Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 77, No. 4. Whole No. 451, March 25, 1981

A Woman Waits for Me by William Bankier

The highly successful plastic surgeon from California, dissatisfied with life, was seeking a new career. In Brighton, England, he met two women, two entirely different women — “a young girl with astonishing silver hair” and a mature woman, “not really his type,” with taffy hair and dressed in tweed. Both women were to change the face of Mark Whitman’s life, each in her own fashion...

The pub was almost deserted. Not many people inhabited the Brighton seafront on a cloudy day in early April. Mark Whitman left his bench by the window, walked to the bar, and asked for another bourbon and water.

The feeling that he had made a fool of himself was strong today. If he could not achieve something in England soon, he would probably end up back in California with more egg on his face than a chicken farmer in a hurricane. But not necessarily. He could easily afford to drink himself to death. Or he could walk a hundred yards down the shingle, shed his clothes, and trudge into the breakers like Fredric March in “A Star Is Born.” If he did, his wife back home would not announce bravely to the world, “This is Mrs. Mark Whitman.” She would say something like, “The idiot finally got what he was after.”

Somebody was having trouble with the doors. Back on his bench, Whitman saw why when a woman struggled in leading on a chain the biggest Great Dane he had ever seen. It was charcoal-gray and as tall as a Shetland pony. She caught his eye and they exchanged sympathetic smiles. “He’s taking me for my walk,” she said.

“I’m glad he brought you in here.”

“Thank you.”

Whitman was more surprised than she was by his flirtatious remark. He had managed a few interesting pickups since arriving, all in London, but this mature woman was not really his type. Her taffy hair was permed in an old-fashioned style he thought of as “dancing teacher.” She had a large plain face that he assessed professionally: no lift needed, a little work around the eyelids would help, some padding in the chin. The dog, however, was hopeless, its face draped in enough skin to make another Dane or a couple of terriers.

“I’m off to the bar,” Whitman said, tossing back the bourbon. “Can I bring you something?”

“Yes, please. I’d like a gin and tonic.”

When he came back carrying the drinks, she was settled in with her tweed jacket unbuttoned revealing a full but not flamboyant chest. Her sturdy build, her clear-eyed look, and her confident accent suggested to Whitman that this was a girl who had done well at field hockey for her private school during the war.

“What’s the dog’s name?” Whitman said. “Cheers.”

“Cheers. His name is Giant.”

The animal was stretched out proudly like one of Landseer’s lions in Trafalgar Square. “Nice boy, Giant. I hope you never run into a dog named Jack.”

They exchanged introductions. Then they began chatting and he learned that her name, Brenda Belziel, was French. She was the widow of an officer in the Free French Army, a Colonel who had walked not far behind le Grand Charles himself when de Gaulle returned to Paris. No, he had not been killed in the war, nothing as heroic as that. Brenda had only met Belziel in 1960 when he was serving with a trade commission in London. They married, she for the first time, he for the third. His death had occurred accidentally a year and a half ago, as the result of a fall in the bathtub.

“I’m still living it down, I can assure you,” she said, insisting on going to the bar for the next round of drinks. Giant plodded after her like an animated exhibit from the Museum of Natural History. When she came back and put Whitman’s bourbon in front of him, she went on to say, “Brighton is a gossipy town. I’m known as the Black Widow by some of the nastier types. They can’t believe I didn’t kill him. I have ended up with a house and a lot of money, but still—”

Whitman was beginning to feel secure inside his protective skin of whiskey. Her legs, which he had inspected as she went to the bar, were as healthy as the rest of her. Definitely a hockey player this one, a woman of charm and humor, but not the type to be given more than the story of his life. A game of gin rummy might be the limit of their intimacy.

“You’re an interesting man, Mr. Whitman,” she said. “When I reveal I’m a wealthy widow, most of them become nervous, or extra polite, or sexy. But you didn’t turn a hair.”

“Maybe it’s because I earn more than I could spend in two lifetimes.”

“My guess is you’re Dr. Mark Whitman.”

“Take the prize.”

“Do you specialize?”

“Plastic surgery.” His occupation never failed to raise a woman’s interest.

“How fascinating. That’s quite a fad in your country, I believe.” “More than a fad in California. It’s becoming a way of life. If we ever lower the price, automate it somehow, it’ll become like color television — everybody will have one.”

“Meanwhile, you like things the way they are.”

“I’m doing very nicely, thank you. No complaints.”

