The Flying Red Horse Page 5

  “Come in,” Patrick called.

  The door opened and in stepped Iles Dollahan. He closed the door quietly. From his right hand pocket he took out and leveled on Patrick a big black automatic.

  “I’ll thank you for that red horse,” he said.

  Chapter 6

  In the strange cold clarity fear sometimes brings I stood watching the little black hole in the big black automatic pistol.

  He, Iles Dollahan, has killed two men, I was thinking. They called it self-defense.

  Beneath that big white-haired gently-spoken exterior he is ruthless.

  His daughter, Sally, with her little face and clear green eyes, is like him.

  So—but in a different fashion—is Amanda. So is Rosemary. So is Lucius Brady. They’re a bunch of tough guys, all right. Muy tough. All but Juliana. And Juliana is dead.

  “You heard me,” Iles Dollahan said.

  His voice had a poisonous softness.

  “Sure,” Patrick said. He was standing relaxed, with his hands sticking up idly, in a silly sort of way. Between his lips a cigarette smoked languorously. “But I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Iles.”

  “My wife dropped a red horse. On the terrace. I came after it and I don’t aim to leave till I get it.”

  Oh, I thought. I felt faint. It was in my bag. It was the thing that glinted, in the moonlight, and which I picked up and slid into my bag.

  I reached for my bag, which was on a chair behind me.

  “Don’t move, ma’am,” Iles said. That ma’am was as curt as a bullet.

  “For God’s sake, Iles!” Kim Forsythe said.

  “Shut up!” Iles said. He kept watching Patrick but he took a short step backwards, so that the automatic covered us all with hair-raising efficiency. “Okay, Pat. Hand it over!”

  Patrick said, with revolting composure, “What makes you think I’ve got the red horse?”

  My palms felt wet. My throat was tight. I couldn’t’ve uttered better than a croak.

  “You’ve got it.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “You know what I mean, all right. That horse.”

  Patrick said, “My kingdom for a flying red horse.”

  My blood ran slow and cold. What a time to joke!

  “Cut the smart stuff, Pat. You’ve got one of those red horses that belong to my wife. You were the first to come up those side steps to the terrace and that is where she says she dropped it.”

  “Then your wife was on the terrace about the time of the murder?”

  Iles looked so murderous at that word murder that I managed to find my voice.

  “Iles, I’ve got it. It’s in my bag.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “I was too scared. Put that gun away. I’m too scared to move, with a gun pointing at me.”

  “It won’t go off, ma’am,” Iles said softly. “Get me the horse.”

  I kept watching the little black hole in the gun.

  “Shall I, Pat?”

  “Certainly,” Patrick said. “After all, it isn’t our horse. But remind me after this to be careful about where we accept invitations to dinner, dear.”

  Iles winced. But without taking his eyes off Patrick and keeping us all under cover of that gun, he said, “Give it here, ma’am. Quick.”

  I managed to reach for my bag, and I began poking feverishly around among its contents for the flying red ruby horse. After what seemed forever my fingers touched it and drew it into my palm. I took my hand out of the bag and pressed the catch which closed it. I set the bag down on the chair. I turned to give the horse to Dollahan.

  At that moment a slight movement distracted me.

  Close to the floor and to the right of the hall door, dark and sleek and silent as a shadow, our low-slung long-drawn-out Pancho was inching forward. He crouched to attack.

  I said, to give the dog time, “I would have given this to you at the house, but I forgot it, Iles. You’re lucky these rubies aren’t emeralds or I’d probably have kept it always.”

  Pancho shot through the air and fastened his teeth in Iles Dollahan’s left calf.

  It was a lovely sight.

  “Good dog, Pancho!” I cried.

  Iles yelped and looked down. Patrick leaped forward and Kim Forsythe moved in from Iles’s right and the two of them took over. Kim took the gun. He put on the safety catch and dropped the big automatic into his pocket. Meanwhile I slipped the ruby horse down into the chair where I’d left my bag, thrusting the clip between the cushion and the side upholstery. Taking my time, I then detached Pancho from Iles Dollahan.

