Complete works of peter.., p.291
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 291
Nikolls said: 'Maybe Desiray's got a boy friend an' the old boy thought he'd chisel some of the dough offa Desiray. Maybe the Admiral didn't like the idea.'
Callaghan said: 'Perhaps. But that telephone message puts Desirée in a bad spot. Remember Vane, the lawyer, heard what the Admiral said on the telephone. Well... he went back to Chipley and somebody killed him.'
Nikolls said: 'I got it. Desiray knew he was going back. She was the only one who knew he was going back. So it looks as if Desiray was the one who creased him.' He smoked for a minute; then: 'I reckon Gringall will be on to Desiray,' he said.
Callaghan grinned.
'Gringall doesn't know about the Admiral's telephone message,' he said. 'Therefore he has no more reason to suspect Desirée than any one else. Providing Vane, the lawyer, keeps quiet, who's to know about that telephone message?'
Nikolls said: 'Well... you know about it.' He considered for a moment. Then he said: 'I reckon Vane will be goddam sorry that he told you about that telephone message. It sorta puts you right on top of the heap, don't it?'
'Yes,' said Callaghan. 'It puts me right on top of the heap.'
'An' I reckon that Desiray is a mug to argue with you,' said Nikolls. 'That baby oughta want to be nice and friendly with you—that is if she's got any sense.'
Callaghan said: 'Maybe she'll get some sense.'
Nikolls nodded. He called to the henna-haired one; ordered two double bacardis. She came from the other end of the bar. She said:
'Look, Mister Nikolls, I always...'
'You always try to be fair,' interrupted Nikolls, 'an' we've had a whole lot of liquor, an' you're restricted about what you sell, an' we've had more than our share, an' if you give us another drink Lord Woolton is gonna sail around here in a chariot of flame an' smack you around like it was his birthday. O.K. O.K. I know. Consider it all said. An' cash in with two double bacardis before I jump over the bar an' send out a reconnaissance party to find out whether you're still wearin' that cork leg you usta tote around.'
She said: 'Well, I'm damned! That's a lie. I haven't got a cork leg.'
Nikolls said: 'Why should I take your word for a thing like that?' He grinned at her. 'Look, hurry up those drinks, honey-pot,' he said, 'or I'm gonna tell everybody around here that you got a cork leg an' keep your stockin's up with glue.'
She began to pour the drinks. She said:
'Mister Nikolls, you go too far.'
'I know,' said Nikolls. 'But when you first found that out, it was swell, wasn't it, Gorgeous? You remember that night in June, or was it July... with the wind sighin' in the trees? Remember, honey? That wonderful night when you said you was prepared to trust me an' give me your all...'
Henna-hair gasped. She said:
'Mister Callaghan, he's awful. He says the most terrible things. I never said anything of the sort. Do I look the sort of girl who would say a thing like that?'
Nikolls said: 'Never mind. That's my story, an' I'm gonna stick to it... unless you leave that bottle of bacardi on the counter where I can get at it any time I want it, instead of havin' a death struggle with you every time I need a drink.'
She said: 'I think you're impossible, Mister Nikolls. Sometimes I'm not even sure I like you.'
Nikolls said: 'That's just it. You're crazy about me. But you won't even admit it to yourself. Ain't that just how it is, honey?'
Henna-hair smiled. She sighed.
She said: 'It's no good. I can never get the better of him, Mister Callaghan.'
She went away. But she left the bottle.
Nikolls stubbed out his cigar butt, fished out a packet of Lucky Strikes, lit one, gazed ardently at the back view of henna-hair who, at the other end of the bar, was exchanging light badinage with a customer.
Callaghan said: 'That telephone call might mean a lot so far as Desirée is concerned and it might not. If she had an alibi at the time the Admiral was killed she has nothing to be scared about.'
Nikolls said: 'She ain't likely to have an alibi, is she? At the time the old boy was creased she oughta be in bed an' asleep. Well, bein' in bed an' asleep is not an easy thing to prove, is it? It woulda been easy for her to have got up an' slipped on a coat an' gone out inta the grounds an' waited for the old boy an' croaked him. She coulda gone back to bed afterwards an' finished her beauty sleep. Is that good deduction, or is it?'
