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

an air of wistful anticipation. It was empty.

“Oh, hell,” said Doan.

The telephone rang.

Doan picked it up. “Yes?”

“Is Eric Trent there?”

“No. This is Doan.”

“This is Heloise of Hollywood. Where is Eric, Doan?”

“I don’t know.”–

“Well, suppose you find out.”

“Okay,” said Doan.

“And when you do—tell him I want to see him. I mean, tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Up at my house. Tell him he can bring that Melissa Gregory mess along. I know he’s with her.”

“Okay.”

“And after that—you’re all through.”

“What?” said Doan.

“I won’t be needing you any more. I’ll pay you up to the end of next week if you don’t hike your expense account too high.”

“Before I exit smiling, I should maybe give you an item or two of information I uncovered.”

“I have all the information I need. Just turn in your bill.”

“Okay,” said Doan.

“Go find Eric now. Don’t stop to get drunk on the way.”

“What do you mean—drunk?”

“You probably know the meaning of the word better than anybody I ever came across, Doan. I mean soused and stinko and looping and polluted like I’ve seen you more times than I can count on both the toes and fingers of all my customers.”

“You’re maligning me,” said Doan. “My mother wouldn’t like to hear you talk about me like that—that is, if she could hear.”

“Get going.”

“Okay.”

Doan hung up, and then he reached down and put his thumb across Carstairs’ nostrils. Carstairs reared up on the chesterfield, snorting like a grampus.

“I’m not me, really,” Doan told him. “You’re having a nightmare and I’m a part of your bad dream.”

Carstairs looked at him incredulously, raising his eyebrows.

“You’re still asleep,” Doan said. “The only reason you aren’t resting peacefully is that you ate something that disagreed with you.”

Carstairs yawned, settled back down on the chesterfield again and closed his eyes.

“Dope!” Doan shouted, and Carstairs jumped up alertly. “Dope, dope, dope, dope, dope. You’d believe anything anybody told you… Come on, we’ve got business.”

*

Somewhere or other T. Ballard Bestwyck had picked up the idea that the student serfs under his sovereign sway would like to know each other at least slightly. This naive notion was treated with the contempt it deserved by the normal members of the student body, but that didn’t stop T. Ballard Bestwyck from throwing contests he called Get Acquainted Dances everywhere, anywhere and incessantly. No one ever attended them but the bedeviled members of the faculty who were drafted into supervising them and assorted coveys of drips and drools who, upon their arrival, chose up sides according to their sexes, threw out battle lines on opposite edges of the dancing arena, and spent the evening smirking and sneering at each other in frantic frustration.

Things were going normally when Doan and Carstairs arrived at Dullwich Hall, which was a dreary sort of a place, very appropriately named. Several of the faculty couples had ventured out into the no man’s land between the battle lines out of sheer boredom and were pushing each other pointlessly around to a natty arrangement of_ Japanese Sandman_ played by two feeble fiddles and a rheumatic piano.

Melissa and Eric Trent were among them. Melissa wasn’t exactly beaming, but Trent was making very heavy weather of it. His blond hair was sweatily matted, and he was breathing through his mouth, and his eyes roamed ceaselessly in search of succor. He saw Doan and stopped short. Melissa half-tripped. Trent straightened her up and pointed at Doan. They came across the floor, avoiding the other rhythmic navigational hazards.

“Mr. Doan,” said Melissa, “do you want me to be frank with you?”

“Sure,” said Doan.

Melissa pointed. “He can’t dance worth a damn.”

“I told you I couldn’t,” Trent said. “Who do you think I could have practiced with the last few years—polar bears? You’re the one who insisted that I try.”

“I thought you were a man,” Melissa said. “I thought you could stand on your own feet.”

“I didn’t step on you.”

“Just because I’m exceptionally agile, you didn’t.”

“I can’t dance.”

“Well, all right,” said Melissa. “I’m agreeing with you. That’s what I just got through telling Doan. Why are you arguing with me?”

“I’m not.”

“You are. And if you don’t stop, I’m going to call you something I told you I wouldn’t call you.”

“And if you do, I’ll do what I told you I’d do if you did.”

“Do you think he would?” Melissa asked Doan.

“Yes,” said Doan. “If you’re thinking of calling him what I think you are. Whenever he hears that name, his strength becomes as the strength of ten.”

“All right, then,” said Melissa. “I won’t call you that, but you can’t stop me from thinking it at you.”

“Oh, yes, I can,” said Trent.

“Let’s postpone this matter,” Doan suggested, “before we get too metaphysical. I have a message for you both from Mrs. Heloise of Hollywood Tremaine Trent.”

“Is it printable?” Melissa asked.

“Oh, yes. She wants to see you both up at her house—right away or anyway, pretty quick.”

“We’re not going,” said Trent.

“Yes, we are,” said Melissa. “I’ve got a few conversational tidbits I’ve dreamed up to try out on her. She got the jump on me last time. I can’t think well when my feet are dirty. And, anyway, I want to see her house. I’ll bet it’s something, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” said Trent. “I’ve never seen it.”

Melissa stared at him. “What?”

“I started getting mad at Nome, Alaska, where I ran across the first newsstand I’d seen in four years. By, the time I got to Seattle, I was steaming, and I boiled clear over before I arrived in Hollywood. We did our sparring in her lawyer’s office.”

