Dead in a Bed Read online

  This brought on a small burp and a large query. “Are you of the police, Mr. Chambers?”

  “Of the private police, Mr. Sloan.” I showed him my credentials.

  He studied them and returned them. “I’m a busy man, Mr. Chambers. You have either barged in here under false pretense or my secretary misunderstood you. I was under the impression that you had some information for me. Have you?”

  “No sir. Rather, you have some information for me.”

  “I have?” He flapped his cheeks and extinguished his cigarette. “About what?”

  “I should like to know the details of what you have referred to as the unfortunate incident involving Mr. Medford.”

  “Now look here! I’ve had just about enough of this impertinence. If you have any legitimate concern in this matter I’m certain the police will supply you—”

  “They might but even if they did that would involve a hell of a lot of red tape and eat up a hell of a lot of time. I’d rather have it from the horse’s mouth.”

  “The horse’s mouth, would you?” A flush like a lady’s blush suffused the bald pate. “Mr. Chambers, I’d advise you to get out of here—at once!” A thin white finger moved toward a fat white button on the desk and I had visions of a couple of burly bank guards politely bouncing me out on my buttocks.

  “Hold that!” I said. The finger remained poised but impressed. “Have you ever heard of Penelope Arlington?”

  “Of course. Miss Arlington is one of our largest depositors, one of our most active customers, and a personal friend to boot.”

  “Well, give this a fast listen, Mr. Sloan, and then take your finger away from that button. Miss Arlington is also a personal friend of mine although I’ve never booted her figuratively or literally. So is Charlie Medford a personal friend of mine. So is Charlie Medford’s son, Jack, a personal friend of mine. I’ll give you a little personal history to prove all of that. Charlie Medford came to work here twelve years ago. At that time he was a virtuous employee in the Chaste National Bank, doing very well in their Loan Department. The Head of your Loan Department died and Miss Arlington recommended Charlie and you hired him. Now I’m not here as some nosey private operator trying to smell out some lucre for himself. I’m here, first, because Jack Medford retained me and I’m here, second, because Charlie Medford is no crook and you know that as well as I and somebody ought to take that tack in trying to get to the bottom of this thing. Now are you going to push your fat button, Mr. Sloan, or are you going to give me an opportunity to go to bat for Charles R. Medford?”

  The flush descended from the pate and covered his face but the finger came away from the button. As he reached for the telephone I said, “Miss Arlington is out of town.”

  “I know that.” He lifted the receiver and said into the mouthpiece, “Get me young Jack Medford, please.” He hung up, drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his face. As he carefully returned the handkerchief to the pocket he said, “I’m sorry I was discourteous to you, Mr. Chambers.”

  “I’m sorry I forced that discourtesy by my discourtesy, Mr. Sloan. I’ve had a lousy morning and my nerves are on edge.”

  The telephone tinkled and he picked up the receiver, listened, smiled, said, “Jack, there’s a Peter Chambers here. He says you’ve retained him on that matter regarding your father.” He listened, nodding. “Mr. Chambers says he’s also a friend of Miss Penelope Arlington.” He listened again, said, “Thank you.”

  I waved. “Would you tell him to stay put where he is. I’ll see him later.”

  Mr. Sloan delivered the message, said goodbye, and hung up. He lit a cigarette, said, “All right, Mr. Chambers, what exactly can I do for you?”

  “What happened here with Charlie Medford?”

  “Actually, there’s very little more I know than what’s appeared in the newspapers.”

  “Would you tell me, please?”

  “Well, sir, as you probably know, Charlie Medford is a very meticulous precise man. He goes to lunch every day promptly at twelve, returns every day promptly at one. If he has any outside business to do, if he will remain away for any length of time, he’ll so inform his secretary. That hasn’t failed once in the twelve years he’s been with us, and a most satisfactory twelve years that has been.”

  “Yes sir,” I said.

  “Yesterday, at ten minutes to twelve, he went down to the vault and requisitioned one hundred thousand dollars in cash.”

  “Is that unusual, sir?”

