A Few Minutes Past Midnight by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page B

return to her for inspiration from time to time.”
    He held the jar in his lap as we drove.
    “This movie Sawyer doesn’t want you to make,” I said. “He thinks it’s about him.”
    “But it is not,” said Chaplin glancing at the jar in his lap. “The idea was given to me by Orson Welles. It is based loosely on the true story of Landru, a Frenchman who murdered a number of women, a worthy inheritor of the name Bluebeard. We are, I fear, dealing with a madman.”
    “You’re probably right, but it doesn’t help us much.”
    The drive back to Venice was slow. The drizzle was back. Afternoon traffic was heavy. Too much time cramped in the Crosley was getting to my back.
    Chaplin talked, asked me questions about my work, my background as a cop, and my brother.
    “There is a policeman in my movie,” he said. “Dogged, determined, in pursuit of my lady killer, a bit like your brother, perhaps.”
    “Does he catch him?” I asked.
    “No, when he catches up to our sympathetic murderer, the lady killer pours himself a glass of wine fortified with poison. You see, he plans to commit suicide rather than go on trial. The policeman, unaware that the wine is poisoned, takes the drink, downs it in triumph, and dies allowing our protagonist to continue his life of crime.”
    “Sounds like fun.”
    “I hope and expect it shall be.”
    When we hit Venice, Chaplin said, “Not far from here is the location of my first real American film, Kids’ Auto Races in Venice. That was before I created the Little Fellow. Times were easier then though far less lucrative.”
    I parked in front of Elsie Pultman’s. The drizzle had stopped again. I wished it would make up its mind. Chaplin left his jar of sweetbreads and tongue on the seat, and we walked up to the front door.
    The door was open about three inches.
    With Chaplin at my side I leaned toward the opening and called, “Miss Pultman.”
    No sound. I pushed the door open another inch or two and tried,
    “Elsie.”
    Another four or five inches and the door was open. This time I knocked and shouted, “Elsie Pultman.”
    When nothing happened, I stepped in. Chaplin followed me.
    I own a gun, a .38. I seldom carry it. There are many reasons. First, I am a rotten shot. Second, the few times I have taken it with me I’ve either had it stolen, gotten myself hurt, or messed up a situation that could have been better handled without a weapon. There were two or three times when the gun had saved my life or someone else’s, but it was always a gamble. It didn’t really matter at the moment. I hadn’t even considered taking it from the closet in my room at Mrs. Plaut’s.
    I kept calling Elsie Pultman’s name as we walked through her entryway. A small table with a telephone on it stood next to the stairs leading up. We moved slowly toward the back of the house which was, like Elsie Pultman, overdecorated.
    The wallpaper was pink with vertical and elaborate purple designs that looked like chandeliers. The walls in the small living room we walked into were covered with paintings that suggested no common taste or idea. There were old-fashioned forests, hunting dogs, girls filling jugs of water at a fountain, portraits of women with pulled-back hair and lace collars, a bright poster in red with a cartoonlike man with a hammer and something that looked like Russian written under the anvil he was about to strike.
    It went on and on. The furniture included a couple of wicker chairs with unmatched cushions, a settee with material that looked like red silk, and a wooden bench with a back about shoulder high that could have come straight from the Folsom Prison resale shop.
    “Eclectic,” said Chaplin.
    We moved further into the house, listening for movement.
    In front of the kitchen sink was a poker table covered with the rings left by ancient drinks. At the table were two chairs. Next to the refrigerator on a chipped white porcelain table was another telephone.
    It rang. We looked at it and