The Name is Archer

The Suicide

I PICKED HER UP on the Daylight. Or maybe she picked me up. With some of the nicest girls, you never know.

She seemed to be very nice, and very young. She had a flippant nose and wide blue eyes, the kind that men like to call innocent. Her hair bubbled like boiling gold around her small blue hat. When she turned from the window to hear my deathless comments on the landscape and the weather, she wafted spring odors towards me.

She laughed in the right places, a little hectically. But in between, when the conversation lagged, I could see a certain somberness in her eyes, a pinched look around her mouth like the effects of an early frost. When I asked her to join me in the buffet car for a drink, she said:

“Oh, no. Thank you. I couldn’t possibly.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not quite twenty-one, for one thing. You wouldn’t want to contribute to the delinquency of a minor?”

“It sounds like a pleasant enterprise.”

She veiled her eyes and turned away. The green hills plunged backward past the train window like giant dolphins against the flat blue background of the sea. The afternoon sun was bright on her hair. I hoped I hadn’t offended her.

I hadn’t. After a while she leaned towards me and touched my arm with hesitant fingertips.

“Since you’re so kind, I’ll tell you what I would like.” She wrinkled her nose in an anxious way. “A sandwich? Would it cost so very much more than a drink?”

“A sandwich it is.”

On the way to the diner, she caught the eye of every man on the train who wasn’t asleep. Even some of the sleeping ones stirred, as if her passing had induced a dream. I censored my personal dream. She was too young for me, too innocent. I told myself that my interest was strictly paternal.

She asked me to order her a turkey sandwich, all white meat, and drummed on the tablecloth until it arrived. It disappeared in no time. She was ravenous.

“Have another,” I said.

She gave me a look which wasn’t exactly calculating, just questioning. “Do you really think I should?”

“Why not? You’re pretty hungry.”

“Yes, I am. But–” She blushed. “I hate to ask a stranger – you know?”

“No personal obligation. I like to see hungry people eat.”

“You’re awfully generous. And I am awfully hungry. Are you sure you can afford it?”

“Money is no object. I just collected a thousand-dollar fee in San Francisco. If you can use a full-course dinner, say so.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t accept that. But I will confess that I could eat another sandwich.”

I signaled to the waiter. The second sandwich went the way of the first while I drank coffee. She ate the olives and slices of pickle, too.

“Feeling better now? You were looking a little peaked.”

“Much better, thank you. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I hadn’t eaten all day. And I’ve been on short rations for a week.”

I looked her over deliberately. Her dark blue suit was new, and expensively cut. Her bag was fine calfskin. Tiny diamonds winked in the white-gold case of her wristwatch.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “I could have pawned something. Only I couldn’t bear to. I spent my last cent on my ticket – I waited till the very last minute, when I had just enough to pay my fare.”

“What were you waiting for?”

“To hear from Ethel. But we won’t go into that.” Her eyes shuttered themselves, and her pretty mouth became less pretty. “It’s my worry.”

“All right.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, or ungrateful. I thought I could hold out until I got to Los Angeles. I would have, too, if you hadn’t broken me down with kindness.”

“Forget about my kindness. I hope there’s a job waiting for you in Los Angeles. Or maybe a husband?”

“No.” The idea of a husband, or possibly a job, appealed to her sense of humor. She giggled like a schoolgirl. “You have one more guess.”

“Okay. You flunked out of school, and couldn’t face the family.”

“You’re half right. But I’m still enrolled at Berkeley, and I have no intention of flunking out. I’m doing very well in my courses.”

“What are you taking?”

“Psychology and sociology, mostly. I plan to be a psychiatric social worker.”

“You don’t look the type.”

“I am, though.” The signs of early frost showed on her face again. I couldn’t keep up with her moods. She was suddenly very serious. “I’m interested in helping people in trouble. I’ve seen a great deal of trouble. And so many people need help in the modern world.”

“You can say that again.”

Her clear gaze came up to my face. “You’re interested in people, too, aren’t you? Are you a doctor, or a lawyer?”

“What gave you that idea?”

“You mentioned a fee you earned, a thousand-dollar fee. It sounded as if you were a professional man.”

“I don’t know if you’d call my job a profession. I’m a private detective. My name is Archer.”

Her reaction was disconcerting. She gripped the edge of the table with her hands, and pushed herself away from it. She said in a whisper as thin and sharp as a razor:

“Did Edward hire you? To spy on me?”

“Of course. Naturally. It’s why I mentioned the fact that I’m a detective. I’m very cunning. And who in hell is Edward?”

“Edward Illman.” She was breathing fast. “Are you sure he didn’t employ you to pick me – to contact me? Cross your heart?”

The colored waiter edged towards our table, drawn by the urgent note in her voice. “Anything the matter, lady?”

“No. It’s all right, thank you. The sandwiches were fine.”

She managed to give him a strained smile, and he went away with a backward look.

“I’ll make a clean breast of everything,” I said. “Edward employed me to feed you drugged sandwiches. The kitchen staff is in my pay, and you’ll soon begin to feel the effects of the drug. After that comes the abduction, by helicopter.”

“Please. You mustn’t joke about such things. I wouldn’t put it past him, after what he did to Ethel.”

“Ethel?”

“My sister, my older sister. Ethel’s a darling. But Edward doesn’t think so. He hates her – he hates us both. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s responsible for all this.”

“All what?” I said. “We seem to be getting nowhere. Obviously you’re in some sort of a bind. You want to tell me about it, I want to hear about it. Now take a deep breath and start over, from the beginning. Bear in mind that I don’t know these people from Adam. I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m sorry, my name is Clare Larrabee.” Dutifully, she inhaled. “I’ve been talking like a silly fool, haven’t I? It’s because I’m so anxious about Ethel. I haven’t heard from her for several weeks. I have no idea where she is or what’s happened to her. Last week, when my allowance didn’t come, I began to get really worried. I phoned her house in West Hollywood and got no answer. Since then I’ve been phoning at least once a day, with never an answer. So finally I swallowed my pride and got in touch with Edward. He said he hasn’t seen her since she went to Nevada. Not that I believe him, necessarily. He’d just as soon lie as tell the truth. He perjured himself right and left when they arranged the settlement.”

“Let’s get Edward straight,” I said. “Is he your sister’s husband?”

“He was. Ethel divorced him last month. And she’s well rid of him, even if he did cheat her out of her fair share of the property. He claimed to be a pauper, practically, but I know better. He’s a very successful real estate operator – you must have heard of the Illman Tracts.”

“This is the same Illman?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“Not personally. I used to see his name in the columns. He’s quite a Casanova, isn’t be?”

“Edward is a dreadful man. Why Ethel ever married him… Of course she wanted security, to be able to send me to college, and everything. But I’d have gone to work, gladly, if I could have stopped the marriage. I could see what kind of a husband he’d make. He even had the nerve to make a – make advances to me at the wedding reception.” Her mouth pouted out in girlish indignation.

“And now you’re thinking he had something to do with your sister’s disappearance?”

“Either that, or she did away with – No, I’m sure it’s Edward. He sounded so smug on the long distance telephone yesterday, as if he’d just swallowed the canary. I tell you, that man is capable of anything. If something’s happened to Ethel, I know who’s responsible.”

“Probably nothing has. She could have gone off on a little trip by herself.”

“You don’t know Ethel. We’ve always kept in close touch, and she’s been so punctual with my allowance. She’d never dream of going away and leaving me stranded at school without any money. I held out as long as I could, expecting to hear from her. When I got down below twenty dollars, I decided to take the train home.”

“To Ethel’s house in West Hollywood?”

“Yes. It’s the only home I have since Daddy passed away. Ethel’s the only family I have. I couldn’t bear to lose Ethel.” Her eyes filmed with tears.

“Do you have taxi fare?”

She shook her head, shamefaced.

“I’ll drive you out. I don’t live far from there myself. My car’s stashed in a garage near Union Station.”

“You’re being good to me.” Her hand crept out across the tablecloth and pressed the back of mine. “Forgive me for saying those silly things, about Edward hiring you.”

I told her that would be easy.

We drove out Sunset and up into the hills. Afternoon was changing into evening. The late sunlight flashed like intermittent searchlights from the western windows of the hillside apartment buildings. Clare huddled anxiously in the far corner of the seat. She didn’t speak, except to direct me to her sister’s house.

