The Case of the Unhappy Angels

By Geoffrey Homes

The Case of the Unhappy Angels, first published in 1944 and also known as Six Silver Handles, is a noir mystery featuring private investigator Humphrey Campbell. Campbell works to clear a young soldier wrongfully accused of the murder of an antique dealer following a drinking bout. Geoffrey Homes was a pseudonym for Daniel Mainwaring (1902-1977), an American novelist and screenwriter. He was born in California, and held various jobs, including fruit picker, private investigator, and reporter, before turning to writing in the thirties. In 1946 he began working full-time as a movie and TV screenwriter; and produced the script for the sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and Out of the Past (1947), based on his own novel, Build My Gallows High.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phocion Publishing
• Release date: Nov 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789129311

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Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

The Case of the Unhappy Angels

By

GEOFFREY HOMES

The Case of the Unhappy Angels was originally published in 1944 as Six Silver Handles by William Morrow and Company, New York. Geoffrey Homes is a pseudonym for author Daniel Mainwaring (1902-1977).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

DEDICATION 5

Chapter One 6

Chapter Two 11

Chapter Three 17

Chapter Four 28

Chapter Five 31

Chapter Six 35

Chapter Seven 45

Chapter Eight 48

Chapter Nine 53

Chapter Ten 57

Chapter Eleven 61

Chapter Twelve 69

Chapter Thirteen 72

Chapter Fourteen 79

Chapter Fifteen 88

Chapter Sixteen 96

Chapter Seventeen 104

Chapter Eighteen 110

Chapter Nineteen 120

Chapter Twenty 131

Chapter Twenty-One 139

Chapter Twenty-Two 145

Chapter Twenty-Three 153

Chapter Twenty-Four 157

Chapter Twenty-Five 164

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 170

DEDICATION

* * *

To

Magda and Sterling Ferguson

Chapter One

It had been hot enough before. But around three that August Monday, the sun really got down to business, and over toward the brown hills the wind funneled the dust up into the faded sky, then sent the funnels spinning across the barren earth. One reached the highway presently, danced out on the hot strip of concrete and hurried into a cotton field.

Like a barefooted kid, Johnny Foster thought, watching the whirlwind. Not a bad simile, that. One of these days he’d use it, one of these days when he found the time and the inclination to write again. Johnny Foster was 21, and Johnny Foster was a private in the Army, and Johnny Foster was using his five-day furlough to have a look at the San Joaquin Valley.

To Johnny it was the Grapes of Wrath country, the John Steinbeck country, the Saroyan country, a sort of literary shrine a guy who was going to write had to see. He didn’t mind the heat, or the dust. He didn’t mind sitting there on a culvert, waiting for some patriot to pick him up. This was Highway 99 and the Joads had driven along it. If he closed his eyes, he could see that old Hudson loaded down with junk crawling along the road, and he could see Tom Joad at the wheel with Ma beside him. That Steinbeck could write. He could put a country down on paper and he could put people down on paper. Momentarily, Johnny felt very futile, almost ashamed. Then he found comfort in the thought that he was young and that he was living. Experience, that’s what a man needed first. You had to LIVE before you could write about living. You had to be around people and you had to hear the music of people talking and you had to be hot and cold and hungry and you had to suffer. So far he hadn’t been hungry because the Army fed you well enough, but he had suffered in moderation. You couldn’t walk twenty miles with full pack without suffering some.

A voice hailed him. A voice called, Hey, Soldier! Johnny looked up. A Cadillac roadster was right in front of him and the hatless man at the wheel was opening the door.

Lift? said the man.

You bet, said Johnny, and got in.

Hot, said the man, pulling a brief case out of the way. He had his coat off and his sleeves rolled up and the back of his shirt was soaking wet. Johnny looked him over and put him in the tail end of the second draft. A short, husky guy with a bit of a pot and his sandy hair gradually giving up the ghost. Maybe a World War I veteran. Johnny hoped not. Invariably World War I veterans looked down their noses at the new crop of soldiers. This war? A picnic. You shoulda been in the Argonne, buddy, you shoulda seen a real scrap, you shoulda rode in one of them French boxcars and seen some of them French girls.

Isn’t it! said Johnny. Does it ever cool off?

You should be here in December, the man said. Where you heading?

Nowhere in particular.

Where you stationed?

San Fernando.

That’s no Garden of Eden either. What outfit?

Infantry.

I was in the Navy, the man said. Here it comes, Johnny thought. Oh well, if you hitched rides you had to put up with things.

For two months, the man added. Never even got to ride in a rowboat. Busted my leg the first week falling downstairs in a grog shop. How do you like soldiering?

Fine.

Food good?

Swell.

My name’s Hastings, the man said.

Johnny Foster.

The other took one hand off the wheel, offered it to Johnny. Call me Warren, Hastings said. He had a pleasant grin and a deep, happy voice.

You live around here? Johnny asked.

In Joaquin.

Where’s that?

Hundred miles up the line. Nice little town. Not quite so hot as Bakersfield. You can get up into the hills in a couple of hours and it’s swell up there.

I like hills, said Johnny. I was brought up in the hill country.

Where?