Was he fooling Mrs. Belziel? He could not kid himself about his dissatisfaction with life. Whitman remembered the key question put to him by a television interviewer. The man was making a film on California life. Whitman cooperated because there was no such thing as bad publicity. They began by tracing his background. Born in Munich, he had been brought to America by his parents who were far-sighted enough to realize that Hitler’s joke was going to be on them. Growing up comfortably in New York, he had a happy childhood except for the embarrassment of living with parents whose accent was not American.

Medicine as a career seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Whitman went along because his way was being paid and he could see the logic of becoming rich. But at college his most satisfying time was spent on stage with the dramatic group. He was good — better than most of the others who said they were going on to a career in the theater.

A drama coach told him once, after he had come off following a very good rehearsal, “You’ve got something, Mark. When you’re on stage, nobody looks at anybody else.”

He was not surprised to hear it. “I love it up there,” he said. “I feel in control.”

By this time he was no longer Morris Weissman, he was Mark Whitman. He chose the surname of a poet whose work he admired. Looking at Brenda Belziel’s dog, Whitman recalled a fragment from one of the poems.

Brenda had been watching him closely. “Forgive me for saying so,” she said, “but I think you hate your work.”

He found himself telling her the truth. I didn’t hate it till about a year ago. Not consciously. A man making a film about plastic surgeons asked me a question. He said, “With your obvious intelligence, do you feel you’re doing enough with your life, devoting your time to giving rich women smaller noses and bigger breasts?”

“What was your answer?”

“Something glib at the time. But subsequently I watched the film on television. The camera was on my face as he asked the question and I saw my eyes shift before I replied. It was a queer feeling. What I saw in my own eyes is what I have been experiencing ever since.” Whitman drank again. “Eight weeks later I left home.”

As he talked on, the woman seemed to accept with equanimity what to Whitman was a shattering story of a man falling apart in his early fifties. A wife who didn’t care whether he stayed or ran away. A daughter 22 years old, absent for almost a year in India — irony of ironies, she was untraceable because she had changed her name. And here he was, attempting at this late date to take up an acting career in England.

“Sounds to me like a smashing idea,” she said.

“Coals to Newcastle,” Whitman said sheepishly. “I’ve learned there are seven thousand unemployed actors in London alone.”

“But you have an American voice. That should be useful.”

“No shortage of Yanks in the London theater. I was told to try the provinces. Look for work in some rep company. That’s why I’m in Brighton.”

“Any job so far?”

“I’ve been to see various groups perform but I haven’t applied for an audition. They’re all so good, I’ve lost my nerve.”

She looked at her watch. “I don’t think our conversation is finished, do you?”

“It’s been fun, Brenda.”

“Two things. Will you come up to my house for a drink this evening? Say around eight o’clock? I’d bring you with me now but there are some dreary people I must get rid of.”

“Yes, okay. I’d like to.” He scribbled the address she gave him on a scrap of paper.

“The other thing is The Lion.” She was on her feet now, organizing the dog for the door.

“You said his name is Giant.”

“I mean the theater pub around the corner. They do a lunchtime performance most days. Have you been in?”

“Been meaning to.”

“Do go in. No disrespect, but they aren’t as professional as some of the others who have London connections. It might be the best place for you to break in.”

“I hear you,” Whitman said. “I’ll finish my drink and give it a go.”

There was a hinged wooden sign on the pavement outside The Lion advertising a performance of some comedy he had never heard of. Whitman went in and could tell by the appearance of the young people drinking that he was too late to see the play. They had to be the cast: girls with large eyes and mouths; young bearded men with their hair combed forward. Every phrase of their small talk carried in the sparsely populated saloon bar.

Whitman sought out the dusty bottle of Jim Beam lost behind two magnums of sherry. Waiting for his drink, he decided not to request an audition today. No harm waiting until he could speak without slurring his words.

He caught sight of himself in a mirror behind the bar and raised his glass to give that lonely image something to do. Two months of restaurant eating had given him some extra pounds. His face was firm, the skin retaining some of its California tan. “This is all there is for you,” Whitman said to himself. “You’ve had a fling and it’s over. No tragic scenes. You’re going back to the soft life of changing faces and putting money in the bank.”

One of the bearded youths came to the bar. He ordered a pint and a dry sherry. Whitman surprised himself by saying, “I meant to see your performance but I missed it. Maybe tomorrow.”

“We could have used you,” the boy said. “We aren’t exactly playing to standing room.”

“Let me pay for these,” Whitman insisted. When he had pocketed his change and looked around, he saw the lad at a table near the door, sitting down beside a young girl with astonishing silver hair. Sunlight through a window created a dazzling aura around her head. There was an empty chair at the table. The boy pointed to it and Whitman responded by moving across the floor, stepping carefully. He was as nervous as if this was the audition.

“Amanda Royston, and I’m Jeremy Lake.”