It was a flat-roofed building set high on a sloping lot. The walls were redwood and glass, and the redwood had not yet weathered gray. I parked on the slanting blacktop drive and got out. Both stalls of the carport under the house were empty. The draperies were pulled over the picture windows that overlooked the valley.

I knocked on the front door. The noise resounded emptily through the building. I tried it. It was locked. So was the service door at the side.

I turned to the girl at my elbow. She was clutching the handle of her overnight bag with both hands, and looking pinched again. I thought that it was a cold homecoming for her.

“Nobody home,” I said.

“It’s what I was afraid of. What shall I do now?”

“You share this house with your sister?”

“When I’m home from school.”

“And it belongs to her?”

“Since the divorce it does.”

“Then you can give me permission to break in.”

“All right. But please don’t damage anything if you can help it. Ethel is very proud of her house.”

The side door had a spring-type lock. I took a rectangle of plastic out of my wallet, and slipped it into the crack between the door and the frame. The lock slid back easily.

“You’re quite a burglar,” she said in a dismal attempt at humor.

I stepped inside without answering her. The kitchen was bright and clean, but it had a slightly musty, disused odor. The bread in the breadbox was stale. The refrigerator needed defrosting. There was a piece of ham moldering on one shelf, and on another a half-empty bottle of milk which had gone sour.

“She’s been gone for some time,” I said. “At least a week. We should check her clothes.”

“Why?”

“She’d take some along if she left to go on a trip, under her own power.”

She led me through the living room, which was simply and expensively furnished in black iron and net, into the master bedroom. The huge square bed was neatly made, and covered with a pink quilted silk spread. Clare avoided looking at it, as though the conjunction of a man and a bed gave her a guilty feeling. While she went through the closet, I searched the vanity and the chest of drawers.

They were barer than they should have been. Cosmetics were conspicuous by their absence. I found one thing of interest in the top drawer of the vanity, hidden under a tangle of stockings: a bankbook issued by the Las Vegas branch of the Bank of Southern California. Ethel Illman had deposited $30,000 on March 14 of this year. On March 17 she had withdrawn $5,000. On March 20 she had withdrawn $6,000. On March 22 she had withdrawn $18,995. There was a balance in her account, after service charges, of $3.65.

Clare said from the closet in a muffled voice:

“A lot of her things are gone. Her mink stole, her good suits and shoes, a lot of her best summer clothes.”

“Then she’s probably on a vacation.” I tried to keep the doubt out of my voice. A woman wandering around with $30,000 in cash was taking a big chance. I decided not to worry Clare with that, and put the little bankbook in my pocket.

“Without telling me? Ethel wouldn’t do that.” She came out of the closet, pushing her fine light hair back from her forehead. “You don’t understand how close we are to each other, closer than sisters usually are. Ever since father died–”

“Does she drive her own car?”

“Of course. It’s a last year’s Buick convertible, robin’s-egg blue.”

“If you’re badly worried, go to Missing Persons.”

“No. Ethel wouldn’t like that. She’s a very proud person, and shy. Anyway, I have a better idea.” She gave me that questioning-calculating look of hers.

“Involving me?”

“Please.” Her eyes in the darkening room were like great soft centerless pansies, purple or black. “You’re a detective, and evidently a good one. And you’re a man. You can stand up to Edward and make him answer questions. He just laughs at me. Of course I can’t pay you in advance…”

“Forget the money for now. What makes you so certain that Illman is in on this?”

“I just know he is. He threatened her in the lawyer’s office the day they made the settlement. She told me so herself. Edward said that he was going to get that money back if he had to take it out of her hide. He wasn’t fooling, either. He’s beaten her more than once.”

“How much was the settlement?”

“Thirty thousand dollars and the house and the car. She could have collected much more, hundreds of thousands, if she’d stayed in California and fought it through the courts. But she was too anxious to get free from him. So she let him cheat her, and got a Nevada divorce instead. And even then he wasn’t satisfied.”

She looked around the abandoned bedroom, fighting back tears. Her skin was so pale that it seemed to be phosphorescent in the gloom. With a little cry, she flung herself face down on the bed and gave herself over to grief. I said to her shaking back:

“You win. Where do I find him?”

He lived in a cottage hotel on the outskirts of Bel-Air. The gates of the walled pueblo were standing open, and I went in. A few couples were strolling on the gravel paths among the palm-shaded cottages, walking off the effects of the cocktail hour or working up an appetite for dinner. The women were blond, and had money on their backs. The men were noticeably older than the women, except for one, who was noticeably younger. They paid no attention to me.

I passed an oval swimming pool, and found Edward Illman’s cottage, number twelve. Light streamed from its open french windows onto a flagstone terrace. A young woman in a narrow-waisted, billowing black gown lay on a chrome chaise at the edge of the light. With her arms hanging loose from her naked shoulders, she looked like an expensive French doll which somebody had accidentally dropped there. Her face was polished and plucked and painted, expressionless as a doll’s. But her eyes snapped open at the sound of my footsteps.

“Who goes there?” she said with a slight Martini accent. “Halt and give the password or I’ll shoot you dead with my atomic wonder-weapon.” She pointed a wavering finger at me and said: “Bing. Am I supposed to know you? I have a terrible memory for faces.”

“I have a terrible face for memories. Is Mr. Illman home?”

“Uh-huh. He’s in the shower. He’s always taking showers. I told him he’s got a scour-and-scrub neurosis, his mother was frightened by a washing machine.” Her laughter rang like cracked bells. “If it’s about business, you can tell me.”

“Are you his confidential secretary?”

“I was.” She sat up on the chaise, looked pleased with herself. “I’m his fiancée, at the moment.”

“Congratulations.”

“Uh-huh. He’s loaded.” Smiling to herself, she got to her feet. “Are you loaded?”

“Not so it gets in my way.”

She pointed her finger at me and said bing again and laughed, teetering on her four-inch heels. She started to fall forward on her face. I caught her under the armpits.

“Too bad,” she said to my chest. “I don’t think you have a terrible face for memories at all. You’re much prettier than old Teddy-bear.”

“Thanks. I’ll treasure the compliment.”

I set her down on the chaise, but her arms twined round my neck like smooth white snakes and her body arched against me. She clung to me like a drowning child. I had to use force to detach myself.

“What’s the matter?” she said with an up-and-under look. “You a fairy?”

A man appeared in the french windows, blotting out most of the light. In a white terry-cloth bathrobe, he had the shape and bulk of a Kodiak bear. The top of his head was as bald as an ostrich egg. He carried a chip on each shoulder, like epaulets.

“What goes on?”

“Your fiancée swooned, slightly.”

“Fiancée hell. I saw what happened.” Moving very quickly and lightly for a man of his age and weight, he pounced on the girl on the chaise and began to shake her. “Can’t you keep your hands off anything in pants?”

Her head bobbed back and forth. Her teeth clicked like castanets.

I put a rough hand on his shoulder. “Leave her be.”

He turned on me. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“Edward Illman, I presume.”

“And who are you?”

“The name in Archer. I’m looking into the matter of your wife’s disappearance.”

“I’m not married. And I have no intention of getting married. I’ve been burned once.” He looked down sideways at the girl. She peered up at him in silence, hugging her shoulders.

“Your ex-wife, then,” I said.

“Has something happened to Ethel?”

“I thought you might be able to tell me.”

“Where did you get that idea? Have you been talking to Clare?”

I nodded.

“Don’t believe her. She’s got a down on me, just like her sister. Because I had the misfortune to marry Ethel, they both think I’m fair game for anything they want to pull. I wouldn’t touch either one of them with an insulated pole. They’re a couple of hustlers, if you want the truth. They took me for sixty grand, and what did I get out of it but headaches?”

“I thought it was thirty.”

“Sixty,” he said, with the money light in his eyes. “Thirty in cash, and the house is worth another thirty, easily.”

I looked around the place, which must have cost him fifty dollars a day. Above the palms, the first few stars sparkled like solitaire diamonds.

“You seem to have some left.”

“Sure I have. But I work for my money. Ethel was strictly from nothing when I met her. She owned the clothes on her back and what was under them and that was all. So she gives me a bad time for three years and I pay off at the rate of twenty grand a year. I ask you, is that fair?”

“I hear you threatened to get it back from her.”

“You have been talking to Clare, eh? All right, so I threatened her. It didn’t mean a thing. I talk too much sometimes, and I have a bad temper.”

