The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories
- Автор: Деминг Ричард
- Год: 2016
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press
- ISBN: 9781479423507
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
Chapter 10
At a quarter of four that afternoon Ross was just taking Sam Black’s report that the downstairs club was all set for business when the first customer arrived. It was Helene Stoneman.
Going directly to Ross, who stood talking to Sam Black near the bar, she gave him an expectant smile and asked. “Surprised to see me?”
In view of his talk with Marion Vandeveldt, Ross wasn’t.
Unsmilingly he said, “Hello, Helene. What do you want?”
“I knew you wouldn’t be busy so early. I thought you might buy me a drink.”
She looked at Sam Black, awaiting introduction. Deliberately Ross ignored the hint. Taking her by the arm, he led her toward the front door.
“I don’t mix business with pleasure, Helene,” he said. “And right now I’m working. I also don’t like to be chased. Go home and wait till I call you.”
He half expected her to leave without even replying, but instead she said in a small voice, “Didn’t last night mean anything to you?” Studying her, Ross decided without emotion to test just how hard she was to discourage.
“No more than a hundred other nights with a hundred other women,” he said with deliberate cruelty. “I’ll call you if I decide I want to see you again.”
And turning, he stalked toward the elevator.
A half hour later he was called to the phone.
“I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry I upset you by coming to the club,” Helene’s voice said. “Are you still mad?”
Despite what Marion Vandeveldt had told him, Ross was astonished. “Are you apologizing because I was rude?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t want you to be mad at me.”
“Then don’t call me any more. If I want to see you, I’ll call you.”
“All right,” she said in a penitent voice. Then after a pause, “Would you like me to stop up to your apartment after the club closes to-night?”
“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Ross said disagreeably, and hung up.
At seven, while Ross was having dinner downstairs, he was called to the phone again. It wasn’t Helene this time, however. It was Lieutenant Niles Redfern.
“Got somebody here who wants to talk to you,” the lieutenant said. “Mrs. Stoneman.”
Incredulously Ross wondered if the woman had resorted to police influence to get to him. “What the hell for?” he asked.
“She’s allowed one five-minute call,” Redfern said. “Instead of a lawyer, she wants you. Ballistics tagged a gun I found at her house as the murder weapon, and we have a witness who saw her shoot her husband. Want to talk to her?”
“Never mind,” Ross said. “I’ll be down and talk to you both.”
At headquarters Ross found Lieutenant Redfern in his office with a young redheaded woman the lieutenant introduced as Renee Desiree. This was obviously a stage name, and after glancing at the woman’s figure, Ross guessed that her field was burlesque. She was tall, probably five-ten, with long, full-calved legs, a flat stomach, well-padded hips and an enormous torso. She wore a green knit dress under which there seemed to be nothing but skin, at least no brassiere, for her fine, upstanding breasts jiggled like molded Jell-O with every movement.
She must have been proud of both their size and their ability to hold themselves up without artificial support, for even seated she held herself in an erect, shoulders-back posture which thrust them out in front of her like twin battering rams.
“Miss Desiree’s the witness I mentioned over the phone,” Redfern explained. “She was coming from the Tailspin Cocktail Lounge right across the street from your place when Stoneman got it.”
Ross looked at the woman and she gave him a brilliant, white toothed smile.
“Why’d you wait so long to report what you’d seen?” he asked.
“I didn’t want to be involved in it if I didn’t have to,” she said glibly. “The notoriety, you know. I’m an actress, you see, and...” She let it drift off into a charming shrug which made Lieutenant Redfern’s eyes jump to her jiggling torso.
“Then why’d you report it at all?” Ross inquired.
She gave him another brilliant smile. “I hoped the police would catch the woman without my help. I gave them forty-eight hours, then decided I had to tell my story.”
Turning to the Lieutenant, Ross said, “Sam Black was outside seconds after the shots. He didn’t see anybody across the street.”
“I ducked back into the Tailspin,” Renee Desiree said quickly. “I didn’t want anybody to see me.”
Ross glanced at her, then back at the lieutenant. “You said something over the phone about a gun.” Reaching into a drawer, Redfern brought out a .38 revolver and laid it on the desk.
“Ran across it in one of Benny Stoneman’s dresser drawers while Mrs. Stoneman and I were going through his things,” he said. “Ballistics tagged it as the murder weapon.”
“What did Mrs. Stoneman have to say about it?”
“The gun, you mean?” Redfern shrugged. “Denied ever seeing it before. Says she’s certain her husband never owned a gun. But I wired Chicago at noon, and the gun’s registered up there in Benny Stoneman’s name.”
Ross reflected for a moment, then asked, “Doesn’t it strike you as silly for her to insist it isn’t Benny’s gun if she really thought it was? What would it get her?”
“Nothing. She’s just being contrary. Records don’t lie.”
“I’ll bet they did this time,” the gambler said. “Just as your witness here is lying.”
The woman’s gaze jerked at him angrily. Ross smiled at her. No one said anything for a few moments, Finally the lieutenant, in an obvious attempt to get Ross alone in order to have him explain his last remark, said, “You want to go back to the women’s section and talk to Mrs. Stoneman?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Ross said. “I already know everything I have to. This is a frame, Lieutenant. If you’d like to take a little ride, I’ll introduce you to the framer. If my hunch is right, you’ll have your killer in an hour. If it’s wrong, I’m not sticking my neck out for defamation of character. Take it or leave it.”
Because he couldn’t do anything else, the lieutenant decided to take it.
Chapter 11
Before the three of them left headquarters, Ross phoned Marion Vandeveldt using the public booth in the lobby because he didn’t want Redfern to hear the conversation.
When the woman answered the phone and the gambler had identified himself, he asked, “Were you in love with Benny, Miss Vandeveldt?”
“Of course,” she said. “Would I have been his mistress otherwise?”
“Willing to help trap his killer?”
“Certainly,” she said without hesitation. “I’ll do anything I can.”
For five minutes Ross explained what he wanted her to do, and why.
At the end of that time she said in a steady voice, “All right, Mr. Ross, if you think that’s the only way they can be brought to justice. I’m willing to tell the lie.”
“Turnabout’s fair play,” Ross said. “They told some pretty whopping lies in trying to frame Helene Stoneman. Got the suite number okay?”
“Seven-o-seven. And I’m to wait in the hall until you come out to get me.”
“You’ve got it right,” he said, and hung up.
They took Ross’s Lincoln instead of a police car, Ross, the lieutenant and Renee Desiree all three riding in front. Ross drove straight to the Park Plaza.
There was no conversation as they crossed the lobby to the bell captain’s desk, Ross leading the way and the lieutenant following with the red-haired woman.