The Flying Red Horse Read online

  The Flying Red Horse

  A Pat and Jean Abbott Mystery

  Frances Crane

  Chapter 1

  Dusk was closing in as we rolled along Route 77 and, across the green alfalfa fields, saw the lights pricking out in the piled up skyscrapers of Dallas, Texas. Light fountained above one and on top of another was a great flying red horse, which turned slowly like a weathervane in a soft but steady wind. Definitely the scene: was strictly modern, but for the moment it seemed as improbable as a picture in a fairy tale.

  “We should be knights in armor, Pancho. Galloping towards that sparkling city across this blue-green plain.”

  My companion, a satiny brown dachshund, sniffed rapturously at the alfalfa and wagged his skinny little tail.

  My husband, and Pancho’s master, Patrick Abbott, would not be as happy to see Pancho as Pancho would be to see him. But, darling, I would say, he wanted so much to come. After all, six hundred miles is a long way to drive entirely alone. But how many times, dear, Patrick would answer, must I ask you not to bring the dog when we’re stopping at a hotel? Hotels and dogs don’t mix, Patrick would say, and I would say, smiling, “But this is Texas. Everybody in Texas is so broad-minded that of course the hotel will take in our dog.”

  And Pancho would listen, his ears up, his big eyes so full of loving kindness that Patrick would break down.

  “How a dog his size can be such a regular dog beats me, Jean.”

  “It’s the life-sized dachshund character, Pat.”

  “Nuts. He’s merely cockeyed. He’s little and he can’t bring himself to admit it.”

  “He knows everything, Pat. Strictly everything.”

  “Too bad he can’t talk.”

  Using the flying red horse as a guide I drove towards the skyscrapers and after a few minutes arrived outside the Hotel Adolphus. Here we were to meet Patrick Abbott.

  A doorman opened the car door and took my keys. He made no objection to Pancho. A colored boy sallied forth to collect my bags. He said I sure had a mighty pretty little dog. So far, swell, I thought. I snapped the leash onto Pancho’s collar and we stepped out on the sidewalk.

  “Oh, Kim! Look! Isn’t he a dream? He’s the very picture of Sam.”

  What a lovely voice, I thought.

  “He sure is, Sally,” a boyish voice replied to the lovely girlish voice.

  “Oh, Kim! Sam really was murdered. I had a post-mortem.”

  “Darling,” Kim said.

  This startling piece of conversation demanded attention.

  I looked at them and met the starry-eyed glance of a tall, slim girl with a small face, thick brown hair, green eyes, a small straight nose, and a sweet wide mouth. She wore a gray flannel suit and on the crown of her head a small gray felt cloche. With her was a taller boy, also dressed in gray, with broad shoulders, gray eyes, a very dark suntan, and a sunburned crew cut. They were in love and didn’t care who knew it. So I smiled at them. They smiled back.

  Then I followed Pancho into the hotel. As usual, he knew exactly what to do.

  Patrick was in the lobby. Tall and lean, with long blue eyes, very dark hair, his slender western face extra brown from two weeks of South Texas sunshine, he was standing just beyond the top of the worn marble steps which led up from the main entrance of the hotel. With him was a big broad-shouldered, blue-eyed, gray-haired man and a slim, stylish woman who looked like a chic witch.

  Patrick spied me at once and I saw the love light come into his eyes, even though they also spied Pancho. He hurried to meet me and kissed me, hard.

  He stooped to pat Pancho, who was about to wag himself into two parts.

  “How come the dog, Jeanie?”

  “Well, he wanted so to come, and …”

  “Nuts,” Patrick said fondly. He kissed me again. “I doubt if the hotel will take him. We’ll find out later. Come along and meet the Dollahans. Iles Dollahan was one of the oil men I met while on this Houston case we’ve just finished. Amanda is his second wife.”

  Introductions were made. Iles had a deep voice and warm manner which made you sense his real friendliness. Amanda was gray-haired but a lot younger than her husband. Twenty years, I guessed, or even more. Her bewitching face was heart-shaped. Her eyes were a deep velvety black. Her skin was ivory and her only make-up was her ruby-red lipstick. Her smile was formal but not uncordial. She wore black, carried a big armful of minks, wore some stunning ruby earrings in the pointed lobes of her ears, and clipped at her throat were two ruby-packed replicas of the horse which flies over Dallas.

