Leave Her to Hell Page 9

  “Thanks,” I said. “I know the way.”

  I waded the pile and crossed the tile and came out onto the terrace. Faith Salem and Graham Markley were sitting at a glass-topped table on which there was a silver tray on which there was a silver coffee service. I could smell the coffee as I approached, and it smelled good. Markley heard me and saw me and stood up to meet me. He was wearing a soft blue sport shirt with a square tail hanging casually outside a pair of darker blue trousers. His feet were shoved into comfortable brown loafers. He didn’t look like a man who had come from somewhere else after getting up in the morning. Although he didn’t offer to shake hands, he smiled without any apparent effort.

  “It was good of you to come so promptly, Mr. Hand,” he said. “Will you have coffee with us?”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I don’t mind if I do. Good-morning, Miss Salem.”

  My claim, as I recall it, was that tousled Robin, sitting up in bed, was the loveliest woman in the world, except one. I was now looking at the exception. She smiled and extended a hand, which I took and held and released after a moment. The cool light of the morning had gathered in her golden hair, and her golden skin had a light that was all its own.

  “How are you, Mr. Hand?” she said. “I hope you had a good night.”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. I had an exceptionally good night. And you?”

  It was an innocent enough question, a small courtesy in return for one, but it startled her in reference to the particular night, and after being startled, she was quietly amused. Her smile was now confined to her eyes, and the eyes flicked swiftly to Markley and back to me. I don’t know if I intended the reference as she took it or not. Maybe I did and didn’t realize it. Maybe, as Robin would have said, it was psychological.

  “Quite pleasant, thank you,” she said. “I was afraid your face might pain you and keep you awake. It looks much better this morning. Won’t you sit down?”

  I sat down in a wicker chair away from the table, and she poured coffee from the silver pot into a cup of white Bavarian china.

  “Do you take cream or sugar?” she said.

  “Just coffee,” I said.

  She passed the cup, and I took it and drank some of the coffee, and it was hot and strong and as good as it smelled. I wondered if Robin had made coffee on the hot plate and was possibly drinking some of it at this moment. Not that it was a possibility of importance. It was just something I happened to wonder.

  “Miss Salem tells me that you’re planning a trip to Amity,” Graham Markley said.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “I would like to know why.”

  “I’m tired of being poor and ignorant. I intend to matriculate in the college there.”

  His face, which had maintained a kind of neutrality between amiability and animus, froze all of a sudden in lines of the latter. He lifted his coffee cup and drank from it and set it carefully down again, and the action was obviously a deliberate exercise of control—or a diversion until control had been secured.

  “I hope you won’t try to entertain me, Mr. Hand. I’m never amused by evasions and clever remarks.”

  “I’m not trying to entertain you. It’s just my awkward way of telling you that you’re asking questions about something that’s none of your business.”

  “That’s better. I much prefer the direct treatment. However, I disagree with you. You are engaged in a case that involves my wife. Your trip to Amity is connected with this case. This makes it my business.”

  “Is that so? I wasn’t engaged by you. The single fact that the subject of the investigation is your wife doesn’t necessarily give you any prerogatives. Moreover, since you prefer the direct treatment, I might add that you’ve shown an almost incredible indifference to your wife’s disappearance up to this time. Why the sudden interest?”

  “I’ll let that pass. You’re clearly a crude man with few sensibilities, and you wouldn’t understand the difference between indifference and reticence. I know you better than I want to, Mr. Hand, but that’s really not very well. I don’t know if you’re competent. I don’t know if you’re honest. I don’t know what you will make, or try to make, of a rather delicate matter which concerns me vitally. In brief, I don’t trust you, and I intend to establish jurisdiction over this investigation whether you like it or not.”

  “You’re at liberty to try, of course. Along that line, incidentally, you’d just as well get rid of Colly Alder. We had a little understanding last night, Colly and I, and I don’t think he’d be of much value to you from now on. Colly’s even more incompetent than you suspect me of being. He hasn’t bothered to learn the fundamentals of his trade.”

  He stared in my direction with eyes gone blind in his frozen face, and I could see that he was deciding whether to acknowledge Colly or deny him. He decided finally to acknowledge him. Vision returning to his eyes, he shrugged.

  “Thanks for the information. I’ll dismiss him at once. Actually, I didn’t have a very high regard for him from the first. I suspect that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a reliable private detective. Are you ready now to tell me your purpose in going to Amity?”

  “Not yet. I was hired by Miss Salem. I’m responsible to Miss Salem. I’m obligated to report my purposes and results to no one but Miss Salem. She hasn’t instructed me to report to you, and until she does, I won’t.”

  “That’s very commendable of you. I can see that you’re devoted to your duty, if not to Miss Salem personally. We’ve decided, however, that our interest in this is mutual. You may consider that you have been working for both of us equally.”

  I looked at Faith Salem, and Faith Salem looked back. Her eyes were clear and cool and untroubled, and it was someone besides me who had held her in his arms and kissed her and felt for a few moments the tremor of her passion. She nodded her head gravely.

  “Please try to answer any of Mr. Markley’s questions,” she said.

