Gat Heat Read Free

of those and she’d be wide awake. Or clear over the hill and halfway down the next valley. Never did see a gal move like that.
    â€œWho’s dead?” she asked me.
    â€œBeats me. I just got here. Your husband phoned me about half an hour ago and asked me to come out. But I’m beginning to doubt—”
    â€œGeorge phoned you?”
    â€œThat’s right. Didn’t you know?”
    She shook her head. “Why would George phone you? Especially tonight …” She let it trail off. She got a kind of tortured look. After a few seconds she said, “Did you … see anybody else outside? Or—inside? Any—people?”
    â€œSome.”
    â€œWhat … ah … how did they look?”
    â€œNaked. That’s the best one-word description I can think of. I suppose that’s what you meant. Aside from that, well, they looked … happy, I guess.”
    She blinked her eyes some more, rapidly this time. Then she said, “Who did you say you were?”
    â€œShell Scott.”
    â€œWhy did my husband call you?”
    â€œHe didn’t explain. He was going to tell me the details when I got here. I’m a private investigator, and he merely—”
    â€œYou’re a detective?” I nodded, and she said, “My God. What in the world would George want with a detective? ”
    I shrugged. Mrs. Halstead was wide awake now, and apparently trying to think about three or four things at once. In a moment she said, “Dead … Were you serious? Somebody’s dead? ”
    â€œYes, I was serious.”
    â€œShouldn’t we do something?”
    â€œSure we should. That’s why I came in here and waggled you.”
    â€œWaggled?”
    â€œI’ll turn my back if you want to put on a robe or something. Of course, if you don’t give a hoot—”
    She gave a hoot. I turned my back, and in half a minute she was clad in a rosy-pink bathrobe and following me down the path outside.
    â€œThere he is,” I said.
    She stepped off the path, parted the shrubbery, and looked down at the dead man.
    Then she turned and stepped back by me. “That’s George,” she said. “It’s my husband.”
    Her tone was level, soft and apparently controlled. Her features weren’t twisted into an expression of pain or shock. But I waited a few seconds before saying anything. And then there was no need to say anything.
    Her lips puffed very slightly as breath pushed through them. Her head rolled to one side. Then she collapsed and fell suddenly, loosely, like an empty sack.
    But I’d had a hunch she might keel over, and was able to catch her as she fell. Which made two of my hunches, so far, which had been proved correct.
    I carried Mrs. Halstead into the house, laid her gently on the bed, and waited for her to come around again.

3
    Twenty minutes later Mrs. Halstead was not only back almost to normal, but she was my client.
    She claimed to be extremely curious to know why her husband had phoned me—if he really had, as she put it, which gave me something else to wonder about—but also, and naturally enough, she wanted me to do everything I could to find out who had killed him, and why. I told her there was probably little I might come up with that the police wouldn’t get to first, but that I’d certainly do what I could.
    By then I had called the police and they were on their way from the Hollywood Division, but I’d delayed my call briefly in deference to my client’s wishes.
    When she’d recovered enough to talk intelligently, she had asked me to please, please refrain from filling the premises with all kinds of cops until she could arrange for her guests to get their clothes on.
    It seemed a reasonable request, so I told her, “O.K., but I’ll have to tell the police some of the, ah, clues have been covered up.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t!”
    â€œI’ve got