The Estate is quite a show place, and has been advertised as the millionaire's dream home. It has a hundred acres of terraced gardens and a swimming pool half outside the house and half under it. The house itself is Italian Baroque in style, and built of concrete and coraline stone. The interior is famous for wine magnificent murals and works of art.
As I sent the Buick racing along the two miles of private road that leads to the Estate, a fine, wide road, lined on either side by Royal Palms, Kerman said, 'I've always wanted to see this joint.' He leaned forward to peer into the circles of light that fled before us. 'I've been kidding myself I'll rent it for a week myself one of these days. What do you think it'd cost me?'
'About ten years' pay.'
'Yeah, maybe you're right. Well, I guess I'd better just go on kidding myself. Pity, though. With a background like this, I'd have that redhead eating out of my hand.'
'Should have thought you'd have preferred her to eat off a plate. You know, I'm worried about this guy, Jack. What made him hang up like that in the middle of a sentence?'
'You know what these punks are like. They're so damn lazy it's an effort for them to breathe.'
'I have an idea someone came into the room, and he didn't want them to hear what he was saying.'
'But then you always try to make a mystery out of anything. My bet is he got bored talking to you and just hung up. All these rich jerks are alike. They don't have to watch their manners the way we do.'
Ahead of me were the main gates of the Estate. They were wide open. I didn't reduce speed. We flashed past them, and went storming up the road drive-way, banked on either side enormous rhododendron shrubs.
'Must you drive as if we're going to a fire?' Kerman asked plaintively.
'He sounded scared, and I have a hunch he may be in trouble.'
I swung the Buick around a long, curving bend. The house seemed to leap at us in the light of the headlamps. Kerman gave a gasp of alarm as I slammed on the brakes. With a squeal of tortured tyres, I managed to bring the Buick to a skidding standstill a couple of inches from the balustrade that surrounded the courtyard.
'Why stop?' Kerman said, mopping his face. 'Why not drive slap into the house? You know I hate walking.'
'Your nerves are bad,' I said, a little pop-eyed myself. 'The trouble with you is you drink too much.'
I got out of the car and he followed me.
Parked to the left of the front entrance was a big, glittering battleship of a car with the parkers on.
Except for a light that spilled through an open casement doorway on to the far end of the terrace, the house was in darkness.
'Do we ring or go in that way?' Kerman asked, jerking his thumb towards the lighted window.
'We'll take a look in there first. If no one's around, we'll ring. Got your gun handy?'
'Here. You have it,' Kerman said generously, and thrust the .45 into my hand. 'It spoils the set of my suit.'
'What you really mean is if I have the gun I naturally go first.'
'What a sweet, charitable mind you've got. I honestly don't know why I work for you.'
'Probably for the money, and who but you calls it work?'
We were moving silently along the terrace while we whispered at each other, and as we neared the lighted window I motioned him to be quiet. He gave me a little shove forward, milking signals for me to go ahead.
I went ahead while he watched me. When I reached the open casement door, I peered into a long rectangular room, furnished in Mexican style with rich rugs on the floor, saddles and bridles ornamenting the walls and big, lounging settees by the windows and before the vast empty fireplace.
On the table were the telephone and an untouched tumbler containing whisky and probably soda. A cigarette stub had fallen off the glass ash-tray and burned a scar on the highly polished table.
There was no one in the room.
I beckoned to Kerman.
'Pretty lush,' he said, peering over my shoulder. 'Imagine living in a joint like this. What do we do now?'
I walked into the room. The cigarette stub worried me; so did the untouched whisky.
Kerman sauntered in behind me and wandered around one of the settees before the fireplace to look at a Mexican saddle hanging on the wall. He took two steps towards it, then stopped with a start that flopped his hair into his eyes.
'Gawd!'
I came around the settee fast.
A man in the black uniform of a chauffeur lay on his back. I didn't have to touch him to know he was dead. There was a purple hole in the centre of his forehead, and a lot of blood had soaked into the Mexican rug on which he was lying. His yellow-brown hands were set rigid, his fingers were hooked like claws, and his small, brown face was twisted in a grimace of terror.
