Murder Most Ingenious Read online

  MURDER MOST INGENIOUS

  When Hubert Goodall, wealthy Californian estate owner, was found knifed to death in his art gallery, and a valuable Gauguin picture stolen, it would seem that someone had committed the perfect–or rather impossible–crime. For, unless all the guards were lying–and there appeared to be no collusion between them–it was impossible for anyone to have either entered or left the building at the time of the murder.

  Of course, if one looked for them, there were suspects galore. Plenty of people surrounding Goodall had a motive for resentment, or worse, against him, and plenty of people seemed to behave suspiciously either before or after the crime had been committed.

  The job of sorting things out fell on old Mr. Carmichael, one-time detective, now confined to his wheel-chair. He had a tough time piecing together the puzzle, for he was up against a most ingenious murderer, who all but succeeded in evading the consequences of his crime.

  Also by Kip Chase

  WHERE THERE’S A WILL

  © Copyright 1962 by Trevett Coburn Chase, Jr.

  Printed in Great Britain by

  Cox & Wyman Ltd., London, Fakenham & Reading,

  for Hammond, Hammond & Co. Ltd.

  87 Gower Street, London, W.C.I

  662

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-62112-550-1

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  One

  THE CAR was a late-model pearl-grey Mercury, relatively lacking in chrome. It was parked at the kerb, its engine running quietly, a blank-faced man behind the wheel. Another man emerged from a nearby building, opened the car door, and slid in beside the driver. The passenger was tall, heavy-set, with a round Irish face. He turned to the driver.

  ‘Head out for Palos Verdes, Johnny. I’ll show you from there.’ He finished speaking with a wide smile. It was his trademark. Even his police mug shots, despite the stern admonitions of the photographer cop, carried a trace of that grin.

  Jock Harrison had much to smile about. He had prospered, and even attained a tinge of respectability in a profession where success usually resulted in an abruptly shortened life-span. Most of his one-time associates and competitors were now either dead or living in fear and obscurity in some dingy apartment far removed from Southern California.

  Harrison had survived. At first he had just been lucky. In the wild, free-swinging prohibition days he had taken his chances with the rest of them; but then he got smart. During the thirties he had laid low, been content to exist on the crumbs of the more ambitious, and with quiet satisfaction had watched them gun each other down, one by one. When the boom of the forties and the war years hit, he had moved in. His first big venture, entered into with two wise old-timers, had paid off big. They had opened a gambling ship just outside the three-mile limit offshore from the beach towns that border Los Angeles on the south. It had taken the District Attorney’s office eight months to find the legal loophole that shut them down, but by that time he had made the stake necessary to expand into the then loosely-organized field of call-girls, after-hours booze joints, and, of course, gambling.

  One of the former gambling-ship partners now lived in retirement in Mexico, the other had let success go to his head and had tried to muscle out one of the Eastern interests operating in the area. He had been taken care of. It had not been done like in the old days, with a shotgun blast in a barber shop or a dark-coloured car careening through the streets spewing steel-jacketed bullets from a cut-down Thompson sub-machine gun. The man had simply disappeared.

  Harrison, taking heed, had gradually and with calculation let the administration of his clandestine activities fall into the hands of his subordinates. He had struck out into calmer waters: manipulation of real estate deals, legitimate night club management, a wholesale liquor distribution business, and the horse trading involved in the buying and selling of state-issued retail liquor licences. It was in these fields that his Irish flair for politics had flowered – the intimidation of a member of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, the bribing of an underling clerk who could juggle district apportionment figures, or simple blackmail in any one of its unpleasant variations.