“I’d never have guessed.”

The girl said: “You hurt me, Teddy. I need another drink. Get me another drink, Teddy.”

“Get it yourself.”

She called him several bad names and wandered into the cottage, walking awkwardly like an animated doll.

He grasped my arm. “What’s the trouble about Ethel? You said she disappeared. You think something’s happened to her?”

I removed his hand. “She’s missing. Thirty thousand in cash is also missing. There are creeps in Vegas who would knock her off for one big bill, or less.”

“Didn’t she bank the money? She wouldn’t cash a draft for that amount and carry it around. She’s crazy, but not that way.”

“She banked it all right, on March fourteenth. Then she drew it all out again in the course of the following week. When did you send her the draft?”

“The twelfth or the thirteenth. That was the agreement. She got her final divorce on March eleventh.”

“And you haven’t seen her since?”

“I have not. Frieda has, though.”

“Frieda?”

“My secretary.” He jerked a thumb towards the cottage. “Frieda went over to the house last week to pick up some of my clothes I’d left behind. Ethel was there, and she was all right then. Apparently she’s taken up with another man.”

“Do you know his name?”

“No, and I couldn’t care less.”

“Do you have a picture of Ethel?”

“I did have some. I tore them up. She’s a well-stacked blonde, natural blonde. She looks very much like Clare, same coloring, but three or four years older. You should be able to get a picture from Clare. And while you’re at it, tell her for me she’s got a lot of gall setting the police on me. I’m a respectable businessman in this town.” He puffed out his chest under the bathrobe. It was thickly matted with brown hair, which was beginning to grizzle.

“No doubt,” I said. “Incidentally, I’m not the police. I run a private agency. My name is Archer.”

“So that’s how it is, eh?” The planes of his broad face gleamed angrily in the light. He cocked a fat red fist. “You come here pumping me. Get out, by God, or I’ll throw you out!”

“Calm down. I could break you in half.”

His face swelled with blood, and his eyes popped. He swung a roundhouse right at my head. I stepped inside of it and tied him up. “I said calm down, old man. You’ll break a vein.”

I pushed him off balance and released him. He sat down very suddenly on the chaise. Frieda was watching us from the edge of the terrace. She laughed so heartily that she spilled her drink.

Illman looked old and tired, and he was breathing raucously through his mouth. He didn’t try to get up. Frieda came over to me and leaned her weight on my arm. I could feel her small sharp breasts.

“Why didn’t you hit him,” she whispered, “when you had the chance? He’s always hitting other people.” Her voice rose. “Teddy-bear thinks he can get away with murder.”

“Shut your yap,” he said, “or I’ll shut it for you.”

“Button yours, muscle-man. You’ll lay a hand on me once too often.”

“You’re fired.”

“I already quit.”

They were a charming couple. I was on the point of tearing myself away when a bellboy popped out of the darkness, like a gnome in uniform.

“A gentleman to see you, Mr. Illman.”

The gentleman was a brown-faced young Highway Patrolman, who stepped forward rather diffidently into the light.

“Sorry to trouble you, sir. Our San Diego office asked me to contact you as soon as possible.”

Frieda looked from me to him, and began to gravitate in his direction. Illman got up heavily and stepped between them.

“What is it?”

The patrolman unfolded a teletype flimsy and held it up to the light. “Are you the owner of a blue Buick convertible, last year’s model?” He read off the license number.

“It was mine,” Illman said. “It belongs to my ex-wife now. Did she forget to change the registration?”

“Evidently she did, Mr. Illman. In fact, she seems to’ve forgotten the car entirely. She left it in a parking space above the public beach in La Jolla. It’s been sitting there for the last week, until we hauled it in. Where can I get in touch with Mrs. Illman?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her for some time.”

The patrolman’s face lengthened and turned grim. “You mean she’s dropped out of sight?”

“Out of my sight, at least. Why?”

“I hate to have to say this, Mr. Illman. There’s a considerable quantity of blood on the front seat of the Buick, according to this report. They haven’t determined yet if it’s human blood, but it raises the suspicion of foul play.”

“Good heavens! It’s what we’ve been afraid of, isn’t it, Archer?” His voice was as thick as corn syrup with phony emotion. “You and Clare were right after all.”

“Right about what, Mr. Illman?” The patrolman looked slightly puzzled.

“About poor Ethel,” he said. “I’ve been discussing her disappearance with Mr. Archer here. Mr. Archer is a private detective, and I was just about to engage his services to make a search for Ethel.” He turned to me with a painful smile pulling his mouth to one side. “How much did you say you wanted in advance? Five hundred?”

“Make it two. That will buy my services for four days. It doesn’t buy anything else, though.”

“I understand that, Mr. Archer. I’m sincerely interested in finding Ethel for a variety of reasons, as you know.”

He was a suave old fox. I almost laughed in his face. But I played along with him. I liked the idea of using his money to hang him, if possible.

“Yeah. This is a tragic occurrence for you.”

He took a silver money clip shaped like a dollar sign out of his bathrobe pocket. I wondered if he didn’t trust his roommate. Two bills changed hands. After a further exchange of information, the patrolman went away.

“Well,” Illman said. “It looks like a pretty serious business. If you think I had anything to do with it, you’re off your rocker.”

“Speaking of rockers, you said your wife was crazy. What kind of crazy?”

“I was her husband, not her analyst. I wouldn’t know.”

“Did she need an analyst?”

“Sometimes I thought so. One week she’d be flying, full of big plans to make money. Then she’d go into a black mood and talk about killing herself.” He shrugged. “It ran in her family.”

“This could be an afterthought on your part.”

His face reddened.

I turned to Frieda, who looked as if the news had sobered her. “Who was this fellow you saw at Ethel’s house last week?”

“I dunno. She called him Owen, I think. Maybe it was his first name, maybe it was his last name. She didn’t introduce us.” She said it as if she felt cheated.

“Describe him?”

“Sure. A big guy, over six feet, wide in the shoulders, narrow in the beam. A smooth hunk of male. And young,” with a malicious glance at Illman. “Black hair, and he had all of it, dreamy dark eyes, a cute little hairline moustache. I tabbed him for a gin-mill cowboy from Vegas, but he could be a movie star if I was a producer.”

“Thank God you’re not,” Illman said.

“What made you think she’d taken up with him?”

“The way he moved around the house, like he owned it. He poured himself a drink while I was there. And he was in his shirtsleeves. A real sharp dresser, though. Custom-made stuff.”

“You have a good eye.”

“For men, she has,” Illman said.

“Lay off me,” she said in a hard voice, with no trace of the Martini drawl. “Or I’ll really walk out on you, and then where will you be?”

“Right where I am now. Sitting pretty.”

“That’s what you think.”

I interrupted their communion. “Do you know anything about this Owen character, Illman?”

“Not a thing. He’s probably some jerk she picked up in Nevada while she was sweating out the divorce.”

“Have you been to San Diego recently?”

“Not for months.”

“That’s true,” Frieda said. “I’ve been keeping close track of Teddy. I have to. Incidentally, it’s getting late and I’m hungry. Go and put on some clothes, darling. You’re prettier with clothes on.”

“More than I’d say for you,” he leered.

I left them and drove back to West Hollywood. The night-blooming girls and their escorts had begun to appear on the Strip. Gusts of music came from the doors that opened for them. But when I turned off Sunset, the streets were deserted, emptied by the television curfew.

All the lights were on in the redwood house on the hillside. I parked in the driveway and knocked on the front door. The draperies over the window beside it were pulled to one side, then fell back into place. A thin voice drifted out to me.

“Is that you, Mr. Archer?”

I said that it was. Clare opened the door inch by inch. Her face was almost haggard.

“I’m so relieved to see you.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“A man was watching the house. He was sitting there at the curb in a long black car. It looked like an undertaker’s car. And it had a Nevada license.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. It lighted up when he drove away. I saw it through the window. He only left a couple of minutes ago.”

“Did you get a look at his face?”

“I’m afraid not. I didn’t dare go out. I was petrified. He shone a searchlight on the window.”

“Take it easy. There are plenty of big black cars in town, and quite a few Nevada licenses. He was probably looking for some other address.”

“No. I had a – a kind of a fatal feeling when I saw him. I just know that he’s connected in some way with Ethel’s disappearance. I’m scared.”

She leaned against the door, breathing quickly. She looked very young and vulnerable. I said:

“What am I going to do with you, kid? I can’t leave you here alone.”

