This Way for a Shroud

Two of the guards were coming from the opposite direction. Conrad beat them to the door and threw it open.

The two police women were standing away from the open window, whitefaced and like statues.

Madge Fielding was wringing her hands, her face ashen.

There was no sign of Frances.

"Madge! What's happened?" Conrad asked, in a strangled voice.

"She's gone! She was leaning out of the window, looking at the plane when suddenly she screamed. I rushed to her, but I was too late. She seemed to be pulled out of the window. She was struggling, then the rug slipped from under her and she went out . . ."

Forest pushed past Conrad and went over to the window. He looked out.

Two hundred feet below him, looking like a small, broken doll, Frances lay stretched out on the moonlit sands.

He looked down at her for a long moment, then he stepped back as Conrad walked unsteadily to a chair and sat down.

"Well, that's it," Forest said in a low savage voice. "Goddamn it! There goes my case against Maurer – like her – out of the window."

The aircraft swooped once more over the hotel, then its neon lighting went out, and like a departing spirit it flew swiftly out to sea.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

At ten o'clock the following morning, Jack Maurer, accompanied by his attorney, Abe Gollowitz, and four hard-faced, alert bodyguards, arrived in a blue and silver Cadillac outside the City Hall.

A half an hour previously every newspaper in town had been tipped off that Maurer was on his way to surrender to the District Attorney. There was a big crowd of newspaper men, camera men, television cameras and three movie cameras to greet him.

Maurer got out of the car, a broad smile on his swarthy face, and waved towards the television camera. Maurer was a television fan, and he liked the thought that his face was being watched at this very moment by three-quarters of a million people.

The reporters converged on him, but his four bodyguards formed a protective wall around him and waved them aside.

"Have a little patience, boys," Maurer said from behind his screen. "I'll have something to say to you when I come out. Just stick around until I've had a talk with the D.A."

"What makes you think you're coming out?" one of the reporters bawled, his face red with anger."

Maurer gave him a wide friendly smile, and still surrounded by his bodyguards, he mounted the steps to the entrance of the City Hall and disappeared through its portals.

"The fat sonofabitch," the reporter said. "He won't talk himself out of this rap. They've got him where it'll hurt most."

"Yeah?" the Pacific Herald reporter sneered. "Do you imagine a bastard like Maurer would surrender unless he knew he could beat the rap? I bet you ten dollars to a dime he comes out of there in ten minutes as free as the air."

"You've got yourself a bet, son," the other reporter said pityingly. "I happen to know what Forest has got on him."

"Do you happen to know the only witness he had to clinch the case fell out of a window last night?" the Pacific Herald reporter asked. "You've got to hand it to that oily snake. He's never let anyone give evidence against him, and he never will."

"That was an accident," the other reporter said hotly. "I've talked to Conrad. That guy knows what he's talking about. She fell out of the window accidentally."

"Like Weiner got drowned in his bath accidentally? Yeah? If you believe that crap, you're the only one besides Conrad who does."

They were still arguing ten minutes later when there was a sudden hush from the crowd, and looking up, they saw the four hard-faced men coming through the doors with Maurer in the middle of them.

Maurer was beaming. He paused at the top of the steps and looked down at the battery of cameras and the hostile faces of the reporters.

Abe Gollowitz, a little pale and very tired-looking, stood to his right. His fat face was expressionless, but his eyes were the eyes of a man without hope or without a future.

"Well, boys," Maurer said breathlessly, "seems it was all a mistake."

"Hey, wait a minute, Mr. Maurer," the television interviewer shouted excitedly. "Will you step down here and speak into the mike? Will you give us a statement?"

"Sure," Maurer said. "I promised you a statement and I never go back on my promises."

He walked down to the battery of microphones.

"It's not untimely," he said, speaking directly into the microphones, "at this moment to thank all my well-wishers for their encouragement and their support during this absurd, but none the less awkward, situation that arose entirely through a misunderstanding between the police force and the District Attorney's office.