  “All right.” I turned back to Markley. “As I’ve said before, I’m playing this by ear, and the vibrations, such as they are, tell me that it might be profitable to go to Amity. On the other hand, other vibrations tell me that it might not. If I go down there, I may find out which vibrations are right.”

  “You’re still being evasive. You must have a more definite reason.”

  “No. I’m not being evasive, but I don’t intend to commit myself to any position until it’s justified. Right now, none is.”

  “Do you expect to find Mrs. Markley in Amity?”

  “I don’t expect anything. She was in Amity once, and anywhere she was might be a place to give us a clue where she is.”

  “That’s too tenuous. You’re wasting your time and our money.”

  “I told Miss Salem in the beginning that I’d probably be. She insisted that I take the case anyhow, so I did, and I’m doing the best I can.”

  “I’ll concede that. Nevertheless, it’s not good enough. At any rate, something has happened to make Miss Salem change her mind. She feels now that it would be better if you dropped the whole thing.”

  “Better for her or for you or for me?”

  “For you, as a matter of fact. Miss Salem is a generous person. She’s very considerate of the welfare of others.”

  I looked again at Faith Salem and kept on looking at her. Her expression was grave but serene. If she had been subjected to pressure or persuasion or was in the least concerned for herself, it was not apparent. Or was there, perhaps, a mute suggestion of urgency for the merest moment?

  “Even mine?” I said.

  “Under the circumstances,” she said, “especially yours.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “I had a visitor last night. Mr. Markley had dropped in earlier, just after you had gone, but he had to leave for a while to keep another engagement. It was while he was gone that I had the visitor. He told me that I was doing you a disservice by hiring you for this job. He said that something unfortunate would surely happen
to you if you kept on with it. He was very convincing, and I believed him.”

  “Darcy?”

  “That was his name. He claimed to be representing Silas Lawler. He gave me Silas Lawler’s assurance that Constance and Regis Lawler are all right. It seems that Silas Lawler is devoted to Constance and feels an obligation to his brother. He wants us to quit molesting them.”

  “Who’s molesting them? We can’t even find them.”

  “He wants us to quit trying.”

  “My face testifies to that. You used a plural pronoun a couple of times. Us, you said. Did Darcy threaten you too?”

  “I have the impression that he did, but not directly. He was quite subtle and polite about it.”

  “That’s Darcy. Darcy is probably the politest and most subtle hood on record. He admires virtuosity.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Skip it. It’s just a private understanding between Darcy and me. I don’t blame you, however, for not wanting to annoy him. Defacing me is one thing. Defacing you would be another, and I can’t imagine a greater shame. I’ll consider myself dismissed.”

  “If you think I’m worried about myself, you’re mistaken. I told you that I’ve never really been afraid of anything in my life, which is true, and I’m not afraid of anything now. It’s you I’m worried about, if you will only believe me.”

  “I do believe you, and I wish you’d stop. It makes me uncomfortable to have someone worrying about me.”

  “Well, since we’re dropping the investigation, I can stop, and you can get comfortable. Will you have another cup of coffee before you go?”

  I didn’t want it, but I said I would. The reason I said I would was because it was a reason for staying there a little longer. As a dismissed detective, I wasn’t likely to see her again in proximity, if ever again at all, and I thought it would be pleasant this pleasant morning to look at her while the looking was good. She filled my cup and returned it, and at that moment Maria came out onto the terrace and pointed herself at Markley. He was wanted, she said, on the telephone. Whoever wanted him had said that it was important. Markley hesitated, undecided whether to take the call or not, and then he decided that he would. Standing, he excused himself and went inside.

  “I’m glad we’ve been left alone for a moment or two,” Faith Salem said. “It saves me the trouble of contacting you later.”

  “As I remember,” I said, “I’ve been dismissed. Why should you want to contact me?”

  “You’re not dismissed, of course. That was only to humor Graham.”

  “You mean you want me to go on with the investigation?”

  “Yes. I still want to know where Constance is.”

  “Isn’t this a pretty fancy piece of deception? It doesn’t seem to suit you.”

  She smiled slowly, the smile spreading upward from her mouth into her eyes, and I was aware again, as I had been the first afternoon on this terrace, of an effect of astringency, an uncompromised compatibility she sustained with herself.

  “If you assumed that I’m incapable of deception, you made a mistake. Deception is sometimes necessary.”

  “True enough. I’d be the last one to deny it. I guess I’m suffering from deflation, to be honest. It appears that you’re not worried about my welfare after all.”

  “I’m not excessively. You impress me as a man who can look after himself.”

  “Thanks for your confidence. I’ll work hard to deserve it.”

  “Are you being sarcastic about it? You’re not dismissed, but you can quit, of course. Do you want to?”

  “In a way I do, in a way I don’t. Anyway, I won’t.”

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  I stood up and put the white Bavarian cup on the glass-topped table. She stood up beside me, very close, and for an instant I had a dizzy notion that she was going to lean against me, and that I was going to put my arms around her and hold her, and that everything was somehow going to be suddenly different from what it was. But nothing like that happened, and nothing was different. I thanked her for the coffee and said good-bye, and she let me hold her hand again briefly.

  “Are you still going to Amity?” she said. “Yes,” I said.