“Are you going away?”

“I have to. I saw Edward. While I was there, he had a visitor from the HP. They found your sister’s car abandoned near San Diego.” I didn’t mention the blood. She had enough on her mind.

“Edward killed her!” she cried. “I knew it.”

“That I doubt. She may not even be dead. I’m going to San Diego to find out.”

“Take me along, won’t you?”

“It wouldn’t be good for your reputation. Besides, you’d be in the way.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I promise. I have friends in San Diego. Just let me drive down there with you, and I can stay with them.”

“You wouldn’t be making this up?”

“Honest, I have friends there. Gretchen Falk and her husband, they’re good friends of Ethel’s and mine. We lived in San Diego for a while, before she married Edward. The Falks will be glad to let me stay with them.”

“Hadn’t you better phone them first?”

“I can’t. The phone’s disconnected. I tried it.”

“Are you sure these people exist?”

“Of course,” she said urgently.

I gave in. I turned out the lights and locked the door and put her bag in my car. Clare stayed very close to me.

As I was backing out, a car pulled in behind me, blocking the entrance to the driveway. I opened the door and got out. It was a black Lincoln with a searchlight mounted over the windshield.

Clare said: “He’s come back.”

The searchlight flashed on. Its bright beam swiveled towards me. I reached for the gun in my shoulder holster and got a firm grip on nothing. Holster and gun were packed in the suitcase in the trunk of my car. The searchlight blinded me.

A black gun emerged from the dazzle, towing a hand and an arm. They belonged to a quick-stepping cube-shaped man in a double-breasted flannel suit. A snap-brim hat was pulled down over his eyes. His mouth was as full of teeth as a barracuda’s. It said:

“Where’s Dewar?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Owen Dewar. You’ve heard of him.”

The gun dragged him forward another step and collided with my breastbone. His free hand palmed my flanks. All I could see was his unchanging smile, framed in brilliant light. I felt a keen desire to do some orthodontic work on it. But the gun was an inhibiting factor.

“You must be thinking of two other parties,” I said.

“No dice. This is the house, and that’s the broad. Out of the car, lady.”

“I will not,” she said in a tiny voice behind me.

“Out, or I’ll blow a hole in your boy friend here.”

Reluctantly, she clambered out. The teeth looked down at her ankles as if they wanted to chew them. I made a move for the gun. It dived into my solar plexus, doubling me over. Its muzzle flicked the side of my head. It pushed me back against the fender of my car. I felt a worm of blood crawling past my ear.

“You coward! Leave him alone.” Clare flung herself at him. He sidestepped neatly, moving on the steady pivot of the gun against my chest. She went to her knees on the blacktop.

“Get up, lady, but keep your voice down. How many boy friends you keep on the string, anyway?”

She got to her feet. “He isn’t my boy friend. Who are you? Where is Ethel?”

“That’s a hot one.” The smile intensified. “You’re Ethel. The question is, where’s Dewar?”

“I don’t know any Dewar.”

“Sure you do, Ethel. You know him well enough to marry him. Now tell me where he is, and nobody gets theirselves hurt.” The flat voice dropped, and added huskily: “Only I haven’t got much time to waste.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “You’re completely mistaken. I’m not Ethel. I’m Clare. Ethel’s my older sister.”

He stepped back and swung the gun in a quarter-circle, covering us both. “Turn your face to the light. Let’s have a good look at you.”

She did as she was told, striking a rigid pose. He shifted the gun to his left hand, and brought a photograph out of his inside pocket. Looking from it to her face, he shook his head doubtfully.

“I guess you’re leveling at that. You’re younger than this one, and thinner.” He handed her the photograph. “She your sister?”

“Yes. It’s Ethel.”

I caught a glimpse of the picture over her shoulder. It was a blown-up candid shot of two people. One was a pretty blonde who looked like Clare five years from now. She was leaning on the arm of a tall dark man with a hairline moustache. They were smirking at each other, and there was a flower-decked altar in the background.

“Who’s the man?” I said.

“Dewar. Who else?” said the teeth behind the gun. “They got married in Vegas last month. I got this picture from the Chaparral Chapel. It goes with the twenty-five-dollar wedding.” He snatched it out of Clare’s hands and put it back in his pocket. “It took me a couple of weeks to run her down. She used her maiden name, see.”

“Where did you catch up with her? San Diego?”

“I didn’t catch up with her. Would I be here if I did?”

“What do you want her for?”

“I don’t want her. I got nothing against the broad, except that she tied up with Dewar. He’s the boy I want.”

“What for?”

“You wouldn’t be inarested. He worked for me at one time.” The gun swiveled brightly towards Clare. “You know where your sister is?”

“No, I don’t. I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

“That’s no way to talk now, lady. My motto’s cooperation. From other people.”

I said: “Her sister’s been missing for a week. The HP found her car in San Diego. It had bloodstains on the front seat. Are you sure you didn’t catch up with her?”

“I’m asking you the questions, punk.” But there was a trace of uncertainty in his voice. “What happened to Dewar if the blonde is missing?”

“I think he ran out with her money.”

Clare turned to me. “You didn’t tell me all this.”

“I’m telling you now.”

The teeth said: “She had money?”

“Plenty.”

“The bastard. The bastard took us both, eh?”

“Dewar took you for money?”

“You ask too many questions, punk. You’ll talk yourself to death one of these days. Now stay where you are for ten minutes, both of you. Don’t move, don’t yell, don’t telephone. I might decide to drive around the block and come back and make sure.”

He backed down the brilliant alley of the searchlight beam. The door of his car slammed. All of its lights went off together. It rolled away into darkness, and didn’t come back.

It was past midnight when we got to San Diego, but there was still a light in the Falks’ house. It was a stucco cottage on a street of identical cottages in Pacific Beach.

“We lived here once,” Clare said. “When I was going to high school. That house, second from the corner.” Her voice was nostalgic, and she looked around the jerry-built tract as if it represented something precious to her. The pre-Illman era in her young life.

I knocked on the front door. A big henna-head in a housecoat opened it on a chain. But when she saw Clare beside me, she flung the door wide.

“Clare honey, where you been? I’ve been trying to phone you in Berkeley, and here you are. How are you, honey?’

She opened her arms and the younger woman walked into them.

“Oh, Gretchen,” she said with her face on the redhead’s breast. “Something’s happened to Ethel, something terrible.”

“I know it, honey, but it could be worse.”

“Worse than murder?”

“She isn’t murdered. Put that out of your mind. She’s pretty badly hurt, but she isn’t murdered.”

Clare stood back to look at her face. “You’ve seen her? Is she here?”

The redhead put a finger to her mouth, which was big and generous-looking, like the rest of her. “Hush, Clare. Jake’s asleep, he has to get up early, go to work. Yeah, I’ve seen her, but she isn’t here. She’s in a nursing home over on the other side of town.”

“You said she’s badly hurt?”

“Pretty badly beaten, yeah, poor dear. But the doctor told me she’s pulling out of it fine. A little plastic surgery, and she’ll be as good as new.”

“Plastic surgery?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid she’ll need it. I got a look at her face tonight, when they changed the bandages. Now take it easy, honey. It could be worse.”

“Who did it to her?”

“That lousy husband of hers.”

“Edward?”

“Heck, no. The other one. The one that calls himself Dewar, Owen Dewar.”

I said: “Have you seen Dewar?”

“I saw him a week ago, the night he beat her up, the dirty rotten bully.” Her deep contralto growled in her throat. “I’d like to get my hands on him just for five minutes.”

“So would a lot of people, Mrs. Falk.”

She glanced inquiringly at Clare. “Who’s your friend? You haven’t introduced us.”

“I’m sorry. Mr. Archer, Mrs. Falk. Mr. Archer is a detective, Gretchen.”

“I was wondering. Ethel didn’t want me to call the police. I told her she ought to, but she said no. The poor darling’s so ashamed of herself, getting mixed up with that kind of a louse. She didn’t even get in touch with me until tonight. Then she saw in the paper about her car being picked up, and she thought maybe I could get it back for her without any publicity. Publicity is what she doesn’t want most. I guess it’s a tragic thing for a beautiful girl like Ethel to lose her looks.”

I said: “There won’t be any publicity if I can help it. Did you go to see the police about her car?”

