E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action Page 2

  “That’s it, lyin’ there now,” added Coppa.

  “Nail it,” snapped Slade. “May have finger-prints. There’s not many stands that carry out-of-town papers. People don’t come out here to read the news—unless they’re damn’ well interested in checking up on the hometown and don’t care to write or wire. Get it!”

  “Uhuh,” agreed Coppa. “And by watching the down-town news­stands, you might grab ’em when they come for their next number. Particularly since we got good de­scriptions of ’em.”

  Slade phoned headquarters, then drove back to Tilford’s wrecked car, to await the arrival of the po­lice. He detailed his finding Tilford, and mentioned everything but the penciled note. He had forgot­ten the three blocks.

  “And now that you’ve got something to work on,” he concluded, “I’m going home—my damn head’s about ready to bust.”

  But Slade returned to the city, he was certain that no out-of-town hangers-on at Coppa’s had written that note to advise Tilford to come home early. And for the looters to take the long, white en­velope from Tilford’s pocket was distinctly a false note.

  “And finally,” demanded Slade, “why was Jim carrying a business size letter around with him to Coppa’s? Also, what’s he been so damn’ worried about the past three-four days! That’s what made him flare up and ask me to get Valene the hell out of there—that’s what made him pile out, hell-bent, when he got that crackpot note.”

  He did not want to go home, nor did he want to see Valene. Valene last of all. He feared that he might read guilt in her smouldering eyes. Amorous—and spiteful—she might have done anything.

  Spiteful—

  And that reminded Slade of Tilford’s secretary, and Valene’s remarks. If anyone could give him the inside track, Nancy Forrest could. When Jim wasn’t battling with his wife he was at Nancy’s apartment. Slade stepped into a drug store and dialed her number.

  “Dan Slade speaking. I want to see you. Right now. About Jim. Never mind why.”

  He hung up before she could argue. Ten minutes later he was punching the doorbell; and then he began to understand Jim’s choice in sweethearts. He could hardly believe that this could be the trim, self-effacing piece of office equip­ment he had called an armful of nothing at all.

  She was taller than Valene, and just as shapely; but unlike Valene, hers was a cool and restful loveli­ness. Her eyes were star sapphires, veiled by heavy lashes, and her smile was refreshing instead of in­flaming. Yet the severe simplicity of her dressing gown could not quite conceal the fluent sweetness of her body.

  They eyed each other for an in­stant. Slade knew he could not tactfully edge up to the subject.

  “Jim just got cracked off,” he blurted in a dry, hard voice, “Mur­der, sure as God made little apples.”

  Nancy’s breasts for an instant swelled the silk of her gown. Then she froze—still lovely in her wide eyed, rigid incredulity.

  “How?”

  Slade told her. Everything—ex­cept the color of Valene’s step-ins.

  She listened in dry-eyed silence. Slade knew she was too hard hit to weep.

  “All right, Nancy—you sing yours,” he concluded. “What kind of letter would Jim be packing around in his pocket, even out to Coppa’s? Why’d he want to mail it personally? And what’s he been telling you about Valene?”

  Nancy Forrest forced a pallid smile.

  “He told me,” she finally said, “that Valene was nutty about you, and he wished to God you’d take a tumble and get her off his hands—only, he’d kind of hate to have you tangle up with a hell-cat like her.”

  “Then he couldn’t have been so damn’ wrathful on his way home tonight.”

  Nancy agreed and then queried, “But why would the person who beaned you take the wallet and letter?”

  “A guy in a hurry would grab the works. But what the hell was in that letter! You ought to know.”

  “Nothing but routine for the past few days. But he has been awfully up in the air about some­thing.”

  Which got nowhere. And Nancy was beginning to crack under the shock. She’d be weeping all over his shirtfront in another moment. He could tell from the nervous twist of her fingers as they knotted the edge of her dressing gown.

  Slade reached for his hat.

  “Don’t go,” she said. “God—I feel—so damn’ lost—”

  She looked it. He wondered what Valene would say when she heard the news.

  “Get a drink,” he said. “You need it. So do I.”