'It's good enough,' said Callaghan.
'I reckon it's watertight,' said Nikolls. 'She was the only one who knew the Admiral was comin' back. Me—I think that Desiray is the baby. I reckon she fogged the Admiral because she just had to have that insurance dough. She knew that the two years were up. She musta guessed that was the reason for the Admiral changing his mind about killin' himself. She don't know that the lawyer guy heard what the Admiral said to her on the telephone. She thinks that everybody will think it's suicide. She thinks she's sittin' pretty.'
Callaghan got off the stool. He stood leaning against the bar. He said:
'Desirée has got enough sense to have cleaned her fingerprints off the gun and put it into his hand. She'd know that if somebody shoots themselves there has to be a gun. Well, there wasn't any gun.'
Nikolls said: 'Hell... I forgot. There wasn't a gun.'
'That's why Gringall and the Sussex police are certain it was murder,' said Callaghan.
'Why not?' said Nikolls. 'I reckon they're right. I think it was murder too. I reckon Desiray forgot about the gun. Maybe she ain't used to killin' guys all the time, an' she went a bit haywire and forgot to plant it. I reckon it was her all right.'
'No,' said Callaghan. 'It wasn't Desirée.'
'You got another theory?' asked Nikolls. He emptied the bacardi bottle into his glass.
'No,' said Callaghan. 'I haven't got any theories. Except that Desirée didn't do it. She's our client. Our clients never kill people.'
'O.K.,' said Nikolls. 'But this Desiray don't want to be our client, does she? She don't like us at all. If she was a customer it would be different. But she ain't.'
'You'd be surprised,' said Callaghan. 'She's going to be a customer all right.' He lit a cigarette. 'I'll be seeing you,' he said.
He went out.
Nikolls finished the bacardi. He drank it slowly. He was looking at henna-hair.
She came down to his end of the bar. She said:
'You're a one, talking to me like that in front of Mister Callaghan. I don't know what he must've thought.'
'I do,' said Nikolls. He grinned at her impudently.
She said: 'The trouble with you, Mister Nikolls, is that you're too fresh.'
'Yeah,' said Nikolls. 'I know. "Fresh" Nikolls. They usta call me that. There was a dame in Milwaukee usta call me that...'
'Well... I reckon she knew,' said henna-hair. She put a hand up to her back curls. 'Was she nice?' she asked diffidently.
Nikolls looked up and down the bar mysteriously. He sunk his voice to a hoarse whisper.
'She was a French countess,' he said. 'She was the berries. She was such an eyeful that if you looked at her without smoked glasses she got you dazzled. She was bughouse about me,' he added modestly.
'No...' said henna-hair. 'What happened?'
'It was terrible,' said Nikolls. 'She went to her brother and told him that she was crazy about me. She said if she couldn't marry me she was gonna cut her throat.'
Henna-hair gasped a little.
'What happened then?' she demanded.
'Her brother was a heel,' said Nikolls. 'He told her that if she wanted to cut her throat it was O.K. by him. He was sorta jealous of my appeal. He said he'd rather have his sister a corpse than me for a brother-in-law. A small-minded guy, that one.'
She nodded.
'There's drama for you,' she said. 'What did you do then?'
'The countess got sorta sentimental,' said Nikolls. 'She said that in death we would not be divided. She got a big idea about us committin' suicide together. She said that anythin' else but marriage was outa the question. So we committed suicide.'
Henna-hair was pop-eyed with interest.
'But you're not dead,' she said. 'Didn't you do it?'
'Yes an' no,' said Nikolls. 'She sorta worked out that we oughta do somethin' dramatic, an' while she was workin' it out I went off and had a stag party with the boys. By the time she had thought up the idea an' collected me I was so high I was game for anything'.'
'Yes,' said henna-hair. 'Go on... go... on...'
'She'd got it all fixed that we was to be run over by the midnight express,' said Nikolls, 'an' I was feelin' so bad after drinkin' Milwaukee beer on top of whisky and rum that it sounded good to me. So we went down to the railway an' tied ourselves across the permanent way with ropes, just outside the depot where the lines curve.'
'My God...' said henna-head. 'It must have been awful.'
