More Cases of a Private Eye: Classic Crime Stories. Ernest Dudley
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you didn’t sock him the fatal blow,” he allowed. “But your boy friend Morris would never have done it if you hadn’t planned the thing. You certainly weren’t friendly with Lucas.”
“How do you know?”
Craig smiled again.
“You shouldn’t have such obvious quarrels with men like Lucas in public places.”
Her attitude changed.
“They can’t do anything to me. It was Ken, I tell you. Ken Morris. Lucas was blackmailing him, I tried to persuade Lucas to lay off. He—he just laughed at me. He deserved all he got.”
Her eyes held that murderous quality that he had noticed in the Mirrobar.
“I could agree with you on that,” Craig said, “but unfortunately for you, it is still murder. Ken Morris wouldn’t have had the guts to carry it out unless you were on the premises to see that he did. He had been paying blackmail money to Lucas quite meekly until you discovered it,” he hazarded shrewdly. “It was bad luck we turned up before you could make your getaway as you had planned to do. And it was bad luck my secretary stayed in the hall barring your only exit. Pity for you that you didn’t know then it was only a girl out there, or you might have chanced it.”
Her choked reply was drowned by a shrill ringing at the doorbell. Craig nodded to Simone.
“Let them in. It’s the police.”
She started across the room, then she stopped.
“How did you get on to Morris and her?” she asked curiously.
Craig grinned. “When Morris stood under the hall light, I recognized him as the man under the street lamp, which tied him up with her. That started me thinking. I knew later that it couldn’t be the outside job they wanted it to appear to be.”
“How?”
“It was the ladder. It stood two feet away from the wall of the house. Anyone trying to climb a thirty-foot ladder in that position would have upset its centre of gravity and the ladder would have tipped backwards.”
The ringing outside started up again.
“The law,” he added, “is getting impatient.”
Simone smiled at him. “I will let them in,” she said, and went out into the hall.
THE MILLIONAIRE’S DAUGHTER
Burton Malone’s millions had been acquired because a junior public all over the world held a passion for fizzy drinks, and the fizzy drinks which they guzzled through straws always went over much bigger if they had Burton Malone’s name plastered on the bottles.
He’d had three wives. One son by his first wife and a daughter by the third. The boy had been as disappointing as his mother, and had ended a hectic and dissipated career by being smashed to pieces in a car accident after a party at which his father’s fizzy drinks had not been a speciality.
His daughter Claire was a lovely girl. All the society magazines said so, so did the dress-designers and the newspapers. The really astonishing thing about Claire Malone was the fact that she was also a charming girl and a dutiful daughter. Her father used to say only two things in his life had been worthwhile: his fizzy drinks, because they enabled him to indulge in the luxury he loved, and his daughter Claire, whom he idolized.
So when Claire went and got herself engaged to Rozzani the famous violinist, her father, who up to this date had never had much time for music and less for musicians, became a fervent admirer of Rozzani’s.
Craig, who never drank fizzy drinks but liked the pictures of Claire, knew a few things about the private life of the millionaire, though he’d never seen him. That is, until one day when Simone came in and told him there was a client waiting in the outer office.
“Who?” inquired Craig laconically without taking his feet off the desk.
“Burton Malone.”
Craig raised an eyebrow.
“He hasn’t got himself a fourth wife he doesn’t want has he?”
She shrugged.
“Not that I know of.”
“Somebody’s suing him for hiccups caused by too much gas in the fizz?”
She shrugged again. It was a pretty shrug. Craig liked it.
“I don’t think so.”
“Then I’ll see him,” Craig said, “and my fees will be extortionate.”
Burton Malone was ushered into the inner sanctum, and came to the point pronto.
“The job I have in mind for you, Mr. Craig, may seem a little strange, I’m afraid, but my daughter needs your help.”
He said it as if that would explain everything.
Craig gazed at him quizzically through a cloud of cigarette-smoke, said what he had said so many times before he was thinking of having a record made of it.
“I’m a private detective, Mr. Malone. Nothing has struck me as strange these last many moons.”
Burton Malone leaned more comfortably back in his chair and eased up his pinstripe trousers. His rather hard-bitten expression was somehow not in harmony with his immaculate dress. Craig mentally decided Claire must take after her mother.
“As I’m sure you have read,” began the millionaire with a certain satisfaction, “my daughter Claire is to be married to Rozzani—” He tilted forward. “The violinist. Have you heard him play, Mr. Craig? No? He is magnificent, magnificent. But tonight he is making his début at the Albert Hall, and that, I think you will agree, is an important occasion.
Craig said he would agree it was.
“My daughter,” the other continued with pride, “was to have been there, naturally.”
“I read it. Very touching story—but you said: ‘Was’?”
Burton Malone nodded.
“That, Mr. Craig, is the crux of the whole matter. Rozzani worships Claire—who doesn’t? And they are very much in love.” The hard expression softened. “And he will be terribly upset if she is not there.”
“What’s the matter? Has she got another date?”
Burton Malone, who had no sense of humour, was shocked. “I told you they were very much in love. Claire had a nasty fall from her horse in the Row this morning. Don’t alarm yourself, it is nothing serious. But enough to keep her in bed for a few weeks.”
Craig obligingly was not alarmed. “I’m so glad,” he murmured.
“What is worrying her is she will not be able to attend the concert tonight and the effect it will have on Rozzani.”
“He doesn’t know about the accident?”
Burton Malone absent-mindedly helped himself to one of Craig’s cigarettes.
“No. We’ve managed to keep it from him,” he replied, fumbling with his lighter.
“Here.”
Craig leant forward applying the necessary flame. The fizzy-drink mogul cleared his throat and went on.
“Thanks. As I was saying, we have so far managed to keep it from him. He is rehearsing all day and won’t be seeing her before the concert. But if my daughter is not in her box tonight, he will realize something is wrong.”
Craig asked:
“And that would be bad?” He was enjoying himself.
“Very bad, Mr. Craig,” the other answered seriously. “He relies on my daughter being there to get him through the concert.”
“Then hadn’t you better explain what’s