“Jake advised me not to. He said it would blow the whole thing wide open. And the doctor told me he was kind of breaking the law by not reporting the beating she took. So I dropped it.”

“How did this thing happen?”

“I’ll tell you all I know about it. Come on into the living room, kids, let me fix you something to drink.”

Clare said: “You’re awfully kind, Gretchen, but I must go to Ethel. Where is she?”

“The Mission Rest Home. Only don’t you think you better wait till morning? It’s a private hospital, but it’s awful late for visitors.”

“I’ve got to see her,” Clare said. “I couldn’t sleep a wink if I didn’t. I’ve been so worried about her.”

Gretchen heaved a sigh. “Whatever you say, honey. We can try, anyway. Give me a second to put on a dress and I’ll show you where the place is.”

She led us into the darkened living room, turned the television set off and the lights on. A quart of beer, nearly full, stood on a coffee table beside the scuffed davenport. She offered me a glass, which I accepted gratefully. Clare refused. She was so tense she couldn’t even sit down.

We stood and looked at each other for a minute. Then Gretchen came back, struggling with a zipper on one massive hip.

“All set, kids. You better drive, Mr. Archer. I had a couple of quarts to settle my nerves. You wouldn’t believe it, but I’ve gained five pounds since Ethel came down here. I always gain weight when I’m anxious.”

We went out to my car, and turned towards the banked lights of San Diego. The women rode in the front seat. Gretchen’s opulent flesh was warm against me.

“Was Ethel here before it happened?” I said.

“Sure she was, for a day. Ethel turned up here eight or nine days ago, Tuesday of last week it was. I hadn’t heard from her for several months, since she wrote me that she was going to Nevada for a divorce. It was early in the morning when she drove up; in fact, she got me out of bed. The minute I saw her, I knew that something was wrong. The poor kid was scared, really scared. She was as cold as a corpse, and her teeth were chattering. So I fed her some coffee and put her in a hot tub, and after that she told me what it was that’d got her down.”

“Dewar?”

“You said it, mister. Ethel never was much of a picker. When she was hostessing at the Grant coffee shop back in the old days, she was always falling for the world’s worst phonies. Speaking of phonies, this Dewar takes the cake. She met him in Las Vegas when she was waiting for her divorce from Illman. He was a big promoter, to hear him tell it. She fell for the story, and she fell for him. A few days after she got her final decree, she married him. Big romance. Big deal. They were going to be business partners, too. He said he had some money to invest, twenty-five thousand or so, and he knew of a swell little hotel in Acapulco that they could buy at a steal for fifty thousand. The idea was that they should each put up half, and go and live in Mexico in the lap of luxury for the rest of their lives. He didn’t show her any of his money, but she believed him. She drew her settlement money out of the bank and came to L. A. with him to close up her house and get set for the Mexican deal.”

“He must have hypnotized her,” Clare said. “Ethel’s a smart business woman.”

“Not with something tall, dark, and handsome, honey. I give him that much. He’s got the looks. Well, they lived in L.A. for a couple of weeks, on Ethel’s money of course, and he kept putting off the Mexican trip. He didn’t want to go anywhere, in fact, just sit around the house and drink her liquor and eat her good cooking.”

“He was hiding out,” I said.

“From what? The police?”

“Worse than that. Some gangster pal from Nevada was gunning for him; still is. Ethel wasn’t the only one he fleeced.”

“Nice guy, eh? Anyway, Ethel started to get restless. She didn’t like sitting around with all that money in the house, waiting for nothing. Last Monday night, a week ago Monday that is, she had a showdown with him. Then it all came out. He didn’t have any money or anything else. He wasn’t a promoter, he didn’t know of any hotel in Acapulco. His whole buildup was as queer as a three-dollar bill. Apparently he made his living gambling, but he was even all washed up with that. Nothing. But she was married to him now, he said, and she was going to sit still and like it or he’d knock her block off. “He meant it, too, Ethel said. She’s got the proof of it now. She waited until he drank himself to sleep that night, then she threw some things in a bag, including her twenty-five thousand, and came down here. She was on her way to get a quickie divorce in Mexico, but Jake and me talked her into staying for a while and thinking it over. Jake said she could probably get an annulment right in California, and that would be more legal.”

“He was probably right.”

“Yeah? Maybe it wasn’t such a bright idea after all. We kept her here just long enough for Dewar to catch her. Apparently she left some letters behind, and he ran down the list of her friends until he found her at our place. He talked her into going for a drive to talk it over. I didn’t hear what was said – they were in her room – but he must have used some powerful persuasion. She went out of the house with him as meek as a lamb, and they drove away in her car. That was the last I saw of her, until she got in touch with me tonight. When she didn’t come back, I wanted to call the police, but Jake wouldn’t let me. He said I had no business coming between a man and his wife, and all that guff. I gave Jake a piece of my mind tonight on that score. I ought to’ve called the cops as soon as Dewar showed his sneaking face on our front porch.”

“What exactly did he do to her?”

“He gave her a bad clobbering, that’s obvious. Ethel didn’t want to talk about it much tonight. The subject was painful to her in more ways than one.”

“Did he take her money?”

“He must have. It’s gone. So is he.”

We were on the freeway which curved past the hills of Balboa Park. The trees of its man-made jungle were restless against the sky. Below us on the other side, the city sloped like a frozen cascade of lights down to the black concavity of the bay.

The Mission Rest Home was in the eastern suburbs, an old stucco mansion which had been converted into a private hospital. The windows in its thick stucco walls were small and barred, and there were lights in some of them.

I rang the doorbell. Clare was so close to my back I could feel her breath. A woman in a purple flannelette wrapper opened the door. Her hair hung in two gray braids, which were ruler-straight. Her hard black eyes surveyed the three of us, and stayed on Gretchen.

“What is it now, Mrs. Falk?” she said brusquely.

“This is Mrs. – Miss Larrabee’s sister Clare.”

“Miss Larrabee is probably sleeping. She shouldn’t be disturbed.”

“I know it’s late,” Clare said in a tremulous voice. “But I’ve come all the way from San Francisco to see her.”

“She’s doing well, I assure you of that. She’s completely out of danger.”

“Can’t I just go in for teensy visit? Ethel will want to see me, and Mr. Archer has some questions to ask her. Mr. Archer is a private detective.”

“This is very irregular.” Reluctantly, she opened the door. “Wait here, and I’ll see if she is awake. Please keep your voices down. We have other patients.”

We waited in a dim high-ceilinged room which had once been the reception room of the mansion. The odors of mustiness and medication blended depressingly in the stagnant air.

“I wonder what brought her here,” I said.

“She knew old lady Lestina,” Gretchen said. “She stayed with her at one time, when Mrs. Lestina was running a boardinghouse.”

“Of course,” Clare said. “I remember the name. That was when Ethel was going to San Diego State. Then Daddy – got killed, and she had to drop out of school and go to work.” Tears glimmered in her eyes. “Poor Ethel. She’s always tried so hard, and been so good to me.”

Gretchen patted her shoulder. “You bet she has, honey. Now you have a chance to be good to her.”

“Oh, I will. I’ll do everything I can.”

Mrs. Lestina appeared in the arched doorway. “She’s not asleep. I guess you can talk to her for a very few minutes.”

We followed her to a room at the end of one wing of the house. A white-uniformed nurse was waiting at the door. “Don’t say anything to upset her, will you? She’s always fighting sedation as it is.”

The room was large but poorly furnished, with a mirrorless bureau, a couple of rickety chairs, a brown-enameled hospital bed. The head on the raised pillow was swathed in bandages through which tufts of blond hair were visible. The woman sat up and spread her arms. The whites of her eyes were red, suffused with blood from broken vessels. Her swollen lips opened and said, “Clare!” in a tone of incredulous joy.

The sisters hugged each other, with tears and laughter. “It’s wonderful to see you,” the older one said through broken teeth. “How did you get here so fast?”

“I came to stay with Gretchen. Why didn’t you call me, Ethel? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“I’m dreadfully sorry, darling. I should have, shouldn’t I? I didn’t want you to see me like this. And I’ve been so ashamed of myself. I’ve been such a terrible fool. I’ve lost our money.”

The nurse was standing against the door, torn between her duty and her feelings. “Now you promised not to get excited, Miss Larrabee.”

“She’s right,” Clare said. “Don’t give it a second thought. I’m going to leave school and get a job and look after you. You need some looking after for a change.”