'It was,' said Nikolls. 'Especially when we found she'd got the time wrong and there wasn't any train. I'd sobered up a bit by this time an' I wasn't feeling so good. The countess wasn't worryin'. She said it was O.K. because there was another train at twelve twenty-one. It wasn't so bad for her because she was wearin' a fur coat. I was good an' cold an' I didn't think it was so good.
'Anyway, we stuck around there an' at twelve twenty-one the express comes roarin' along at about eighty miles an hour. I tell you it was terrible...'
'Well, what happened?' demanded henna-hair excitedly.
'Well,' said Nikolls, 'I'll tell you. The express come roarin' along an' when it was about six feet away it turned off on one of the curves. That baby had got us roped on the wrong line.
'It took all the romance out of it,' concluded Nikolls. He sighed heavily. 'I'll take another bacardi,' he added.
She opened a fresh bottle. The bar was empty.
She said: 'This one's got to be the last. I'm going to close up then.'
Nikolls drank the bacardi.
'Since I been here so long, I better see you home, honey,' he suggested.
She said: 'All right, Mister Nikolls. But you got to be good.'
Nikolls smiled at her.
'Don't give it a thought,' he said. 'If you knew how good I can be you'd be surprised.'
She looked at him. She put a straying curl back into place.
'I can guess...' said henna-head.
'That's what I thought,' said Nikolls.
IV.
The Chinese clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight as Callaghan came out of the bathroom. He was wearing the top half of a pair of yellow crêpe-de-chine pyjamas and one bedroom slipper. As he looked for the other slipper the extension telephone from the office below jangled. He took off the receiver.
He said: 'Callaghan Investigations...'
A crisp voice said: 'This is Mr. Vane of Vane, Fleming, Searls and Vane. I want to speak to Mr. Callaghan.'
'You're speaking to him,' said Callaghan. 'What can I do for you, Mr. Vane?'
'It's about that conversation we had, Mr. Callaghan,' said Vane. 'Having thought things over, I've come to certain conclusions that I feel I should disclose to you. I...'
Callaghan began to grin.
'Don't bother,' he said. 'You can save your breath. I can guess the conclusions.'
Vane said: 'I don't understand you. I wished to tell you—'
Callaghan interrupted: 'You wished to tell me that our conversation of the other evening was based on a misapprehension. You wished to tell me that, having thought things over carefully, you could not be quite certain as to what the Admiral said when he telephoned to Chipley Grange, when he knocked you up to read that policy; that you have no idea as to the person to whom he was talking; that he was speaking so indistinctly that you could easily have been mistaken in thinking that you understood what he said. That's what you wished to say, isn't it?'
Vane said: 'Well, Mr. Callaghan, I must admit it was something on those lines.'
Callaghan said: 'Don't worry, Mr. Vane. You can call through to Desirée and tell her that she needn't worry. That I'm keeping that information about the Admiral's telephone call to myself.'
There was a pause. Then: 'May I ask why?' said Vane.
'You may,' said Callaghan. 'You can tell Desirée that I'm doing that because, at the moment, I feel like it.'
'Mr. Callaghan,' said Vane sternly. 'I must say that you speak rather disrespectfully of my client, Miss Gardell. I am sure she has not asked you to call her Desirée. I am sure—'
'Right,' said Callaghan. 'She hasn't asked me to call her Desirée. But she'll always be Desirée to Callaghan Investigations. We like to feel friendly with our clients.'
'Miss Gardell is not a client of yours, Mr. Callaghan,' said Vane. 'My instructions are—'
Callaghan said: 'Your instructions be damned. I don't know if you're a betting man, Vane, but if you are you can put your shirt on two things. One of them is that Desirée is our client—even if she doesn't like it—and the other is that you'll take your instructions from us.'
'Nonsense,' said Vane. 'I take instructions from Miss Gardell and from Miss Gardell only.'
'That's what you think,' said Callaghan. 'But she'll be writing you within a day or two on that point.'
Vane said: 'Mr. Callaghan, I resent your attitude and your impertinence. I shall advise my client—'
'Listen, Vane,' said Callaghan evenly. 'Let me give you some advice. Just don't advise your client anything at all. Did you ever hear the story of the fish with the big mouth?'