  As the car threaded its way smoothly through the stream of southbound Los Angeles traffic, Harrison leaned back in his seat, extracted a large aromatic cigar from his pocket, bit off the end and lit up thoughtfully. His trip was an unusual one in that he was not sure where it might lead him. The day before he had got a call from a resident of Palos Verdes Peninsula; a man who, as far as Harrison knew, was a model of respectability. The man’s name was Hubert Goodall. He had simply said there was a business matter he would like to discuss when convenient. Harrison had readily agreed, but no definite time had been set. He had done some checking and found that Goodall was the surviving member of an old-line Peninsula family. While his income from family holdings did not place him in the class of the very wealthy, it was sufficient to allow him to live in comparative luxury. He participated vigorously in civic activities, particularly those designed to ‘keep the Peninsula as it is’. His pet project, however, was the administration of his own art gallery, housed in a building on the Goodall estate. He had a reputation for being a man of integrity, a hard worker, and a conscientious citizen. He was not particularly well liked.

  This background gave Jock Harrison no clue as to what business Goodall would have with him. It was on impulse that afternoon that he set out for the Goodall estate.

  ‘Turn right here, Johnny’, Harrison said between puffs of cigar smoke.

  Minutes later the Mercury was rolling smoothly up the gentle incline of an asphalt driveway. The car pulled to a stop at the front porch of a large Spanish-style home with a red tile roof. Harrison let himself out of the car and said to the driver, ‘Pull up out of the way and wait for me. Won’t be long.’ He approached the front door, pressed the recessed doorbell, and heard from inside the house the soft musical sound of chimes.

  The door was opened by a girl. She was wearing tight light-rose coloured pants and a man’s white shirt knotted at the waist; on her feet were Mexican huaraches. She had large, lovely violet eyes set in a triangular pixie-like face. Her age, Harrison guessed, was about seventeen.

  ‘Hello’, the girl said.

  Harrison started to reply when he was interrupted by a man’s voice coming from somewhere behind the girl. It was a thin, high-pitched, irritated voice. ‘What is it, Jennifer?’ The owner of the voice appeared at the door. His spare, erect frame was draped loosely with a rough-weave tweed suit, his face undistinguished except for tight, bloodless lips and heavy horn-rimmed glasses.

  ‘I’m Hubert Goodall. What can I do for you?’

  Harrison smiled. ‘My name is Harrison.’

  A look of annoyance crossed Goodall’s face. ‘Oh, I see. It wasn’t my intention we meet here. I don’t consider my home my place of business’, he said ungraciously. ‘However, since you’re here . . .’ He beckoned Harrison inside, then said to the girl, ‘That will be all, Jennifer. Oh, is Tony at the Gallery?’

  A faint blush appeared on the girl’s cheeks. ‘No, I think he went into town for something.’

  Goodall dismissed the girl with a brusque nod, then led his visitor into an enormous living-room, through sliding glass doors and into a garden at
the rear of the house.

  ‘I have an art collection in an adobe building back here. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. There’s an office there.’

  As the two men approached the Gallery, Hubert Goodall said sharply, ‘Wait here. I suggested coming back here for the sake of privacy. I want to assure that we have it.’ Turning the brass handle of the massive wooden door Goodall disappeared inside.

  The visitor noted his host had used his left hand to open the door. Hubert Goodall’s right hand was crippled and disfigured from a childhood accident.

  In less than a minute Goodall emerged. ‘It’s all right’, he said brusquely. ‘There’s no one here.’

  The two men entered. Goodall locked the door behind him, then with a jerk of his head indicated a passage-way extending down one side of the building. ‘The back room’, he said.

  The room they entered was small and sparsely furnished. There was a desk with a chair behind it, another chair, a single, unshaded overhead light, and partially extending along one wall a workbench containing tools and materials for framing and packaging paintings. A large wall safe was inset into one side of the room. Harrison eyed the safe with a professional air which drew a wry smile from the lips of Goodall.

  ‘No money,’ he commented, ‘just paintings – and worthless ones, at that.’

  Harrison chuckled. ‘Why, Mr. Goodall,’ he began, ‘I wasn’t thinking . . .’

  ‘Of course you weren’t. Please sit down.’

  Harrison dropped himself gingerly into one of the straight-backed chairs, stretched his thick legs out in front of him, laced his fingers behind his head, and attempted an attitude of relaxation; but his small bright-blue eyes were alive with interest. There was a short silence.

