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. Come in and have a drink, she said.Simon thought about it, while another belated car cruised by. Maybe not, he said. Why not? Cooperation only goes so far. So what? So I don t want you to call me a wolf again.But I m human. My God, she said, don t you think I know the differ-ence? Don t you thinkI could.I d like to buy you a drink, she said.He kissed her, and broke it off quickly when he felt the warmth of her lips.Page 62 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Goodnight, darling, he said.She got out, and he drove away while he still could.When he entered his apartment at the Château Marmont there was a note in aplain envelope under the door.He opened it and frowned over the heavysprawling hand.It seemed to have been composed very much impromptu, for itwas written on a sizable blank space under the date line of the HollywoodReporter-obviously torn out of one of those strange advertisements which say,in infinitely modest type, Joe Doakes directed WOMEN IN ARMS, and buy awhole page to set it off.WHATEVER TIME you get home tonight, 1 want you to come right out and see me.Don t tell ANYONE I sent for you.This is VERY IMPORTANT.The door will beopen.Don t ring!BYRON UFFERLITZ.(603 Claymore Drive)The Saint sighed, and put the note in his pocket.A few minutes later he wasretracing his tracks out Sunset Boule-vard.Claymore Drive was only a couple of blocks from April Quest s house, and ashe passed her street Simon smiled again over the easy way she had taken hismind from its habitual restless search for plot.She had been right, ofcourse: so much of his life had been woven with conspiracy and dark purposesthat -he had long since ceased to be as interested in the solution of pastmysteries as he was in antici-pating mysteries that had not yet shapedthemselves, and that inquiring watchfulness had become so automatic that hewas apt to find himself stalking the shadow of his own imagination.Or was he?.A long time had gone by since one of those hunches had lastlet him down.What had Ufferlitz said? There are plenty of people who d hateto see me make a hit with this idea.One or two of em would go a long ways towreck it.I guess you can take care of yourself. He had almostaccepted Ufferlitz s note as just one of those regal im-petuosities thatHollywood producers traditionally indulge in: the thought that it might afterall be more than that gave him a sudden feeling of inward stillness as if theblood momen-tarily ceased to move in his veins.He shrugged it off as he slowed down at Mr.Ufferlitz s num-ber; and yetenough of it remained to paralyse his right foot from the reflex shift fromaccelerator to brake.He crawled round the next corner, and in the next fewyards found several cars parked outside a house where all the lights were on.He eased in among them, and waked back to 603 Claymore Drive.He grinnedderisively at himself for doing it; yet it was one of those Saintlyprecautions that cost nothing even if they were to prove unnecessary.So wasthe handkerchief with which he covered his fingers when he opened the frontdoor.The hall itself was unlighted, but a shaft of illumination spilled from anopen doorway to his left. Hullo there, he said quietly.There was no answer as he crossed to the lighted doorway.As soon as hereached it he could see why.The room was Mr.Ufferlitz s study, and Mr.Ufferlitz was there; but it was quite obvious that no one would have toPage 63 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlcooperate with Mr.Ufferlitz any more.4MR.UFFERLITZ sat at his mahogany desk, which was about the size of aping-pong table.His head was pillowed on the blotter, which had not provedsufficiently absorptive to take care of all the blood that had run out of him.Simon walked round the desk and saw that Mr.Ufferlitz s back hair was alittle singed around the place where the bullet had gone in, so that the gunmust have been held almost touching his head: probably most of the upper partof his face had been blown out, because blood had splashed forward across thedesk and there were little blobs of gray stuff and white chips of bone mixedwith it.The larger splotches of blood were still shiny, and the chewed end of a cigarthat lay among them was still visibly damp.So the Saint estimated that theshot couldn t have been fired more than an hour ago.At the outside.He looked at his watch.It showed exactly two o clock.The house was absolutely silent.If there were any servants in, theirquarters were far enough away for them to have been undisturbed.Simon stood very quietly and looked around the room.It had an air of havingbeen put together according to a studio designer s idea of what an importantman s study should look like.One wall was lined with bookshelves, but most ofthe books wore dark impressive bindings with gilt lettering, havingundoubtedly been bought in sets and most probably never read.The brightjackets of a few modern novels stood out in a clash of color.There were acouple of heavy oil paintings on the walls.Scattered between them were anum-ber of framed photographs with handwriting on them.They were all girls.One of them