Free 1945 - Blonde's Requiem by James Hadley Chase

felt like I ’ d been fed through a mangle. Limping over to the head of the stairs, I listened, but I heard nothing. She was halfway home by now.
    Then I walked hack to the Granville Gazette offices. The door was unlocked.
    Somehow that didn ’ t surprise me. I pushed the door open and snapped on my flashlight. The outer office looked as dreary as ever. I walked over to Dixon ’ s office, listened, and then pushed the door open.
    The beam of my flashlight fell on the battered deserted desk. I went over to it. The centre drawer was open. I expected that too. A quick look told me the three photographs of the missing girls Dixon had shown me only a few hours before were gone.
    I stood staring down at the drawer, thinking. Of course the woman had got them. It wasn ’ t going to be so easy now. With the photographs I could have called in the Federal Agents. I could have had Chief of Police Macey eating out of my hand. I wondered if she knew that.
    My head began to ache and I wanted my bed. It was nu use sticking around ‘ this joint any longer. I wondered what Wolf would say if he knew I ’ d been tossed against a wall by a woman and had let her walk off with the only evidence I had as yet found in this case. I decided I wouldn ’ t tell him.
    As I turned to the door, I stopped short. Someone was sitting in the armchair by the window. All right, I jumped a foot, but who wouldn ’ t? I even dropped the flashlight, and as I stooped to pick it up I felt sweat run from my face like a squeezed sponge.
    “ Who is it? ” I said, putting my hand on my gun. My mouth was dry and I was as steady as tissue paper in a wind.
    Silence hung in the room like a sodden blanket. I turned the beam of my flashlight on to the chair. Dixon looked at me with blank glassy eyes. His livid violet-coloured face was set in a grimace of terror. Blood had oozed from his mouth and his tongue protruded like a strip of black leather.
    I moved forward a pace and peered at him. Around his neck was a thin cord.
    It bit into his neck and the folds of flesh half hid it.
    Sitting in a huddled heap in the chair, his hands clenched in his last agony, he looked very lonely and very dead.

     

chapter three
     
    I came out of the bathroom to find two men in my room.
    One of them lolled against the door. The other sat on my bed.
    The one against the door was a big man, rather paunchy, wearing a black and white striped suit. He would be about forty years of age.
    Below his eyes across the top of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose there was a wide path of freckles. His mouth was tight and mean.
    The one on the bed was short, fat and chunky. He had big shoulders and no peck. His face was red and puffy and his square jaw looked like it had been tacked on as an afterthought. A flat-crowned panama hat rested on the back of his head and his pale-grey suit was well cut and fitted him in spite of his bulges.
    I looked at them, said “ Hello, ” and propped myself up against the bathroom door. I had a feeling they didn ’ t like me and nothing I could ever do would make them change their minds.
    The man on the bed eyed me without interest. He put a fat white hand inside coat and took out a cigar. He lit it with care and tossed the match on the carpet.
    “ Who let you two in? ” I said. “ I may be living in a hotel, but my bedroom isn ’ t a lobby. ”
    “ You Spewack? ” The man on the bed pointed his cigar at me so I should know he was talking to me.
    I nodded. “ I was coming to see you this morning, ” I said, “ but I overslept. ”
    His eyes opened a trifle. “ Know who I am? ”
    I nodded again. “ Chief of Police Macey. ”
    He looked across at the man at the door. “ Hear that? He knows who I am. ” A half-wit child couldn ’ t have missed the sneer in his voice.
    The man at the door didn ’ t say anything. He was unpeeling paper from a package of chewing gum. He fed a strip of gum into his mouth and began to chew.
    “ So you were coming to see