“Mark Whitman. Hello. I was telling Jeremy I’m sorry I missed the play. I’ll try to come back and see it tomorrow.”

“That would be nice. Thanks for the drink.”

“Are you connected with the theater yourself, Mr. Whitman?”

“Call me Mark. I’m old enough to be your father but I’d rather not be reminded.” They laughed on cue and he felt encouraged. “Yes, I’ve done some acting. Not as much as I would have liked.”

Jeremy turned round in his chair. “Hey, Norrie,” he called to a bald-headed man with a baby face. “Listen to this.” He turned back to Whitman and gave him an encouraging nod.

Whitman had lost all his earlier reticence. “Am I on?” he asked. Again the group laughed; he saw appreciative faces all around him. These were his kind of people. Good old Brenda — he was easing in because of her advice. “Had I but known,” he said, “I would have rehearsed my soliloquy.”

“What do you think?” Jeremy asked.

“You may be right,” said the man called Norrie. “Let’s talk.”

There was a note of conspiracy in the air and Whitman found it exciting. Jeremy excused himself and went to an empty table in a corner where Norrie joined him. They began talking, enjoying their roles as men behind the scenes. Whitman looked at Amanda. She had spent a lot of money making the silver hair look roughly cut and unkempt. Her lipstick was pale. Most of the emphasis was on the eyes — hazel eyes outlined heavily in black, shaded with a sort of greenish-gold paste. Her face, and the sensuous way she held her mouth, belonged on the glossy cover of a pop record album.

Whitman found her easy to talk to. She laughed at the right places, and when their eyes met he experienced a feeling from over 30 years ago when all his sensations were sharp and new.

The landlord rang a bell. According to the English rule, they were closing the pub for the hiatus between three o’clock and five thirty. Jeremy and Norrie still had their heads together. “What’s happening with them?” Whitman asked.

She sized him up. “I think they want you for a part. I overheard Norrie a minute ago. He said something about ‘Death of a Salesman’.”

The character of Willie Loman in the great Arthur Miller drama had always appealed to Whitman. He had never attempted it — in his acting days he was too young. Now he had the years and the experience. “Is Norrie your director?” he asked, hardly able to believe his luck.

“Yes. Norrie Mikeljohn.” She set her glass aside half full. “I’d like it if you and I could go some place now.”

“You’d be crazy to become involved with me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m fifty-two years old. You can’t be more than twenty. And you’ve got young Jeremy standing by. Never mind that I obviously like you. Don’t be confused by that.”

“What if I like you?”

She went to get her coat. Whitman waited at the door where Mikeljohn came to him and said, “Hold on, please. We don’t want to lose you.”

His voice had a scolding, spinsterish sound and his eyes, in that baby face, were narrow and reflected pain and anger.

“I plan to be around.”

“Good. I may have a part for you. It’s something I think you’ll be just right for.”

Whitman had the faintest feeling of being played with. “I’ll try anything once,” he said. “Nasty things I do repeatedly.”

“Our man to the life,” Mikeljohn said, smiling in a sophisticated way as he shook Whitman’s hand. His grip was bone-dry and astonishingly strong.

Over the director’s shoulder Whitman could see Amanda listening to Jeremy as he helped her into her coat. The garment was imitation leopard, hip-length.

Outside and walking, he found himself reluctant to bring Amanda to his room. It was upstairs over a restaurant, a seedy converted place called Margaret’s. On a wet day in March, after he got off the London train, he had lunched there, tucking in at an oilcloth-covered table by an open fire. He was the only customer. A toothless old woman came out of the kitchen and bent his ear with stories as forgettable and soothing as the Musak in his L.A. surgery. Instead of snubbing her, he found himself encouraging her to go on.

He paid his bill at a table near a flight of stairs in the front hall. A sign in a frame on the faded wallpaper advertised bed and breakfast. Next thing Whitman knew, he was registered. Almost a month later he was still living there.

The pebbles that covered Brighton beach, worn smooth by the tides, made walking a tiring effort. Amanda soldiered on in her high heels, holding Whitman’s arm formally so that he began to feel they were guests at some comic wedding. He was not sorry when she released him and went to sit on a wooden upright at the end of a breakwater. Whitman was always nervous this close to the ocean; he was never sure whether the tide was advancing or retreating. He took a deep breath. “No smog in that air,” he said.

She laughed, took him by the lapels of his conservative topcoat, and drew him close, shaking him gently. “Health freak,” she said, and kissed him. In the cold sea air her face was like a heater.

“I guess I’d better get you inside before we freeze.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Whitman’s room, small, untidy, with its ancient bed and gloomy oak furniture, seemed cosy with two people in it. He snapped on the electric fire while she hung their coats on the back of the door.