  “Call me when you get back,” she said. “I will,” I said.

  I met Graham Markley in the middle of the black-and-white acre. He turned around and walked with me to the door and held the door politely as I went out.

  “No bad feelings, I hope,” he said.

  “None at all,” I said.

  He didn’t look as if he really cared, one way or the other.

  11

  As it turned out, I didn’t go to Amity that day. I intended to go, and I kept thinking that I’d surely get started pretty soon, but I was diverted by a couple of things that kept nagging me in the head. The first of these things was a hit-and-run accident that probably didn’t have anything to do with anything that concerned me; but it was, nevertheless, another loose end and bothersome. Once, over two years ago, it had played a part in the plans or the fantasy of Regis Lawler, if the story of Robin Robbins could be taken as true. And the story had been told so casually and briefly, as something no more than incidental to something else, that it had the smack of truth.

  Robin had discounted it, however. To her, she’d said, it was only Scotch talking, and I was inclined to accept this as being what Robin thought was true, whether it was, in fact, the truth or not. To be sure, Robin was a sly character when it suited her; but I couldn’t credit her with the accomplished duplicity it would have taken to make such a beautifully casual reference with some kind of deliberate intent.

  I went back to see Lud Anderson again. He wasn’t at his desk when I arrived, and it wasn’t known when, if ever, he’d be back. I sat down and began waiting and smoking, and it was six cigarettes and thirty minutes later when I saw him flapping toward me in a kind of modified version of the lope once affected by Groucho Marx. He flopped in his chair and opened the drawer of his desk and poured himself a paper cup full of milk. It seemed to me to be the same cup he’d used the last time, and I wondered if it were possible to be fatally poisoned over a period of time by an accretion of old butterfat. After a large swallow and an ulcerous face, he pulled up to his typewriter and rolled paper under the platen.

  “How are you, Lud?” I said.

  “I see you,” he said.

  “I wasn’t sure. I don’t remember hearing you say hello.”

  “I didn’t say it. I was ignoring you in the hope that you’d get the hell away.”

  My inclination was to spit in his eye and go, but a man looking for a favor can’t afford sensitivity, so I pulled on my elephant hide and stayed. Along with his ulcer and his evil disposition, Lud had one of the most cluttered minds in existence among upper bipeds. And I wanted, with his permission and assistance, to poke around for a few minutes in the fabulous accumulation of odds and ends in his long skull.

  “I won’t stay long,” I said. “I thought you might be willing to give me a little information.”

  “About what?”

  “A hit-and-run accident.”

  “Come off it, Percy. How many hit-and-runs do you think happen in this city?”

  “This one was out in a county. About two years ago. Probably longer. A woman was killed, and I don’t think it was ever solved.”

  “Which county?”

  “I don’t know. Not too far out. I’m hoping you can tell me. Just try to remember where a woman was killed about the time I said.”

  He finished his milk and leaned back and closed his eyes, and in the enormous transformation that is sometimes worked by such small changes, he looked completely at peace and almost dead. He was really only sifting and sorting the clutter, however, and after a while he raised his lids and fixed me with a baleful eye.

  “I remember the one you probably mean,” he said. “Woman’s name was Spatter. Perfectly mnemonic. Impossible to forget. Can you imagine any name more appropriate for anyone who
gets knocked seven ways from Sunday by a speeding automobile?”

  “It would certainly be difficult. You remember when it happened?”

  “About when you said. Over two years ago, less than three. It wasn’t my job, and it’s vague.”

  “Were there any suspects?”

  “Not to my knowledge. Someone hit her and killed her and got away, that’s all.”

  “You think the morgue would tell me anything?”

  “Why should the morgue tell you anything? There were no witnesses. No clues. Nothing to tell.”

  “Maybe I’ll go down and check it just the same.”

  “It’s your time. If you want to waste it, go ahead.”

  “Didn’t I tell you the other time I was here? Wasting time is what I’m getting paid to do. I suppose the state troopers investigated the thing.”

  “Sure. And the sheriff. Good old Fat Albert.”

  “Fat Albert Gerard?”

  “Who else? Fat Albert’s been sheriff off and on since then. All he has to do is put his name on the ballot, and that’s just about all he does do. Rakes off a little here and there. Gets a little fatter on the gravy. Don’t expect Fat Albert to know anything.”

  “I used to know Fat Albert when I was a kid. I was born in his county seat, as a matter of fact. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to talk with him.”

  “What could it hurt?” Lud looked at me through slits, as if he could not bear the sight of me full view, but I saw in the slits a bright gleam of interest. “Yesterday you were in here asking about the Markley dame. Today you’re back asking about an old hit-and-run. You working two jobs or trying to make a connection?”

  “No connection. Not with Markley. Thanks, Lud. I’ll send you a quart of milk.”

  “Go to hell,” he said.

  Instead, I went down to the morgue, but it didn’t pay. About all I learned that I didn’t know was the exact date of the accident, which was no more significant than the approximate date, which I’d known already. If it was a loose end of anything that I was trying to put together and make tidy, it was still loose, and I was still wasting time for pay. I left the morgue and walked down the street toward my car.