'Sweet grief!' Kerman said soberly. 'He gave me a hell of a fright.'
I bent to touch the claw-like hand. It was still warm. The arm dropped to the carpet when I lifted and released it. He couldn't have been dead for very long.
'Looks bad for Dedrick,' I said. 'They must have arrived while he was talking to me.'
'Think they've kidnapped him?'
'Looks like it. Go ahead and call the police, Jack. There's nothing we can do. You know how Brandon reacts to us. If he thinks we've been poking around, wasting time, hell raise Cain.'
As Kerman reached for the telephone, he paused, cocked his head on one side, listening.
'Sounds like a car coming.'
I went out on to the terrace.
There was a car coming, and coming fast. I could bear the snarl of a powerful engine, and the whine of tyres as the car swept around the bends in the drive.
'Hold it a moment,' I said.
I could see the headlights of the car now through the trees. A moment later the car swept around the drive and pulled up a few yards from the Buick.
I walked along the terrace, and as I reached the head of the steps leading from the terrace to the garden a girl got out of the car.
In the dim, uncertain light of the moon and the combined parking lights of the three cars, I could just see she was tall, slender and hatless,
'Lee...'
She paused, looking up at me.
'Is that you, Lee?'
'Mr. Dedrick doesn't appear to be here,' I said, and came down the steps towards her.
I heard her catch her breath sharply, and she made a half turn as if she was going to run away, but she controlled the impulse and faced me.
'Who - who are you?'
'My name's Vic Malloy. Mr. Dedrick 'phoned me about a quarter of an hour ago. He asked me to come out here.'
'Oh.' She sounded both surprised and startled. 'And you say he isn't here?'
'He doesn't seem to be. There's only that light you can see showing. He isn't in there. The rest of the house is in darkness.'
By now I was close enough to get a vague idea what she looked like. I could see she was dark and youngish and in evening dress. I had an idea she was pretty.
'But he must be here,' she said sharply.
'May I ask who you are?'
For a fraction of a second she hesitated, then she said, 'I'm Mary Jerome; Mrs. Dedrick's secretary.'
'I'm afraid I have a shock for you. Mr. Dedrick's chauffeur is in there.' I waved towards the lighted window. 'He's dead.'
'Dead?' I saw her stiffen.
'He's been shot through the head.'
She lurched forward, and I thought she was going to faint. I caught hold of her arm and steadied her.
'Would you like to sit in the car for a moment?'
She pulled away from me.
"No; it's all right. You mean he's been murdered? '
'It looks like it. It's certainly not suicide.'
'What has happened to Lee - Mr. Dedrick?'
'I don't know. He telephoned me, saying someone had warned him he was going to be kidnapped. I came out here and found the chauffeur dead.'
'Kidnapped? Oh!' She drew in a quick, shuddering breath. He said that? Are you sure?'
'Why, yes. We're just going to search the house. We've only been here two or three minutes. Will you wait in your car? '
'Oh, no! I'll look too. Why should they want to kidnap him?'
'I asked him that. He said he was Serena Marshland's husband.'
She pushed past me, ran up the steps and walked quickly along the terrace. I followed her.
Kerman came out and barred the way into the room.
'I don't think you should go in there,' he said mildly.
'Have you seen Mr. Dedrick?' she demanded, staring up it him. The light from the room fell on her face. She was lovely in a hard, cold way, with good eyes and a firm mouth and chin. At a guess she would be about thirty, and not the type I would have expected to be a rich woman's secretary. Her clothes were expensive-looking, and she wore a silk evening wrap over a winecoloured, strapless evening dress with the confidence and grace of a model.
Kerman shook his head.
'Please look for him. Both of you. Search the house.'
I nodded to Kerman.
'Phone the police first, Jack.'
Whilst Kerman was using the telephone, the girl went to look at the chauffeur. I watched her, saw the colour leave her face, but as I went to her, she pulled herself together and turned away.