  Probably thinking of her very superior nylons, Amanda moved away slightly when she looked at Pancho.

  “Cute little dog,” Iles said. “What’s his name?”

  “Pancho,” I said.

  “Pancho?” Amanda asked. “What a queer name for a dachshund.”

  “Not for him, Mrs. Dollahan. Pancho comes from a fine old Spanish dachshund family.”*

  “Spanish? How quaint!”

  “The little fellow looks like Sam, Amanda,” Iles Dollahan said.

  “I daresay he does. They all look alike, Iles, dear.”

  The lady is cultivated as hell, I thought. She chooses every word in advance and spits it out whole.

  “Iles?” called a sweet voice. It was the girl in gray. She came flying up the steps; followed by the boy with the sunburned crew cut.

  “Honey!” Iles said. He kissed her and nodded at the boy. “Like you to meet my daughter, Sally, Mrs. Abbott.”

  “Hello,” we said.

  “And Kim Forsythe. Kim’s one of our engineers. He and Pat are acquainted already.”

  “What fun!” Sally Dollahan said. “We saw you outside, remember? We were talking about your dog. Isn’t he beautiful, Iles? He looks exactly like Sam.” To me, “Sam was my dachshund.”

  Amanda said in her precise, toneless voice, “We hope you will dine with us tonight, Mrs. Abbott.” I glanced at Patrick. His eyes said to accept. I said thank you and Amanda said, “Around eightish, at the Club. I’m sorry we can’t have you at the house. It’s the servants’ night out, you see.”

  “We’ve told. Pat how to get to the Club,” Iles said.

  I had misgivings now, for I had not come prepared to dine with anybody quite as elegant as Amanda.

  “Must we dress, Mrs. Dollahan? If so …”

  “Hell, no,” Iles said. “Come the way you are.”

  “Formal clothes are not necessary,” Amanda said, in the kind of tone that makes you think like fish they’re not. “I’m afraid you’ll have to do something about your dog, though. This hotel does not allow dogs, and the Club …”

  “Oh, damn the Club,” Iles said. “Bring the little fellow right along.”

  “Let me keep him,” Sally Dollahan said. She was so earnest about it I felt a little puzzled. “He’ll be all right with me. I’d just love to have him all the time you’re here.”

  “Sure she would,” her father said. “Sally is just crazy about dashhounds. Don’t you worry about that little dog, Mrs. Abbott, so long as he’s with Sally.”

  I now looked at Pancho, since he was the one to decide this, really. He was sitting upon his small haunches and looking up at Sally and wagging his little front feet. He looked like a brown penguin. That our dog should fall so hard and so serenely for somebody he had only just met gave a kind of pang. But anyhow that settled the problem of Pancho at the moment—and also led to complications that no one could have foreseen.

  We had a suite on one of the top floors. Through the slanted louvers I could see that great flying red horse, still high above us.

  I took a good look at the horse after Patrick stopped kissing me, and I said, “Did you notice those ruby clips Amanda Dollahan was wearing, Pat
? I suppose they were rubies.”

  “They are,” Patrick said.

  “Oh. You know?”

  “I wasn’t told it, but they would be.”

  “You mean, they’ve got money?”

  “Who hasn’t in Dallas? Gee, you’re sweet, Jeanie. Why talk about money? I wish we didn’t have to go out to dinner. We could call room service, order up dinner with champagne, shut out the world, and …”

  “Hey? I’ve been in seclusion while you’ve been away. Up in Northern New Mexico, remember? We’re heading back to New Mexico in a couple of days and you can shut the world out up there.”

  Patrick groaned.

  “Anyhow we have to go. It’s business, in a way. Iles didn’t tell me exactly what’s on his mind but he said in Houston that he had something he wanted to consult me about. We flew up this afternoon in his private plane. His pilot was with us, and also Kim Forsythe, so Iles didn’t open up about whatever it is he’s worrying about. I’m to see him about that in the morning. What was your impression of the Dollahans, Jean?”

  “First, a cigarette.”

  “Okay.” Patrick gave me one and took one himself. “Sit on my lap while we smokethese.”

