I thought rapidly.
“If that’s all that happened, I don’t think we need worry. Now listen very carefully. You may be called on, but don’t be afraid. You simply have to say you made a mistake. You can say you knew perfectly well I was a private detective. You can say I made that very clear to you.”
“Then why did I call them?” she wanted to know.
“Can you put on some kind of an act? Can you pretend you don’t know very much about these things and you thought private detectives were policemen who didn’t wear uniforms?”
“It doesn’t make me sound very intelligent,” she said without enthusiasm.
“Maybe not. But it’s the kind of nutty thing the police are used to. They get this kind of thinking a dozen times a day from the public. If you act a little bit scatterbrained, you know, silly old me, the officer will not be remotely surprised. Half their time is spent on following up useless enquiries. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yes. Yes I can.”
She still didn’t sound too convinced, but I’d just have to leave her to do her best now.
“And Mrs. Prince, if the officer tries to ask you what it was I called to see you about, tell him nothing. You’re just an ordinary member of the public and you don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to. Remember what’s likely to happen if they get the slightest suspicion of what’s been going on.”
“I’m not likely to forget.”
I thought she could do it. She hadn’t impressed me as the kind of woman who’d fly into a panic.
“What was the thing you remembered, by the way?”
“Oh, well it wasn’t much, but you said anything. He—that man—once said something about having a girl friend who was a dancer.”
A dancer. Well, that helped. Within twenty miles of Monkton, there probably weren’t more than two or three hundred of those. Unless you counted in Hollywood.
“He didn’t mention any name?”
“No. It isn’t much help, is it?”
“Any little thing may help. And thank you for letting me know. Now you call your lawyer as soon as we hang up.”
She promised to do it, and I cut the connection. There were now only seven minutes left before I was due at the Monteray Building, and Flower had said it was urgent. I checked the clip on the .38 before leaving the apartment.
It was nine thirty-five when I reached the Monteray, and this time I didn’t call on the manager. Nobody was around as I entered the elevator and pushed the button marked “8”. As I walked along to Apartment 824 I had the feeling I was going to learn something at last. The .38 felt hard and reassuring against my side as I pressed the buzzer. The door opened almost immediately and there was Flower. Her face was white and drawn and she could barely force the words from her lips.
“Come in, come in.”
I stepped inside. She backed away as though afraid I might strike her.
“What’s this all——?” I started to say.
I didn’t get any further. Somebody drove a steam-shovel against the side of my head. Great red explosions burst across my eyes as the floor boards leaped up to punch me in the face. My mind was slipping away. I thought a woman screamed, or maybe it was me, then somebody pulled down a thick black curtain and I crawled behind it.
CHAPTER SIX
I WAS CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN, but I didn’t have the right boots and my feet kept slipping. My fingers scrabbled at the rock, and each time they achieved some kind of hold those feet betrayed me again. Gradually, I forced open an eye. The rock was a dirty gray color, only it wasn’t rock. It was some kind of material. I closed the eye again and sighed. A man in my condition had no business climbing mountains in the dark. My fingers moved again. It was material. That seemed to justify another look with the eye, and this time I identified a chair two inches from my nose. The chair was the mountain. My mind was clearing now and I recalled where I was and how I got there. I was kneeling beside this chair, trying to pull myself upright. Flower. Flower had hit me on the head.
No, she hadn’t.
I’d been looking right at her when it happened. Somebody else had done it, and that was why she was so afraid when I went in. This brilliant piece of reasoning made me feel quite smug, and I figured a smart character like me ought to be able to stand on his own feet. After two more tries I made it, just. There was no Flower here now. The guy with the steam-shovel was gone too, and that was a pity. I’d have liked to discuss the matter with him.
I lumbered around the apartment, but it hadn’t any more to tell me than on my last visit. The window was wide open, and I went across to breathe some fresh air. The night was that special purple when the stars look like decorations on some royal robe. It was a night for many things, none of which was getting slugged on the head. Down in the street below, somebody shouted. I looked down idly. There was a small crowd of people down there, looking up at me and pointing. Then I saw flashlights playing on something on the sidewalk. My head cleared like lightning as I realized what it was. It was the crumpled, twisted body of a woman, and although I couldn’t see her face, I knew it had to be Flower. That was why all those people were pointing. Someone had probably seen her fall, and that meant I was the guy who pushed her. It was time to be going.
With a handkerchief I rubbed quickly at the door knob after I got outside, then