'Come out on to the terrace,' I said. Kerman will look for Mr. Dedrick.' I put my hand on her arm, but with a little shiver she shook it off and walked out on to the terrace again.
'This is dreadful,' she said. 'I wish you would try and find Mr. Dedrick instead of hanging around me. Why did he 'phone you? Does he know you?'
'I run Universal Services. He's probably seen one of our advertisements.'
She put her hand to her face, and leaned against the balustrade.
'I'm afraid that conveys nothing to me. What is Universal Services? I have only been in Orchid City for a few hours.'
'We handle any job from divorce to grooming a cat. Mr. Dedrick wanted a bodyguard, but I'm afraid we arrived a little late.'
I saw her flinch.
'I can't believe it. Please make sure he's not in the house. He must be here!'
'Kerman's looking now. I understood from Mr. Dedrick that he had only just moved in here, and was alone with his chauffeur. Is that right?'
'Mr. Dedrick has rented this house for the summer. Mrs, Dedrick and he have been staying for a few days in New York,' she explained, speaking rapidly. 'They have just come back from Paris. Mr. Dedrick flew from New York a few days ago. He went on ahead to make the arrangements about the house. Mrs. Dedrick arrives tomorrow. I came with him to make sure everything in the house was in order. We have rooms at the Orchid Hotel. Mr. Dedrick said he was going to look over the house this evening, I was to join him later,'
'I see.'
Kerman came out on to the terrace.
"No one in the house,' he said.
Take a look around the garden.'
He gave Mary Jerome a quick, interested look and went off down the terrace steps.
'He's never mentioned being kidnapped to you, has he?'
'Oh, no.'
'What time did he leave his hotel?'
'At seven-thirty.'
'He called me at ten past ten. I wonder what he was doing for two hours and forty minutes here. Have you any idea?
'I suppose he was looking over the house. I wish you would go after your friend and help him. Mr. Dedrick might be lying in the grounds - hurt.'
I began to get the idea that she wanted to get rid of me.
'I'll stick around until the police come. We don't want you kidnapped.'
'I - I don't think I can face any more of this. I'll go bock to the hotel,' she said, her voice suddenly husky. 'Will you tell them, please? I'll see them at the hotel.'
'I think it would be better to wait until they come,' I said quietly.
'No; I think I'll go. He - he may be at the hotel. I think I ought to go.'
As she turned, I caught her wrist
'I'm sorry, but until the police come, you must stay.'
She stared up at me, her eyes hard in the moonlight.
'If you think it is necessary.'
'That's the idea.'
She opened her bag.
'I think a cigarette...'
She did it very smoothly. I found myself looking down at a .25, aimed at my midriff.
'Go in there!'
'Now, look...'
'Go in there!' There was a dangerous note in her voice. 'I'll shoot if you don't go in!'
'You're playing it wrong, but have it your own way.'
I walked into the lounge.
The moment I heard her running down the terrace I jumped to the balustrade.
'Head her off, Jack!' I bawled into the darkness. 'But watch out; she has a gun!'
Then I legged it down the terrace after her.
There came a spiteful crack of the .25, and a slug buzzed past my head. I dodged behind a tub of palms. More gun-fire, and an excited yell from Kerman. Then a car engine exploded into life; the gun fired again and the car went furiously down the drive.
I raced to the end of the terrace, intent on following her in the Buick, but she had taken care of that. Her last shot had gone through the off-side rear wheel.
Kerman came out of the darkness.
'What goes on?' he demanded indignantly. 'She tried to shoot me.'
V
We sat together before the empty fireplace in the library while a stony-eyed cop stood by the door and watched us without appearing to do so.
We had told our stories to Detective Sergeant MacGraw, and now we were waiting for Brandon. As soon as MacGraw learned who Dedrick was, he said the Captain of Police would want to see us. So we waited.
In the next room a squad of the Homicide boys were at work, dusting for fingerprints, photographing the body and the room, and prowling around for clues.