  He gave me a light and chose the best chair and cradled me, after long experience, expertly.

  “Iles, I go for,” I said. “Also his lovely daughter Sally. Also her boyfriend, Kim. They make a beautiful pair. Amanda … well, I don’t know.”

  “She’s very brainy, Iles says.”

  “I’m sure of it. Somehow I don’t vibrate to Amanda. Maybe it’s because she seems too perfect.”

  “Amanda is one of the Willoz sisters.”

  “Who?”

  “Dallas girls. I heard about them in Houston, but not from Iles. Like Iles Dollahan, the sisters started from scratch. There are three of them. Amanda is the eldest. Juliana is a year younger than Amanda. Juliana was divorced from Ulysses B. Green, said to be one of the richest men in the oil business. The third is Rosemary, who is much younger than the other two. She married some elderly gent or other when she was sixteen and the marriage was annulled. Juliana calls herself Mrs. Willoz. Rosemary is Miss Willoz. Rosemary lives with the Dollahans.”

  “Why all this detail?”

  “You’ll meet them at dinner. Thought you might like to get the dope on them first. I have a hunch that what Iles wants to talk to me about is a family affair. I’d like you to keep your eyes open. From what I’ve heard, Amanda Dollahan is the smart one of the three sisters. Juliana doesn’t seem to register specially. Rosemary is said to be pretty as a peach. She’s about Sally’s age, I should guess. Iles struck it very rich about six years ago. Amanda was then his secretary. She is credited with much of his financial success. Iles is a wonderful guy, Jean. No education to speak of, climbed the ladder all by himself.”

  “And there sat Amanda. At the top, in her web.”

  “Hey?”

  I put his hand against my face.

  “I’m jealous. I’m jealous of her chic. I’m jealous of her flying ruby horses, specially. They’re the smartest gadgets I’ve seen.”

  Patrick said, “Would you like something like them, set with emeralds?”

  “Pat!”

  “But you don’t need to hanker after anybody’s gadgets, Jean. I love buying emeralds, but every time I’ve wanted to, since we got married …”

  “Idiot! Steak is a dollar and a quarter a pound. Mike’s nurse costs a mint. We haven’t yet paid off the mortgage on our house in San Francisco. We can’t bring ourselves to give up my old adobe cottage in New Mexico. What I mean is that the things we insist on doing and having, which cost more than we can afford, absolutely prohibit buying stuff like emeralds.”

  “I ought to be in the oil business,” Patrick said.

  “Don’t be silly, darling. Who wants rubies and emeralds? Only the people who have nothing better. And we do.”

  “Darling,” Patrick said.

  “Go on. Tell me more about the Dollahans.”

  “There isn’t any more, yet. Sally and Kim Forsythe are engaged but that seems to be very okay with Iles, so my hunch is that whatever’s worrying him has to do either with Amanda or one of her sisters.”

  * The Yellow Violet

  Chapter 2

  Fortunately, even though I do not own fine and numerous minks, San Francisco clothes need not do any second-fiddling even to those of Dallas, Texas. I had not brought evening clothes, but I had a new dinner outfit in a rich black, a creation with a snug, short jacket and a grand long-enough skirt. The blouse—what there was of it—was a print of pure silk, not a banal print, but one in which a very keen emerald vied with touches of black and shocking pink, very nice, and for Mrs. Patrick Abbott, very expensive. My hat was a Sally Victor spot which looked especially designed for the suit.

  Examining myself critically, before emerging into the snappy city of the flying red horse, I decided that I could pass muster. My emerald earrings were modest, but genuine. My emerald engagement ring was not gaudy, but experts had commended its quality. My emerald bracelet, ditto.

  “I don’t know how you do it, baby,” Patrick said.

  “Do what?”

  “Not a line around the amber eyes. Not a gray hair in the black, black wig.”

  “Your eyesight isn’t what it used to be, dear.”

  “Maybe it’s my dotage.”

  Patrick kissed me. “I’m all fixed for the party. If you don’t stop manhandling me, my own dotage will set in, Pat.”

  “Damn the party!”

