1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead by James Hadley Chase Read Free Book Online Page A

and a dreamy kind of smile on his thin mouth.
    ‘There’s no one home,’ he said, eyeing the distant ocean as if he was surprised to find it still there. ‘Get in your heep, Mac, and fade.’
    ‘Important business,’ I said as if I hadn’t heard him. ‘Tell your boss it’s either me or the police: as important as that.’
    That seemed to hold him for a moment. He flicked at his cigarette with a well-manicured thumbnail. Then as he didn’t seem to get any satisfaction from that, he tapped the ground thoughtfully with the toe of his elegant boot. But that didn’t get him anywhere either.
    ‘The old man left about an hour ago,’ he said at last.
    ‘Don’t ask me where he’s gone. I don’t know. Maybe he’s going on a trip. Now be a nice guy and fade. I like a little quiet in the morning.’
    I had no reason not to believe him. Anyway I could tell that nothing short of a tank and machine-gun unit would persuade him to open the gate. I would be only wasting time to argue with him.
    I got back into the car and trod on the starter. He watched me make a U-turn, then as I drove away he opened one of the gates, locked it behind ‘him and disappeared into the guardhouse.
    I followed the long wall of the estate until I came to a corner, then I swung the wheel, drove a few yards down the lane that led along the side of the wall so the car would be out of sight from the main entrance, cut the engine and got out.
    The wall was about eight feet high. You didn’t have to be an acrobat to scale it. I swung myself up and over all in one movement and landed on soft yielding soil of a flowerbed.
    It was nearing nine o’clock by now, and I didn’t have a lot of hope of running into Natalie Cerf. She hadn’t struck me as the type who dabbled her toes in the dew, but I thought while I was here I might as well have a look around. There was always a chance that Anita might be still here; it was as good a hiding place as any.
    It seemed a long walk to the house. I took my time, and every so often I looked back over my shoulder. I had no great yearnings to run into the bright boy at the gate. I had a feeling he might be a difficult proposition to stop once he got started.
    I passed a swimming pool big enough to hold a regatta on.
    It looked very wet and lonely, but that was something I couldn’t do anything about and I went on towards the house.
    The way was along a rubber-covered path, laid down, I suspected, for swimmers to reach the pool without bothering to put on shoes, up some steps to the esplanade that encircled the house.
    Keeping out of sight behind a big rhododendron shrub I surveyed the front of the house for any signs of activity.
    Row upon row of shiny glass windows stared back at me.
    No one looked out. The house was as quiet and as lifeless as a chorus girl at getting-up time.
    I moved out of the shrubbery and on to the esplanade. On its broad, naked vastness I felt as conspicuous as a man shouting ‘Fire!’ at a firemen’s convention. There were no cars on the tarmac, no Filipino chauffeurs to sneer at me, no regal butlers to take my hat. I plucked up enough courage to walk on tiptoe the length of the esplanade to the loggia and look in.
    She was sitting in her wheel chair, decked out in a blue kimono and quilted mules trimmed with ostrich feathers on her feet, a tray across her knees. She was munching buttered toast and staring blankly before her, and had that lonely, unhappy look people who are left on their own for long stretches of time get when they don’t think anyone is around.
    My shadow fell across her feet. She didn’t look up immediately. A wary expression chased away her depression, her neatly made-up mouth tightened, and she put down the piece of toast. Then without moving her head, she lifted her eyelids and her eyes swivelled in my direction.
    ‘Hello,’ I said, taking off my hat. ‘The name’s Malloy. Remember me?’
    ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded and sat up, taut as a violin