Connecticut. Danbury.

.Those aren’t hills, said Hastings.

Anyway, they got trees on them.

Ever see a Redwood?

No.

Then you haven’t seen a tree.

I’ve heard about them.

You haven’t heard anything. Hastings swung the car around a truck loaded with pipe, glanced at the speedometer and eased up on the throttle. They had been going sixty. Tell you what. Tomorrow, maybe, I could show you a Redwood.

Well—

You got something else to do?

Not exactly.

We’ll drive up to Yosemite, Hastings said. Only takes a couple of hours.

But—

Why not?

Well—you—

I’m a man of leisure, Hastings said. But maybe you don’t want to see Redwoods. Maybe you’d rather see a couple of redheads. Well, I can fix that up, too.

I prefer trees.

So do I. You can’t get in trouble with a tree. Tell you what. You can stay at my place tonight. Tomorrow we’ll see some mountains and some creeks running and some rocks.

I’ll bet you’re a native son, said Johnny.

Right, said Hastings. Born in Sacramento, raised sheep in Placer County and hell in Reno. Started a junk business in Joaquin and look at me now. Rolling in dough.

Perseverance, said Johnny.

Perspicacity. Stick-to-itiveness. Walked ten miles to school through the snow. Milked eighteen cows. Worked twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four. And, had a rich uncle with a weak heart.

Johnny knew a chuckle was expected, so he chuckled. Not a bad guy so far. He decided to try a question. Ever read Steinbeck?

Sonny, said Hastings, I was married to a school teacher. I had Steinbeck for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had him until he came out of my ears. I was god-damned low-brow and it was about time I joined the Book-of-the-Month Club. It got so every time I saw an Oakie, I wanted to cry. Don’t let’s talk about Steinbeck. He tossed a smile over, added: I’ll bet you were going to be a writer.

I still am.

Hastings shook his head sadly.

Don’t you approve?

I said my wife was a school teacher, Hastings said. She teaches literature at the state college. Don’t you understand what that would do to a man?

Again Johnny chuckled and this time he meant it.

You a college man? Hastings asked.

Columbia.

Graduate?

Nope. Another year to go. I’ll finish maybe when this is over.

Do you mind it—the Army?

I get lonely sometimes.

I bet you do. Family back east?

Yes. Mother and sister and— Johnny hesitated. Sweetheart, finished Hastings.

Yes, said Johnny.

Serious?

Plenty. She’s—

Beautiful, said Hastings. Wonderful. I’m a sour old bastard. My marriage didn’t work, but I still believe in it. I still think if you get the right woman it’s the only thing. I didn’t get the right woman, or maybe I wasn’t the right guy. Anyway, it didn’t work.

Johnny wondered what one was expected to say to that. Sorry? Too bad? He didn’t say anything. He thought about Nell and then he didn’t want to say anything. He wanted to remember how her hair looked in the sun and how her eyes had little flecks of gold in them and how sweet her lips were. He wanted to hear her saying, Johnny, oh my darling Johnny, don’t let anything happen to you.

Hastings seemed to sense the boy’s mood. He reached over and squeezed his arm. It will be over soon, he said gently.

Yes, Johnny said.

And you’ll have a hell of a lot to write about.

I hope so.

Maybe I’ll tell you a story you can write.

That’ll be fine.

I said maybe.

What’s it about?

A fruit tramp, said Hastings. But it probably isn’t a good story, so wait. Maybe I’ll get drunk and tell you. How about it? You going to stay with me or go your lonely way?

Johnny thought it over. He watched the fields rushing by and felt the hot wind in his hair and saw, to the east, the wall of hills.

I’d love to stay, he said.

Chapter Two

There were palm trees, tall ones, on either side of the curving drive and then there was a canal with a bridge across it. The house was an old one that had been remodeled, big and solid and white, a friendly gracious place with screened porches upstairs, the sort of a house that went with a whole parcel of kids. Trees grew around it and there was a broad sweep of lawn and over yonder a round swimming pool that was something to think about in the warm still dusk. Hastings stopped the car under the porte-cochere at the side and got out.

The junk business must be good, Johnny said. He got out, reached back in the car and got his kit bag. Hastings had left his brief case on the seat, so Johnny picked that up too. It seemed to be empty.

An orchard and a vineyard go with it.

That makes you a farmer then.

Nothing makes me a farmer. Hastings unlocked the door and led the way into the cool darkness of a hall, then left into a living room that reminded Johnny of his own home a little. Nice and substantial and a little faded as though people had lived here a long time, people who didn’t have to work very hard or worry very much.

Where do you want this? Johnny indicated the brief case.

Throw it on the couch. Hastings looked around him proudly. Quite a dump, isn’t it? The minute I saw it, I said this is for me. Didn’t have to change a thing.

Had it long?

Two months. Come on and I’ll show you your room. You’ll want a shower. Or a swim. I’ll round up some drinks.

You live here alone? Johnny followed him upstairs and into a big bedroom that opened on a sleeping porch.

There was a big four-poster bed and on the walls there were several faded Currier and Ives prints. He wondered whose room this had been. A boy’s probably. Someone who loved it and who must have hated leaving it.