was April Quest; and there was another face that seemed faintlyfamiliar, but the inscription only said Your Trilby ; Obviously these weresymbols of Mr.Ufferlitz s new career as a producer.The room itself had thesame appearance-Mr.Ufferlitz had hardly been in the business long enough tohave built the house himself, but he had clearly selected it with an eye tothe atmosphere with which he felt he ought to surround himself.The one thing that was conspicuously lacking was any sort of clue of the typeso dear to the heart of the conventional fiction writer.There might have beenfingerprints, but Simon was not equipped to look for them just then.On thedesk, be-sides the blotter and Mr.Ufferlitz s head and samples of his blood,brains, and frontal bones, there was a fountain pen set, a couple of pencils,an evening paper, a couple of scripts and some loose script pages, a dentist sbill, a liquor price list, and a memorandum block on which nobody hadthoughtfully borne down on the last sheet torn off with a blunt pencil so thatthe writing would be legible on the next page in a slanting light.On a sidetable by the fireplace there were some old weeklies, but no copies of theHollywood Reporter-which meant nothing, because the executive subscribers tothis daily record of the movie industry usually receive it at their offices.The only indication of anything unusual at all was the ashtrays.There werethree of them, and they had all been used, and they were smeared with ash andcarbon to prove it; but they had all been emptied-and not into the fireplaceor the wastebasket.Page 64 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlSimon thought mechanically, like an adding machine: A servant didn t emptythem, because he d have wiped them as well.Byron didn t do it, because hewouldn t have carried the ashes out of the room.Therefore the murderer didit, and took the debris away with him, so that his cigarette stubs wouldn t beheld against him.I guess he doesn t believe in Sherlock Holmes and what hewould do with a microscope and what s left in the trays.He could be right, atthat. But the train of thought did suggest another.If the mur-derer had had totake that precaution, he must have done his share of smoking; therefore he hadbeen there for some time; therefore he was most likely someone whom Mr.Ufferlitz knew-someone who might even have talked to Mr.Ufferlitz for quite awhile before putting a gun to his occiput and blowing it out through hisforehead.And that suggested something else.Simon stood behind Mr [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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. Come in and have a drink, she said.Simon thought about it, while another belated car cruised by. Maybe not, he said. Why not? Cooperation only goes so far. So what? So I don t want you to call me a wolf again.But I m human. My God, she said, don t you think I know the differ-ence? Don t you thinkI could.I d like to buy you a drink, she said.He kissed her, and broke it off quickly when he felt the warmth of her lips.Page 62 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Goodnight, darling, he said.She got out, and he drove away while he still could.When he entered his apartment at the Château Marmont there was a note in aplain envelope under the door.He opened it and frowned over the heavysprawling hand.It seemed to have been composed very much impromptu, for itwas written on a sizable blank space under the date line of the HollywoodReporter-obviously torn out of one of those strange advertisements which say,in infinitely modest type, Joe Doakes directed WOMEN IN ARMS, and buy awhole page to set it off.WHATEVER TIME you get home tonight, 1 want you to come right out and see me.Don t tell ANYONE I sent for you.This is VERY IMPORTANT.The door will beopen.Don t ring!BYRON UFFERLITZ.(603 Claymore Drive)The Saint sighed, and put the note in his pocket.A few minutes later he wasretracing his tracks out Sunset Boule-vard.Claymore Drive was only a couple of blocks from April Quest s house, and ashe passed her street Simon smiled again over the easy way she had taken hismind from its habitual restless search for plot.She had been right, ofcourse: so much of his life had been woven with conspiracy and dark purposesthat -he had long since ceased to be as interested in the solution of pastmysteries as he was in antici-pating mysteries that had not yet shapedthemselves, and that inquiring watchfulness had become so automatic that hewas apt to find himself stalking the shadow of his own imagination.Or was he?.A long time had gone by since one of those hunches had lastlet him down.What had Ufferlitz said? There are plenty of people who d hateto see me make a hit with this idea.One or two of em would go a long ways towreck it.I guess you can take care of yourself. He had almostaccepted Ufferlitz s note as just one of those regal im-petuosities thatHollywood producers traditionally indulge in: the thought that it might afterall be more than that gave him a sudden feeling of inward stillness as if theblood momen-tarily ceased to move in his veins.He shrugged it off as he slowed down at Mr.Ufferlitz