“Nuts. I’ll be fine in a couple of weeks.” The brave voice issuing from the mask was deep and vibrant. “Don’t make any rash decisions, kiddo. The head is bloody but unbowed.” The sisters looked at each other in the silence of deep affection.

I stepped forward to the bedside and introduced myself. “How did this happen to you, Miss Larrabee?”

“It’s a long story,” she lisped, “and a sordid one.”

“Mrs. Falk has told me most of it up to the point when Dewar made you drive away with him. Where did he take you?”

“To the beach, I think it was in La Jolla. It was late and there was nobody there and the tide was coming in. And Owen had a gun. I was terrified. I didn’t know what more he wanted from me. He already had my twenty-five thousand.”

“He had the money?”

“Yes. It was in my room at Gretchen’s house. He made me give it to him before we left there. But it didn’t satisfy him. He said I hurt his pride by leaving him. He said he had to satisfy his pride.” Contempt ran through her voice like a thin steel thread.

“By beating you up?”

“Apparently. He hit me again and again. I think he left me for dead. When I came to, the waves were splashing on me. I managed somehow to get up to the car. It wasn’t any good to me, though, because Owen had the keys. It’s funny he didn’t take it.”

“Too easily traced,” I said. “What did you do then?”

“I hardly know. I think I sat in the car for a while, wondering what to do. Then a taxi went by and I stopped him and told him to bring me here.”

“You weren’t very wise not to call the police. They might have got your money back. Now it’s a cold trail.”

“Did you come here to lecture me?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean–”

“I was half crazy with pain,” she said. “I hardly knew what I was doing. I couldn’t bear to have anybody see me.”

Her fingers were active among the folds of the sheets. Clare reached out and stroked her hands into quietness. “Now, now, darling,” she crooned. “Nobody’s criticizing you. You take things nice and easy for a while, and Clare will look after you.”

The masked head rolled on the pillow. The nurse came forward, her face solicitous. “I think Miss Larrabee has had enough, don’t you?”

She showed us out. Clare lingered with her sister for a moment, then followed us to the car. She sat between us in brooding silence all the way to Pacific Beach. Before I dropped them off at Gretchen’s house, I asked for her permission to go to the police. She wouldn’t give it to me, and nothing I could say would change her mind.

I spent the rest of the night in a motor court, trying to crawl over the threshold of sleep. Shortly after dawn I disentangled myself from the twisted sheets and drove out to La Jolla. La Jolla is a semi-detached suburb of San Diego, a small resort town half surrounded by sea. It was a gray morning. The slanting streets were scoured with the sea’s cold breath, and the sea itself looked like hammered pewter.

I warmed myself with a short-order breakfast and went the rounds of the hotels and motels. No one resembling Dewar had registered in the past week. I tried the bus and taxi companies, in vain. Dewar had slipped out of town unnoticed. But I did get a lead on the taxi driver who had taken Ethel to the Mission Rest Home. He had mentioned the injured woman to his dispatcher, and the dispatcher gave me his name and address. Stanley Simpson, 38 Calle Laureles.

Simpson was a paunchy, defeated-looking man who hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. He came to the door of his tiny bungalow in his underwear, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “What’s the pitch, bub? If you got me up to try and sell me something, you’re in for a disappointment.”

I told him who I was and why I was there. “Do you remember the woman?”

“I hope to tell you I do. She was bleeding like a stuck pig, all over the back seat. It took me a couple of hours to clean it off. Somebody pistol-whipped her, if you ask me. I wanted to take her to the hospital, but she said no. Hell, I couldn’t argue with her in that condition. Did I do wrong?” His slack mouth twisted sideways in a self-doubting grimace.

“If you did, it doesn’t matter. She’s being taken good care of. I thought you might have got a glimpse of the man that did it to her.”

“Not me, mister. She was all by herself, nobody else in sight. She got out of a parked car and staggered out into the road. I couldn’t just leave her there, could I?”

“Of course not. You’re a Good Samaritan, Simpson. Exactly where did you pick her up?”

“Down by the Cove. She was sitting in this Buick. I dropped a party off at the beach club and I was on my way back, kind of cruising along–”

“What time?”

“Around ten o’clock, I guess it was. I can check my schedule.”

“It isn’t important. Incidentally, did she pay you for the ride?”

“Yeah, she had a buck and some change in her purse. She had a hard time making it. No tip,” he added gloomily.

“Tough cheese.”

His fogged eyes brightened. “You’re a friend of hers, aren’t you? Wouldn’t you say I rate a tip on a run like that? I always say, better late than never.”

“Is that what you always say?” I handed him a dollar.

The Cove was a roughly semicircular inlet at the foot of a steep hill surmounted by a couple of hotels. Its narrow curving beach and the street above it were both deserted. An offshore wind had swept away the early morning mist, but the sky was still cloudy, and the sea grim. The long swells slammed the beach like stone walls falling, and broke in foam on the rocks that framed the entrance to the Cove.

I sat in my car and watched them. I was at a dead end. This seaswept place, under this iron sky, was like the world’s dead end. Far out at sea, a carrier floated like a chip on the horizon. A Navy jet took off from it and scrawled tremendous nothings on the distance.

Something bright caught my eye. It was in the trough of a wave a couple of hundred yards outside the Cove. Then it was on a crest: the aluminum air-bottle of an Aqua-lung strapped to a naked brown back. Its wearer was prone on a surfboard, kicking with black-finned feet towards the shore. He was kicking hard, and paddling with one arm, but he was making slow progress. His other arm dragged in the opaque water. He seemed to be towing something, something heavy. I wondered if he had speared a shark or a porpoise. His face was inscrutable behind its glass mask.

I left my car and climbed down to the beach. The man on the surfboard came towards me with his tiring one-armed stroke, climbing the walled waves and sliding down them. A final surge picked him up and set him on the sand, almost at my feet. I dragged his board out of the backwash, and helped him to pull in the line that he was holding in one hand. His catch was nothing native to the sea. It was a man.

The end of the line was looped around his body under the armpits. He lay face down like an exhausted runner, a big man, fully clothed in soggy tweeds. I turned him over and saw the aquiline profile, the hairline moustache over the blue mouth, the dark eyes clogged with sand. Owen Dewar had made his escape by water.

The skin-diver took off his mask and sat down heavily, his chest working like a great furred bellows. “I go down for abalone,” he said between breaths. “I find this. Caught between two rocks at thirty-forty feet.”

“How long has he been in the water?”

“It’s hard to tell. I’d say a couple of days, anyway. Look at his color. Poor stiff. But I wish they wouldn’t drown themselves in my hunting grounds.”

“Do you know him?”

“Nope. Do you?”

“Never saw him before,” I said, with truth.

“How about you phoning the police, Mac? I’m pooped. And unless I make a catch, I don’t eat today. There’s no pay in fishing for corpses.”

“In a minute.”

I went through the dead man’s pockets. There was a set of car keys in his jacket pocket, and an alligator wallet on his hip. It contained no money, but the drivers’ license was decipherable: Owen Dewar, Mesa Court, Las Vegas. I put the wallet back, and let go of the body. The head rolled sideways. I saw the small hole in his neck, washed clean by the sea. “Holy Mother!” the driver said. “He was shot.”

I got back to the Falk house around midmorning. The sun had burned off the clouds, and the day was turning hot. By daylight the long, treeless street of identical houses looked cheap and rundown. It was part of the miles of suburban slums that the war had scattered all over Southern California.

Gretchen was sprinkling the brown front lawn with a desultory hose. She looked too big for the pocket-handkerchief yard. The sunsuit that barely covered her various bulges made her look even bigger. She turned off the water when I got out of my car.

“What gives? You’ve got trouble on your face if I ever saw trouble.”

“Dewar is dead. Murdered. A skin-diver found him in the sea off La Jolla.”

She took it calmly. “That’s not such bad news, is it? He had it coming. Who killed him?”

“I told you a gunman from Nevada was on his trail. Maybe he caught him. Anyway, Dewar was shot and bled to death from a neck wound. Then he was dumped in the ocean. I had to lay the whole thing on the line for the police, since there’s murder in it.”

“You told them what happened to Ethel?”

“I had to. They’re at the rest home talking to her now.”

“What about Ethel’s money? Was the money on him?”

“Not a trace of it. And he didn’t live to spend it. The police pathologist thinks he’s been dead for a week. Whoever got Dewar got the money at the same time.”