  Goodall was the first to speak. ‘Mr. Harrison,’ he began, ‘you have the reputation of being an alert – ah – businessman. Since my call you have probably checked around and found out a good deal about me.’

  Harrison smiled. Goodall continued, ‘And I don’t think it would surprise you that I know a good deal about you. Let me see . . . 1936, I believe it was – correct me if I’m wrong – something about a stolen-car racket. The best they could do for you was six months in jail. Receiving of stolen goods, wasn’t it? In 1943, something to do with . . . rationing stamps . . . gasoline, was it, or meat? A lot of unfortunate publicity, but nothing proved. And right after World War Two, the gambling-ship escapade. That was good business. Then there were other, ah, ventures. Of course, all this probably bores you; it’s common knowledge. There are a few little incidents, however, which aren’t so well known. It seems, Mr. Harrison, you have a great deal of talent in the real estate field.’

  Goodall paused, as if waiting for some response from his visitor. There was none.

  He continued: ‘I happen to have a close friend on the Board of Directors of Industrial Carbide. That was a very shrewd move, and those people are no fools. To anyone interested in such matters it would appear you simply made a very good investment. I suspect that is not the whole story nor, in my opinion, are all the facts known concerning that transfer of escrow on the Riviera Development and the Pelican Point bankruptcy business. To anyone studying these various transactions, Mr. Harrison – and believe me, I have studied them rather closely – a pattern emerges. In each of the incidents I have mentioned, and in others which I have not mentioned, there was a key man – a different man in each case, but a man on whose actions the whole transaction depended. In each case this man’s actions were extremely favourable to your interests. I do not choose to believe this was coincidental.’

  Hubert stopped speaking and stood up. He took a couple of quick strides about the windowless room, then stood by his chair, the fingers of his left hand drumming nervously against the desk-top. He looked straight into the eyes of his visitor. Harrison stared back unblinking.

  ‘I am sure, Mr. Harrison, you are way ahead of me’, Hubert Goodall said softly.

  Harrison shook his head slightly. ‘Maybe’, he said. There was a suggestion of a smile on his lips.

  Goodall sat down again. His voice became slightly shrill. ‘I want you to get to Jack Christie. I want you to force him out of the Sleeping Hills Development. I want him to get out and stay out. I want it understood I will condone no violence, strictly a matter of business. I want you to make it financially impractical for Mr. Christie to implement his plans. Have I made myself clear?’

  Harrison shifted in his chair. He crossed one leg over the other. ‘Oh, quite clear, Mr. Goodall, quite clear. Clear, but . . .’

  Hubert Goodall nodded. ‘Obviously I haven’t finished. I don’t intend to buy your services, Mr. Harrison. But I do have other assets. Supervisor Klein is a friend of mine, a close friend, as you probably know. There is a proposal before the Board of Supervisors, Number 287, to outlaw stud poker in this county. This proposal has a number of supporters. I do not believe that you are one of them. I personally have nothing against stud poker. If a man wishes to gamble away his earnings it is, I believe, his privilege to do so. However, I think that I might be persuaded to become quite interested in seeing this proposal defeated, or more to the point, Supervisor Klein might be so persuaded.’ Goodall paused.

  Harrison gazed reflectively at the ceiling. When he spoke, it was as if he were addressing a third party.

  ‘That’s a very interesting proposal. Very interesting. Let’s say I don’t like Proposal 287. Let’s say I don’t like it at all. Let’s say you could do what you claim you could do and get Klein to vote against it. But that’s just one out of five – not very good odds. Not very good at all.’

  ‘I’ve thought of that. And I can’t promise any more than Klein’s vote. But one Supervisor has a way of influencing other Supervisors, as you may have observed, Mr. Harrison. Several of the other Board members are rather heavily indebted to Mr. Klein, for reasons we need not go into. Again, I can’t promise anything, but I think it quite likely that you would not have one vote, but at least two votes, possibly three votes. And that’s a majority. Again, Klein’s vote is the only one I would guarantee. Well?’

