Lay Her Among the Lilies (Too Dangerous to Be Free)

302 Pages·2011·0.79 MB·English

by  Chase James Hadley

LAY HER AMONG THE LILIES

By
JAMES HADLEY CHASE
Chapter I
I
It was one of those hot, breathless July mornings, nice if you're in a swim-suit on
the beach with your favourite blonde, but hard to take if you're shut up in an
office as I was.
The sound of the mid-morning traffic on Orchid Boulevard, the drone of aircraft
circling the beach and the background murmur of the surf drifted in through the
open windows. The air-conditioning plant, hidden somewhere in the bowels of
Orchid Buildings, coped efficiently with the rising temperature. Sunshine, hot
and golden, made patterns on the office rug Paula had bought to impress the
customers, and which always seemed to me too expensive to walk on.

I sat behind the flat-topped desk on which I had scattered a few old letters to
convince Paula if she should come in suddenly that I was working. A highball,
strong enough to crack concrete, hid behind a couple of impressive-looking law
books, and clinked ice at me whenever I reached for it.
It was now just over three and a half years since I founded Universal Services:
an organization which undertook any job from exercising a pet poodle to
stamping on a blackmailer feeding on a client's bankroll. It was essentially a
millionaire's service, as our rates came high, but then, in Orchid City,
millionaires were almost as numerous as grains of sand on a beach. During those
three and a half years we had fun and games, made a little money and had a
variety of jobs: even murder we had taken in our stride.

For the past few days business had been as quiet as a spinster eating a bun in a
lecture-hall. The routine stuff was coming in all right, but Paula Bensinger took
care of that. It was only when something out-of-the-way reared its head that I
and my leg-man, Jack Kerman, went to work. And nothing out-of-the-way had
reared its head, so we were just sitting around waiting and punching holes in a
bottle of Scotch and making out to Paula we were busy.
Sprawled out in the armchair reserved for clients, Jack Kerman, long, lean and
dapper, with a broad streak of white in his thick black hair and a Clark Gable
moustache, rubbed the frosted glass of his highball against his forehead and
relaxed. Immaculate in an olive-green tropical suit and a yellow and red striped
tie, his narrow feet gaudy in white buckskin shoes with dark green explosions,
he looked every inch a fugitive from the pages of Esquire.

Out of a long, brooding silence, he said: "What a dish! Take her arms off and
she'd have knocked Venus for a loop." He shifted into a more comfortable
position and sighed. "I wish someone had taken her arms off. Boy! Was she
strong! And I was sucker enough to think she was a pushover."
"Don't tell me," I pleaded, reaching for my highball. "That opening has a familiar
ring. The last thing I want to hear on a morning like this is an extract from your
love-life. I'd rather read Krafft-Ebing."

"That old goat won't get you anywhere," Kerman said scornfully. "He wrote all
the nifty bits in Latin."
"And you'd be surprised at the number of guys who learned Latin just to find out
what he said. That's what I call killing two birds with one stone."

"That brings us right back to my blonde," Kerman said, stretching out his long
legs. "I ran into her last night in Barney's drug store . . ."
"I'm not interested in blondes," I said firmly. "Instead of sitting around here
talking about women, you should be out trying to hustle up new business.
Sometimes I wonder what the hell I pay you for."

Kerman considered this, a surprised expression on his face.
"Do you want any new business?" he asked eventually. "I thought the idea was
to let Paula do all the work, and we live on her."

"That's the general set-up, but once in a while it mightn't be a bad idea for you to
do something to earn your keep."
Kerman looked relieved.

"Yeah; once in a while. For a moment I thought you meant now." He sipped his
highball and closed his eyes. "Now this blonde I keep trying to tell you about.
She's a cute trick if ever there was one. When I tried to date her up she said she
didn't run after men. Know what I said?"
"What did you say?" I asked, because he would have told me anyway, and if I
didn't listen to his lies, who was going to listen to mine?
Kerman chortled.

"'Lady,' I said, ' maybe you don't run after men, but a mousetrap doesn't have to
run after mice, either.' Smart, huh? Well, it killed her. You needn't look so
damned sour. Maybe you have heard it before, but she hadn't, and it knocked her
dead."
Then before I could hide the highball the door jerked open and Paula swept in.

Paula was a tall, dark lovely, with cool, steady brown eyes and a figure full of
ideas—my ideas, not hers. She was quick on the uptake, ruthlessly efficient and
a tireless worker. It had been she who had encouraged me to start Universal
Services, and had lent the money to tide me over for the first six months. It was
entirely due to her ability to cope with the administrative side of the business
that Universal Services was an established success. If I were the brains of the
set-up, you could call her the backbone. Without her the organization would
have folded in a week.
"Haven't you anything better to do than sit around and drink?" she demanded,
planting herself before the desk, and looking at me accusingly.

"What is there better to do?" Kerman asked, mildly interested.
She gave him a withering stare and turned her bright brown eyes on me again.

"As a matter of fact, Jack and I were just going out to beat up some new
business," I said, hastily pushing back my chair. "Come on, Jack. Let's go and
see what we can find."
"And where are you going to look—Finnegan's bar?" Paula asked scornfully.

