‘I don’t want to hit you,’ I said. ‘You crazy or something?’
He gave me another shake that loosened most of my wisdom
teeth, then he let go of me.
‘What are you doing in this town?’
‘Having a look around. Trying to pick up material for a story. Anything wrong in that?’
He hunched his huge shoulders as he glared at me.
‘What material?’
‘Anything that might crop up,’ I said. ‘What are you getting so excited about? Can’t a writer visit a town for background material without the cops getting tough?’
A look of exasperated disgust came over his face.
‘We don’t like peepers in this town,’ he said. ‘Watch your step. I won’t tell you a second time. Now get out and keep away from this club. Understand?’
I shrugged myself back into my coat.
‘Okay, sergeant,’ I said. ‘I understand.’
‘Beat it!’ he snarled. ‘Go on - get out of my sight.’
I went to the door.
I half expected it, but I didn’t think a guy of his size could move so fast. Before I could dodge, his great boot caught me on my tail and lifted me out of the hut and sent me sprawling on hands and knees in the drive.
Lassiter came out slowly and stood looking at me, his teeth showing in a snarling grin.
‘Write about that, peeper,’ he said. ‘And I’ll give you something more to write about if I see you again.’
I could have killed him: I would have killed him if I had had the gun on me.
I got slowly and painfully to my feet.
The two guards opened the gate.
Lassiter swung his great boot and caught the fender of the car a kick that dented it and flaked off the paint.
‘Get this heep out of my sight too,’ he said.
I got in the car and drove away.
I was shaking with rage.
I was still shaking when I got back to the hotel.
III
Around ten o’clock the following morning, after I had had a late breakfast, I borrowed a telephone book from the reception desk and turned up Mrs. Cornelia Van Blake’s number and address. The address was simply: Vanstone, West Summit.
I asked the clerk how I got to West Summit.
‘You know the Golden Apple club?’ he asked.
I said I knew the Golden Apple club.
‘You go past the club, along the sea road and you’ll come to a finger post. West Summit covers the whole of the cliff top to the San Francisco highway.’
I thanked him, collected the Buick from the garage, paused at a florist to send Suzy a half a dozen orchids and a note apologizing for my hasty retreat, then I drove down to the promenade.
The Golden Apple was fast asleep when I drove past. The gates were shut; the door of the guard house was shut. No one took a potshot at me.
I kept on along the lonely beach road that climbed steadily to the cliff top.
A finger post with West Summit on it showed up at a fork and I turned left, leaving the sea road and climbed steeply up a wide, snake back road that brought me up on the cliff top.
Vanstone was the last of the estates down the broad tree-lined avenue. It partly overlooked the sea and its grounds sloped away at the back into wooded country and then, I assumed, down to the Frisco highway.
I knew it was Vanstone because of the nameplate on the high wrought iron gates. High walls, heavily guarded by wicked looking spikes, arranged along the top of the walls like vicious daggers, their points heavenwards, hid the house. A guard house by the gates told me there was no question of just driving up the carriageway, ringing on the bell and asking for Mrs. Van Blake. When one becomes a millionaire, one has to take precautions.
A lot of spontaneity must go out of one’s life, I thought.
I drove past the gates and turned left, following the wall.
After a mile or so, the road dipped and I could see the Frisco highway a half a mile ahead of me.
I stopped the car, got out and took off my shoes. Then I climbed up on to the roof of the car. From this vantage point I could see over the wall and had a good view of the garden and house.
It was everything that a millionaire’s place should be; with set gardens, lush, billiard table lawns, masses of flowers, a sanded carriageway and a regiment of Chinese gardeners working in the sunshine.
The house was big and white with a green roof, green sun shutters and a magnificent terrace, equipped with sun blinds that stretched either side of a flight of stone steps that led down to the carriageway.
Apart from the gardeners, there was no sign of life, no one taking a constitutional on the terrace or even looking out of the windows.
To me it looked a lonely house; a house I shouldn’t care to live in on my own.
I got off the car roof, put on my shoes and climbed into the driving seat. I wasn’t ready to call on Mrs. Van Blake just yet so I drove back to the hotel for lunch.
Before going into the restaurant I called up Captain Bradley and asked him if I could see him that evening.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve been wondering how you’ve been getting on. Don’t leave your car outside, will you?’
I said I’d take care of that, and I’d be around after nine o’clock.
After lunch I went up to my room to write a report for Bernie.
As soon as I opened the bedroom door I knew someone had been in there while I had been out.
I shut the door and looked around.
My suitcase that I had left on the luggage stand was now on the floor. My overcoat that I had left in the cupboard was tossed on my bed.
I went over to the bureau, pulled open a drawer. Some big hand had stirred up my shirts and socks and hadn’t bothered to put them back as he had found them. Other drawers also showed signs of a quick frisk. Whoever it was who had been poking around didn’t care if I knew it or not.
I guessed my visitor was Lassiter, but I had to be sure. I crossed the room to the telephone and asked the reception desk to send the house dick up.
He came after a short delay: a fat, stolid man with a hangover moustache and cold, fishy eyes. I had a five-dollar bill on the table where he could see it, and he saw it before he even saw me.
‘The cops been here?’ I asked and moved the bill a couple of inches towards him.
I could see he had been told not to talk, but the bill proved too much for him. After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded.
‘Sergeant Lassiter?’ I asked.
Again he nodded.
I handed him the bill.
‘Sorry to have brought you up.’
He slid the bill into his hip pocket, nodded again and drifted out of the room: the strong, silent, corruptible type. Well, Lassiter hadn’t discovered anything that would tell him why I was here. I had no notes on the Benson case with me. I had put nothing down on paper. He must be still wondering what, if anything, I was up to.
I sat down, took a pack of notepaper from the desk and wrote Bernie a long letter, bringing him up-to-date on the case so far. The effort nearly killed me, but it had to be done. It took time, and it was around six o’clock before I had finished. I went downstairs and walked to the corner of the street to post the letter. I wasn’t taking any chances on the hotel mail box. On my way back across the lounge I spotted a thickset man in a basket chair,
