The Dead Tycoon by Wormser Richard

Author:Wormser, Richard [Wormser, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Publisher: Fiction House
Published: 1950-01-04T05:00:00+00:00

12

THEY WERE IN HIDING AGAIN. This time there was nothing playful about Marty’s choice of a hole; they were in his apartment because he didn’t think that the howling pack that pursued them would expect them to return to such an obvious place. Eva was lying down on the couch, crying; Nancy sat with her elbows on the little breakfast table in the kitchenette, pretending to read a magazine. She hadn’t turned a page in twenty minutes, Marty alternately walked up and down the limited floor space, tramping on newspapers, or stopped and picked one of them up, staring at it.

He did this now, turning the papers in fingers that felt as though they had heavy work gloves on. There, on a back page, it was; the veiledly insolent story of the ceremony in the bank that morning. He tore the clipping out, put it in his wallet; it, and thirteen like it, would be necessary if any court held that Eva Chounet had not fulfilled the clause of the will that said that the paintings must be presented and dedicated with proper ceremonies. The publicity would be the best sort of proof that…

He dropped the paper. It turned in midair, and the second page was exposed again, the carry-over of the big scare-head story. “Among the passengers were three Hollywood people, actors going on location. They were—”

The names didn’t matter. A man extra, and two girl extras, and they were dead, they would never drift Hollywood Boulevard again in their aimless, foolish, harmless fashion, chattering their magpie talk and—

Dead because Marty Cockren had been so very damned clever.

He started walking again. The newspaper crackled under his feet.

Nancy raised her head, and said: “Stop that, will you? You’ve been crumbling paper for an hour.”

“Have I?” Marty asked. “Then we’ve got to get out of here before dark. We can’t turn on a light. No one was watching when we came in, but they may come by, they may—” He stopped. “Nancy, just when I saw that paper, what were you saying?”

She dropped her hands to the table, stared at him with her head unsupported. “I don’t remember…Oh, yes. I was just being silly, or Marty Cockren smart. I was going to say we ought to dye Eva’s hair, that red hair is so conspicuous it makes it impossible to hide her.”

“You’re right,” Marty said. “I’ll go right out and get something. What do I ask for?”

Nancy’s stare became as bright and hard as a diamond. “You’re going on with this —this minstrel show?”

“We quit it,” Marty said, “when Eva tells us to.” He turned and looked at Eva. She was lying on her back on the couch now, staring at the ceiling; her skirt was rumpled carelessly above her knees, her red hair was tousled; only her staring, tear-stained eyes showed that she wasn’t asleep.

Marty sat down opposite Nancy at the kitchenette table. He reached out and took her hand. “Correction,” he said. “I’m going on—not we.”

The slim hand in

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