The Blue Hammer

IX

I drove through the lower town, past Grimes's lightless and uninhabited little building. I could taste the salty tang of the sea long before I got to it, and feel its cool breath. A seaside park stretched along the shore for more than a mile. Below it waves foamed on the beach, preternaturally white against the darkness. There were pairs of lovers here and there in the grass instead of dead men, and that was good.

Channel Road ascended a cliff that overlooked and partly enclosed the harbor. Suddenly I was looking down at its masts. The road climbed away over the shoulder of the cliff, wound past a Coast Guard colony, and skirted a deep barranca that opened out onto the sea. Beyond the barranca was the hill on which the Biemeyers' house stood.

Mrs. Chantry's house was perched between the barranca and the water. It was built of stone and stucco, with many arches and several turrets. There was a glass-roofed greenhouse on one side, and between me and the house was a walled flagstone parking area holding about twenty cars. A white-coated attendant came up to the side of my car and offered to park it for me.

A uniformed black maid greeted me pleasantly at the open front door. She didn't ask me for my invitation or any identification. She didn't even allow herself to notice that I wasn't wearing party clothes or a party look on my face.

Piano music drew me past her into a central room of the house, a wide high room that rose two "stories to the roof. A woman with short black hair was playing "Someone to Watch Over Me" on a grand piano that was dwarfed by the room. A couple of dozen men and women stood around in party clothes with drinks. It looked like a scene recovered from the past, somehow less real than the oil paintings hanging on the walls.

Mrs. Chantry came toward me from the far end of the room. She was wearing a blue evening dress with a lot of skirt and not much top, which displayed her arms and shoulders. She didn't seem to recognize me at first, but then she lifted both her hands in a gesture of happy surprise.

"How good of you to come. I was hoping I'd mentioned my little party to you, and I'm so glad I did. It's Mr. Marsh, isn't it?" Her eyes were watching me carefully. I couldn't tell if she liked me or was afraid of me.

"Archer," I said. "Lew Archer."

"Of course. I never could remember names. If you don't mind, I'll let Betty Jo Siddon introduce you to my other guests."

Betty Jo Siddon was a level-eyed brunette of about thirty. She was well-shaped but rather awkward in her movements, as if she weren't quite at home in the world. She said she was covering the party for the local paper, and clearly wondered what I was doing there. I didn't tell her. She didn't ask.

She introduced me to Colonel Aspinwall, an elderly man with an English accent, an English suit, and a young English wife who looked me over and found me socially undesirable. To Dr. Ian Innes, a cigar-chomping thick-jowled man, whose surgical eyes seemed to be examining me for symptoms. To Mrs. Innes, who was pale and tense and fluttering, like a patient. To Jeremy Rader, the artist, tall and hairy and jovial in the last late flush of his youth. To Molly Rader, a statuesque brunette of about thirty-nine, who was the most beautiful thing I'd seen in weeks. To Jackie Pratt, a spare little longhaired man in a narrow dark suit, who looked like a juvenile character out of Dickens but on second glance had to be fifty, at least. To the two young women with Jackie, who had the looks and the conversation of models. To Ralph Sandman and Larry Fallon, who wore black silk jackets and ruffled white shirts, and appeared to comprise a pair. And to Arthur Planter, an art collector so well known that I had heard of him.

Betty Jo turned to me when we had finished our rounds. "Would you like a drink?"

"Not really."

She looked at me more closely. "Are you feeling all right? You look a little peaked."

I caught it from a dead man I just found on Olive Street. What I said was, "I don't believe I've eaten for a while."

"Of course. You look hungry."

"I _am_ hungry. I've had a big day."

She took me into the dining room. Its wide uncurtained windows looked out over the sea. The room was uncertainly lit by the tall candles on the refectory table.

Standing behind the table with the air of a proprietor was the large dark hook-nosed man, whom the girl addressed as Rico, I had met on my earlier visit. He cut some slices off a baked ham and made me a sandwich with which he offered me wine. I asked for beer instead, if he didn't mind. He strutted toward the back of the house, grumbling.

"Is he a servant?"

Betty Jo answered me with deliberate vagueness: "More or less." She changed the subject. "A big day doing what?"

"I'm a private detective. I was working."

"Policeman was one of the thoughts that occurred to me. Are you on a case?"

"More or less."

"How exciting." She squeezed my arm. "Does it have to do with the picture the Biemeyers had stolen?"

"You're very well informed."

"I try to be. I don't intend to write a social column for the rest of my life. Actually I heard about the missing picture in the newsroom this morning. I understand it's a conventionalized picture of a woman."

"So I've been told. I haven't seen it… What else was the newsroom saying?"

"That the picture was probably a fake. Is it?"

"The Biemeyers don't think so. But Mrs. Chantry does."

"If Francine says it's a fake, it probably is. I think she knows by heart every painting her husband did. Not that he did so many-fewer than a hundred altogether. His high period only lasted seven years. And then he disappeared. Or something."