Practically. There’s a guy who runs the ranch and his wife. Wife does the cooking. They’re away at the moment.

It’s so big.

Sonny, said Hastings, when you’ve lived in the joints I have, nothing is too good. All of a sudden I got some dough, so I found the best place in town, a place with class.

Johnny looked through the big windows. They faced the east and through the trees he could see smaller ones growing in straight rows and beyond them vineyards and far off the great mountains. There was one ragged lemon-colored cloud in the sky. A question came into his mind and he asked it without meaning to, for it was intended for himself.

Why would they sell it?

A boy got killed, Hastings’ voice was almost tender. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know his family. Never saw any of them. I bought the place through a real estate outfit. But sometimes I think about them. He got killed at Pearl Harbor.

Where’s the shower? Johnny said abruptly.

Hastings motioned to a door. In there. I’ll get you a pair of trunks.

Thanks, Johnny said.

Hastings was sitting on the edge of the pool with a highball glass in his fist when Johnny crossed the lawn. Night wasn’t far off, but what was left of daylight stubbornly hung around. The older man motioned to a table where there were bottles and glasses.

Thanks, Johnny said. I’ll wait.

His lean, hard body knifed the water and the good coolness of it closed over him. His outstretched hands touched the tiles and he came up and rolled over on his back. Above him was the deep well of the sky and presently he found one faint and lonely star. The depression that had come over him when Hastings told him about the boy whose room that one upstairs had been, went away. He thought of his mother, found a picture of her and put it before him. Slim and gracious and lovely. What would she be doing now? Reading, probably. Sitting in her favorite old chair with the soft light falling on her, maybe looking up now and then to think of him. He sent his love across the miles to her. His sister, June, would be at work. He smiled to himself, thinking of his pretty sister in overalls with a smudge of grease on her nose, and her little hands, which before had never even been exposed to warm dishwater, fumbling with the intricacies of a big machine. War certainly changed things. June, who had never carried anything heavier than a mink coat, putting in eight hours a night in an aircraft factory, and mother spending her days in the hospital, scrubbing floors. Well, it wouldn’t hurt them. They certainly weren’t suffering and they had plenty to eat and they were never bored any more.

Maybe something good came out of wars, after all. Maybe it shook people out of themselves, made them unselfish and real, made them understand what life was all about. Nell didn’t need war to know. Nell had come up the hard way. No good schools or furs or clothes, and a job in the chain store that paid thirteen dollars a week. Her mother made another fifteen, so that made twenty-eight dollars for the family of four to live on.

A great longing for them overwhelmed him, a great longing for the gentle hills and the roads winding through the woods and the little brook threading across the pasture. There would be fireflies flecking the darkness and a wind pushing through the trees and in the wood-lot a night bird crying. This wouldn’t do. He was too old to weep, too old to let loneliness beat him down. He had wanted experience, hadn’t he. Well, he was getting it, and if he ever intended to do anything with his life, he had to take everything that came along and like it.

You asleep out there? Hastings called.

Johnny swam across the pool, pulled himself out and grinned at his host. The water’s swell.

Hastings went over to the table. Martini?

All right, but go easy. I’m not a drinking man.

Time you learned, said Hastings.

Hastings hadn’t gone easy. It was a double Martini and it was very cold and very good. To hell with it, Johnny thought. Might as well be drunk as the way I am. He downed it in three gulps, put his glass on the tiles. Hastings refilled it from the pitcher at his side.

Ever get lonely? Johnny asked.

"Sure. Why do you think I brought you home, sonny? I like parties. Only you have to have an excuse for a party.

You’re my excuse. Pretty soon I’m going to call up people, and we’ll celebrate."

I hope we eat first, Johnny thought. The guy who fixed that sandwich he had had for lunch took food rationing seriously. It had been a very little sandwich, and the bottle of milk was a midget. In the Army a man got used to eating a hell of a lot. What will we celebrate?

You name it.

Your uncle’s generosity, said Johnny.

What uncle?

The one who made this possible, Johnny indicated the pool and the house.

He’s a figment, said Hastings.

No uncle?

No.

Then we’ll celebrate the thriving junk business. Hastings raised his glass. To junk.

To pots and pans and garbage cans, Johnny let the rest of his Martini slide down his throat.

Hastings drank, then refilled the glasses. We’ll celebrate literature, too, he suggested.

I thought you’d had your fill of literature.

I’m recovering. I’m settling back into the slough of illiteracy from which she tried to rescue me.

Is she nice?

Beautiful, said Hastings. But she couldn’t leave her ruler in the schoolhouse. His tone was bitter. May she be sorry, he said. May she regret walking out. May she sit on the ditch-bank and see me wallowing in luxury, while envy eats out her heart.

He’s getting drunk, Johnny thought. And so am I. I’m getting very drunk. We ought to eat. We better eat, or we won’t be in any condition to celebrate anything. A rosy fog surrounded him, and he felt tremendously vital. With no trouble at all, he could jump right across the pool.

A junk man, Hastings said. "A stupid dealer in rags and bottles and broken down furniture. Leave him. Go away. But, sonny, I fooled her. I got rich. Bread on the waters, and it came