  Iles was as good as manacled in the hands of two husky young men. He cussed soundly, and then calmed down.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he said, remembering me. “Let me go, boys. You’ve got me now you’ve got the gun. But I’ve got to have that horse. Amanda had nothing to do with her sister’s death, Pat. She just happened to step out on the terrace, and she dropped the horse. She discovered it was gone about the time you and Jean left the first time, and then I couldn’t find it.”

  Iles gave me a reproachful look. “You ought to have left it at the house, ma’am.”

  I said, “How could anybody remember that silly clip? After what I’d seen on the bank of the creek. And after the way you and Sally acted when I tried to phone the police. The horse was nothing, compared to all that awfulness. You ought to be ashamed, bothering about a foolish piece of jewelry at a time like this.”

  Iles said stubbornly, “The police are going to make us a lot of trouble. You oughtn’t’ve called the police, ma’am.” He started rubbing his leg. “Sharp teeth that dog’s got!”

  Patrick said, “See if you haven’t got some iodine or something, Jean. Roll up your pants leg, Iles.”

  I fetched iodine from my cosmetic case and arrived as Iles finished rolling up one trousers leg, revealing startling white flesh for a man with such a deeply tanned face and hands.

  On the leg were two sets of identical tooth marks. One, lower down, had not broken the skin. The second, and newest, was slightly bleeding.

  I said, “It was you. It was you who kicked Pancho and tried to drown him in the creek!”

  Kim took the iodine. Iles made me no answer.

  “I’ll say, sharp teeth,” Kim said.

  “You can be glad he’s had his rabies shot,” Patrick said. “But you’d better see a doctor anyway, Iles.”

  “Why did you do it?” I insisted. “Why did you kick him down the steps like that? He might have drowned.”

  “Now, ma’am,” Iles said, with humility. “Now, listen, ma’am, I never meant to hurt your dog. He came on me like lightning. In the dark. He grabbed me and I kicked him off. He came at me again and I kicked harder than I meant to. He was only on the steps for a minute, before Sally came around and got him. I would have picked him up if she hadn’t.”

  “And what were you doing there?” I asked.

  “I was looking for Amanda’s horse.”

  “There seems to have been a great burst of activity around your house immediately after we left,” Patrick said. “Sally said she saw no one on the terrace when she went around there to collect the dog.”

  Iles continued to be humble.

  “I’d stepped back inside. I didn’t want her to know I’d hurt the little fellow. She still feels so bad about her own dog. I reckon I was a little drunk, too. I’d had too much whisky for my own good, I reckon. I stepped back in the house and then I heard you all talking so I turned on the lights because I wanted to get the red horse. It cost a pile of money. My wife is crazy about those horses, Pat.”

  “Why didn’t you say you were looking for the horse?”

  “Well, you were upset about the dog. So was I. I hated to have hurt the little fellow. I ought to have said so.”

  He paused. After a moment Patrick said. “Is that all?”

  “I reckon so. I know it looks kind of peculiar, but that is the God’s truth. I’m sorry about the little
dog.”

  “I guess Pancho’s even,” I said. “I hope your leg hurts you a lot, Mr. Dollahan, but I don’t want you to get hydrophobia, because you would blame that on Pancho. But I’m glad he bit you. Pancho’s no joke when he means business. He’ll take on a porcupine or a rattlesnake or—”

  “If you’re calling me a rattlesnake, ma’am …”

  “She’s only saying that Pancho’s ambition exceeds his size,” Patrick said. “The truth is, he overdoes things. He’ weighs less than ten pounds but he wouldn’t hesitate to take on a flock of lions and as Jean said, with a dozen or so rattlesnakes thrown in. But I wish he could talk. Pancho knows who killed Juliana Willoz.”

  “How so?”

  “Because he hears and smells far more accurately than human beings. I suspect he got excited and jerked his leash away from Sally because he smelled blood. He dashed around the house to attack the murderer and … tangled with you.”