“I’ve only got bourbon,” he said.

“I don’t want a drink.” She arranged herself on the bed with a pillow behind her back. She had taken off her shoes to reveal large feet in nylon.

Whitman tried to understand why he was so ill at ease with this girl. The action in London had been positive, and from his point of view, a great success. But of course — those girls were strangers brought back to a hotel room for one reason only. This was Amanda Royston, a member of the group he hoped to join.

“My child,” he said, feeling relief now that he knew how to play the scene, “I am not the last of the red-hot lovers. I hope I haven’t misled you.” He drew over a chair, sat beside the bed, and took her hand.

“I know that. What do you think I am? I’m here because I like your company.” She pinged a fingernail against the glass he was holding. “Drink your medicine and tell me things about yourself.”

Pale light through the window identified a different time of day. Whitman was lying on the bed now, Amanda seated in the chair, turning the pages of a paperback too quickly to be reading it. He must have fallen asleep. He remembered her shifting over and allowing him half of the pillow. They had kissed a few times, retaining a mood of humor that absolved him from going further. Then the whisky must have taken over.

“What time is it?” he said, rising onto an elbow.

“Just after eight.”

“We have to get going. Due up the hill.” The idea that he would bring Amanda with him to Brenda Belziel’s was spontaneous. The invitation had been for him alone, but why not take this pretty girl?

Amanda was happy to tag along. She deciphered the address from Whitman’s scrawl and said they could walk there. He washed, changed into a white shirt, and put on a dark jacket and striped tie. “Mister bank manager,” Amanda said.

“Don’t shoot the bank manager. He is doing his best.”

“To rip off the public. Have you checked interest rates lately?”

He could have explained that high interest was keeping his investments ahead of soaring inflation but he sensed it would be the wrong thing to say to Amanda. He thought she resembled his daughter, who despised the system so much she had gone to live among the poorest people on earth. Or was it her father she despised? Whenever this suspicion arose in Whitman’s mind he tried not to give it thinking room.

Up the hill they strode, arm in arm again; it could have been their honeymoon. The house was a brick-and-frame mansion overlooking the promenade and the sea. The heating bill alone would be astronomical, let alone the selling price.

Brenda seemed to inhabit the place without servants. She opened the door herself — a mahogany door with a hemispherical fanlight of stained glass. When they were seated in front of an open fire, Whitman saw that bringing Amanda had been a mistake. The women represented that English phenomenon, different classes. They could never be more than polite to each other.

Furthermore, as he watched Brenda pour the wine, he noticed she had to get out another glass. The occasion had been intended, obviously, as a tête-à-tête. Her nose was probably so far out of joint that it would take all Dr. Mark Whitman’s professional skill to reset it. Never mind, they would have a drink and push off. Big Brenda, the Black Widow of Brighton, was only a chance acquaintance anyway. She had put him in touch with the drama group and thanks very much, but he owed her no eternal gratitude.

Accepting a glass of wine, Whitman became aware of music playing faintly in the background. It was the infectious, frenetic rhythm of The Quintet of The Hot Club of France playing ‘Sweet Georgia Brown.’ “Great stuff,” he said. “I haven’t heard Django in a long time.”

“I particularly like Grapelly’s violin,” Brenda said. “My late husband knew him. Whenever the group was in this country, he stayed with us.”

Whitman was beginning to see Brenda in a different light. “I owe you something for sending me to The Lion.” He went on to explain how he had met Amanda and the others, ending with the possibility that he might be given a part. “So you may be responsible for keeping me here in England, Mrs. Belziel.”

“If that’s the case, I’m pleased,” she said.

Amanda became silent while the older people talked. Every now and then she shook her silver hair as if this was the only way she could clear her vision. When Whitman looked at her, she smiled and pretended to drink. Eventually she asked where the loo was and excused herself.

A brief silence followed the girl’s departure from the room. Then Brenda said with what Whitman could now identify as characteristic bluntness, “That one is a bad apple, Mark. Be careful.”

“She’s a kid. Anyway, I’m not involved.”

“Don’t be. I know her. Well, I know of her — she’s notorious around here. She’s been picked up more than once for shoplifting. Her driving license was suspended not long ago — that was for leaving the scene of an accident. Her family managed to get her off, but now they’ve washed their hands. She lives with one of the boys in the drama group.”

“Jeremy Lake. How do you know all this?”

“I move around the center of town quite a lot. Especially since I’m alone. I decided after my husband died not to become the ghost of this castle. I talk to people. I’m a gossip.”