  “No, not particularly. A bank as large as ours has many types of clients, both individual and corporate, whose needs are divers and complicated. Charlie Medford has, frequently, requisitioned such sums and larger. As Head of the Loan Department and, as a matter of fact, as one of the officers of the bank, such requisitions are practically routine; what I mean is that no one downstairs at the vault would think for a moment to question such requisition. There’s a form to be filled out which he signs and that’s that. The form is stamped with the time and that’s how we know it was exactly ten minutes to twelve. He placed the money into his attache case, went back upstairs to his desk, and promptly at twelve he left the bank. He seemed to be in a pleasant mood, as we have learned from his secretary. He chatted about the weather, made a joke or two, and then went out—as far as the secretary was concerned—to lunch.”

  “But carrying the attache case.”

  “Oh yet no question. The police examined the secretary very closely upon that. Definitely, he was carrying the attache case, although the secretary had no idea what was in it. There’s been full corroboration—other of our employees saw him going out at twelve o’clock carrying the case.” He took a last puff of the cigarette and rubbed it out in a tray. “And that’s it, Mr. Chambers.”

  “What’s it, Mr. Sloan?”

  “That’s all we know.”

  “But there must be a finish.”

  “The finish, the beginning, the end …” He shrugged. “When by two-thirty he hadn’t returned, his absence was noted and reported to me. Upon a routine check, we learned of the requisition. We called his home and when there was no answer there we simply had no alternative other than notiying the police. It did not occur to us that he had absconded—I still don’t believe that—but we felt that perhaps he had become ill, or he had met with foul play. On the other hand, there are some very peculiar aspects about all of this.”

  “Such as, Mr. Sloan?”

  “Just as you, I find it difficult to conceive of Charlie Medford as a thief, but a close study of his books show no request by any client for any such sum. Why would Charlie requisition a hundred thousand dollars? Why would he make such requisition and say nothing about it to anyone—not his secretary, no one? I repeat—Charlie was a meticulous man. He always made a record of every move. His desk diary always contained all of his appointments. The diary showed no outside appointment with anybody for yesterday—yet he walked out carrying a hundred thousand dollars. In my own mind, I’ve tried to give him every benefit of the doubt, but …” He shrugged eloquently.

  “Have you people checked his finances?”

  “Of course. They’re in perfect order. Charlie was in good shape.”

  “Then why …”

  “It’s baffling, any way you look at it. We’re hoping against hope he’ll show up and explain. But it’s twenty-four hours now and there hasn’t been one single solitary word. When my secretary announced you, a stranger, I had hoped against hope …”

  “I must have been an awful disappointment.”

  “Frankly, you were. Mr. Goldenfish said you wanted to see me about Charles R. Medford. I had hoped, out of the blue …”

  “Of course. I understand.”

  “It’s a lame excuse for my having been testy, but that’s my excuse. And now, if there’s anything else …”

  “There’s nothing else, Mr. Sloan, and I thank you kindly for your time and your patience with me. It’s a hell of a loony affair and I’ll admit that it doesn’t smell
real good for Charlie but I’m a great one for believing that a leopard doesn’t change his spots, and whatever spots Charlie may have, he’s always been a guy with impeccable integrity. There must be some explanation for all of this and I’m going to do my darndest to supply it.”

  “You have my blessings, sir, and whatever cooperation you may demand.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Sloan. We sure started off on the wrong foot but I’m happy we skipped over to the right one.”

  “We’re all only human, Mr. Chambers. We all have our pressures.”

  “Thank you again, sir, and goodbye.”

  “Oh just one moment.” He scribbled on a small sheet of memo paper and handed it to me. “My home address and phone number,” he said. “Be in touch with me at any time, day or night, for anything I may be able to do to be of assistance. And if you incur any expenses on this matter, I should appreciate it if you would bill me personally.”

  “Charlie’s a friend. No expenses. This one’s on me. All of it.”

  “Good luck, Mr. Chambers.”

