Safer Dead

I left the Buick, pushed open the gate and walked up the path, flanked on either side by standard rose trees. I climbed the steps to the front door, lifted the bear’s head and knocked.

There was a pause while I leaned against the carved rail, feeling the sun hot on my back. As I was about to knock again, I heard footsteps and the front door opened.

A tall, lean man stood in the doorway; a muscular, hairy hand resting against the doorpost. He looked as if he had just stepped from the glossy pages of a movie magazine. His long suntanned face was handsome if you like the actor type of face which I don’t. His dark hair, thinning at the forehead, was slicked back and shone like patent leather in the sunlight. He had on a dark blue shirt, open at the throat, a pair of white slacks and his feet were in doeskin white shoes. He was a sight to make any bobbysoxer’s heart flutter, but he didn’t do anything to mine.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’

A blast of whisky laden breath nearly took the skin off my face. He hadn’t been drinking whisky; he had been bathing in it.

‘Mr. Harley?’

‘Yes.’ He leaned a little more heavily against the doorpost. I saw then he was drunk.

‘I’m Chet Sladen. I write for Crime Facts. I wanted to talk to you.’

He frowned and half closed his eyes.

‘Crime Facts? You mean the magazine?’

‘That’s right. Can you spare me a moment?’

‘My dear fella, of course. Come in and have a drink.’ He stood aside. ‘I’m glad to see you. As a matter of fact I was getting as bored as a louse. Do you ever get bored?’

I moved into a hall full of fancy carvings, ski-sticks, a Swiss grandfather clock and ornate rugs.

I said I couldn’t remember ever being bored.

‘Lucky guy.’ He sounded as if he meant it. ‘Come on in.’ He crossed the hall, went down three steps into a large lounge. He only just made the steps. If he hadn’t clutched on to the back of a chair as he arrived he would probably have sat on the floor. The lounge was comfortable but ornate. The architect had got the Swiss motive firmly in mind when he had set about this room.

With snow heaped against the windows and the sound of an avalanche breaking loose somewhere it might have got by, but in a hot, sunny Californian town it was just crazy.

I had only time to take the room in with one quick glance before I became aware of a girl sitting on a divan looking at me as if I were some unpleasant casualty in a car smash. She was tall and willowy; dark, haughty and very, very lovely. She had on a green sunsuit that failed to disguise her good points, and her long bare shapely legs were the nicest I had seen so far in Tampa City.

She got slowly to her feet. Her lips were parted in a cold, half smile, but her eyes glittered with well controlled rage.

‘But Hart dear,’ she said, ‘we were talking.’

‘This is Mr. - what did you say your name was?’ Lennox Hartley asked, screwing up his eyes and peering at me.

‘Sladen,’ I said, ‘but if I’m in the way . . .’

‘Of course you’re not.’ He put a hot, heavy hand on my shoulder. ‘Suzy dear, this is Mr. Sladen. He has important business to discuss with me. Shall we meet tomorrow? Suppose I pick you up?’

The girl stared at him, then walked past him, up the steps and into the hall.

Hartley turned slowly to watch her. She went to the front door, opened it, passed on to the stoop, then slammed the door so violently one of the skiing sticks on the wall in the hall fell down.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t . . .’ I began.

Hartley laughed.

‘Forget it. You don’t know how glad I am you turned up. That girl drives me nuts.’ He went over to a cocktail cabinet loaded with bottles, and poured two enormous whiskies. He added ice and steered himself back with some difficulty to where I was standing, handing me one of the glasses, then he dropped languidly into an armchair and waved his glass at me.

‘Skoal!’ he said and drank deeply. He set down the glass, sighed and waved me to a chair. ‘Sit down, Mr. Sladen. Relax. Do you like women?’

‘I take them or leave them,’ I said, sitting down.

‘I wish I could,’ he said gloomily. ‘If I take them, they get in my hair. If I leave them, I’m lonely. It’s a hell of a life, isn’t it?’

I said it might be worse.

‘I guess so.’ He saw I was taking another look at the room and said hurriedly, as if he were anxious I shouldn’t think he was responsible for the decor, ‘The owner must be nuts. Don’t think I did this. I only rent the dump. One of these days I plan to go to Switzerland and put up a Californian sun bungalow. That’ll shake them as much as this dump shakes me.’ He ran fingers across his forehead, frowned, then went on, ‘What did you want, old fella?’

‘I understand you wrote to the Welden police about the photograph of Fay Benson that appeared in the press.’

He stared at me, blinked, then nodded.

‘That’s right. How did you know?’

‘I’m working with the police. We want to find out something about this girl’s background.’

‘Why have the police sent you for heaven’s sake? Why didn’t they come themselves?’