  “Now, you listen here!” Iles said. “Give me that horse. And stop talking double talk. I’ve got to get back to the house.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “Walked. Got a cab over on McKinney. I heard those police sirens, and I didn’t have time to get out my car, or I’d’ve been here ahead of you. What about that horse?”

  Patrick said, “Give it to him, Jean.”

  I stepped over and tried to find it where I had put it in beside the cushion of the chair. I was still holding the dog. The clip had gone further down than I expected, and I was a minute or so finding it. Then I handed it to Patrick, who held it up and looked at it under the glowing ceiling light.

  “Very pretty, Iles.”

  Sweat was standing on Iles’s forehead.

  “It ought to be. Those damn things set me back fifteen thousand bucks. You know anything about jewelry, Pat? Amanda says the things were a bargain, but it’s hard to think of anybody getting a bargain out of Lucius Brady.”

  Patrick stepped back a step, to allow the light to play differently upon the charming treasure. “Iles, after you shut and locked the door on the terrace, why did you go to your bar and take a stiff drink? All by yourself, in the dark?”

  “That’s none of your business!”

  “Of course not. But you’d better be thinking up a nice answer, because the police are going to ask you that, too.”

  “They won’t know about it.”

  “They’ll question Jean. She knows about it”

  “If it’s money you want, Abbott …”

  “Money? God forbid. I merely want satisfaction for my client”

  “Client?”

  Patrick jerked a hand at the dog.

  “Pancho. Pancho del Rio. Who narrowly escaped losing his life because you kicked him in the head.”

  “Now, you see here!” Iles began.

  A soft rap sounded on the door. Iles rolled down his pants leg. I said, “Come in.”

  A moon-faced man opened the door and looked in. He looked apologetic.

  “Hate to disturb you folks. I’m the house detective. You won’t forget to take your dog away, will you?”

  “No,” Patrick said. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, sir. Well, good night, all.”

  “Good night,” we all said, except Iles Dollahan.

  The man closed the door. Patrick took out his cigarettes.

  “Gave me kind of a scare,” he said lightly. He loosened a cigarette from the pack with one hand. In the other he still held the ruby horse. “I thought he was the homicide squad.”

  Iles stood up, tall, taller than Kim, taller even than Patrick.

  “Give me the horse. I’ve got to get back and try to explain where I’ve been. Would appreciate it if you say I’ve been here, Pat. That is, if the police ask you. Say I came on business.”

  “Sure, and why not?” Patrick said.

  There was another light tap, and this time Patrick bade the visitor enter. But even before he had issued the invitation the door opened. In walked a man with a brown complexion, shiny black eyes and shiny white teeth. His hair under the old brown hat on the back of his head was black and shining. He wore a wrinkled brown suit. Behind him came two larger men, in the uniform of the Dallas police force.

  The detective said, “Which of you is John McKim Forsythe?” Kim stepped forward. “Okay, boys.” The two men in uniform worked Kim over and handed the detective the big automatic. “Didn’t even bother to get rid of it, huh?” He checked the safety catch and, wrapping it in his handkerchief, said, “All of you come along with us.”

  Chapter 7

  Patrick gave me a glance which I took correctly as a request to stall for time. I asked if I might change my dampish clothes and the police detective, whose name was Raymond Tisbury, a detective lieutenant of the Dallas police department, nodded consent. Kim and Iles went with Tisbury. I picked up Pancho’s leash and took him with me into the bedroom, where I got out of my glad rags, hoping they would clean well, and into a gray flannel suit and a black shantung blouse. I was tying a black silk scarf around my hair when I heard Patrick’s voice in the sitting room.

  I stepped over to the night stand and took up the telephone.

  “Odessa operator?” Patrick asked. “I want to talk with a man named Green. Ulysses B. Green. He’s in the oil business, I believe.”

  “Who isn’t, out here?” giggled the operator. She took a moment, and then said, in an awed tone, “I’m sorry, sir. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, sir. He died early yesterday morning.”

  “What of?”

  “Why, I don’t know. Personally, I wasn’t acquainted.”

  “Know his doctor?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, find him. No, just call the leading doctor in the place and let me talk to him.”

