The Line Is Dead | Page 5

the plaster of the hall picked out the blonde glint of the woman's hair. She and her companion must have used a key.
Carver went to the front with long, springy strides. He followed the walk until he had cleared the house. From there, stepping-stones reached toward the side fence. He vaulted this, and then, shadow protected, hurried to the sidewalk. Everything was clear. He noted the license plate numbers of the car, then got a look at the registration papers at the steering column.
This had barely been done when he heard the scream he had been expecting. Not knowing who or what the two were, Jeff had no thought either of waiting to make further observations, or to follow them, if they left.
They might not be leaving, for good reason. It was time and more than time to get going.
Carver lost little time following the long, crescent curve of the avenue until it crossed the head of Canal Street. At a pay station, he phoned police headquarters. He began, breathlessly, "Trouble Dennis Wayland's place," and gave Lowry's address. "D, dog; E, eager; N, nuts; I, Isidore; S, sugar--Get the name, and address, you'll get the trouble quick enough." He spelled Wayland, and then added, "He just killed Herb Lowry."
He hung up, and got going. Putting a stranger on the spot was unpalatable business, but with someone else on the defensive--even temporarily--Carver would have a better screen behind which to work. And whatever decent qualms he did have were restrained by the certainty that the two who had come to Lowry's house had moved furtively.
Possession of a key did not prove that their visit was legitimate.
Snapping on his radio, he followed Canal Street. Before he was half way to the river, Jeff heard the first police broadcast routine to patrol car. By the time he swung into the French Quarter's narrow streets, the Carrollton district had undoubtedly been sewed up tight. There was no night man on duty where Carver garaged his car, so his departure and return would not have been noted pointedly.
Once back at his apartment, he looked in the phone directory. Dennis Wayland was listed. He'd be tagged soon enough.
CARVER crossed the bridge to Alma's balcony. She was not at home. He concluded that she had snapped at some other Vieux Carre festivity. Alma would reason, naturally enough, that being away from home would keep her in a strictly neutral position, neither upsetting Carver's feelings by favoring the useful Lowry, by listening to him in the event that he called again, nor offending that high-handed man by continuing her stand in favor of Carver.
Thinking back, Carver discovered another useful angle in having set the police on Dennis Wayland. If, as the furtiveness of the visit suggested, the man had made plans against Lowry or had had trouble with him, at least the general pattern would appear in the newspaper account, and so save Carver a lot of leg work. And the prowler's blonde companion kept him reminded of the reproachful letter which some woman had written Lowry. There would be plenty to ask Alma, now that the police broadcast gave Carver a way of accounting for his knowledge of the event.
Her spontaneous flare-up of indignation at Lowry's high handedness cheered Carver, despite the position in which he was all too likely to find himself before the police went far with their work. Behind her gaiety and breathless frivolity, she was strictly bonded goods. He could not doubt her loyalty; he could count upon her not talking out of turn about his quarrel with Lowry. But he wondered, as he sat there, trying to plan his campaign, if she would suspect him. Or, suspecting, whether she could conceal her thought.
Even though he were not involved, or even questioned, the case would almost surely be a barrier between him and Alma until it was solved: and while the percentage of unsolved homicides was low, it was quite too high for Carver's taste. An ordinary killing, either with knife or gun, was one thing. The maniac frenzy and vindictiveness that had been expended on Lowry indicated a killer whose personality was inhuman, whatever his form and appearance. This intangible, this emotional element, was Carver's greatest danger. Even though she had actively disliked the victim, the manner of his death would turn her stomach.
After an hour or so of telling himself that he had not a Chinaman's chance of getting any sleep, he tried it. In a restless way, he succeeded, until the jingle of the doorbell aroused him. The note was insistent, as though the tension of the finger had been communicated to the button.
It was not the police.
It was Alma, with her make-up taken off.
Like Carver, she had apparently been aroused from sleep. Her robe, all awry, revealed a sapphire-colored