  Harrison continued addressing the invisible third party in the room.

  ‘Let’s say’, he began meditatively, ‘that this sounds good. Let’s say I dump Christie for you. What guarantee do I have of delivery? That’s the question I ask myself.’ He cocked his head at Goodall.

  ‘Your own common sense, Mr. Harrison, your own common sense. You are not a man anyone would care to have for an enemy, especially me. I am sure you realize I wouldn’t make the offer unless I intended to keep my end of the bargain.’

  ‘That makes sense’, Harrison said. ‘Yes, sir, it surely does. Just one thing. Why are you so all-fired interested in Sleeping Hills, Mr. Goodall? You don’t have property there. I don’t see where you stand to gain. As a matter of fact, it would probably bring business into the Peninsula, building all those homes. Probably increase your own property value. What’s the gimmick?’

  ‘No gimmick. It’s very simple. I like the Peninsula the way it is. I don’t want to see a bunch of cracker-boxes springing up on my front doorstep. I suppose that’s difficult for you to understand, Mr. Harrison, but that’s the simple truth of the matter.’

  ‘Those . . . cracker-boxes . . . retail out at about thirty-two thousand, Mr. Goodall. Seems to me there may be more here than meets the eye.’

  Hubert Goodall shrugged. ‘You may think what you like. Do we have a deal or don’t we?’

  ‘We have a deal.’

  ‘Good. When can I expect some results?’

  ‘A week. Two weeks.’

  For the first time Hubert Goodall smiled. ‘I’ll call you’, he said.

  Harrison rose ponderously from the chair. ‘You do that, Mr. Goodall, you do that. I can find my way out.’ He moved off down the hallway.

  For a good many minutes Goodall remained seated at his desk, his fingers pressed against his forehead, his face immobile. Then, with a tight smile, he got up and made his way back t
o the house.

  Two

  AS HARRISON’S CAR left the Peninsula and turned north on Highway 101 it passed within half a mile of the Pacific coastline at Torrance. A man and his wife lay on the white sands of the beach, basking in the afternoon sun. The man was George Craig, artist. He would have been mildly interested to have known of Harrison’s business visit.

  The couple was surrounded by the accoutrements of the beach-goer: portable radio, suntan lotion, towels, backrest, magazines, and a pack of cards. Craig turned on his side and looked at his wife.

  ‘Honey,’ he said, ‘why don’t you get sick tonight?’

  The girl placed a hand on his brown forearm. ‘Let’s not start that again, George.’

  ‘I want to start it again’, the man said obstinately. ‘It’s getting tougher and tougher to watch you leave for that dump.’

  ‘The “Swinging Times” is a dump’, Pat Craig conceded. ‘A flashy dump, but a dump. But I have a contract, dear. You keep forgetting.’

  George commented on the contract, briefly and obscenely.

  Pat shook her head. ‘That doesn’t help. If it weren’t there, it would be somewhere else. When you’re a night club singer, you sing in night clubs.’

  ‘Are you going to be a night club singer all your life, Pat?’ George asked quietly.

  The girl shook her blonde head. ‘Nope, just long enough to get us on an even keel.’

  ‘But damn it,’ her husband exploded, ‘how even a keel do we need? When I was in school, this business of your working was okay. I didn’t like it, but it sure helped. But things are different now. I’m not doing so bad. Two thousand bucks out of the Westwood show, you know.’

  Pat Craig looked at her husband with affection. ‘George, try and understand. I know you’re doing all right and I’m proud of you. But you know yourself you do your best when you can work uninterrupted and free from worry. We could get by on what you make, sure, but it’s irregular and that plays hell with the budget. We could move back to one of those rabbit hutches’ – she gestured at the dingy jumble of apartments and houses crowding the hills behind the beach to the north – ‘and we could live on pizza and beer like we did before, but I want you to have a decent place to live and a decent studio ...’