"What do you mean, 'Or something'?"

"Some old-timers in town here think he was murdered. But that's pure speculation, so far as I can find out."

"Murdered by whom?"

She gave me a quick bright probing look. "Francine Chantry. You won't quote me, will you?"

"You wouldn't have said it if you thought I would. Why Francine?"

"He disappeared so suddenly. People always suspect the spouse, don't they?"

"Sometimes with good reason," I said. "Are you professionally interested in the Chantry disappearance?"

"I'd like to write about it, if that's what you mean."

"That's what I mean. I'll make a deal with you."

She gave me another of her probing looks, this one edged with sexual suspicion. "Oh?"

"I don't mean that. I mean this. I'll give you a hot tip on the Chantry case. You tell me what you find out."

"How hot?"

"This hot."

I told her about the dead man at the hospital. Her eyes became narrower and brighter. She pushed out her lips like a woman expecting to be kissed, but kissing was not what was on her mind.

"That's hot enough."

Rico came back into the room carrying a foaming glass.

"It took me a long time," he said in a complaining tone. "The beer wasn't cold. Nobody else drinks beer. I had to chill it."

"Thanks very much."

I took the cold glass from his hand and offered it to Betty Jo.

She smiled and declined. "I have to work tonight. Will you forgive me if I run off now?"

I advised her to talk to Mackendrick. She said she would, and went out the back door. Right away I found myself missing her.

I ate my ham sandwich and drank my beer. Then I went back into the room where the music was. The woman at the piano was playing a show tune with heavy-handed professional assurance. Mrs. Chantry, who was talking with Arthur Planter, caught my eye and detached herself from him.

"What happened to Betty Jo? I hope you didn't do away with her."

She meant the remark to be light, but neither of us smiled.

"Miss Siddon had to leave."

Mrs. Chantry's eyes became even more unsmiling. "She didn't tell me that she was going to leave. I hope she gives my party proper coverage-we're raising money for the art museum."

"I'm sure she will."

"Did she tell you where she was going?"

"To the hospital. There's been a murder. Paul Grimes was killed."

Her face opened, almost as if I'd accused her, then closed against the notion. She was quiet but internally active, rearranging her face from the inside. She drew me into the dining room, reacted to the presence of Rico, and took me into a small sitting room.

She closed the door and faced me in front of a dead and empty fireplace. "How do you know Paul Grimes was murdered?"

"I found him dying."

"Where?"

"Near the hospital. He may have been trying to get there for treatment, but he died before he made it. He was very badly smashed up around the head and face."

The woman took a deep breath. She was still very handsome, in a cold silvery way, but the life seemed to have gone out of her face. Her eyes had enlarged and darkened.

"Could it have been an accident, Mr. Archer?"

"No. I think he was murdered. So do the police."

"Who is in charge of the case, do you know?"

"Captain Mackendrick."

"Good." She gave an abrupt little nod. "He knew my husband."

"How does your husband come into this? I don't understand."

"It's inevitable that he should. Paul Grimes was close to Richard at one time. His death is bound to stir up all the old stories."

"What old stories?"

"We don't have time for them now. Perhaps another day." Her hand came out and encircled my wrist, like a bracelet of ice. "I'm going to ask you to do something for me, Mr. Archer. Two things. Please don't tell Captain Mackendrick or anyone else what I said to you about poor dear Paul today. He was a good friend to Richard, to me as well. I was angry when I said what I did. I shouldn't have said it, and I'm terribly sorry."

She released my wrist and leaned on the back of a straight chair. Her voice was veering up and down the scale, but her eyes were steady and intense. I could almost feel them tangibly on my face. But I didn't really believe in her sudden kindly feeling for Paul Grimes, and I wondered what had happened between them in the past.

As if the past had slugged her from behind, she sat down rather suddenly on the chair.

She made her second request in a wan voice, "Will you get me a drink, please?"

"Water?"

"Yes, water."

I brought her a glassful from the dining room. Her hands were shaking. Holding the glass in both hands, she sipped at the water and then drank it down and thanked me.

"I don't know why I'm thanking you. You've ruined my party."

"I'm sorry. But it really wasn't me. Whoever killed Paul Grimes ruined your party. I'm just the flunky who brought the bad tidings and gets put to death."

She glanced up at my face. "You're quite an intelligent man."

"Do you want to talk to me?"

"I thought I had been."

"I mean really talk."

She shook her head. "I have guests in the house."

"They'll do all right on their own, as long as the drinks hold out."

"I really can't." She rose to leave the room. I said, "Wasn't Paul Grimes supposed to be one of your guests tonight?"

"Certainly not."

"He was carrying an invitation to your party. Didn't you send it to him?"

She turned to face me, leaning on the door. "I may have. I sent out quite a few invitations. Some were sent out by other members of my committee."

"But you must know whether Paul Grimes was invited."

"I don't think he was."

"But you're not sure?"