Melissa patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a good boy.”

“Thank you. Doan, what happened to Morales? Melissa says those names he used were just nonsense words. No such clans or gods or whatnot exist.”

“That’s only the half of it,” Doan informed him.

“Morales doesn’t exist, either.”

“What?”

“His real name is Sebastian Rodriguez y Ruiz, and he’s a detective from Mexico.”

“Well, why did he smash my instruments?”

“This one will stop you,” said Doan. “He smashed them because your brother, Horace, stole some scrolls from a church in Mexico.”

Trent just stared at him.

Doan nodded. “That’s what he told Humphrey and Humphrey believed him.”

“But why?”

“Because this Sebastian Rodriguez y Ruiz is a genius. I suspected that, and so I called up Mexico City, and they confirmed it. He is a positive, certified genius at detecting things. If you don’t believe it, ask him.”

“Another detective,” Melissa groaned. “They’re getting as thick around here as fleas on a chihuahua. When I started teaching here I thought this was a general arts university, but now it looks as though it’s turning out to be a school for rookie cops. If I don’t watch myself I’ll wake up one day in a police matron’s uniform with my name changed to Maggie O’Flaherty.”

Trent turned to Doan. “But about this Morales, or Sebastian Rodriguez y Ruiz or whatever he calls himself. Why was he pretending to be a janitor?”

“I told you,” said Doan. “He’s a genius and genius is inscrutable.”

Melissa tugged at Trent’s arm. “Come on. I want to go see Heloise.”

“Good-by, forever,” said Doan.

“What?” said Melissa.

“Carstairs and I have now taken our humble place among the faceless army of the unemployed and unwelcome. We have been fired.”

“Oh,” said Melissa. “But we want to say good-by to you—I mean, in a big way. Wait here until we get back. You can dance with some of these girls.”

Doan shivered. “Thank you,” he said, “Thanks a million. But no thanks.”

“Well, wait at Eric’s apartment, then.”

“It’s a deal,” said Doan. “That is, it’s a deal at the moment. But I’m feeling sort of restless and I have a lot on my mind and I don’t know where I may end up eventually.”

*

The road up the canyon wasn’t particularly steep, but its designers had done the best they could to make it appear so. It switched back and forth and doubled on itself like a snake with a stomach ache. The headlights of Trent’s car illuminated it only about one tenth of the time; during the other nine tenths they swept pretty but aimless swaths in the night off to the right or left. The engine grumbled and complained to itself in a deeply outraged way.

“For goodness’ sakes,” said Melissa. “Shift into second before you pull a bearing.”

“I might have known it,” said Trent.

“Known what?”

“That you’d be one of these females who aren’t satisfied with just backseat driving. In addition, you’ve got to run in a lot of senseless lingo you, picked up hanging around garages. Pull a bearing!”

“Well, people do!”

“Not people named Trent.”

Melissa looked miffed. “I’m not as bad a backseat driver,” she said, “as you are a dancer.”

“I told you I don’t like to dance,” Trent informed her. “Also I’m out of practice.” He took his eyes off the tortuous road for a moment and gave her a little smile. “But let’s stop quarreling. As far as not liking dancing is concerned, I have this to say. I almost enjoyed dancing with you. If there hadn’t been anyone else there, and even if there hadn’t been any music and we’d been just standing there, I think I really would have enjoyed it…”

Melissa turned to him but her lashes covered her eyes. “I wonder why?”

“Yes,” Trent said, “I wonder.” The smile disappeared from his face and for a moment he looked painfully serious. “I don’t suppose it had anything to do with the fact that you were very close to me and I had my arms around you and all of a sudden I had the feeling…”

“Does Heloise of Hollywood make you feel that way too?” Melissa interrupted impishly.

“Oh, stop it!” Trent said. “Can’t a guy get even a little bit sentimental with you without—well, just without?”

Melissa had to turn her head. Her shoulders were shaking with chuckles. “I suppose you’d get even more sentimental if I called you Han—Oooh! Don’t you dare choke me! Look out! Grab the wheel! What are you trying to do—kill us both?”

A cliff jumped out at them and then jumped back in place when Trent, whose hands had been off the steering wheel and around Melissa’s throat, grabbed the wheel again and gave the car a twist back into the road.

The headlights swished around like a scythe, and the tires squealed on a cutback curve.

“Go slower!” Melissa cried. “We’re going to pass Heloise’s place without seeing it.”

“I can’t go slower,” Trent said, “without backing up.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Melissa shrilled. “I think that must be it! Clear back up there. Look for the gates, now.”

“That’s what I am doing.”

“You missed them!”

“I did not.”

“Oh, why do you have to be so stubborn and stupid? You must have missed them. You just weren’t looking. Well, you’ll just have to turn around—”

Two fat, high white-brick pillars swam smoothly at them out of the night.

“Yes?” said Trent gently. “Yes?”

“Oh, shut up.”

Trent turned off on smoothly oiled macadam. The road dipped down, and then went up in a rush. Trent shifted into second, and they ground dismally upward.

“Gee,” said Melissa. “Look.”

They were up on the top of the butte now, and the house was waiting right there, poised and ready to pounce. It was enormous, squared off solid and dark against the sky, throwing a sullen shadow in deference to the moon. Trellised vines crawled sinuously black over the side walls, and the few lighted windows were like sly, peeping eyes.