  Say what you will about crusty old bank presidents, there are some who belong to the human race. Prejudice is part of our ingrained idiocy. We all have our prejudices. I used to have a prejudice against bank presidents. Donald P. K. Sloan cured me of that, bless his ulcer. So far it had been one hell of a bad day for me. I had been awakened out of not-enough sleep. I had learned that Charlie Medford had disappeared with a hundred thousand bananas. I had found Angelina Pisk dead in my bathtub. I had watched Maximilian Bartlett die in the middle of a promise on a hospital bed. But I had been cured of a prejudice and any time you are cured of a prejudice, any prejudice, already you are way out in front of whatever your bad day. There you have your philosophy for the afternoon of Friday, June fifteenth. Stick it, and I don’t mean where you can smoke it. Why is it that philosophy almost always carries with it the stench of pomposity? Okay, stick them both and bear along with me.

  I had work to do.

  FIVE

  I CHECKED INTO my office at twelve-fifteen and was greeted by the bunched-up frown of my beloved secretary, Miss Miranda Foxworth, beautifully ugly without a bunched-up frown. My Miranda was chunky, blocky, wrinkled and leathery, on the sunless side of fifty, dour and dominant and vastly capable and pointedly critical and enormously compassionate, my conscience and my confidante, my sole employee who, upon rare occasion, permitted me to pretend that I was her boss.

  “Good morning,” she said in her sternest baritone.

  “Good morning, Miranda,” I said as brightly as I could manage.

  “Only it’s afternoon,” she said.

  “Good afternoon, Miranda.”

  “You look terrible, it grieves me to state.”

  “Didn’t get enough sleep.”

  “One would think that by noon the next day one would have, somehow, pushed in enough sleep the night before.”

  “Yes, one would think. Now please let’s shuffle off this subject of slumber and wake up with Mr. Alfred Surf. Has he been here?”

  She shook her head. “But he called.”

  “When?”

  “About eleven-thirty. Said he had an appointment with you for twelve but please delay it to twelve-thirty.”

  “Fine. Anyone else call?”

  With Miranda, unless she was in a good mood, the extraction of messages was like the pulling of teeth.

  “The usual from Miss Twits,” she said. Miss Topsy Twits was a Turkish belly-dancer whom I adored, too much perhaps. My interest in Twits had become slightly overwhelming, so I had dropped her and run. I am a bachelor and the bane of a bachelor is the pain of involvement—We take flight—and I had fled the trap of Topsy Twits. Sick? So it goes.

  “And what did you tell Miss Twits?” I said.

  “Told her the usual. That you were tied up on a case out of town. But this Twits of yours has a twitch of tenacity. I’ve been throwing her that pitch for weeks now but she makes her regular call practically every morning before she goes to sleep.”

  “The Turks are noted for their tenacity, dear Miranda.”

  “But this Twits isn’t Turkish, she’s American.”

  “Of Turkish descent, dear Miranda.”

  “Dear boss, whatever you have may escape me but whatever it is—for her you’ve sure got it.”

  If it was a compliment, it was dubious, but a crumb from Miranda is like a loaf from another, so I batted my eyes in mock immodesty and continued with my timid inquisition. “Anyone else call?”

  “You mean you’ve latched on to a new navel-shaker?”

  “A Michael Peabody?” I ventured.

  “Nobody like a Peabody called. Now go inside and slap some color into your fare. The way you look, you’re liable to scare the pants off Mr. Surf.”

  “The way Mr. Surf will probably look, he’s liable to scare the pants off you.”

  Leaving her with pants on but mouth open, I entered into the sanctum sanctorum, gravitated toward the mirror, and leered at the leering reflection with the puffed satchels beneath the eyes. I stuck out my tongue and gazed at it dolefully in the time-honored fashion of every drunkard the morning after. Then dutifully I slapped color into my cheeks and watched it recede. I replaced my tongue, readjusted my face, straightened my tie, scowled at myself with scant enthusiasm, made my way around the desk, and fell into my swivel-chair where I permitted stemmed wrath to steam up at Hockin Chynik.