“Will she ever get it back, do you think?”

“If we can catch the murderer, and he still has it with him. That’s a big if. Where’s Clare, by the way? With her sister?”

“Clare went back to L. A.”

“What for?”

“Don’t ask me.” She shrugged her rosy shoulders. “She got Jake to drive her down to the station before he went to work. I wasn’t up. She didn’t even tell me she was going.” Gretchen seemed peeved.

“Did she get a telegram, or a phone call?”

“Nothing. All I know is what Jake told me. She talked him into lending her ten bucks. I wouldn’t mind so much, but it was all the ready cash we had, until payday. Oh well, I guess we’ll get it back, if Ethel recovers her money.”

“You’ll get it back,” I said. “Clare seems to be a straight kid.”

“That’s what I always used to think. When they lived here, before Ethel met Illman and got into the chips, Clare was just about the nicest kid on the block. In spite of all the trouble in her family.”

“What trouble was that?”

“Her father shot himself. Didn’t you know? They said it was an accident, but the people on the street – we knew different. Mr. Larrabee was never the same after his wife left him. He spent his time brooding, drinking and brooding. Clare reminded me of him, the way she behaved last night after you left. She wouldn’t talk to me or look at me. She shut herself up in her room and acted real cold. If you want the honest truth, I don’t like her using my home as if it was a motel and Jake was a taxi-service. The least she could of done was say good-bye to me.”

“It sounds as if she had something on her mind.”

All the way back to Los Angeles, I wondered what it was. It took me a little over two hours to drive from San Diego to West Hollywood. The black Lincoln with the searchlight and the Nevada license plates was standing at the curb below the redwood house. The front door of the house was standing open.

I transferred my automatic from the suitcase to my jacket pocket, making sure that it was ready to fire. I climbed the terraced lawn beside the driveway. My feet made no sound in the grass. When I reached the porch, I heard voices from inside. One was the gunman’s hoarse and deathly monotone: “I’m taking it, sister. It belongs to me.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Sure, but not about this. The money is mine.”

“It’s my sister’s money. What right have you got to it?”

“This. Dewar stole it from me. He ran a poker game for me in Vegas, a high-stakes game in various hotels around town. He was a good dealer, and I trusted him with the house take. I let it pile up for a week, that was my mistake. I should’ve kept a closer watch on him. He ran out on me with twenty-five grand or more. That’s the money you’re holding, lady.”

“I don’t believe it. You can’t prove that story. It’s fantastic.”

“I don’t have to prove it. Gelt talks, but iron talks louder. So hand it over, eh?”

“I’ll die first.”

“Maybe you will at that.”

I edged along the wall to the open door. Clare was standing flat against the opposite wall of the hallway. She was clutching a sheaf of bills to her breast. The gunman’s broad flannel back was to me, and he was advancing on her.

“Stay away from me, you.” Her cry was thin and desperate.

She was trying to merge with the wall, pressed by an orgastic terror.

“I don’t like taking candy from a baby,” he said in a very reasonable tone. “Only I’m going to have that money back.”

“You can’t have it. It’s Ethel’s. It’s all she has.”

“–you, lady. You and your sister both.”

He raised his armed right hand and slapped the side of her face with the gun barrel, lightly. Fingering the welt it left, she said in a kind of despairing stupor:

“You’re the one that hurt Ethel, aren’t you? Now you’re hurting me. You like hurting people, don’t you?”

“Listen to reason, lady. It ain’t just the money, it’s a matter of business. I let it happen once, it’ll happen again. I can’t afford to let anybody get away with nothing. I got a reputation to live up to.”

I said from the doorway: “Is that why you killed Dewar?”

He let out an animal sound, and whirled in my direction. I shot before he did, twice. The first slug rocked him back on his heels. His bullet went wild, plowed the ceiling. My second slug took him off balance and slammed him against the wall. His blood spattered Clare and the money in her hands. She screamed once, very loudly.

The man from Las Vegas dropped his gun. It clattered on the parquetry. His hands clasped his perforated chest, trying to hold the blood in. He slid down the wall slowly, his face a mask of smiling pain, and sat with a bump on the floor. He blew red bubbles and said:

“You got me wrong. I didn’t kill Dewar. I didn’t know he was dead. The money belongs to me. You made a big mistake, punk.”

“So did you.”

He went on smiling, as if in fierce appreciation of the joke. Then his red grin changed to a rictus, and he slumped sideways.

Clare looked from him to me, her eyes wide and dark with the sight of death. “I don’t know how to thank you. He was going to kill me.”

“I doubt that. He was just combining a little pleasure with business.”

“But he shot at you.”

“It’s just as well he did. It leaves no doubt that it was self-defense.”

“Is it true what you said? That Dewar’s dead? He killed him?”

“You tell me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got the money that Dewar took from your sister. Where did you get it?”

“It was here, right in this house. I found it in the kitchen.”

“That’s kind of hard to swallow, Clare.”

“It’s true.” She looked down at the blood-spattered money in her hands. The outside bill was a hundred. Unconsciously, she tried to wipe it clean on the front of her dress. “He had it hidden here. He must have come back and hid it.”

“Show me where.”

“You’re not being very nice to me. And I’m not feeling well.”

“Neither is Dewar. You didn’t shoot him yourself, by any chance?”

“How could I? I was in Berkeley when it happened. I wish I was back there now.”

“You know when it happened, do you?”

“No.” She bit her lip. “I don’t mean that. I mean I was in Berkeley all along. You’re a witness, you were with me on the train coming down.”

“Trains run both ways.”

She regarded me with loathing. “You’re not nice at all. To think that yesterday I thought you were nice.”

“You’re wasting time, Clare. I have to call the police. But first I want to see where you found the money. Or where you say you did.”

“In the kitchen. You’ve got to believe me. It took me a long time to get here from the station on the bus. I’d only just found it when he walked in on me.”

“I’ll believe the physical evidence, if any.”

To my surprise, the physical evidence was there. A red-enameled flour canister was standing open on the board beside the kitchen sink. There were fingerprints on the flour, and a floury piece of oilskin wrapping in the sink.

“He hid the money under the flour,” Clare said. “I guess he thought it would be safer here than if he carried it around with him.”

It wasn’t a likely story. On the other hand, the criminal mind is capable of strange things. Whose criminal mind, I wondered: Clare’s, or Owen Dewar’s, or somebody else’s? I said:

“Where did you get the bright idea of coming back here and looking for it?”

“Ethel suggested it last night, just before I left her. She told me this was his favorite hiding place while she was living with him. She discovered it by accident one day.”

“Hiding place for what?”

“Some kind of drug he took. He was a drug addict. Do you still think I’m lying?”

“Somebody is. But I suppose I’ve got to take your word, until I get something better. What are you going to do with the money?”

“Ethel said if I found it, that I was to go down and put it in the bank.”

“There’s no time for that now. You better let me hold it for you. I have a safe in my office.”

“No. You don’t trust me. Why should I trust you?”

“Because you can trust me, and you know it. If the cops impound it, you’ll have to prove ownership to get it back.”

She was too spent to argue. She let me take it out of her hands. I riffled through the bills and got a rough idea of their sum. There was easily twenty-five thousand there. I gave her a receipt for that amount, and put the sheaf of bills in my inside pocket.

It was after dark when the cops got through with me. By that time I was equipped to do a comparative study on the San Diego and Los Angeles P.D.’s. With the help of a friend in the D.A.’s office, Clare’s eye-witness account, and the bullet in the ceiling, I got away from them without being booked. The dead man’s record also helped. He had been widely suspected of shooting Bugsy Siegel, and had fallen heir to some of Siegel’s holdings. His name was Jack Fidelis. R.I.P.

I drove out Sunset to my office. The Strip was lighting up for business again. The stars looked down on its neon conflagration like hard bright knowing eyes. I pulled the Venetian blinds and locked the doors and counted the money: $26,380. I wrapped it up in brown paper, sealed it with wax and tucked it away in the safe. I would have preferred to tear it in little pieces and flush the green confetti down the drain. Two men had died for it. I wasn’t eager to become the third.

I had a steak in the restaurant at International Airport, and hopped a shuttle plane to Las Vegas. There I spent a rough night in various gambling joints, watching the suckers blow their vacation money, pinching my own pennies, and talking to some of the guys and girls that raked the money in. The rest of Illman’s two hundred dollars bought me the facts I needed.

