The Ivory Grin

Chapter 28

Lights shone like wit in a dowager behind the windows of the Palladian villa. The green spectrum of its lawns and trees was deepening around it into solid green darkness. I parked under the porte-cochère and yanked at the old-fashioned bell-pull that hung by the side entrance.

A stout woman in an apron opened the door. Her hand left a deposit of white flour on the doorknob. “What is it?”

“Is Miss Treen in?”

“I think she’s busy. Who shall I say is calling?”

“Mr. Archer.”

She permitted me to enter the hallway. I started to sit down on an elegant bowlegged chair, caught her backward look of disapproval, and remained standing. The Chinese gentleman with the wise earlobes was pursuing his timeless journey along the wall, from the lowlands across a river valley into the highlands and up the snowcapped mountain to his shrine. There were seven of him, one for each stage of the journey. There was only one of me, and my earlobes felt inadequate.

Sylvia appeared at the end of the hall, pale and absent-looking in a black suit like a uniform. “I’m so relieved you’ve come.”

“How’s Mrs. Singleton?”

“Not well, I’m afraid. This afternoon was too much for her. The police phoned from Bella City to say that Charles’s car had been found with his body in it. They wanted her to make a formal identification. Before she was ready to leave, they called again. The body had been identified as someone else, some detective. I’m so glad it wasn’t you.”

“So am I. It was Max Heiss.”

“Yes. I found that out. Why was he killed, do yoy know? Why was he dressed in Charles’s clothes?”

“Somebody wanted to have it appear that Charles died in an accident this morning. The body was burned to make it hard to identify.”

Her mouth was pulled thin across her teeth in horror. “There are such dreadful things in the world. Why?”

“There are dreadful things in people’s heads. This one is easier to explain than some. If Charles died in an accident this morning, he couldn’t have died in a shooting two weeks ago.”

“You mean that he did die two weeks ago? You can’t mean that,” she softly prompted the irreversible facts.

“Charles is probably dead, Sylvia. I know he was shot. I think he died of it.”

“Who would shoot Charles?”

“He was mixed up with a woman named Bess. She had other lovers. One of them caught Charles with her in his studio, and shot him. Bess had a police record, and she was forced to cover up the shooting. She took Charles to her husband, who is a doctor in Bella City. Charles died, apparently. No one has seen him since.”

“She has,” Sylvia whispered.

“Who?”

“The woman, Bess. She phoned here a little while ago. I’m certain it was the same woman.”

“You spoke to her?”

“Yes. She insisted on talking to Mrs. Singleton, but Mrs. Singleton was in no condition. The woman didn’t identify herself. She didn’t have to. I knew from what she said that she was – Charles’s mistress.”

“What did she say?”

“That she could give us information.”

“Five thousand dollars’ worth?”

“Yes. She claimed to know where Charles is.”

“Did you arrange to meet her?”

“I invited her to come here, but she wouldn’t. She said she’d phone again at seven to fix a meeting place. We must have the money ready for her in cash, in unmarked bills. Fortunately Mrs. Singleton has the cash on hand. She’s been holding it in readiness ever since she posted the reward.”

“Mrs. Singleton is going through with this, then.”

“Yes, I advised her to. I may be quite wrong. I’ve had no one to turn to. The woman particularly warned me not to call in the police or Mrs. Singleton’s detective agency or her lawyers. She said that if we did, the deal was off.”

“She didn’t mention me, though.”

“If only you would stand by, Mr. Archer. I’m not equipped to handle this kind of – transaction. I wouldn’t even know what to ask for in the way of proof.”

“What sort of proof did she offer?”

“Proof that she knows where Charles is. She didn’t describe its nature and I hadn’t the presence of mind to question her about it. The whole thing took me by surprise. I lacked the wit, even, to ask her if Charles was dead.” She hesitated, then said in a rush of feeling: “Of course I meant to ask her. I was afraid to, I suppose. I put if off. Then the operator asked her to deposit more money, and she hung up.”

“It was a long distance call?”