s num-ber; and yetenough of it remained to paralyse his right foot from the reflex shift fromaccelerator to brake.He crawled round the next corner, and in the next fewyards found several cars parked outside a house where all the lights were on.He eased in among them, and waked back to 603 Claymore Drive.He grinnedderisively at himself for doing it; yet it was one of those Saintlyprecautions that cost nothing even if they were to prove unnecessary.So wasthe handkerchief with which he covered his fingers when he opened the frontdoor.The hall itself was unlighted, but a shaft of illumination spilled from anopen doorway to his left. Hullo there, he said quietly.There was no answer as he crossed to the lighted doorway.As soon as hereached it he could see why.The room was Mr.Ufferlitz s study, and Mr.Ufferlitz was there; but it was quite obvious that no one would have toPage 63 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlcooperate with Mr.Ufferlitz any more.4MR.UFFERLITZ sat at his mahogany desk, which was about the size of aping-pong table.His head was pillowed on the blotter, which had not provedsufficiently absorptive to take care of all the blood that had run out of him.Simon walked round the desk and saw that Mr.Ufferlitz s back hair was alittle singed around the place where the bullet had gone in, so that the gunmust have been held almost touching his head: probably most of the upper partof his face had been blown out, because blood had splashed forward across thedesk and there were little blobs of gray stuff and white chips of bone mixedwith it.The larger splotches of blood were still shiny, and the chewed end of a cigarthat lay among them was still visibly damp.So the Saint estimated that theshot couldn t have been fired more than an hour ago.At the outside.He looked at his watch.It showed exactly two o clock.The house was absolutely silent.If there were any servants in, theirquarters were far enough away for them to have been undisturbed.Simon stood very quietly and looked around the room.It had an air of havingbeen put together according to a studio designer s idea of what an importantman s study should look like.One wall was lined with bookshelves, but most ofthe books wore dark impressive bindings with gilt lettering, havingundoubtedly been bought in sets and most probably never read.The brightjackets of a few modern novels stood out in a clash of color.There were acouple of heavy oil paintings on the walls.Scattered between them were anum-ber of framed photographs with handwriting on them.They were all girls.One of them was April Quest; and there was another face that seemed faintlyfamiliar, but the inscription only said Your Trilby ; Obviously these weresymbols of Mr.Ufferlitz s new career as a producer.The room itself had thesame appearance-Mr.Ufferlitz had hardly been in the business long enough tohave built the house himself, but he had clearly selected it with an eye tothe atmosphere with which he felt he ought to surround himself.The one thing that was conspicuously lacking was any sort of clue of the typeso dear to the heart of the conventional fiction writer.There might have beenfingerprints, but Simon was not equipped to look for them just then.On thedesk, be-sides the blotter and Mr.Ufferlitz s head and samples of his blood,brains, and frontal bones, there was a fountain pen set, a couple of pencils,an evening paper, a couple of scripts and some loose script pages, a dentist sbill, a liquor price list, and a memorandum block on which nobody hadthoughtfully borne down on the last sheet torn off with a blunt pencil so thatthe writing would be legible on the next page in a slanting light.On a sidetable by the fireplace there were some old weeklies, but no copies of theHollywood Reporter-which meant nothing, because the executive subscribers tothis daily record of the movie industry usually receive it at their offices.The only indication of anything unusual at all was the ashtrays.There werethree of them, and they had all been used, and they were smeared with ash andcarbon to prove it; but they had all been emptied-and not into the fireplaceor the wastebasket.Page 64 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlSimon thought mechanically, like an adding machine: A servant didn t emptythem, because he d have wiped them as well.Byron didn t do it, because hewouldn t have carried the ashes out of the room.Therefore the murderer didit, and took the debris away with him, so that his cigarette stubs wouldn t beheld against him.I guess he doesn t believe in Sherlock Holmes and what hewould do with a microscope and what s left in the trays.He could be right, atthat. But the train of thought did suggest another.If the mur-derer had had totake that precaution, he must have done his share of smoking; therefore he hadbeen there for some time; therefore he was most likely someone whom Mr.Ufferlitz knew-someone who might even have talked to Mr.Ufferlitz for quite awhile before putting a gun to his occiput and blowing it out through hisforehead.And that suggested something else.Simon stood behind Mr [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]