Figure It Out for Yourself

overhanging the edge of the quarry.

Mac came charging round to join us.

‘Rats!’ He was pointing, his fleshy, red face tight with horror. ‘Look at them! Those guys down there haven’t a chance.’

I looked down into the quarry. It was alive with rats. They swarmed round the five men, who bad come together an were shooting at them. I could see Barratt waving his arms and screaming. Three enormous brutes sprang at him and he disappeared beneath a heaving sea of sleek, brown bodies. The other men were dragged down as more rats came rushing down the path from the tunnel, squealing and fighting to get at them.

I caught hold of Paula. ’Let’s get out of here.’ The four of us ran across the sand towards the Highway.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I

It was just after midnight when Mary Jerome, Francon, Paula and myself filed into Brandon’s office. Muffin, red-faced and thoughtful, brought up the rear.

Brandon sat behind his desk and glared at us as we came in. He wasn’t looking his usual immaculate self. Mifflin had hauled him out of bed to hear me repeat my story.

‘Well, sit down,’ Brandon growled, waving his hand to the half-circle of chairs lined up before his desk. He swung around to glare at Mifflin. ‘What did you get?’

‘Two truck loads of reefers and sixteen corpses,’ Muffin told him.

‘Barratt’s dead. Only one member of the gang was alive when we got there, and he’s talked. But it’s Malloy’s story. Do you want him to tell it?’

Brandon favoured me with a heavy scowl as be opened a drawer and took out a cigar box. He selected a cigar without offering the box to anyone and sat back.

‘That’s what he’s here for,’ he said, pointed a fat finger at Mary Jerome and asked, ‘Who’s this?’

‘Lee Dedrick’s wife,’ I told him.

He started, stared at me.

‘Who?’

‘Lee Dedrick’s wife.’

He swung round on Mary Jerome.

‘That right?’

‘Yes,’ she said in her cold, flat voice.

‘When did you marry him?’

‘About four years ago.’

He put the cigar down, ran well-manicured fingers through his thick white hair.

‘Does that make the Marshland marriage bigamous?’ he asked in a strangled voice.

‘It does,’ I said, enjoying his consternation. ‘Do you want me to begin at the beginning or do you want to ask questions?

He picked up the cigar again, pierced it savagely with the end of a match.

‘Does Mrs. Dedrick — Serena Marshland know about this?’

‘She does now.’

He drew down the corners of his mouth, lifted his fat shoulders in a shrug of resignation and waved his hand.

‘Go ahead, but don’t expect me to believe it’

‘A lot of this is guess-work,’ I said, shifting forward to the edge of my chair. ‘Some of it can be proved; most of it can’t. We do know for certain that Barratt was the boss of a smuggling ring. Lee Dedrick and Lute Ferris were his aides. Dedrick took care of the Paris end and Ferris smuggled the stuff in from Mexico. We have proof of that. We also know Dedrick was married to this girl here’ — I waved to Mary Jerome — ‘who had no ides what his racket was. He deserted her, married Serena Marshland and returned to New York. All he wanted was Serena’s money. Now this is where I start guessing. Souki found out who Dedrick was. Maybe be tried to blackmail. I don’t know. It seems possible he threatened Dedrick who saw his plans to get hold of Serena’s fortune blowing up in his face. He murdered Souki to shut his mouth. To cover the murder and to get as much money out of Serena as he could, he faked his own kidnapping. The idea worked. No one suspected he had killed Souki, and no one suspected he hadn’t been kidnapped. Barratt helped him. He kept under cover in Barratt’s apartment while Barratt collected the ransom and framed Perelli for the kidnapping. It was easy enough. Perelli had an apartment opposite Barratt’s. Barratt hated Perelli. He hid the fishing-rod, some of the ransom money and the gun in Perrelli’s room and tipped the police. They moved in grabbed Perelli.

Brandon glanced over at Muffin and snorted.

‘Know what this sounds like to me?’ He thumped the desk as he glared at me. ‘A typical Malloy pipe-dream. You’re thing to get Perelli out of a jam. Nothing you’ve said yet convince me he didn’t snatch Dedrick. What else have you got?’

‘A reception clerk named Grace Lehmann who work at Barratt’s apartment house saw him with the fishing- rod. tried to blackmail him. Dedrick went to see her and murdered her.’

Brandon gave a scoffing laugh.

‘Who did you say killed her?’

‘Dedrick, the man in the fawn suit. The man Joy Dreadon saw with Grace Lehrnann.’

‘That’s a pretty tale. The Lehmann woman committed suicide. Your only witness is a streetwalker. Do you think I’d take her word? None of your witnesses are worth a damn, anyway.’

I lifted my shoulders.

‘How do you know the man in the fawn suit is Dedrick?’ he demanded.

‘I recognized his voice. He spoke to me over the phone, if you remember, when he staged the faked kidnapping. He has a voice you don’t forget.’

‘Tell that to the jury and see where you get,’ Brandon sneered. ‘All you’ve got is that Barratt ran a smuggling ring. I’ll give you that, but nothing else. The rest of the stuff is a pipe-dream.’

I looked across at Francon, who shook his head.

‘Well, all right, then I guess we can all go to bed,’ I said to Brandon. ‘I didn’t ask to come here, and if you don’t want to believe the story, it’s okay with me.’

‘We’ll go over it again,’ Brandon said, beginning to enjoy himself, ‘and we’ll have it down in writing.’ He nodded to Mifflin, who opened the door and bawled for Sergeant MacGraw.

After a while MacGraw came in, a placid expression on his white, flabby face. He sat down at a table, a pad of paper in front of him and waited.

I went through the story again, covering everything that had happened to date. It took some time. Then Brandon tried to shake me, tried to shale Mary Jerome, and even Paula. He got nowhere.

‘There’s not a scrap of evidence in any of this,’ he said at last. ‘Bring that yarn into court and see what the D.A. does to it.’ He turned to Francon. ‘So far as I’m concerned, Perelli Snatched Dedrick. Nothing this parlour detective has found out makes any difference to me. Any witness he claims to have is either dead or unreliable. If you think Perelli’s alibi with this Lola woman will stand up in court, you’re crazy. Now, get out, the lot of you! You’ve wasted enough of my time already. Bring Dedrick here, and I might believe you, and that’s my final word!’

Outside in the passage the four of us looked at each other.

‘That’s the way it is,’ Francon said. ‘He’s right, Vic. It makes a nice story, but it gets us exactly nowhere in court. We’ve got to find Dedrick.’

Muffin joined us at the end of the passage.