Say Yes to Murder - Todhunter Ballard (book club recommendations .TXT) 📗

up and she would inherit the old lady’s dough. If you hadn’t been so busy looking at her legs you might have figured this all out for yourself.”

“Yes,” he said in a strange voice, “I might have at that. I…” He stopped. A car had come up the hill behind them and parked at the rear of the coupe.

“Who’s that?” he whispered.

She said: “Probably someone who came up here to talk of love—not murder. You’re a most unsatisfactory guy, William. I bring you out here to look at the lights, and all you can think of is a couple of filthy murders.”

He kissed her automatically, one eye open, peering past the line of her hair toward the end of the fence. He saw the man’s figure silhouetted against the lighter sky. He had a view of the man’s hand, and then the gun. He didn’t know what to do. The killers had caught up with him again.

There was one certain way to keep her quiet—the only one. He used it. He pressed his lips tightly against hers in a long kiss, then he whispered, relaxing the pressure only a little:

“Don’t make a sound. There’s a man with a gun up beside the fence. I think he’s looking for us.”

She didn’t mind him. She did the exact opposite. She screamed. Lennox heard sound above the scream. The fellow was scrambling forward down the hill. There was no time to wait, not much chance to think.

He did the only thing left to do under the circumstances. He rolled the girl off his knees, and together they half-fell, half-slid down the slope. It was a steep grade and a long way down.

The girl’s screams increased, and she wrapped her arms around Lennox, as if he were the only one remaining stable thing in a turning world. They dropped down fast. He couldn’t have checked their progress now had he wished, and he did not wish to.

First there was a curse in the darkness above them, then the flash of a gun and the sharp whiplike report. The bullet struck a hidden rock off toward their right and ricocheted with a humming noise out into the night.

Kitty Foster’s screams ceased abruptly and she was suddenly limp in his arms. He judged that she had fainted as their downward progress was halted abruptly by a manzanita bush. He untangled himself as best he could from both the bush and the girl and peered upward at the slope from which they had fallen.

A voice called guardedly from the road: “Did they get away?’

The second voice was a hoarse murmur. “Can’t see them. I think they landed behind one of these bushes.”

“Hurry,” said the voice from above. “The people in the house heard your shot and are calling the cops.”

His companion swore harshly. “Better take the jalopy and get out of here. I’ll sneak out the lower way. I couldn’t climb back up there if I tried. I’m going down to the bottom and head Lennox off. If he gets out of this, he’ll be good.”

Cold chilly fingers groped their way up Lennox’ spine. On the slope he had an even chance, but if the man reached the bottom of the hill he could wait for them with his gun. Lennox turned to the girl in the darkness, wondering.

The men did know who he was. Had they followed him there, or had they known he would be here? No one could have told them except Kitty Foster, but she had had ample opportunity when she went to get her coat. She could have called them on the phone in her room and put him on the spot if she chose. Her conversation of the evening might well be part of an act.

2.

Everything was still except for the faint rumble of traffic from the distant Sunset Boulevard. He sat for a couple of minutes, careful not to make any sound. Once or twice he thought he heard noise at the bottom of the hill as the unseen watcher shifted position. But he could not be certain. The man was being unusually cautious. Lennox finally edged over to where the girl lay and bent above her.

She was moaning faintly as if in a troubled sleep, and he guessed that she was coming out of it. Her face was a dim contour in the faint light. It made her look like a little girl peaceful in sleep. He didn’t know exactly what to do. He had the true male’s helplessness in the face of sickness. She came to before the police got there. When he saw the lights at the crest of the grade she was sitting up weakly, asking him what had happened.

Lennox took a chance, hoping the man at the bottom of the slope would not fire at the sound of his voice, and called to the police.

The flashlight beams turned downward, and he yelled hurriedly: “Turn them off. Do you want to get us killed?”

As if in answer to the words a gun flashed from the base of the hill and a bullet cut viciously through the bush at their backs. Lennox dropped flat against the rough ground, pulling the girl down with him.

She moaned: “They shouldn’t shoot… They shouldn’t shoot…”

“Who shouldn’t?” he demanded harshly.

Her voice was hazy, as if with fear. “Whoever they are.”

He wasn’t satisfied with the answer, but it was no time to pursue the subject. The police were working their way down the slope after throwing a couple of shots in the direction of the unseen gunman. Lennox had the sensation of being caught in a no-man’s land shell hole with two armies sniping at each other across his head. The only trouble was that there was no shell hole. But it lasted only seconds.