  We were ten minutes late. At their Club Iles and Amanda Dollahan and Rosemary Willoz were waiting in a smartly-styled lounge. There was a deep pile carpet and a dashing fabric in the slip-covers. An artistic bouquet adorned an artistic niche. Music played somewhere. Adjacent to the lounge was a softly lighted bar and beyond it a circular dining room.

  Iles suggested a drink while we waited for the remaining dinner guests and, in the bar, we gathered around a table large enough for eight.

  Psychologists, no doubt, go in huddles with themselves over the drinks their specimens choose. An expert in character analysis could tell you why Amanda had a martini, Iles straight rye, with a water chaser, Patrick a scotch and soda, and even why I had a dry bourbon Manhattan.

  Rosemary Willoz chose a Cloverleaf cocktail. I decided it was because the pink color of the drink matched Rosemary. She was all pink and white, small, fragile-looking and blond. You looked at Rosemary and she looked like a pure young girl. You had a second glance and she was smiling a pink crescent-shaped smile and she looked like a harlot. She wore a fluffy white dress with a pink ribbon sash, and a string of small pearls. Crowning her long pale hair was a wreath of pale pink camellias.

  She is a type you need to keep an eye on, I thought. If only because she looks good enough to eat. Men find those clean, pink, edible-looking gals irresistible.

  Amanda Dollahan wore an oyster-white dinner dress, with a low, square neckline caught at the corners with her flying ruby horses. She wore rubies in flower-shaped earrings and in two handsome bracelets. Her engagement ring was a large blood red ruby, and her wedding ring was encircled with these stones in the same fine, deep shade. Obviously Amanda loved rubies. Also they loved Amanda. They suited her perfecdy.

  Iles had changed to a dark lounge suit. He seemed now in the prime of life, dignified, handsome, bronzed, with shining blue eyes under his straight heavy eyebrows, and the quick generous smile of a man you would instantly trust. He was in a fine mood.

  He said, “Sally isn’t coming tonight.”

  I felt disappointed. Iles’s daughter attracted me in the same way as himself.

  “I hope it isn’t our dog?”

  “Not at all. She could have fetched him here and we’d’ve parked him at the desk. No, it was something else. She’s still upset about her own dog Sam, too. I told her tonight she’d got to get herself another dashhound and stop this grieving.”

  Rosemary had a little girl’s voice.


  “I just can’t understand anybody’s being so crazy over animals as Sally. Though of course Sam was different. Sam reallv was a sweet dog.”

  “Sam was killed by a motorcar,” Amanda said. “He ventured across the creek at the edge of our lawn and got run down on the boulevard. We think he tried to get home afterward and drowned in the creek.”

  (Sam was murdered, Sally had said to Kim Forsythe, there outside our hotel. She had had a post-mortem, she said.)

  “Sam was cute. But so nosey,” Rosemary said.

  Patrick grinned at her, in his eyes the half-tender, half-mischievous expression which all men use when talking to all girls like Rosemary.

  “That’s the breed, Miss Willoz. Dachshunds think they have to pry into other people’s business.”

  “Sure enough?” Rosemary inquired, trustingly.

  For goodness’ sake, I thought. Girls like her went out before World War One.

  “They say that breed wasn’t much good in the Army,” Iles said.

  “Do too much original thinking,” Patrick said.

  “Wouldn’t be surprised,” Iles chuckled in reply.

  They grinned at each other. Patrick likes Iles a lot, I thought. They were probably pretty much the same kind. Easy on the surface. Deep as a well inside.

  Rosemary had contrived to sit beside Patrick. She watched him with her oval face tilted, her blue eyes trusting, her pink lips curved in her pussycat smile.

  Her smile is older than Egypt, I thought. And it always works. Men always fall for it. Gosh.

  “I’ve heard so much about you, Mr. Abbott.”

  “I hope you’ve heard good, Miss Willoz.”

  “First names, please,” Iles said. “We’re going to see a lot of you folks, I hope. Might as well start out friendly.”

  “Rather,” Amanda said, perfunctorily.

  “You’re so good-looking, Pat,” Rosemary said. “I always heard that detectives were fat or bald or something and wore wrinkled old clothes so that people wouldn’t look at them twice. I reckon I must have been mistaken … Pat.”

  “Definitely, Rosemary.”

  “Sure enough?”