Lay Her Among The Lilies

surface again, but eventually it did—but only just.

“What’s up?” he said, blinking. “What’s the matter with Apartment 246?”

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“I’m asking you. Front door’s open; no one’s there. That’s where you come in, pally. You

should know when a front door’s been left open.”

“She’s up there,” he said owlishly. “She’s always up there at this time.”

“Only this time she’s not. Come on, pally, you and me are going up there to take a look

around.”

He went with me as meek as a lamb. As we rode in the elevator, he said feebly, “She’s

always been a nice girl. What do the police want with her?”

“Did I say the police want anything with her?” I asked, and scowled at him. “All I want to

know is why the front door’s open when she isn’t there.”

“Maybe she went out and forgot to shut it,” he said after turning the matter over in his

mind. I could see he was pleased with this idea.

“Now you’re getting cute,” I said as the elevator came to a creaking standstill. I was glad to

get out of it. It didn’t seem strong enough to haul one, let alone two people. “Did you see her

go out?”

He said he hadn’t seen her go out.

“Would you have seen her if she went?”

“Yes.” He blinked, and his Adam’s apple jumped a couple of notches. “My room overlooks

the front entrance.”

“Are you sure she didn’t come out during the past ten minutes?”

No, he couldn’t be sure about that. He had been cooking his lunch.

We went down the long corridor into the cul-de-sac and into Nurse Gurney’s apartment.

We went into each room, but she still wasn’t in any of them.

“Not there,” I said. “How else could she have left the building without using the front

entrance?”

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After staring blankly at the wall, he said there was no other way out.

I poked a finger towards the opposite apartment.

“Who’s the fat woman who eats plums?”

This time his Adam’s apple went for good.

“Plums?” he repeated and backed away. I guess he thought I was crazy.

“Yeah. Who is she?”

He looked at the door of Apartment 244, blinked, turned scared old eyes on me.

“In there, mister?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head.

“No one’s in there. That apartment’s to rent.”

I felt a sudden chill run up my spine. I shoved past him and sank .my thumb into the bell-push. I could hear the bell ringing, but nothing happened; nobody came to the door.

“Got a pass key?”

He fumbled in his pocket, dragged out a key and handed it over.

“Ain’t nobody in there, mister,” he said. “Been empty for weeks.”

I turned the lock, pushed open the door and went into a lobby just like Nurse Gurney’s

lobby. I went quickly from room to room. The place was as empty and as bare as Mrs.

Hubbard’s cupboard.

The bathroom window looked on to a fire-escape. I pushed up the window and leaned out.

Below was an alley that led into Skyline Avenue. It would have been easy for a strong man to

have carried a girl down the escape to a waiting car below.

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Leaning far out I saw a plum stone on one of the iron steps. Pity she hadn’t swallowed it. It

might have choked her.

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James Hadley Chase – Lay Her Among The Lilies – Chapter III

Chapter III

I

There was a time when I proudly imagined I had a well-furnished, impressive, non-gaudy,

super-de-luxe office to work in. Between us, Paula and I had spent a lot of hard-earned

money on the desk, the carpet, the drapes and the book-cases. We had even run to a couple of

original water colours by a local artist who, to judge by his prices, considered himself in the

Old Master class: probably he was, although it was a pretty close-kept secret. But all this was

before I had a chance of seeing the other offices in Orchid Buildings. Some of them were

smarter than mine, some were not, but those I had seen didn’t make me wish to change mine

until I walked into the office of Manfred Willet, the President of Glynn & Coppley, Attorneys

at Law. Then I saw at a glance I would have to save many more dollars before I could hope to

get anywhere near the super-de-luxe class. His office made mine look like an Eastside slum.

It was a big room, high ceilinged and oak panelled. A desk, big enough to play billiards on,

stood at the far end of the room before three immense windows, stretching up to the ceiling.

There were four or five lounging chairs and a big chesterfield grouped around a fireplace that

could have been used as a hidey-hole for a small-sized elephant. The fitted carpet was thick

enough to be cut with a lawn mower.

On the over-mantel and scattered around the room on tricky little tables were choice pieces

of jade carvings. The desk furniture was of solid silver that glittered with loving care and

constant polishing. Off-white Venetian blinds kept out the sun. A silent air-conditioning plant

controlled the temperature. Double windows, sound-proof walls and a rubber-lined door

insisted on complete silence. A stomach rumble in this office would sound like a ton of gravel

going down a shoot.

Manfred Willet sat in a padded, swivelled chair behind the immense desk, smoking a fat