  Jail is the occupational hazard of the burglar. Anyone in any criminal venture pits himself against the law. If he wins, he has leisure time and a soft life and easy money; if he loses, he spends his leisure time in the can where the life is harder and the money is meaningless—but that is the gamble and every professional knows the risk. When a racket guy slips the handle and gets sent away for his vacation, he bears no animus against judge, jury, prosecutor, or witness: they are as impersonal as thrown dice that have turned up snake-eyes. A guy who emerges with a clank from the clink, a guy who comes out angry at the dice, a nut who is cracking for vengeance, is a hooting son of a bitch of a dangerous loon who needs his wings clipped and I intended to do just that for Hockin Chynik because now it was personal, both ways. Chynik had murdered Pisk, had murdered Bartlett, and had tried to slide a murder-deal into the lap of Chambers. Once he discovered that Chambers had a slippery lap he would sneak out of his hole with less subtle ambition, but I was not waiting. I was set to reverse that procedure: I was seeking him. Detective-lieutenant Louis Parker, a wise old bird, had comprehended my intention and had tried to dissuade it but he had not tried too hard because he was a wise old bird and he realized the futility: he understood that unspoken and undeclared a personal vendetta had flowered up to more pricks than a cactus and there was not a thing in the world he could do about it.

  More pricks than a cactus. I squirmed in my chair as though I were seated on one. I was bursting with a rage to hang a hook into Hockin and here I was sitting around on the pricks of my cactus waiting for Alfred Surf. But what in all hell could I do? My one conduit to Hockin Chynik was Mike the Pea but Mike the Pea was not in his shell. I reached a hand for the phone to try the Brittany again when my squawk-box delivered Miranda in her most dulcet tones.

  “Mr. Surf to see you, sir.”

  I touched a button and said, “Send him in.”

  And then through the squawk-box came Miranda’s whisper, “He looks as bad as you said but my pants are still on although he is one gentleman for whom I would take them off if he asked.”

  That brought a smile to my mouth and I projected it at the door which opened and closed as the Surf rolled in. “Hi,” he said. “Please don’t look so happy. It makes me ill.”

  Gratefully I let my smile expire. “Sit down.” I gestured. “Take your choice. Hard chair, easy chair, sofa.”

  “Sofa so good,” he said but sat in a hard chair alongside the desk. “Rough night, eh, kid?”

  “Rough.”

  “But a fella in your business, you can sleep it off.”

&n
bsp; “Yeah.”

  “But not me. I was at work by nine-thirty.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Laconic this afternoon, aren’t we?”

  “This appointment was your idea, lover. So stop with the comments and come to the point, if any.”

  “The point is going to make some dough for you, so try to be a little civil to the harbinger of hard money, even if it hurts.”

  I bounced around on my cactus. “What money, hard or soft?”

  “Didn’t I tell you last night?”

  “Last night you told me dirty jokes.”

  “I mentioned about your helping to write a book, didn’t I?”

  “You did but I didn’t hear one ungodly word about gelt. Am I about to hear such word now?”

  “You are but don’t rush me. I’m not as young as you. A moment, please, so that I may collect myself before you start collecting.” He stretched long legs, poked in his weskit, found a cigar, and stabbed it into his mouth. He poked further for a lighter, produced one with a flame like an Olympic torch, lit up, puffed bluely, tilted his head, and regarded my ceiling with tobacco-induced benevolence.

  He was a big man, about fifty, wide at the shoulders and narrow at the flanks. He had a square face usually as ruddy as a cussword in England but today it bore the faint lemon pallor of a misspent night. He had shrewd blue eyes behind rimless glasses, grizzled close-cut hair, a high forehead, a deep voice, and a white-capped smile of expensive dental jackets. He was rich, unmarried, charming, daring, successful, sometimes inscrutable but never unscrupulous. He was a complex man tougher to figure than a problem in calculus. Now he ground his expensive teeth into the base of the cigar and said, “I like your style in those silly detective exploits you write about. It will fit exactly with what I have in mind.”

  “And what do you have in mind, Alfred?”

  “Confessions Of A Con Man.”

  “So you said last night during intermissions from roistering. It’s the title of a book on which I’m supposed to collaborate with a Barry Howard.”

  “And I gave no elaboration on the collaboration.”