“Thanks for the advice. I’m only with her because she latched onto me this afternoon when I was talking to the director. Norrie Mikeljohn. From now on I’ll only see her at rehearsals.”

She touched his arm. “I think we’ve started a new life for you here, ex-Doctor Whitman.”

When Amanda did not return, Brenda went to look for her. “You never know with these kids. She may have overdosed and be lying on the floor.”

It was sad but true, Whitman thought as he sat by himself. There was something clinical and sinister about the dope-takers beyond their furtive behavior forced on them by the law. Needles and smoke were not nice. Drinking was as natural as breathing, part of the life process. To ingest a moderate amount of alcohol this way, in company, that was how we were meant to get high. Not by snorting a pinch of powder up your nose. He thought that was a sad, perverse way to behave.

Brenda came back in a hurry. She spoke quickly, keeping her voice low. “Amanda was on the phone and I heard what she was saying. Something is going on. I don’t know what it is but she told somebody you’ll do perfectly.”

“Did she say that?”

“She said, ‘We can send him to see her tomorrow.’ ”

“To see who?”

“I didn’t hear any more.”

Amanda came into the room in a cloud of fresh scent. She did not sit down. “I’m tired now, Mark. If you want to stay, I can get back by myself.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“That’s a good idea, if you’re auditioning in the morning.”

“Am I?”

“That was my impression. Jeremy was saying they’d like to see you at the pub at nine o’clock.”

Whitman arrived at The Lion at nine feeling hung over and suspicious. His grim mood did not seem to bother anybody. Mikeljohn gave him a copy of the play and asked him to read a few key speeches. When he had done so, the director said, “Not bad, Mark. When we start rehearsing I’d like more disenchantment. Amanda, where’s that coffee?”

Before he handed back the playbook, Whitman noticed it was out of the public library and nobody else in the place had a copy. What kind of fool did they take him for?

They sat at the back of the room around a couple of tables, drinking coffee from plastic cups. There were donuts but not enough to go around. “What’s your opinion then, Mr. Whitman?” Mikeljohn asked. “Do you think you’d like to join us?”

“That’s whut ah’m here fur,” Whitman drawled like a television hillbilly.

Through the laughter Mikeljohn intoned, “Mr. Treasurer, collect one new membership.”

“Two pounds, please,” Jeremy said apologetically.

Whitman paid with a fiver and there was a lot of commotion over putting together the change. Then Amanda got up from the table. “I’m off,” she said. “Well done, Mark.”

“You can’t leave,” Mikeljohn protested. “What about Auntie Jane?”

“I’m sorry, somebody else will have to go. I’m busy for the rest of the day.” She thudded out of the room on white training shoes.

The director addressed Jeremy. “Can you go up and see her?”

“You know better than that. I’m too young — she thinks I’m her long-lost Robbie.”

“I’d go myself except I have to see the arts council about the grant. Without that, we fold.”

“What’s the problem?” Whitman asked. “Can I help?”

“You might at that. We have a difficult and darling patron, dear old Jane Reedie — Auntie Jane she’s known as, when we aren’t calling her rude names.” Mikeljohn glanced at Jeremy. “What say you? Should we risk sending Whitman into the pit on his first day?”

“Why not? He’s a member now, let him have his baptism.”

“Right. You’re on, then, Marko.”

Whitman felt pleased to be called Marko. Mikeljohn was clearly a manipulator, but there was magnetism in those deadly eyes.

It seemed that Jane Reedie had been a member of the group for decades. Now she was senile and lived alone in an apartment above a shop in The Lanes, surrounded by her treasures. She seldom took part in theatrical activities now, sometimes not even making it to the annual general meeting. But still she paid her dues and was good for the odd touch when the group was hard up.

Now she had agreed to lend them some of her costume jewelry for use as props in a Victorian melodrama they would be staging soon. But, being Auntie Jane, she could not be counted on to bring this stuff around. Somebody would have to collect it. Whitman would have to go.

“I don’t see the problem,” he said.

“You will when you get there,” the director said. “Auntie Jane has an idée fixe. She believes her nephew Robbie is still alive. Robbie was attached as liaison officer to a U.S. Army unit that went ashore on D-Day at Omaha Beach. He was killed — his grave is in some corner of a Normandy field that is forever Brighton. But the curious brain of Auntie Jane rejects this. She believes her Robbie is walking the earth and about to appear at any moment.”

Whitman began to feel a mixture of revulsion and anger, as if he had just stepped in something nasty.

“Jeremy can’t approach her,” Mikeljohn went on. “She gives him tea and asks him questions about the family. But you, Marko my dear, with your American face and voice, will be immune.”

“She may think he’s the C.O. of Robbie’s unit,” Jeremy suggested.

