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Authors: Donald Hamilton
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had said quite clearly that here was a man who expected hell to break loose behind him, and hoped to get far away before it did.
There was no response to my knock and no sound of movement inside the room. I drew a long breath and glanced around casually. Everything was quiet. I reached in my pocket for my wallet and got out the piece of plastic I’d used once before here in Canada, the one masquerading as a credit card. As I shielded the lock with my body, I carefully avoided remembering the last time I’d opened a door in this illegal manner, and what I’d found on the other side. At least I tried.
The lock was easy. The door swung back. I took extra precautions, going in. The fact that one man had left didn’t guarantee that the place was safe; and I wasn’t carrying my revolver today. It was hidden away in the VW where nobody was likely to find it without dismantling the car. With the highways full of convict-hunting policemen— we’d hit two roadblocks on the way—wearing an undeclared firearm in what was, after all, a foreign country, had been too much of a risk. However, I did have a rather special little knife, and I had it ready as I entered, fast. Nothing happened. I got the door closed and went once more through the routine of checking closet and bathroom. Then I shut the knife and put it away and went over to the bed where she lay.
I won’t say I’d been expecting it, but after seeing Ruyter I wasn’t really surprised. So there was no excuse for the sick, shocked feeling I experienced, looking down at her. Actually, it was very peaceful. No acid had been used here. There was a small-caliber automatic pistol in her hand, the little .25 that will hardly shoot through a heavy overcoat, and there was a dark spot on her temple, that was all. There were some powderburns—there always are, with a contact wound—and there was a little blood, but nothing like the mess you get with the larger calibers.
She was wearing a dress tonight, perhaps put on for my benefit: a gay summery print that made her small tomboy face look very pale. A pair of high-heeled white pumps stood neatly on the rug beside the bed. Her eyes were closed. Except for the pallor, and the gun and the wound, she could simply have slipped off her shoes and lain down to take a nap. He’d set the scene carefully. A portable typewriter, presumably hers, stood open on the long, glass-topped gizmo along one wall, that served as combination dresser and writing table. The machine had a piece of paper in it, displaying one line of writing: I’M SORRY I MUST HAVE BEEN CRAZY GOODBYE.
Beside the typewriter stood an empty chemical reagent bottle with a glass stopper. The label had been defaced by the potent liquid that had run down it in streaks, but I could still read the words: Acid Sulfuric, conc., USP. Beside the bottle lay a small hypodermic syringe containing a residue of drug that, I had no doubt, would check out the same as the stuff that had killed Greg.
I didn’t believe it for a minute, of course, but the picture was clear enough for the stupidest policeman: unable to live with her guilt, Elaine had set out all the evidence, typed her farewell note, and shot herself. Well, she was the logical fall guy for Greg’s murder, if you had to have a fall guy. I’d suspected her myself.
I went back to the bed. The shock was wearing off. I suppose I should have been feeling grief in its place. Well, when the job was over, I could get drunk and cry in my beer, or whiskey, or gin. Right now I had other things to do, and I took from my pocket the stained white kid glove I’d found in Greg’s room and tried it on the right hand. It was much too large, it slipped on and off loosely, which was just as well, since the operation wasn’t one I found particularly enjoyable. I looked at the damaged glove, frowning, trying to reconstruct the murder in which it had figured, and the murder in which it had not, and the stages by which one had led to the
There was no response to my knock and no sound of movement inside the room. I drew a long breath and glanced around casually. Everything was quiet. I reached in my pocket for my wallet and got out the piece of plastic I’d used once before here in Canada, the one masquerading as a credit card. As I shielded the lock with my body, I carefully avoided remembering the last time I’d opened a door in this illegal manner, and what I’d found on the other side. At least I tried.
The lock was easy. The door swung back. I took extra precautions, going in. The fact that one man had left didn’t guarantee that the place was safe; and I wasn’t carrying my revolver today. It was hidden away in the VW where nobody was likely to find it without dismantling the car. With the highways full of convict-hunting policemen— we’d hit two roadblocks on the way—wearing an undeclared firearm in what was, after all, a foreign country, had been too much of a risk. However, I did have a rather special little knife, and I had it ready as I entered, fast. Nothing happened. I got the door closed and went once more through the routine of checking closet and bathroom. Then I shut the knife and put it away and went over to the bed where she lay.
I won’t say I’d been expecting it, but after seeing Ruyter I wasn’t really surprised. So there was no excuse for the sick, shocked feeling I experienced, looking down at her. Actually, it was very peaceful. No acid had been used here. There was a small-caliber automatic pistol in her hand, the little .25 that will hardly shoot through a heavy overcoat, and there was a dark spot on her temple, that was all. There were some powderburns—there always are, with a contact wound—and there was a little blood, but nothing like the mess you get with the larger calibers.
She was wearing a dress tonight, perhaps put on for my benefit: a gay summery print that made her small tomboy face look very pale. A pair of high-heeled white pumps stood neatly on the rug beside the bed. Her eyes were closed. Except for the pallor, and the gun and the wound, she could simply have slipped off her shoes and lain down to take a nap. He’d set the scene carefully. A portable typewriter, presumably hers, stood open on the long, glass-topped gizmo along one wall, that served as combination dresser and writing table. The machine had a piece of paper in it, displaying one line of writing: I’M SORRY I MUST HAVE BEEN CRAZY GOODBYE.
Beside the typewriter stood an empty chemical reagent bottle with a glass stopper. The label had been defaced by the potent liquid that had run down it in streaks, but I could still read the words: Acid Sulfuric, conc., USP. Beside the bottle lay a small hypodermic syringe containing a residue of drug that, I had no doubt, would check out the same as the stuff that had killed Greg.
I didn’t believe it for a minute, of course, but the picture was clear enough for the stupidest policeman: unable to live with her guilt, Elaine had set out all the evidence, typed her farewell note, and shot herself. Well, she was the logical fall guy for Greg’s murder, if you had to have a fall guy. I’d suspected her myself.
I went back to the bed. The shock was wearing off. I suppose I should have been feeling grief in its place. Well, when the job was over, I could get drunk and cry in my beer, or whiskey, or gin. Right now I had other things to do, and I took from my pocket the stained white kid glove I’d found in Greg’s room and tried it on the right hand. It was much too large, it slipped on and off loosely, which was just as well, since the operation wasn’t one I found particularly enjoyable. I looked at the damaged glove, frowning, trying to reconstruct the murder in which it had figured, and the murder in which it had not, and the stages by which one had led to the
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