Страница 6 из 56
Set into the gate post was a bronze tablet which read: “Albert S. Almore, M.D.”
While I was standing there staring across the street, the black Cadillac I had already seen came purring around the corner and then down the block. It slowed and started to sweep outwards to get turning space to go into the garage, decided my car was in the way of that, and went on to the end of the road and turned in the widened-out space in front of the ornamental iron railing. It came back slowly and went into the empty third of the garage across the way.
The thin man in sun glasses went along the sidewalk to the house, carrying a double-handled doctor’s bag. Halfway along he slowed down to stare across at me. I went along towards my car. At the house he used a key and as he opened the door he looked across at me again.
I got into the Chrysler and sat there smoking and trying to make up my mind whether it was worth while hiring somebody to pull a tail on Lavery. I decided it wasn’t, not the way things looked so far.
Curtains moved at a lower window close to the side door Dr. Almore had gone in at. A thin hand held them aside and I caught the glint of light on glasses. They were held aside for quite some time, before they fell together again.
I looked along the street at Lavery’s house. From this angle I could see that his service porch gave on a flight of painted wooden steps to a sloping concrete walk and a flight of concrete steps ending in the paved alley below.
I looked across at Dr. Almore’s house again, wondering idly if he knew Lavery and how well. He probably knew him, since theirs were the only two houses in the block. But being a doctor, he wouldn’t tell me anything about him. As I looked, the curtains which had been lifted apart were now completely drawn aside.
The middle segment of the triple window they had masked had no screen. Behind it, Dr. Almore stood staring across my way, with a sharp frown on his thin face. I shook cigarette ash out of the window and he turned abruptly and sat down at a desk. His double-handled bag was on the desk in front of him. He sat rigidly, drumming on the desk beside the bag. His hand reached for the telephone, touched it and came away again. He lit a cigarette and shook the match violently, then strode to the window and stared out at me some more.
This was interesting, if at all, only because he was a doctor. Doctors, as a rule, are the least curious of men. While they are still internes they hear enough secrets to last them a lifetime. Dr. Almore seemed interested in me. More than interested, bothered.
I reached down to turn the ignition key, then Lavery’s front door opened and I took my hand away and leaned back again. Lavery came briskly up the walk of his house, shot a glance down the street and turned to go into his garage. He was dressed as I had seen him. He had a rough towel and a steamer rug over his arm. I heard the garage door lift up, then the car door open and shut, then the grind and cough of the starting car. It backed up the steep incline to the street, white steamy exhaust pouring from its rear end. It was a cute little blue convertible, with the top folded down and Lavery’s sleek dark head just rising above it. He was now wearing a natty pair of sun-goggles with very wide white sidebows. The convertible swooped off down the block and danced around the corner.
There was nothing in that for me. Mr. Christopher Lavery was bound for the edge of the broad Pacific, to lie in the sun and let the girls see what they didn’t necessarily have to go on missing.
I gave my attention back to Dr. Almore. He was on the telephone now, not talking, holding it to his ear, smoking and waiting. Then he leaned forward as you do when the voice comes back, listened, hung up and wrote something on a pad in front of him. Then a heavy book with yellow sides appeared on his desk and he opened it just about in the middle. While he was doing this he gave one quick look out of the window, straight at the Chrysler.
He found his place in the book, leaned down over it and quick puffs of smoke appeared in the air over the pages. He wrote something else, put the book away, and grabbed the telephone again. He dialed, waited, began to speak quickly, pushing his head down and making gestures in the air with his cigarette.
He finished his call and hung up. He leaned back and sat there brooding, staring down at his desk, but not forgetting to look out of the window every half minute. He was waiting, and I waited with him, for no reason at all. Doctors make many phone calls, talk to many people. Doctors look out of their front windows, doctors frown, doctors show nervousness, doctors have things on their mind and show the strain. Doctors are just people, born to sorrow, fighting the long grim fight like the rest of us.
But there was something about the way this one behaved that intrigued me. I looked at my watch, decided it was time to get something to eat, lit another cigarette and didn’t move.
It took about five minutes. Then a green sedan whisked around the corner and bore down the block. It coasted to a stop in front of Dr. Almore’s house and its tall buggywhip aerial quivered. A big man with dusty blond hair got out and went up to Dr. Almore’s front door. He rang the bell and leaned down to strike a match on the step. His head came around and he stared across the street exactly at where I was sitting.
The door opened and he went into the house. An invisible hand gathered the curtains at Dr. Almore’s study window and blanked the room. I sat there and stared at the sun-darkened lining of the curtains. More time trickled by.
The front door opened again and the big man loafed casually down the steps and through the gate. He snapped his cigarette end off into the distance and rumpled his hair. He shrugged once, pinched the end of his chin, and walked diagonally across the street. His steps in the quiet were leisurely and distinct. Dr. Almore’s curtains moved apart again behind him. Dr. Almore stood in his window and watched.
A large freckled hand appeared on the sill of the car door at my elbow. A large face, deeply lined, hung above it. The man had eyes of metallic blue. He looked at me solidly and spoke in a deep harsh voice.
“Waiting for somebody?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Am I?”
“I’ll ask the questions.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “So that’s the answer to the pantomime.”
“What pantomime?” He gave me a hard level unfriendly stare from his very blue eyes.
I pointed across the street with my cigarette. “Nervous Nellie and the telephone. Calling the cops, after first getting my name from the Auto Club, probably, then looking it up in the city directory. What goes on?”
“Let me see your driver’s license.”
I gave him back his stare. “You fellows ever flash a buzzer—or is acting tough all the identification you need?”
“If I have to get tough, fellow, you’ll know it.”
I leaned down and turned my ignition key and pressed the starter. The motor caught and idled down.
“Cut that motor,” he said savagely, and put his foot on the ru
I cut the motor again and leaned back and looked at him.
“God damn it,” he said, “do you want me to drag you out of there and bounce you on the pavement?”
I got my wallet out and handed it to him. He drew the celluloid pocket out and looked at my driver’s license, then turned the pocket over and looked at the photostat of my other license on the back. He rammed it contemptuously back into the wallet and handed me the wallet. I put it away. His hand dipped and came up with a blue and gold police badge.
“Degarmo, detective-lieutenant,” he said in his heavy brutal voice.
“Pleased to meet you, lieutenant.”
“Skip it. Now tell why you’re down here casing Almore’s place.”
“I’m not casing Almore’s place, as you put it, lieutenant. I never heard of Dr. Almore and I don’t know of any reason why I should want to case his house.”