“You’ll take it. You’re not asked to do anything wrong. You have my word for that.”
“What else do I have?”
“Oh, we might discuss that over a drink some rainy evening, when I’m not too busy.”
“You’ve sold me.”
I opened the other envelope. It contained a photograph of a girl. The pose suggested a natural ease, or a lot of experience in being photographed. It showed darkish hair which might possibly have been red, a wide clear forehead, serious eyes, high cheekbones, nervous nostrils and a mouth which was not giving anything away. It was a fine-drawn, almost a taut face, and not a happy one.
“Turn it over,” Miss Vermilyea said.
On the back there was clearly typed material.
“Name: Eleanor King. Height five feet four inches. Age about 29. Hair dark reddish brown, thick, with a natural wave. Erect carriage, low distinct voice, well dressed but not overdressed. Conservative make-up. No visible scars. Characteristic mannerisms: habit of moving her eyes without moving her head when entering a room. Scratches palm of right hand when tense. Left-handed but adept in concealing it. Plays fast tennis, swims and dives beautifully, holds her liquor. No convictions, but prints on file.”
“Been in the coop,” I said, looking up at Miss Vermilyea.
“I have no information beyond what is there. Just follow your instructions.”
“No name, Miss Vermilyea. At twenty-nine a dish like this would almost certainly have been married. There’s no mention of a wedding ring or any other jewels. That makes me wonder.”
She glanced at her watch. “Better do your wondering at the Union Station. You haven’t much time.” She stood up. I helped her on with her white raincoat and opened the door.
“You came in your own car?”
“Yes.” She went halfway out and turned. “There’s one thing I like about you. You don’t paw. And you have nice manners—in a way.”
“It’s a rotten technique—to paw.”
“And there’s one thing I don’t like about you. Guess what it is.”
“Sorry. No idea—except that some people hate me for being alive.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
I followed her down the steps and opened her car door for her. It was a cheap job, a Fleetwood Cadillac. She nodded briefly and slid down the hill.
I went back up and loaded a few things into an overnight bag, just in case.
2
There was nothing to it. The Super Chief was on time, as it almost always is, and the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket. She wasn’t carrying anything but a paperback which she dumped in the first trash can she came to. She sat down and looked at the floor. An unhappy girl, if ever I saw one. After a while she got up and went to the bookrack. She left it without picking anything out, glanced at the big clock on the wall and shut herself in a telephone booth. She talked to someone after putting a handful of silver into the slot. Her expression didn’t change at all. She hung up and went to the magazine rack, picked up a New Yorker, looked at her watch again, and sat down to read.
She was wearing a midnight blue tailor-made suit with a white blouse showing at the neck and a big sapphire blue lapel pin which would probably have matched her earrings, if I could see her ears. Her hair was a dusky red. She looked like her photograph, but a little taller than I expected. Her dark blue ribbon hat had a short veil hanging from it. She was wearing gloves.
After a while she moved across the arches outside of which the taxis wait. She looked left at the coffee shop, turned and went into the main waiting room, glanced at the drugstore and newsstand, the information booth, and the people sitting on the clean wooden benches. Some of the ticket windows were open, some not. She wasn’t interested in them. She sat down again and looked up at the big clock. She pulled off her right glove and set her wristwatch, a small plain platinum toy without jewels. Mentally I put Miss Vermilyea beside her. She didn’t look soft or prissy or prudish, but she made the Vermilyea look like a pick-up.
She didn’t stay long sitting down this time, either. She got up and strolled. She went out into the patio and came back and went into the drugstore and stayed some time at the paper-book rack. Two things were obvious. If anyone was going to meet her, the date hadn’t been for train time. She looked like a girl waiting between trains. She went into the coffee shop. She sat down at one of the plastic top tables, read the menu, and then started to read her magazine. A waitress came with the inevitable glass of ice water, and the menu. The subject gave an order. The waitress went away, the subject went on reading her magazine. It was about nine-fifteen.
I went out through the arches to where a redcap was waiting by the taxi starter. “You work the Super Chief?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Part of it.” He glanced without too deep interest at the buck I was teasing with my fingers.
“I was expecting someone on the Washington-San Diego through car. Anybody get off?”
“You mean get off permanent, baggage and all?”
I nodded.
He thought about it, studying me with intelligent chestnut eyes. “One passenger get off,” he said at last. “What your friend look like?”
I described a man. Someone who looked something like Edward Arnold. The redcap shook his head.
“Can’t help you, mister. What got off don’t look like that at all. Your friend probably still on the train. They don’t have to get off the through car. She gets hitched on to Seventy-Four. Leaves here eleven-thirty. The train ain’t made up yet.”
