Leave Her to Hell

3

I woke up at seven in the morning, which is a nasty habit of mine that endures through indiscretions and hangovers and intermittent periods of irregular living. In the bathroom, I shaved and necessarily looked at my face in the mirror. I like you, Mr. Hand, Faith Salem had said. I like your looks. Well, it was an ambiguous expression. You could like the looks of a collie dog or a pair of shoes or a shoebill stork. It could mean that you were inspired by confidence or amusement or the urge to be a sister. Looking at my face, I was not deluded. I decided that I was probably somewhere between the dog and the stork. I finished shaving and dressed and went out for breakfast and arrived in due time at my office, where nothing happened all morning.

Two o’clock came, but Graham Markley didn’t. At ten after, he did. I heard him enter the little cubby-hole in which my clients wait when there is another client ahead of them, which is something that should happen oftener than it does; and when I got to the door to meet him, he was standing there looking antiseptic among the germs. His expression included me with the others. “Mr. Hand?” he said.

“That’s right. You’re Mr. Markley, I suppose?”

“Yes. I’m sorry to be late. I was detained.”

“Think nothing of it. In this office, ten minutes late is early. Come in, please.”

He walked past me and sat down in the client’s chair beside the desk. Because I felt he would consider it an imposition, I didn’t offer to shake hands. I felt that he might even ignore or reject the offer, which would have made me indignant or even indiscreet. Resuming my place in the chair behind the desk, I made a quick inventory and acquired an impression. He sat rigidly, with his knees together and his hat on his knees. His straight black hair was receding but still had a majority present. His face was narrow, his nose was long, his lips were thin. Arrogance was implicit. He looked something like the guy who used to play Sherlock Holmes in the movies. Maybe he looked like Sherlock Holmes.

“Precisely what do you want to tell me, Mr. Hand?” he said.

“Well,” I said, “that isn’t quite my position. What I want is for you to tell me something.”

“Indeed? I gathered from our conversation on the telephone yesterday that you were in possession of some new information regarding my wife.”

“Did I imply that? It isn’t exactly true. What I meant to suggest was that the available information isn’t adequate. It leaves too much unexplained.”

“Do you think so? The police apparently didn’t. As a matter of fact, it was quite clear to everyone what my wife had done. It was, as you may realize, an embarrassing affair for me, and there seemed to be no good purpose in giving it undue publicity or in pursuing it indefinitely.”

“Is that still your feeling? That there is no purpose in pursuing it any further?”

“Until yesterday it was. Now I’m not so sure. I don’t wish to interfere with whatever kind of life my wife is trying to establish for herself, nor do I wish to restore any kind of contact between her and me, but since our telephone conversation I’ve begun to feel that it would be better for several reasons if she could be located.”

“Are you prepared to help?”

“Conditionally.”

“What conditions?”

“Are you, for your part, prepared to tell me who initiated this investigation?”

“What action would you take if I told you?”

“None. The truth is, I’m certain that I know. I merely want to verify it.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Miss Salem? I thought so. Well, it’s understandable. Under the circumstances of our relationship, she’s naturally concerned. She urged me once previously to try again to locate my wife, but I wasn’t inclined to reopen what was, as I said, an unpleasant and embarrassing affair. Apparently I underestimated the strength of her feeling.”

“You don’t resent her action, then?”

“Certainly not. I’m particularly anxious to settle any uneasiness she may feel. I’m even willing to assume the payment of your fee.”

“That’s between you and her, of course. Will you tell me why, in your opinion, your wife disappeared?”

“As to why she disappeared, I can only speculate. As to why she left, which is something else, I’m certain. She was having an affair with a man named Regis Lawler. They went away together. The relationship between my wife and me had deteriorated by that time to such an extent that I really didn’t care. I considered it a satisfactory solution to our problem.”

“Satisfactory? You said painful and embarrassing.”

“Painful and embarrassing because it was humiliating. Any husband whose wife runs away with another man looks rather ridiculous. I mean that I had no sense of loss.”

“I see. Did she give you any idea that she was leaving before she went?”

“None. We didn’t see each other often the last few months we lived together. When we did see each other, we found very little to say.”