  Murder or no murder, if that gorgeous armful draped herself all over him, and they began swap­ping condolences—

  “Anyway,” he grimly reflected as she turned to head for the kitch­en, “Nancy still remembers the re­frigerator isn’t in her bedroom.”

  Which gave her the edge on Valene. And so did the bright lights as she crossed the threshold from the kitchen, playing the devil with Nancy’s transparent gown.

  But Slade’s resurrected conscience balked at making the evening a study in comparative anatomy.

  He resolutely ground a half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray, and fumbled in his pocket for a fresh one.

  He found more than the smoke. With it he drew out the three small blocks of pine.

  “What the hell are these?” he asked Nancy, catching her wrist just in time to keep her from de­pressing the lever of the siphon.

  As he swallowed the straight Scotch, he watched her examine the odd cargo Tilford had carried to Coppa’s—after he’d wrenched his glance from points of interest not far south of Nancy’s shoulders.

  In the bright light of the living room, he noted a red stain on the center of the cross section of the pieces. There was an unstained border not more than a sixteenth of an inch wide. It was perceptibly yellow—a decided lemon tint, and not the natural color of pine.

  Nancy frowned, then answered, “Why—these are samples of Wol­man­ized wood.”

  “Which?”

  “Wood,” explained Nancy, “that’s been treated with Wolman solution so termites—tropical wood-eating ants—won’t touch it. Jim was shipping over five million feet of treated lumber down to a big job in Belize—”

  “Fancy coloring,” observed Slade, still a bit cross-eyed from noting that Jim’s secretary was really stacked up.

  “That red stain,” she explained, “indicates the parts that weren’t touched when the wood was put under pressure. The chemical in the wood bleaches that red testing dye. Good Lord, how Jim tore the office to pieces when some of the samples didn’t come up to specifi­cations!”

  Nancy reached for a handker­chief. Slade reached for his hat. He wanted to think.

  “Be seeing you,” he said, striding toward the door. “And if the police ask you things, forget about that screwy note. Get it?”

  Nancy sobbed an inarticulate yes. But Slade did not look back to catch the sudden narrowing of her eyes, and the tensity of her lovely face.

  He had something on his mind; and as he took the wheel of his car, he wondered at Nancy’s ignorance of the letter Tilford had carried with him in his pocket instead of including it in the outgoing mail.

  “Something is cock-eyed,” he summarized. “She ought to know about that letter. It was important enough to steal—then how could she have skipped it?”

  Nancy might be holding out. Maybe she suspected him of having teamed up with Valene. In which case Slade would have the police on his neck for palming a few scraps of evidence. Slade wiped the sudden rush of sweat from his fore­head. Nancy was business-like enough to be dangerous. It had the makings of a damn’ nice jam.

  He drove to police headquarters. The news he got there hit him squarely on the chin. It was too good to be true.

  “Hell, yes,” said the sergeant. “We got ’em. Two mugs with Tilford’s roll. A packet of fifties, with the original bank wrapping band a
bout them. Dated, and ini­tialed by Coppa’s cashier. They claim they found him dead, and frisked his pockets, that they didn’t gum up the highway marker.

  “They were going to knock him off, but someone beat ’em to it—only, they’ll fry in a hurry. Noth­ing to do but give ’em cigars and chicken, and watch the lights blink.”

  “Let me talk to them,” demand­ed Slade.

  The two mugs were sweating and desperate. Caught with the plunder, there had been no need of sapping a confession out of them.

  “Listen, Jack,” said Slade, ad­dressing the Italian. “Tell me something and maybe I can get you a break.”

  They eyed each other. The red headed ex-pug grunted; Pichetti answered, “Hell of a lot you can do.”

  “Take it easy, fellow,” grinned Slade. “Just because you sapped me on the nut don’t mean I got any grudge. I think someone else did it, and you birds are taking the rap. That’s the guy I want. Now talk fast—or smoke, later.”

  “Damn it, Mac, how the hell can I talk?” muttered the wop. “We found him and his bus all cracked up. Which saved us the job. So we grabbed the roll. And we didn’t sap you nor him.”