  “I wouldn’t know which …”

  “Call any doctor who has a good practice.”

  I listened in, breathless, even after Patrick said, “Getting an earful, Jeanie? Okay, as long as it doesn’t weaken the connection. If it does, you hang up.”

  I said okay just as a sleepy voice growled, “Dr. Hepbourne speaking?”

  Patrick said brazenly, “This is the police department in Dallas, Dr. Hepbourne. Did you happen to have a patient named Green? Ulysses B. Green?”

  “I guess you’d call him my patient,” the doctor growled. ‘They called me in just when he kicked off. I’d never seen him professionally before then.”

  “What ailed him?”

  “Oh, something he ate. These oil men eat everything from shoe leather to armadillos and think nothing of it. It gets them sooner or later.”

  “Was there an autopsy?”

  “Autopsy?” the doctor said. “What for?”

  “He may have been murdered.”

  “Rats. What for? He didn’t leave chick nor child. Nothing but a grass widow who didn’t give a hoot for him. I might add he hadn’t even an enemy. You might say no friends, either. Solitary guy. They get like that out in the oil fields.”

  “I understand he was pretty well fixed?”

  “So what?” the doctor said.

  “You mean he wasn’t?”

  “I mean I doctored him. Wasn’t his banker.”

  “Well, thanks,” Patrick said. “We’ll get in touch with your local police, Doctor.”

  “Wish you’d done it in the first place. Need my sleep.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. So long.”

  Patrick said good-bye and cradled his receiver and I stepped out into the sitting room.

  “What made you do that, Pat?”

  “There has to be a motive for murder. I was curious about Ulysses B. Green. And he’s dead. Suddenly and recently dead. I wonder if anybody at the Dollahans’ knew that? It would be interesting to know who was his heir, in case he died rich. Kim said he wanted to marry Juliana again.”

  Pancho was listening, intently.

  “What do we do with this animal, Pa
t?”

  “Take him with us. No time to find him a kennel now.”

  As we left the elevator in the lobby the three bronzed men with the small Stetsons were still holding their animated conversation. Standing in an attitude of waiting near the top of the stairs was a stunning woman with red hair and blue-rimmed glasses. She was dressed to the nines in sports clothes, as if she were going to the country.

  I glanced at the clock. It was twenty minutes to three A.M.

  “How they do it beats me,” I said.

  “Do what?”

  “Look like that, at this hour. Or any hour. Everybody in Dallas looks stylish around the clock, apparendy.”

  “Tut, tut. No time now to discuss the fashions, Jean.”

  Outside the streets were clean and the wind was blowing and above us the flying red horse was turning slowly around. In the cavernous street between the lofty hotels and office buildings you had the feeling you get in Chicago or New York of being hemmed in by the me-tropolis. Even when you left this area, which you did by car in a matter of minutes, the metropolitan feeling went with you.

  There were very few pedestrians and fewer automobiles on the streets. The sky had cleared and the moon shone and the air was full of a moist freshness. The smell of spring when we were again along the over-flowing creek brought back sharply to mind the tragic corpse of Juliana Willoz.

  “I guess I shouldn’t have brought this dog, Pat.”

  “Don’t be silly. He’s our hero. Except for Pancho the killer of Juliana Willoz would go on record as some prowling homicidal maniac.”

  “Why so?”

  “The body wouldn’t’ve been discovered until daylight. By that time, what with the rain, any chance of picking up the murderer would be pretty much lost.”

  “May have been any way.”

  “Yes. But at least an inquiry began almost at once.”

  “Pat, did Iles Dollahan kill her?”

  “If so, why?”

  Motives, I thought. Jealousy. Rage. Greed. Revenge. None clicked.

  “He admitted kicking our dog. A man who would kick a dog …”

  “Wait a minute. Who wouldn’t kick off a dog whose teeth were buried in his leg? However, Iles undoubtedly was behaving in what Pancho thought was a suspicious manner. Iles was pussyfooting around the terrace looking for the flying red horse in the moonlight. Why didn’t he turn on the terrace lights in the first place?”