“It’s possible. If she does, tell her the story of Robbie’s heroic demise. Then perhaps we can get on with producing plays. No, seriously, just hand her this note if you will.” Mikeljohn passed over a sealed envelope. “It restates our request for the costume jewelry. Then accept the stuff with our thanks and come away.”

Following verbal directions, Whitman walked the short distance to the address in The Lane, a complex of narrow streets near the seafront converted now to a district of shops selling mostly antiques and souvenirs. He rang a bell, heard a buzzer, opened the door, and climbed a flight of stairs. The door at the top was already ajar, part of a worried face visible behind the aperture.

For a few moments they were silent. Whitman had the envelope in his hand and the eyes behind the door watched it as if the envelope would speak when it was ready. Finally he said, “Miss Reedie?”

“Are you from them?”

“Yes. I’m to give you this and I believe you have something for me.”

“You’d better come inside.”

He went in and she closed the door. All Whitman could tell about the apartment was that it was dark brown and smelled of bacon. As he stood there, a cat performed tight figure eights between and around his ankles.

Jane Reedie was short and made shorter by her stooping posture. Whitman could imagine her bowing to perpetual applause. She led him into a sitting room, her eyes close to the head of the knobby cane that supported her. Here she did a three-point turn and peered up at him through auburn bangs. Her hair was neat and attractive — surely a wig.

“Is he all right?” she asked.

“Ma’am?” Whitman handed her the envelope.

“Robbie. I’m worried about him. You don’t understand how I feel...”

There was never the faintest possibility that Whitman would do as Jeremy suggested and inflict on this woman the truth of her nephew’s death 35 years ago. “I understand exactly how you feel. I can promise you Robbie is just fine.”

“Can I believe that?”

“Of course.”

Her eyes softened as she looked closely at Whitman. “You’re very kind,” she said. “I can see you are a gentleman.”

“Thank you.” He was afraid he was about to be offered hospitality. “I think you’d better read that,” he said.

As she opened the envelope and began reading the typewritten page inside, Whitman had time to study her face. The parchment skin, heavily wrinkled, showed years of neglect. But it was never too late. He could do a great deal to get rid of many of the signs of age. She could change to a fuller wig and hide the scars at the ears. If something could be done about her posture, she might go around as someone in her sixties instead of as the perambulating mummy she had chosen to become.

“All right,” Auntie Jane said. Her hand was trembling, the page crumpled in her grasp. “All right!” She slammed the letter down on a table with surprising force. “Wait here.”

She left the room. Whitman stood beside the table with the letter in reach. As he picked it up and read it, he could hear drawers opening and closing in another room. “Miss Reedie,” the upper-case typescript read, “We have Robbie. He is safe now. But he will be killed unless you obey instructions. Do not call the police. If you do, Robbie will be shot. Give your emerald necklace, your diamond brooch, your diamond pendant, and all the rings to the bearer of this message. Do nothing else. When we have the jewels, we will release Robbie and all will be as before.”

There was no signature. Whitman put down the letter as the old woman came back into the room. She was carrying a plastic bag with the name of a greengrocer printed on it. Whitman took the bag from her; inside it he could see a number of velvet-covered boxes.

“It’s all there,” she said. She sounded alert, completely in touch with the situation. The only indication of her madness was the fact that she was ransoming a dead man. “You haven’t lied to me have you?” she pleaded. “Will Robbie be all right now? I don’t mind losing my things as long as I can keep him.”

“I promise you,” Whitman said, “you and Robbie have a lot of happy years ahead of you.” As he prepared to leave, he picked up the letter. “I’m taking this with me,” he said.

Instead of going back to The Lion, he walked to Brenda Belziel’s house overlooking the sea. Approaching, he heard his name called. “Mark! Hi!” He looked up and saw Brenda on an upstairs porch. She was at a table in the shade of an awning. He could see the gleam of a coffee maker. Giant’s head loomed above the railing.

As he climbed the steps to the house, Whitman experienced a feeling unique in his entire life. Munich, New York, Los Angeles — this was the first time he had felt that he was coming home. It was so simple, there was nothing to it, and yet this must be what everybody else worked for and what all the songs and poetry were about. A relaxing of the muscles, a lifting of the heart, walking into a place where somebody was waiting and you had things you were anxious to tell her...

Brenda opened the door to him, started to speak, then hesitated, troubled by the tears in his eyes. “Are you all right?”

“Better than you know,” he said. As he came in, he gave her a one-arm squeeze around the waist, partially lifting her off the floor.

She laughed. “I don’t exactly mind that,” she said.

“I smell coffee.”

“There’s lots. I was hoping you’d show up.” They held hands going up the stairs. “What happened at the audition?”

