. “I’m your friend.”

“Ha!”

“Now just think. Suppose by some freak of chance you did manage to land him. He looks just as good to other gals as he does to you, remember.”

“I could handle that angle, all right. And without hiring a detective to watch him. Does Heloise give her personal attention to that salon of hers on the Strip?”

“Yes,” Doan admitted. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t show up around there.”

“I will if I please, and I think I please.”

“Well, take Carstairs with you, anyway.”

“I can’t. I haven’t a car. It’s against the law for dogs to ride on buses.”

“Let him handle that situation. I’ve never yet run across a bus driver who could keep him off a bus or put him off once he got on…Carstairs!”

Carstairs raised his head languidly.

“Go with her,” said Doan. “Watch it.” Carstairs lifted his upper lip and sneered at hint in an elaborately bored way.