"That's a bright idea, sourpuss," Kerman said. "Maybe Finnegan will have
something for us."
"Before you go you might like to look at this," Paula said, and flourished a long
envelope at me. "The janitor brought it up just now. He found it in one of the
pockets of that old trenchcoat you so generously gave him."

"He did?" I said, taking the envelope. "That's odd. I haven't worn that trenchcoat
for more than a year."
"The cancellation stamp bears you out," Paula said with ominous calm. "The
letter was posted fourteen months ago. I suppose you couldn't have put it in your
pocket and forgotten all about it? You wouldn't do a thing like that, would you?"

The envelope was addressed to me in a neat, feminine hand-writing, and
unopened.
"I can't remember ever seeing it before," I said.

"Considering you don't appear to remember anything unless I remind you, that
comes as no surprise," Paula said tartly.
"One of these days, my little harpie," Kerman remarked gently, "someone is
going to haul off and take at slap at your bustle."
"That won't stop her," I said, ripping open the envelope. "I've tried. It only makes
her worse." I dipped in a finger and thumb and hoisted out a sheet of note-paper
and five onehundred-dollar bills.
"Suffering Pete!" Kerman exclaimed, starting to his feet. "Did you give that to
the janitor?"

"Now don't you start," I said, and read the letter.
Crestways,
Foothill Boulevard,
Orchid City.
May 15th, 1948.

Will you please make it convenient to see me at the above address at three
o'clock tomorrow afternoon? I am anxious to obtain evidence against someone
who is blackmailing my sister. I understand you undertake such work. Please
treat this letter as confidential and urgent. I enclose five hundred dollars as a
retainer.
Janet Crosby.

There was a long and painful silence. Even Jack Kerman hadn't anything to say.
We relied on recommendations to bring in the business, and keeping five
hundred dollars belonging to a prospective client for fourteen months without
even acknowledging it is no way to get a recommendation.
"Urgent and confidential," Paula murmured. "After keeping it to himself for
fourteen months he hands it to the janitor to show to all his little playmates.
Wonderful!"
"You shut up!" I snarled. "Why didn't she call up and ask for an explanation?
She must have guessed the letter had gone astray. But wait a minute. She's dead,
isn't she? One of the Crosby girls died. Was it Janet?"
"I think it was," Paula said. "I'll soon find out."
"And dig up everything we've got on Crosby, too."

When she had gone into the outer office, I said: "I'm sure she's dead. I guess
we'll have to return this money to her estate."
"If we do that," Kerman said, always reluctant to part with money, "the press
may get wind of it. A story like this will make a swell advertisement for the way
we run our business. We'll have to watch our step, Vic. It might be smarter to
hang on to the swag and say nothing about it."

"We can't do that. We may be inefficient, but at least let's be honest."
Kerman folded himself down in the armchair again.

"Safer to let sleeping dogs lie. Crosby's something in oil, isn't he?"
"He was. He's dead. He was killed in a shooting accident about a couple of years
back." I picked up the paper-knife and began to punch holes in the blotter. "It
beats me how I came to leave the letter in my trenchcoat like that. I'll never hear
the end of it."

Kerman, who knew Paula, grinned sympathetically.
"Slosh her in the slats if she nags," he said helpfully. "Am I glad it wasn't me!"

I went on punching holes in the blotter until Paula returned with a fistful of
newspaper clippings.
"She died of heart failure on May 15th, the same day as she wrote the letter. No
wonder you didn't hear from her," she said as she shut the office door.
"Heart failure? How old was she then?"
"Twenty-five."
I laid down the paper-knife and groped for a cigarette.

"That seems mighty young to die of heart failure. Anyway, let's have the dope.
What have you got?"
"Not a great deal. Most of it we know already," Paula said, sitting on the edge of
the desk. "Macdonald Crosby made his millions in oil. He was a hard, unlovable
old Quaker with a mind as broad as a tightrope. He married twice. Janet, the
elder by four years, was by his first wife. Maureen by his second. He retired
from business in 1943 and settled in Orchid City. Before that he lived in San
Francisco. The two girls are as unalike as they can be. Janet was studious and
spent most of her time painting. Several of her oils are hung in the Arts Museum.
She seems to have had a lot of talent, a retiring nature and a sharp temper.
Maureen is the beauty of the family. She's wild, woolly and wanton. Up to
Crosby's death she was continually getting herself on the front page of the
newspapers in some scandal or other."

"What kind of scandal?" I asked.
"About a couple of years ago she knocked down and killed a fellow on Centre
Avenue. Rumour has it she was drunk, which seems likely as she drank like a
fish. Crosby squared the police and she got off with a heavy fine for dangerous
driving. Then another time she rode along Orchid Boulevard on a horse without
a stitch on. Someone betted her she hadn't the nerve, but she did it."

"Let me get that straight," Kerman said, sitting up excitedly. "Was it the horse or
the girl who hadn't a stitch on?"
"The girl, you dope!"