The Case of the Turning Tide

Chapter 11

Parker Gibbs sat in the room which he had reserved as an office at his house. He was pounding away on a portable typewriter. Mrs. Gibbs was running the vacuum cleaner in the living room. She paused from time to time, shut-ting off the motor of the vacuum cleaner, listening to the clack of the typewriter as though the tapping of the keys might convey some information of what her husband was writing.

After a while she pulled the plug in the cleaner and opened the door of her husband’s study. He paused in his writing to look up at her. His eyes were dark ringed and slightly blood-shot. “What is it?”

“Go to bed.”

“Can’t. I’ve got to make this report, then I’ve got to get back to Santa Delbarra.”

“What are you going back there for?”

“I left my car up there.”

“That woman isn’t going back with you?”

“No, dear, of course not.”

“Where was she when you found her?”

“In an auto.”

“When?”

“I don’t know just when. It was pretty late, around midnight.”

“Where were you?”

“Down by the beach.”

“She wasn’t in a hotel when you found her?”

“What makes you think that?”

“It was time for her to be in bed.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that late.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me?”

“Why, no, hon. Why should I lie?”

“Because men are made that way.”

He laughed.

“It’s all right for you to laugh. You’re running around the country, having heaven-knows-what adventures. Why did you have to come down in her car?”

“Because I had to see she got here.”

“She certainly likes to show her legs.”

“Aw, hon, that’s just the way they take pictures for the newspapers. They dug that old picture out of their files. It shows her when she was coming back from an ocean trip. All ship reporters get pictures of women showing their legs.”

“Well, she certainly showed hers! She was glad to co-operate... What time did you leave Santa Delbarra?”

“About quarter after three.”

“I thought you said you found her at midnight.”

“I did, but she wouldn’t leave until three.”

“What were you two doing between twelve and...”

“She wasn’t with me. I was alone in the hotel.”

“Where was she?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re sure she isn’t going back with you?”

“No, of course not.”

“How do I know she isn’t? After she’s spent half the night...”

“Good heavens, hon, she looks on me as an old, old man. These girls in the early twenties think a man of forty is a doddering old relic.”

“Some of them do, but the girls that are on the make go for anything that wears pants. And where do you get the idea she’s in the early twenties? She looks thirty to me.”

“You can’t tell from a newspaper picture. She...”

“Oh, so you think she’s more beautiful than the picture then, do you?”

Gibbs said, “To tell you the truth, hon, I was awfully sleepy. I didn’t pay much attention to her. I slid down against the back of the seat and slept most of the way in. She wanted to drive.”

“What did you two talk about?”

“We didn’t talk. Now I’ve got to get out of here and catch that train back to Santa Delbarra. Don’t be foolish. After all, I’m working for a living.”

His wife stood in the doorway, looking after him dubiously as he walked down to the corner where he waited for a street-car. Gibbs turned to wave to her. She didn’t return his wave, simply went back into the house.

Gibbs sighed, conscious that she was standing behind the lace curtains of the living-room window, looking at him. She was driving him crazy. He’d almost put his foot in it by saying Nita Moline was in the early twenties. She was getting worse all the time, wanting to know where he’d been, what he’d been doing, what time he did this, what time he did that. Of course, she was lonesome, staying there by herself. She’d trapped him into telling her about that gap in time after he met Nita Moline and before he started for Los Angeles. He hadn’t intended to let her know anything about the interval between midnight and three o’clock. She’d have more questions to ask him by the time he got back. And she’d have long hours to brood. The more you tried to humor her and kid her along, the worse she got. Gibbs was a man who hated friction. If he had anything to say, he said it and got it off his chest. That nagging left him all churned up inside. He couldn’t put up with it much longer. And he didn’t want her asking too many questions about what had transpired between midnight and three o’clock. It would be dangerous to have her start brooding over that. No telling what she’d do, once she got one of those jealous ideas in her head.