“I had the impression it was from Los Angeles.”

“How much did the operator ask for?”

“Forty cents.”

“Probably Los Angeles. Bess didn’t give her name?”

“No, but she called him Charlie. Not many people did. And she knew my name. Charles told her about me, I guess.” She bit her lip. “When I realized that, I felt sort of let down. It wasn’t simply her calling me by my first name. She condescended to me, as if she knew all about me – how I felt about Charles.”

“You’d feel better if you knew all about her.”

“Do you?”

“Nobody does. She’s crowded several lives into her first twenty-five years.”

“Is that all she is, twenty-five? I imagined she was much older, older than Charles.”

“Bess grew up early and fast. She was married in her teens to a man twice her age. He brought her out here during the war. She met Charles here in 1943.”

“So long ago,” she said desolutely. Her loss of Charles was final, and retroactive. “Long before I knew him.”

“Wilding saw her with Charles in 1943.”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“He wouldn’t. Since then she’s been back and forth across the country, in and out of jail–”

“You said she had a husband. What about him?”

“She broke his spirit years ago. She uses him when she has to, when she has nothing better to do with herself.”

“I don’t – I can’t understand – Charles’s taking up with such a woman.”

“She’s a fine-looking wench. And she was safely married to a man who wouldn’t divorce her.”

“But he’s such an idealist. His standards are so high. Nothing was ever good enough for Charles.”

“It’s possible he was out of touch with his own standards. I never met Charles, but he sounds flawed to me – a man trying all his life to get hold of something real and not succeeding.” I didn’t know for sure whether my candor came from concern for the living girl or jealousy of the dead man. “That bullet in the guts was probably the realest thing that ever happened to him.”

Her hazel eyes were troubled, but transparent as water in a well. “You mustn’t speak of him in that way.”

“Speak no ill of the dead?”

“You don’t know that he is dead.” She cupped her left breast gravely in her right hand. “I feel, here, that he is alive.”

“I interviewed a witness today who saw him shot.”

“How can I feel so strongly that he is alive?”

“He may be,” I said without conviction. “My evidence isn’t conclusive.”

“Yet you won’t let me have any hope. I think you wish him dead.”

I touched the back of her hand, which still lay over her breast. “I never saw a girl with more goodness. I’d hate to see you waste it all on the memory of a guy who never gave a thought to anybody but himself.”

“He wasn’t like that!” She was flushed and radiant with anger. “He was beautiful.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m tired. I shouldn’t try to mastermind other people’s lives. It never works out.” I sat down in the bowlegged chair and let the thoughts in my head string off in whirling darkness.

Her touch on my shoulder straightened me up. She looked down at me with a smile of wise innocence: “Don’t be sorry, and don’t be angry with me. I wasn’t exactly nice.”

Nice was her middle name, but I kept that to myself. I looked at my wrist watch: “It’s nearly seven now. What are you going to say to her?”

“Whatever you think. Won’t you take the call?”

“She knows my voice. You talk to her. Tell her you have the money. You’ll buy her information, provided it’s backed up by proof. If she’s in Los Angeles or within driving distance, make an appointment for ten tonight, later if she insists. She’s to go to West Hollywood and park in front of 8411 1/2 Sunset Boulevard. You’ll contact her there.”

“I?”

“We both will.” I printed the address in my notebook, and tore the leaf out for her. “No matter how she gripes, don’t let her choose the meeting-place.”

“Why not?”

“You’re going to be with me. Bess may or may not be dangerous herself, but she has dangerous friends.”

She read the address I had printed. “What place is this?”

“My office. It’s a good safe place to talk to her, and I have built-in mikes. I don’t suppose you take shorthand?”

“Pas trop. I can take some sort of notes.”

“How’s your memory? Repeat the instructions I gave you.”

She did, without an error, and said with the air of a child remembering her manners: “Come into the library, Mr. Archer. Let me make you some tea while we’re waiting. Or a drink?”

I said that tea would be fine. The telephone rang before I got a taste of it. It was Bess calling from Los Angeles.