“You said you could only speculate as to why she disappeared instead of leaving openly. I’d like to hear your speculation.”

“You would need to have known her before you could understand. She was, to put it kindly, rather unstable. Less kindly, she was neurotic. She may have been almost psychotic at times. I don’t know. I don’t understand the subtle distinctions between these things. Anyhow, she had had a bad time when our child died. At first, after the initial shock, she became withdrawn and depressed, totally uninterested in living. Later there was a reaction. A kind of hysterical appetite for activity and experiences. It was then that she met Regis Lawler. It’s my opinion that she disappeared because she wanted to cut herself off completely from the life that had included our marriage and the death of our child. It’s difficult to believe, I know.”

“I wouldn’t say so. Not so difficult. I’ve already considered that motivation, as a matter of fact. It seems compatible with the little I know about her. There’s another point, however, that bothers me. Was Regis Lawler the kind of man to fall in with such a scheme?”

“I can’t answer that. If he was devoted to her, it’s fair to assume that he would do as she wished, especially if she convinced him that it was something she desperately needed.”

“Possibly. I didn’t know Lawler well enough to have an idea. Miss Salem said that Mrs. Markley’s family had quite a lot of money. Did Mrs. Markley herself have any?”

“No. Her mother and father were both dead when we married. If they had money at one time, which I believe was so, it had been dissipated. The estate, I understand, did little more than pay the claims against it.”

“Then your wife had no personal financial matters to settle before she left?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Was Regis Lawler a wealthy man?”

“I have no idea. His brother apparently is.”

“Well, you can see what I’m getting at. It would not be a simple matter for a man of wealth to disappear. It would certainly entail the liquidation of assets — securities, property, things like that. He’d have to convert his wealth to negotiable paper that he could carry with him. If he wanted to assure his not being traced through it, he’d have to convert to cash. Do you know if Regis Lawler did any such thing?”

“No. But the police surely made such an obvious investigation. Since it was not an issue, it follows that Lawler did do something of the sort, or that he had no holdings to convert.”

“Right. If Lawler had left much behind, the police wouldn’t have quit investigating. They’d have smelled more than a love affair. As you say, he either converted or had nothing to convert. At any rate, he must have had considerable cash in hand. Running away with a woman, I mean, wouldn’t be any two-dollar tour. Unless he had a job arranged somewhere, an assured income, he must have been, putting it mildly, damn well heeled.”

“Oh, I think it’s safe to assume that he had at least enough cash to last a while. I can’t imagine that Regis Lawler was a pauper.”

His tone implied that no one but a simpleton, specifically me, would waste time speculating about it. I was beginning to think he was right. That was okay, though. I had been convinced from the beginning that I was wasting my time on the whole case. That was okay, too, since I was doing it for a fee.

“How long ago was it that Mrs. Markley left?” I said.

“Two years ago next month.”

“Did she take anything with her? Any clothes, for example? I know from talking with her maid that she took nothing when she left home that night, but I’m thinking that she might have taken or sent luggage ahead to be picked up later. She’d have done something like that, I imagine, if she was being secretive.”

“No doubt. On the other hand, if you accept the theory that she intended to make a complete break, she might not have wanted to keep any of her old possessions, not even her clothes. I don’t find this incredible in her case. Anyhow, I honestly don’t know if she took anything. She had closets full of clothes, of course. If anything was missing, I wouldn’t know.”

“How about the maid?”

“She thought that nothing was missing, but she wasn’t positive.”

He looked at his wrist watch and stood up abruptly, his knees still together as they had been all the time he was sitting, and he had, looking down at me, a kind of stiff, military bearing and collateral arrogance. “I’m sorry to end this interview, Mr. Hand, but I have another appointment. You’ll have to excuse me.”

“Certainly,” I said. “I was running out of questions, anyhow. Thanks very much for coming in.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t been very helpful.”

“You never know. It doesn’t sound like much now, but it may mean something later.”

I walked around the desk and with him to the door. I didn’t offer to shake hands, and neither did he.

“Please inform Miss Salem or me of any progress,” he said.

“I’m not optimistic,” I said.

The door closed between us, and I went back and sat down. As far as I was concerned, I was still wasting time.