Their assailant must have had enough. Somewhere at the foot of the hill a car motor roared away toward Sunset, and he guessed that the man was gone.

They followed the police down the slope, the last part of their journey lighted by the officers’ flashlights. They tried to escape, but nothing would do but that they must be taken to the station.

Kitty Foster did not seem to mind. Lennox did—decidedly. He’d answered all the police questions he ever cared to answer in this life, or for that matter in the next.

There were reporters at the station, and he was instantly recognized—in fact, before Kitty Foster was, which did not improve her shaky temper. But she managed to keep it under control and flash her smile, even though her appearance was considerably disheveled.

Before she had a chance to say anything Lennox cut in. If anyone was going to talk to the reporters, he meant it to be himself. He couldn’t be certain what the actress would say, so he told them:

“Nothing to it. Just an attempted holdup which went wrong. Miss Foster and I were at a party at her house. We decided that we needed some air so we drove up to Lookout Mountain. Apparently these men saw us go up, took it for a petting party, and decided it was a good chance for a parked-car holdup—only we weren’t in the car. We’d climbed down around the edge of the fence so that we could get a view of the city.

“We heard them stop and saw one of the men come around the fence with a gun in his hand. There wasn’t anything to do but try to escape down the hill.” He went on to tell of the arrival of the police and their rescue.

One of the reporters—a redhead from the Herald—expressed his disbelief. “Come on, Mr. Lennox. You don’t expect us to believe all that. We’re not children, you know. There have been three unexplained murders this week, and you and Miss Foster have been more or less involved in all of them. Are you certain this little disturbance isn’t a part of the other happenings?”

Lennox had been afraid of the question, and laughed easily, but before he could remonstrate the man went on: “From the newspapers I’d judged that you and Miss Foster weren’t on exactly the most cordial of terms.”

The girl cut in: “Really, mister reporter, you aren’t a very good judge of human nature. You’re referring to the fact that I told Captain Spellman Lennox had Heyworth’s body moved.”

The man looked at her carefully. “I had that in mind.”

She said: “Because Mr. Lennox and I differed on the best way of handling a rather awkward situation and because I chose the only method of bringing him around to my point of view, doesn’t affect our personal relations in the least. If you want to know, we were planning to fly to Yuma in the morning to be married.”

The gentlemen of the press had been rather listless up until that moment. They snapped suddenly to attention.

“What! Can we print that?”

Lennox’ face felt as if it had been carved from wood. He tried to smile, but his lips were so stiff they were almost uncontrollable. “I wouldn’t,” he managed. “You boys are certainly suckers. Miss Foster bet me on the way to the station that she could pull such an announcement and that you’d go for it hook, line and sinker. Don’t worry, she’s too smart a girl to marry a bum like me. We’re friends, yes—the best of friends—I might say, but as for marriage, we both feel it would interfere with our respective activities too much.”

He didn’t dare look at Kitty. He hoped she was covering up, that the surprise would not show in her face. He thought it wouldn’t. She was a good enough actress for that. But he knew exactly what he had done. This was a declaration of war between them. She had offered an armistice for mutual benefit, and he was publicly refusing it. She could make it nasty if she chose. The next move was distinctly up to her.

3.

In Jake’s coupe, which an obliging policeman had rescued from the hilltop, he drove back toward the actress’ house. He expected a torrent of recriminations, but he got nothing. All along the curving bridle path which split the Boulevard into two lanes, she was silent, huddled as far away from him as she could get. He brought the car to a sliding halt at the stop sign before the Beverly Hotel, shifted, and pulled ahead before she said:

“Why’d you do that, William?” The tone was restrained. It showed no sign of anger, no symptom of the hurt pride he had expected.

He took his eyes away from the empty road to glance at her. “Because it won’t work, pal. It sounds nice, and I’ll admit I’d have come running at one time. But what you need is a meek little guy who will jump through hoops and do tricks for your guests—a guy who won’t mind being called Mr. Kitty Foster in public and a lot worse things behind his back. I’m not that kind of a guy. I feel old-fashioned as hell at the moment. If anyone wears the pants around my place, I’m afraid it has to be me.”

She was silent so long that he thought she wasn’t going to answer. They’d almost reached the turnoff into the twisting side street which led up to her house when she said:

“You’re quibbling. The trouble is that you don’t love me any more. Or rather, you love someone else. Who is it, William? Little Jean Jeffries?”

“Good heavens, no!” The words came out of him like an explosion. “That brat. Give me credit for a little common sense. Why is it that when one person is put in the embarrassing position of having to admit they’re not in love with another