  “Oh, all right,” grinned Slade. “Just stick to it then. The smell of roasting meat won’t bother you, though the young news hounds’ll park their lunches at their first execution.”

  “Listen,” countered Pichetti, “whatta ya trying to work on us? You ain’t no dick. We seen ya check out with the black-eyed broad. So what the hell can you do for us—and why’d you want to?”

  “I have my reasons,” retorted Slade. “Who talked to Tilford after his wife and I left?”

  “Him and some short, stocky fellow with a red face chinned a couple minutes. Your buddy gave him a growl and a dirty look and told him something that made him madder’n hell. He reached for his coat pocket, and I ducked, figuring he was goin’ to pull a gat—your buddy, I mean. Then he shoved some more chips on the layout, and the other guy walked off. How would I know where? Me and Red was tendin’ to business.”

  Slade handed the prisoners the remains of his pack of ciga­rettes. But when he reached the entrance, he retraced his steps and asked the sergeant if they had Tilford’s key ring.

  “So his secretary can get into his private office in the morning,” Slade explained. “He had a stack of important stuff to get out, first thing. I work with Jim on a few deals.”

  “Better look somewhere else, Mr. Slade,” said the sergeant. “We found nothing but his car keys in the ignition lock.”

  And that left Slade with but one play: go to the house, and ask Valene to find Jim’s key ring. Somewhere in that office, despite Nancy Forrest’s insistence to the contrary, there must be a clue to that letter for which someone had killed Tilford.

  Slade was certain that Tilford had had words with a person who was interested in that envelope. If he could prove that, he would have an out for Valene—and himself—just in case Nancy began thinking things.

  “Damn it,” he growled as he headed his car to Tilford’s apart­ment, “short, red faced fellows in a town this size are thicker’n bum tips on the races! But she couldn’t have been screwy enough to team up with anyone to run Jim off the road!”

  Valene answered Slade’s ring. She was surprised and a bit incred­ulous. He was certain that she couldn’t have heard the news. Her dark eyes widened as Slade broke it out.

  “God, Dan…” She swayed, caught the table for support. Slade wondered what she would say if he mentioned the warning note which had driven Jim into a trap. Then she recovered, and soberly added, “We did battle an awful lot, but that does leave me wobbly.”

  She looked it. Then he wondered if it was from the strain of wait­ing, or whether it was a spark of friendliness that had survived the Jim versus Valene skirmishes for several weary years. That re­mained to be seen. She had the good grace not to paw him.

  “The two thugs are nailed,” he concluded. “See if you can find Jim’s keys. He’s got some blue prints of mine in his office, and some papers I don’t want his suc­cessor to get in on.”

  He heard her stirring around in the bedroom. He stalked up and down the Chinese rug, clench­ing and opening his fists. Valene couldn’t be messed up with that missing letter. There was a false note.

  And then, just as he convinced himself that Valene was strictly on the level, and that the red faced man had turned the trick on his own account, Slade’s glance shift­ed toward the telephone pad. The line of advertising printed on it matched the heading on the slip which was in his pocket. His heart stopped as he bent over to scruti­nize the top sheet.

  There were marks which had cut through from the sheet which had been torn off. He cocked his head, and saw the unmistakable trace of words shaped with a sharp pencil. And the signature was plain: A Friend. That note had originated in Tilford’s house! Valene was it—

  “Dan, I can’t find his keys,” she said as she reentered the liv­ing room. Then, eyeing him: “Good Lord! You’re white as a sheet. Why—what’s wrong—”

  “You know what’s wrong!” he rasped, tearing the sheet from the telephone pad and thrusting it be­fore her eyes. “You wrote the message that sent him tearing home hell-bent to find out whose boots were beneath the bed—after that highway marker was gummed up to lead him into the ditch. You—”

  “Dan—” She recoiled as from a blow. “That note—wait—I can explain—”

  But if she could, it was to va­cancy. The door slammed and Slade was heading for his car. He drove aimlessly. Valene was up to her neck, but despite the evidence against her, there must be other factors.