'I never did,' said Vane. 'And I fail—'
'It had such big mouth,' said Callaghan, 'that it not only swallowed the hook but the line and the sinker too. You ought to remember that fish. If it had kept its mouth shut it would have been all right.'
Vane said in an enraged voice: 'Mr. Callaghan, I refuse to talk—'
Callaghan said: 'That's the first clever thing you've said up to date. Just keep on refusing. Because you thought I was representing the Globe & Associated when I came to see you, you spluttered all that stuff about what he said on the telephone. Now, of course, you realise that what you said is evidence... bad evidence. You realise, now that it's too late, that every goddam bit of evidence in this case points straight at your client. I suppose Scotland Yard's been to see you and even your fat brain has grasped the fact that this is a murder job and that your client stands a damned good chance of being suspect. She was the only person who knew that the Admiral was going back home, wasn't she? And the obvious presumption was that she was going to meet him—'
Vane said: 'No... my client was in bed.'
'Nuts,' said Callaghan. 'Was she in bed when she answered the telephone?'
There was a long pause.
'Listen,' said Callaghan evenly. 'Remember the fish with the big mouth. Forget that telephone call altogether. Tell Desirée to forget it too and don't argue about it, because when you try to be clever it hurts.'
There was no reply. Callaghan replaced the receiver on the hook. He looked around for his slipper. He could not find it. He kicked off the one he had on, walked over to the sideboard, took out the bourbon bottle, indulged in a long swig.
He sat down in the big arm-chair in front of the electric fire. He put his bare feet on the mantelpiece, carefully avoiding the Chinese clock.
He thought the Gardell case was going to be very, very amusing.
He went to sleep.
VII. -- LOVE IN A COTTAGE
I.
The telephone rang. Effie Thompson stopped typing, reached out for the instrument, took off the receiver.
She said: 'Oh, good-morning, Miss Vendayne.' Her voice was a trifle cold. 'Yes, Miss Vendayne... I gave Mr. Callaghan your message... Yes, I'll tell him again... that the country's looking beautiful... No, I don't think I can get him for you just now. We've rung his apartment several times this morning, but there was no answer. I don't think he's in... Good-bye, Miss Vendayne.'
Nikolls was sitting in Callaghan's chair in the inner office, his feet on the desk. He called through the open door:
'The boss ain't out. He's asleep.'
Effie said: 'Well, what do I do? There have been four telephone messages for him this morning. Every time I ring upstairs there's no reply. And there's a personal letter.'
Nikolls said: 'You'd better overcome that maidenly modesty of yours and go and wake him up.'
She said: 'Very well,' She went up to Callaghan's apartment, crossed the hall, went into the sitting-room. She stood on the threshold.
Callaghan was sound asleep in the big leather arm-chair in front of the electric fire. Effie could see his naked feet on the mantelpiece. She was glad it was a very low chair.
She went back to the office. She said to Nikolls:
'You'd better go up. He's asleep in his arm-chair in front of the sitting-room fire. I suppose he's been there all night. He's practically nude, I imagine.'
Nikolls said: 'What the hell d'you mean "you imagine." Why do you dames haveta be so coy. A guy is either practically nude or he ain't. There's no imagination about it.'
Effie said: 'If you must go into details, I didn't bother to look.'
Nikolls grinned at her. He said:
'I know... that's why you had to imagine... hey?'
She said: 'You're terrible. Whatever I say you twist. And you might tell Mr. Callaghan that Miss Vendayne's telephoned again. Remind him that he was going to call her. She keeps telling me that the Devonshire country is looking wonderful. I wonder why she keeps calling.'
Nikolls said: 'You'd be surprised...' He got up. 'Give me that letter.'
He went upstairs.
II.
Callaghan sat on the arm of the chair. He ran his hands through his thick, unruly black hair. His head ached.
Nikolls said: 'It's not so good—that bacardi on top of whisky, you know. I felt shockin' this mornin' until I took somethin' for it.'
Callaghan asked: 'What did you take?'
Nikolls said: 'I took some whisky. It put it right practically immediately.'
Callaghan said: 'You'd better give me some.'
Nikolls poured out four fingers of whisky, brought it over. Callaghan drank it at a gulp.
Nikolls said: 'Will you be wantin' me to-day?'
