Touch of Death

A Touch of Death

Charles Williams

A MysteriousPress.com

Open Road Integrated Media

Ebook

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Chapter One

IT WAS A FOURPLEX OUT near the beach. I stopped the car, looked at the ad again, and went up the walk. Only two of the mailboxes had names on them, and neither was the one I wanted.

This was the right address, though, so it had to be one of the others. I picked one at random and pressed the buzzer. Nothing happened. I tried again, and could hear it faintly somewhere on the second floor.

I waited a minute or two and tried the other. No one answered. I lit a cigarette and turned to look along the street. It was very quiet in the hot afternoon sun. A few cars went past on the sea wall, and far out in the Gulf a shrimp boat crawled like a fly across a mirror.

I swore under my breath. It had looked like a good lead, and I hated to give up. Maybe one of the other tenants would know where he was. I tried the buzzer marked Sorenson first, and when it came up nothing I leaned on the one that said James.

The whole place was as silent as the grave.

I shrugged and went back down the walk. I was about to get into the car when I saw the patio wall in the rear of the place. A walk ran past the side of the building to a high wooden gate, which was closed. There might be somebody back there. I stepped across the front lawn and went back to the gate and opened it.

“Oh. Excuse me,” I said.

The girl was a brunette and she was sunbathing in the bottom part of a two-fragment bathing suit. She was lying face down on a long beach towel with a bottle of suntan lotion beside her and a book open in front of her on the grass. She turned her head casually and looked at me through dark glasses.

“Were you looking for someone?” she asked.

“Man named Winlock,” I said. “He gave this address. Do you happen to know if he s around?”

“I’m new here,” she said. “But I think the people in the other upstairs apartment are named Winlock or Winchester, or something like that. I suppose you tried the buzzer?”

“Yes. No dice.”

She shrugged a satiny shoulder. “They may have gone out on a boat. I think he fishes.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well. Thanks a lot.”

I started to turn away, and noticed she was staring at my face. Or at least I felt she was.