  Why had Tilford’s keys van­ished? Why had that envelope dis­appeared? To cover Valene’s trail was to share her guilt—and yet, after what had happened, he couldn’t sell her out. The only way of finding out where he stood was to go through Tilford’s desk. And Nancy Forrest would have a set of keys.

  * * * *

  A quarter of an hour later he was jabbing her doorbell.

  Her eyes were reddened, but she wore her grief well. Her cool, fragrant beauty subdued the wrath­ful surging in Slade’s corroded brain.

  “I’m so glad you came back,” she murmured. “I’ve been think­ing…and…”

  “So have I,” he said with a grim brusqueness that startled her, “And I’m damn’ near ready to crack it wide open.”

  Her blue eyes suddenly became almost as dark as Valene’s. Her fingers sank into his arm.

  “How did you guess—it just dawned on me, and I’ve been fol­lowing his work—know it almost as well as he did—”

  She was leaning forward, her eyes blazing into his. Slade did not answer her question. The frag­rance of her body intoxicated him, and the curved whiteness of her breasts dazzled him.

  “I was shocked stupid,” she continued. “But after you left, I caught the point of those samples. Those bits of wood prove that—”

  And then she cracked. Too much poise to start, then giving away all at once. She was half laughing, half crying, calling him Jim and Dan alternately, and clinging to him as the one remaining link to the past.

  “Steady—pull yourself togeth­er!” Which wasn’t the most ap­propriate thing to say, but Slade couldn’t think of anything else.

  A full-blown case of hysteria was a new one on him. Plumb loco, and getting worse every minute. Not a chance to break away and get her a drink or souse her with ice water, or whatever you do to snap them out of it.

  Jim was gone, and Nancy sud­denly needed someone or something to hang on to. But as soon as she calmed down, she’d give him the missing kink she had doped out. Only, it didn’t quite work out that way.

  Slade gathered her in his arms, ignoring her clinging curves, the long, fine sweep of her legs, and the tantalizing pressure of breasts that every racking sob and its al­ternate laugh forced against him. He stroked the disarrayed, gold bronze ring
lets as he tried to coax her back to balance. But things began to get complicated.

  Valene had tricked him into a rotten situation—and the tighter Nancy clung the more sincere his indignation became. By the time his shirtfront was fairly soaked with tears and his ears jangled with bursts of laughter, he and Nancy were companions in misery.

  And since whispered consolation had no effect, a shock might snap her out of it.

  One hand slipped from her waist to the warm white curves that smiled through her filmy gown; but it was Slade who got that shock. Nancy shuddered and snuggled closer. It might have been hysteria, but it re­minded him of something else—though the two are after all pretty much the same.

  His next exploring caress made her breath come in short, quick gasps that weren’t a bit like sobs. Then they were lip to lip, and Nancy’s sighing murmur was quite rational.

  As she sank back among the cushions, drawing him toward her, Slade told himself that if he broke away now, there was no telling what she might do. As it was, she did nothing more outrageous than snap out the floor lamp…

  * * * *

  For an engineer, Slade had it figured out well enough. And when he finally extricated himself from Nancy’s arms, they were both closer to rational thought.

  “…You must think I’m per­fectly awful…” she whispered. “But… Oh, for the time, I just didn’t…”

  “Forget it—” interrupted Slade. “But what was your hunch? Ac­cording to those test blocks, there must have been a shipment of five million feet of phony lumber about to go to Belize—”

  “About? It’s already gone. And with that faked wood—which’d rot overnight—costing the manufac­turer about half as much as the real article, you can figure the profit someone would have taken if Jim hadn’t cracked down on them.”

  “Get dressed and we’ll follow it up.”

  A few minutes later, Nancy Forrest stepped into Slade’s car and they drove downtown to the Federal Indemnity building. The janitor recognized Nancy and admitted them. He took them to the eleventh floor, and turned back to his rooms. Nancy unlocked the front office door and followed Slade to Tilford’s private suite. They set to work searching Tilford’s desk.