I flew back to Los Angeles in the morning, picked up my car and headed for San Diego. I was tired enough to sleep standing up, like a horse. But something heavier than sleep or tiredness sat on the back of my neck and pressed the gas pedal down to the floorboards. It was the thought of Clare.

Clare was with her sister in the Mission Rest Home. She was waiting outside the closed door of Ethel’s room when Mrs. Lestina took me down the hall. She looked as if she had passed a rougher night than mine. Her grooming was careless, hair uncombed, mouth unpainted. The welt from Fidelis’ gun had turned blue and spread to one puffed eye. And I thought how very little it took to break a young girl down into a tramp, if she was vulnerable, or twist her into something worse than a tramp.

“Did you bring it with you?” she said as soon as Mrs. Lestina was out of earshot. “Ethel’s angry with me for turning it over to you.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Give it to me. Please.” Her hand clawed at my sleeve. “Isn’t that what you came for, to give it back to me?”

“It’s in the safe in my office in Los Angeles. That is, if you’re talking about the money.”

“What else would I be talking about? You’ll simply have to go back there and get it. Ethel can’t leave here without it. She needs it to pay her bill.”

“Is Ethel planning to go some place?”

“I persuaded her to come back to Berkeley with me. She’ll have better care in the hospital there, and I know of a good plastic surgeon–”

“It’ll take more than that to put Ethel together again.”

“What do you mean?”

“You should be able to guess. You’re not a stupid girl, or are you? Has she got you fooled the way she had me fooled?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I don’t like it. Every time I see you, you seem to get nastier.”

“This is a nasty business. It’s rubbing off on all of us, isn’t it, kid?”

She looked at me vaguely through a fog of doubt. “Don’t you dare call me kid. I thought you were a real friend for a while, but you don’t even like me. You’ve said some dreadful things. You probably think you can scare me into letting you keep our money. Well, you can’t.”

“That’s my problem,” I said. “What to do with the money.”

“You’ll give it back to Ethel and me, that’s what you’ll do. There are laws to deal with people like you–”

“And people like Ethel. I want to talk to her.”

“I won’t let you. My sister’s suffered enough already.”

She spread her arms across the width of the door. I was tempted to go away and send her the money and forget the whole thing. But the need to finish it pushed me, imperative as a gun at my back.

I lifted her by the waist and tried to set her aside. Her entire body was rigid and jerking galvanically. Her hands slid under my arms and around my neck and held on. Her head rolled on my shoulder and was still. Suddenly, like delayed rain after lightning, her tears came. I stood and held her vibrating body, trying to quench the dangerous heat that was rising in my veins, and wondering what in hell I was going to do.

“Ethel did it for me,” she sobbed. “She wanted me to have a good start in life.”

“Some start she’s giving you. Did she tell you that?”

“She didn’t have to. I knew. I tried to pretend to myself, but I knew. When she told me where to look for the money last night – the night before last.”

“You knew Ethel took it from Dewar and hid it in her house?”

“Yes. The thought went through my mind, and I couldn’t get rid of it. Ethel’s always taken terrible chances, and money means so much to her. Not for herself. For me.”

“She wasn’t thinking of you when she gambled away the money she got from Illman. She went through it in a week.”

“Is that what happened to it?”

“That’s it. I flew to Las Vegas last night and talked to some of the people that got her money, dealers and stickmen. They remembered her. She had a bad case of gambling fever that week. It didn’t leave her until the money was gone. Then maybe she thought of you.”

“Poor Ethel. I’ve seen her before when she had a gambling streak.”

“Poor Dewar,” I said.

The door beside us creaked open. The muzzle of a blue revolver looked out. Above it, Ethel’s eyes glared red from her bandaged face.

“Come in here, both of you.”

Clare stretched out her hands towards her sister. “No, Ethel. Darling, you mustn’t. Give me that gun.”

“I have a use for it. I know what I’m doing.”

She backed away, supporting herself on the doorknob.

I said to Clare: “We better do as she says. She won’t hurt you.”

“Nor you unless you make me. Don’t reach for your gun, and don’t try anything funny. You know what happened to Dewar.”

“Not as well as you do.”

“Don’t waste any tears on that one. Save them for yourself. Now get in here.” The gun wagged peremptorily.

I edged past her with Clare at my back. Ethel shut the door and moved to the bed, her eyes never leaving mine. She sat on its edge, and supported the elbow of her gun arm on her knee, hunched far over like an aged wreck of a woman.

It was strange to see the fine naked legs dangling below her hospital gown, the red polish flaking off her toenails. Her voice was low and resonant.

“I don’t like to do this. But how am I going to make you see it my way if I don’t? I want Clare to see it, too. It was self-defense, understand. I didn’t intend to kill him. I never expected to see him again. Fidelis was after him, and it was only a matter of time until he caught up with Owen. Owen knew that. He told me himself he wouldn’t live out the year. He was so sure of it he was paralyzed. He got so he wouldn’t even go out of the house.

“Somebody had to make a move, and I decided it might as well be me. Why should I sit and wait for Fidelis to come and take the money back and blow Owen’s head off for him? It was really my money, anyway, mine and Clare’s.”

“Leave me out of this,” Clare said.

“But you don’t understand, honey,” the damaged mouth insisted. “It really was my money. We were legally married, what was his was mine. I talked him into taking it in the first place. He’d never have had the guts to do it alone. He thought Fidelis was God himself. I didn’t. But I didn’t want to be there when Jack Fidelis found him. So I left him. I took the money out of his pillow when he was asleep and hid it where he’d never look for it. Then I drove down here. I guess you know the rest. He found a letter from Gretchen in the house, and traced me through it. He thought I was carrying the money. When it turned out that I wasn’t, he took me out to the beach and beat me up. I wouldn’t tell him where it was. He threatened to shoot me then. I fought him for the gun, and it went off. It was a clear case of self-defense.”

“Maybe it was. You’ll never get a jury to believe it, though. Innocent people don’t dump their shooting victims in the drink.”

“But I didn’t. The tide was coming in. I didn’t even touch him after he died. He just lay there, and the water took him.”

“While you stood and watched?”

“I couldn’t get away. I was so weak I couldn’t move for a long time. Then when I finally could, it was too late. He was gone, and he had the keys to the car.”

“He drove you out to La Jolla, did he?”

“Yes.”

“And held a gun on you at the same time. That’s quite a trick.”

“He did, though,” she said. “That is the way it happened.”

“I hear you telling me, Mrs. Dewar.”

She winced behind her mask at the sound of her name. “I’m not Mrs. Dewar,” she said. “I’ve taken back my maiden name. I’m Ethel Larrabee.”

“We won’t argue about the name. You’ll be trading it in for a number, anyway.”

“I don’t think I will. The shooting was self-defense, and once he was dead the money belonged to me. There’s no way of proving he stole it, now that Fidelis is gone. I guess I owe you a little thanks for that.”

“Put down your gun, then.”

“I’m not that grateful,” she said.

Clare moved across the room towards her. “Let me look at the gun, Ethel. It’s father’s revolver, isn’t it?”

“Be quiet, you little fool.”

“I won’t be quiet. These things have to be said. You’re way off by yourself, Ethel, I’m not with you. I want no part of this, or the money. You don’t understand how strange and dreadful–” Her voice broke. She stood a few feet from her sister, held back by the gun’s menace, yet strongly drawn towards it. “That’s father’s revolver, isn’t it? The one he shot himself with?”

“What if it is?”

“I’ll tell you, Ethel Larrabee,” I said. “Dewar didn’t pull a gun on you. You were the one that had the gun. You forced him to drive you out to the beach and shot him in cold blood. But he didn’t die right away. He lived long enough to leave his marks on you. Isn’t that how it happened?”

The bandaged face was silent. I looked into the terrible eyes for assent. They were lost and wild, like an animal’s. “Is that true, Ethel? Did you murder him?” Clare looked down at her sister with pity and terror.

“I did it for you,” the masked face said. “I always tried to do what was best for you. Don’t you believe me? Don’t you know I love you? Ever since father killed himself I’ve tried–”

Clare turned and walked to the wall and stood with her forehead against it. Ethel put the muzzle of the gun in her mouth. Her broken teeth clenched on it the way a smoker bites on a pipestem. The bone and flesh of her head muffled its roar.

I laid her body out on the bed and pulled a sheet up over it.