"That's right."

"Has he ever been here to your house?"

"Not to my knowledge. I don't understand what you're trying to prove."

"I'm trying to get some idea of your relationship with Grimes."

"There wasn't any."

"Good or bad, I mean. This afternoon you practically accused him of faking the Biemeyers' painting. Tonight you invite him to your party."

"The invitations went out early last week."

"You admit that you sent him one."

"I may have. I probably did. What I said to you this afternoon about Paul wasn't intended for the record. I confess he gets on my nerves."

"He won't any more."

"I know that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry he's been killed." She hung her pretty gray head. "And I did send him that invitation. I was hoping for a reconciliation. We hadn't been friends for some time. I thought he might respond to a show of warmth on my part."

She looked at me from under the wings of her hair. Her eyes were cold and watchful. I didn't believe what she was telling me, and it must have showed.

She said with renewed insistence, "I hate to lose friends, particularly friends of my husband's. There are fewer and fewer survivors of the Arizona days, and Paul was one of them. He was with us when Richard made his first great breakthrough. Paul really made it possible, you know. But he never succeeded in making his own breakthrough."

"Were there hard feelings between them?"

"Between my husband and Paul? Certainly not. Paul was one of Richards' teachers. He took great pride in Richards' accomplishment."

"How did your husband feel about Paul?"

"He was grateful to him. They were always good friends, as long as Richard was with us." She gave me a long and doubting look. "I don't know where this is leading."

"Neither do I, Mrs. Chantry."

"Then what's the purpose of it? You're wasting my time and your own."

"I don't think so. Tell me, is your husband still alive?"

She shook her head. "I can't answer that. I don't know. I honestly don't know."

"How long is it since you've seen him?"

"He left in the summer of 1950. I haven't seen him since then."

"Were there indications that something had happened to him?"

"On the contrary. He wrote me a wonderful letter. If you'd like to see it-"

"I've seen it. As far as you know, then, he's still alive."

"I hope and pray he is. I believe he is."

"Have you heard from him since he took off?"

"Never."

"Do you expect to?"

"I don't know." She turned her head to one side, the cords of her white neck taut. "This is painful for me."

"I'm sorry."

"Then why are you doing it?"

"I'm trying to find out if there's any possibility that your husband killed Paul Grimes."

"That's an absurd idea. Absurd and obscene."

"Grimes didn't seem to think so. He spoke Chantry's name before he died."

She didn't quite faint, but she seemed to come close to it. She turned white under her makeup, and might have fallen. I held her by the upper arms. Her flesh was as smooth as marble, and almost as cold.

Rico opened the door and shouldered his way in. I realized how big he was. The small room hardly contained him.

"What goes on?"

"Nothing," the woman said. "Please go away, Rico."

"Is he bothering you?"

"No, he's not. But I want both of you to go away. Please."

"You heard her," Rico said to me.

"So did you. Mrs. Chantry and I have something to discuss." I turned to her. "Don't you want to know what Grimes said?"

"I suppose I have to. Rico, do you mind leaving us alone now? It's perfectly all right."

It wasn't all right with Rico. He gave me a black scowl that at the same time managed to look hurt, like the scowl of a little boy who has been told to stand in the corner. He was a big good-looking man, if you liked the dark florid type. I couldn't help wondering if Mrs. Chantry did.

"Please, Rico." She sounded like the mistress of a barely controllable watchdog or a jealous stud.

The big man moved sideways out of the room. I closed the door behind him.

Mrs. Chantry turned to me. "Rico's been with me a long time. He was devoted to my husband. When Richard left, he transferred his allegiance to me."

"Of course," I said.

She colored faintly, but didn't pursue the subject. "You were going to tell me what Paul Grimes said to you before he died."

"So I was. He thought I was your husband, apparently. He said: 'Chantry? Leave me alone.' Later he said: 'I know you, Chantry, you bastard.' It naturally gave me the idea that it may have been your husband who beat him to death."

She dropped her hands from her face, which looked pale and sick. "That's impossible. Richard was a gentle person. Paul Grimes was his good friend."

"Do I resemble your husband?"

"No. Richard was much younger-" She caught herself. "But of course he'd be a great deal older now, wouldn't he?"

"We all are. Twenty-five years older."

"Yes." She bowed her head as if she suddenly felt the weight of the years. "But Richard didn't look at all like you. Perhaps there's some similarity of voices."

"But Grimes called me Chantry before I spoke. I never did say anything to him directly."

"What does that prove? Please go away now, won't you? This has been very hard. And I have to go out there again."

She went back into the dining room. After a minute or two I followed her. She and Rico were standing by the candlelit table with their heads close together, talking in intimate low tones.

I felt like an intruder and moved over to the windows. Through them I could see the harbor in the distance. Its masts and cordage resembled a bleached winter grove stripped of leaves and gauntly beautiful. The candle flames reflected in the windows seemed to flicker like St. Elmo's fire around the distant masts.