The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

The telephone operator spoke into the transmitter, turned to Druse. “You may go up — Apartment Three D.”

When, in answer to a drawled, “Come in,” he pushed open the door and went into the apartment, Catherine Hanan was standing near the center table, with one hand on the table to steady herself, the other in the pocket of her long blue robe. She was beautiful in the mature way that women who have lived too hard, too swiftly, are sometimes beautiful. She was very dark; her eyes were large, liquid, black and dominated her rather small, sharply sculptured face. Her mouth was large, deeply red, not particularly strong.

Druse bowed slightly, said: “How do you do?”

She smiled, and her eyes were heavy, nearly closed. “Swell — and you?”

He came slowly into the room, put his hat on the table, asked: “May we sit down?”

“Sure.” She jerked her head towards a chair, stayed where she was.

Druse said: “You’re drunk.”

“Right.”

He smiled, sighed gently. “A commendable condition. I regret exceedingly that my stomach does not permit it.” He glanced casually about the room. In the comparative darkness of a corner, near a heavily draped window, there was a man lying on his back on the floor. His arms were stretched out and back, and his legs were bent under him in a curious way, and there was blood on his face.

Druse raised his thick white eyebrows, spoke without looking at Mrs. Hanan: “Is he drunk, too?”

She laughed shortly. “Uh-huh — in a different way.” She nodded towards a golf-stick on the floor near the man. “He had a little too much niblick.”

“Friend of yours?”

She said: “I rather doubt it. He came in from the fire-escape with a gun in his hand. I happened to see him before he saw me.”

“Where’s the gun?”

“I’ve got it.” She drew a small black automatic half out of the pocket of her robe.

Druse went over and knelt beside the man, picked up one of his hands. He said slowly: “This man is decidedly dead.”

Mrs. Hanan stood, staring silently at the man on the floor for perhaps thirty seconds. Her face was white, blank. Then she walked unsteadily to a desk against one wall and picked up a whiskey bottle, poured a stiff drink. She said: “I know it.” Her voice was choked, almost a whisper. She drank the whiskey, turned and leaned against the desk, stared at Druse with wide unseeing eyes. “So what?”

“So pull yourself together, and forget about it — we’ve got more important things to think about for a little while.” Druse stood up. “How long ago?...”

She shuddered. “About a half-hour — I didn’t know what to do...”

“Have you tried to reach Crandall? I mean before this happened — right after you came in tonight?”

“Yes — I couldn’t get him.”

Druse went to a chair and sat down. He said: “Mister Hanan has turned this case over to me. Won’t you sit down, and answer a few questions?...”

She sank into a low chair near the desk. “Are you a detective?” Her voice was still very low, strained.

Druse smiled. “I’m an attorney — a sort of extra-legal attorney.” He regarded her thoughtfully. “If we can get your rubies back and assure your safety, and” — he coughed slightly — “induce Mister Hanan to reimburse the insurance company, you will be entirely satisfied, will you not?”

She nodded, started to speak.

Druse interrupted her: “Are the rubies themselves — I mean intrinsically, as stones — awfully important to you? Or was this grandstand play of yours — this business of threatening Crandall — motivated by rather less tangible factors — such as self-respect, things like that?”

She smiled faintly, nodded. “God knows how I happen to have any self-respect left — I’ve been an awful ass — but I have. It was the idea of being made such a fool — after I’ve lost over a hundred thousand dollars to Crandall — that made me do it.”

Druse smiled. “The rubies themselves,” he said — “I mean the rubies as stones — entirely apart from any extraneous consideration such as self-respect — would more seriously concern Mister Hanan, would they not?”

She said: “Sure. He’s always been crazy about stones.”

Druse scratched the tip of his long nose pensively. His eyes were wide and vacant, his thick lips compressed to a long downward curved line. “You are sure you were followed when you left Crandall’s Wednesday?”

“As sure as one can be without actually knowing — it was more of a followed feeling than anything else. After the idea was planted I could have sworn I saw a dozen men, of course.”

He said: “Have you ever had that feeling before — I mean before you threatened Crandall?”

“No.”

“It may have been simply imagination, because you expected to be followed — there was reason for you to be followed?”

She nodded. “But it’s a cinch it wasn’t imagination this evening.”

Druse was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. He looked intently at her, said very seriously: “I’m going to get your rubies back, and I can assure you of your safety — and I think I can promise that the matter of reimbursement to the insurance company will be taken care of. I didn’t speak to Mister Hanan about that, but I’m sure he’ll see the justice of it.”