“Audition for idiot of the year. But thanks to you I was on the alert. Wait till I tell you what’s been going on.”

Drinking strong black coffee and eating a croissant with butter and jam, Whitman told Brenda about Mikeljohn’s phony assignment involving his visit to Miss Reedie’s place, his discovery of the ransom note. “I have the stuff here in this bag,” he concluded. “It must be worth a bundle.” They spent a few minutes examining the diamonds and emeralds, obviously genuine, clearly worth many thousands.

“One thing I’m not sure of,” Whitman said. “Did Robbie really die in the war or is that part of Mikeljohn’s lie?”

“That part is true,” Brenda said. “Everybody around here knows of Jane Reedie and her obsession.”

“Then our friends are not kidnapers. There is no Robbie to be kidnaped.”

“No, but they’re guilty of extortion.”

“So what’s our next move?”

“The police. You did well to keep the note. I’ll call them, they’ll be here in five minutes. We give them the note and the jewels, you tell the story exactly as it happened, then that crew will get what they deserve.”

Whitman considered this. “All right,” he said at last. “But give me one hour before you call.”

“Why?”

“I want to talk to somebody first.”

“It’s the blonde. You want to give Amanda Royston a chance to get off the hook.”

“I want to hear her side of it. I can’t believe she would intentionally—”

“She’s hoodwinked you the way she does every other man, including two magistrates.” Brenda pushed her cup and saucer away with the flat of her hand. “She’s probably the ringleader, Mark. I assure you, she’s a nasty piece of work.”

“Can you allow me one hour? Where’s the harm?”

“There’s none, I suppose,” Brenda said quietly, “if it shows you how wrong you can be about some people.”

At The Lion the pub was open for business. The barman told Whitman the performance had been canceled for that day. The players were upstairs in Mikeljohn’s flat. Whitman had a drink to settle him and give him time to think. His decision to bring along the jewelry was correct, he was sure of that. The police would have to find the stuff in Mikeljohn’s possession or he would simply deny everything. Leaving the ransom note with Brenda was right, too. She would have something to show the police after she called them in an hour.

As for Amanda, he would have to get her alone and hear what she had to say. Brenda could be right, the girl might be as wicked as sin. But that walk on the beach — granted, he was drunk — had contained something sweet and decent. If she had any good in her, he might be able to appeal to that instinct, to turn the girl around.

Whitman finished his drink, accepted directions from the barman, went through a devious succession of doors, and finally climbed two flights of steps through a grotty stairwell that smelled of beer and gas fires. In response to his knock Jeremy Lake opened the door. His eyes first met and searched Whitman’s, then fell to the plastic bag. “You got the stuff? Good man!”

Whitman let himself be conducted inside. The flat was more of a loft, one large room with a low ceiling, windows on two sides, a mattress on the floor, ill-assorted furniture, a couple of closed doors. They were all there, Norrie, Amanda — and a stranger, a heavy-set man in a tight suit who occupied a chair against a wall, away from the others. “Home is the hero,” Jeremy announced. “He has met Auntie Jane and she is ours!”

Whitman allowed the bag to be taken away and given to Mikeljohn who took out one of the velvet boxes, opened it, and withdrew a diamond pendant. “Here’s a pretty thing,” said the director in the whistling voice of a Punch-and-Judy man.

The stranger got up and came across the room to stand at Mikeljohn’s shoulder. His blond hair grew low on his forehead and had been combed with a lot of water. The brutish face was of the type seen by Whitman in textbooks posing the theory that by the use of cosmetic surgery such men could be diverted from a life of crime. This one had never had the benefit. He kept his right hand in his jacket pocket.

Amanda snatched the pendant and dropped it round her neck. “Let me wear it, Norrie. Just for one day.”

Mikeljohn made no attempt to retrieve the jewel but he said, “You know what this stuff is for, my dear. And it is not for embellishing your grotesque chest.”

Whitman was wondering how to get Amanda aside for the necessary conversation. He was beginning to wonder if it mattered. The stranger was asking who would be responsible for selling the stuff. Mikeljohn suggested they divide the articles now. “Our account with your organization is how much — four thousand? Surely we can agree on what will cover that. You want to continue selling to us and we need your services.”

“Best cocaine on the south coast,” Jeremy said, laying a comradely hand on the stranger’s shoulder, removing it when the man looked at him.

It was then that somebody knocked on the door and a voice said, “Police officers.” Brenda had made it a very short hour.

Mikeljohn glanced at Whitman, saw something in his eyes. “You crafty swine,” he said softly. “You’re a plant.” He snatched the pendant from Amanda, dropped it in the bag, and hid the bag under his seat cushion. As he went to the door he said, “Leave the talking to me.”

There were two uniformed men in the hall, neither of them very large, neither armed. Good old British cops, Whitman thought. They’re going to walk in here and sort everything out with a few minutes of polite conversation. As they entered the loft, he caught a glimpse of Brenda Belziel hanging back at the top of the stairs. Their eyes met for a moment; she was frightened.

“What’s the problem, gentlemen?” Mikeljohn asked. “Are we rehearsing too loud?”

“We’ve had a report that you may have some property here that belongs to—”

“It’s under the seat cushion,” Whitman put in, anxious to be finished. “I took it from Miss Reedie and brought it here. I believe Mrs. Belziel has shown you the ransom note.”

“You are a plant,” Mikeljohn said. “Thanks very much, Amanda. Well done, Jeremy.”

“Check the man in the suit,” Whitman said. “The stuff was going to him.”

One of the officers approached the stranger. Before he could reach him the man had a gun in his hand. Nobody spoke. The officer stopped in his tracks. The occupants of the room were frozen in a tableau.

Then Brenda Belziel moved forward into the doorway.

The stranger turned his head, the officer lunged forward and caught his gun hand. Whitman shouted her name and moved to push Brenda away. He heard an explosion and felt as if someone had punched him in the back. He knelt for a moment, then fell over on his side...

Whitman opened his eyes and decided he had only been unconscious for a minute or so. There was another policeman in the room now, a helmeted Bobby up from the street. The gunman was no longer in sight, Mikeljohn and friends were grouped at one side of the room. Brenda was kneeling beside him and so was the officer who had gone for the gun.

“You’ll be all right,” she said. “There’s an ambulance on the way.”

“Sorry about this, sir,” the officer said. “I had to try for the gun. I recognized our friend — he’s a very dangerous man. We’ve done well to get him in the bag.”

Whitman thought of various things to say but speech seemed like too much trouble. Where was the bullet? Unless they got him to surgery very quickly, he realized he would be in bad shape.

Amanda was bending over him. “Why all this?” she asked. “We had a chance for something really good. Auntie Jane will never do anything with these things but keep them in a drawer.”

Whitman looked into her eyes, past the paint, into depths as unfathomable as the sea. He forced himself to speak to her. It was important. “You’re too good to be a thief,” he whispered. “I see the good.”

Her expression reminded him of his daughter’s face when an emergency phone call brought him to the high school one day years ago. She had been taken to a room beside the principal’s office after being caught in the basement with several boys. He had been shocked but able to recognize in those pretty eyes values quite different from his own. And why not? His daughter, this girl, they were individuals. Why should he expect them to see the world the way he saw it?

“I’m sorry,” Amanda said patiently, “but you’re dead-wrong about me.”

Brenda came to visit Whitman in the hospital. Never mind the National Health Service, he was in a private room with a glorious view of the ocean. He could sit up now in bed, but he was due to stay for another week. After that he would need special care.

“Nice of you to open your doors to me,” he said.

“In that big empty house? You must be joking. I only hope I can persuade you to stay on when you’re all better.”

He reached out to touch her cheek. “If they were all like you,” he told her, “doctors like me would have to earn an honest living.”

She watched him, her mind extending across broad areas of possibility. “This country needs surgeons,” she said. “Quite a few have departed for where they can make a lot of money.”

“But if I come and practice in England, what happens to Mark Whitman, frustrated actor?”

“You might be able to do both, on different levels.”

His mind shifted, as it often did these days, to Mikeljohn, Jeremy, and Amanda. Brenda had reported they were out on bail and facing probably no more than suspended sentences. Their freely given testimony had opened up a wide avenue for the police into south-coast drug operations. The gunman was, of course, inside for the foreseeable future.

“Have you visited Jane Reedie?” he asked.

“I went up there yesterday. She wants to see you when you’re out and about.”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing her again.”

“I said we’d come round in a week or two.”

Whitman decided to say something important. “For your information, my name is not Mark Whitman. It’s Morris Weissman.”

“Some of my best friends,” she replied, “are plastic surgeons. I’m more concerned about wives in residence.”

“This particular wife has wanted out for a long time.”

“Then welcome to England.”

Later, when she was preparing to leave, he said, “I took the name of Whitman from the American poet, of course.”

“Leaves of Grass?”

“That’s the man. I used to read him all the time. I’ve been remembering a line of his that might interest you.”

“I’m interested.”

“ ‘A woman waits for me,’ he quoted, ‘she contains all, nothing is lacking.’ ”

Brenda smiled at him before she went away and Whitman was left wondering how he could ever have judged her face plain.