'They came here on their honeymoon and she walked out on him. He's trying to find out why.'
'What a strange thing to do,' she said. 'I'd never have acted like that on my honeymoon, I had too much respect for my husband. But girls are different nowadays, aren't they? Loyalty and respect mean nothing to them. Are you married, young man?'
'I have been.'
'I see. Are you the boy's father?'
'No. My name is Archer. I'm a private detective.'
'Really? What do you make of all this?' She gestured vaguely with her clippers toward the gatehouse.
'Nothing so far. She may have left him on account of a girlish whim. Or she may have had deep dark reasons. All I can do is ask her. By the way, Mrs. Bradshaw, have you ever heard her mention a man named Begley?'
'Begley?'
'He's a big man with a short gray beard. He visited her at the Surf House the day she left her husband. There's some possibility that he's her father.'
She wet her seamed lips with the purple tip of her tongue. 'She didn't mention him to me. I don't encourage the girls to unburden themselves to me. Perhaps I should.'
'What kind of a mood has Dolly been in lately?'
'It's hard to say. She's always the same. Quiet. She thinks her own thoughts.'
Alex appeared, walking rapidly around the bend in the driveway. His face was bright.
'It's her definitely. I found her things in the closet.'
'You weren't authorized to go in there,' Mrs. Bradshaw said.
'It's her house, isn't it?'
'It happens to be mine.'
'But she has the use of it, hasn't she?'
'She does. You don't.'
A quarrel with Dolly's employer was the last thing Alex needed. I stepped between them, turned him around, and walked him away from trouble for the second time.
'Get lost,' I said when he was in his car. 'You're in my way.'
'But I have to see her.'
'You'll see her. Go and check in at the Mariner's Rest Motel for both of us. It's on the strip between here and the Surf House--'
'I know where it is. But what about Dolly?'
'I'm going over to the college to talk to her. I'll bring her back with me, if she's willing.'
'Why can't I go along to the college?' he said like a spoiled child.
'Because I don't want you to. Dolly has a separate life of her own. You may not like it, but you have no right to jump in and wreck it for her. I'll see you at the motel.'
He drove away rapidly and angrily, spinning the wheels of his car. Mrs. Bradshaw was back among her roses. I asked her very politely for permission to examine Dolly's things. She said that would have to be up to Dolly.
chapter 5
The campus was an oasis of vivid green under the brown September foothills. Most of the buildings were new and very modern, ornamented with pierced concrete screens and semi-tropical plantings. A barefoot boy sitting under a roadside palm took time out from his Salinger to show me where the Administration Building was.
I parked in the lot behind it, among a scattering of transportation clunks with faculty stickers. A new black Thunderbird stood out among them. It was late Friday afternoon by now, and the long collegiate weekend was setting in. The glass information booth opposite the entrance of the building was empty. The corridors were practically deserted.
I found the Dean's office without much trouble. The paneled anteroom was furnished with convertible Danish pieces, and with a blonde secretary who sat at a typewriter guarding the closed inner door. She had a pale thin face, strained blue eyes that had worked too long under fluorescent light, and a suspicious voice:
'Can I help you, sir?'
'I'd like to see the Dean.'
'Dean Bradshaw is very busy, I'm afraid. Perhaps I can assist you?'
'Perhaps. I'm trying to get in touch with one of your girl students. Her name is Dolly McGee, or Dolly Kincaid.'
'Which?' she said with a little gasp of irritation.
'Her maiden name is McGee, her married name is Kincaid. I don't know which she's using.'
'Are you a parent?' she said delicately.
'No. I'm not her father. But I have good reason for wanting to see her.'
She looked at me as if I was a self-confessed kingpin in the white slave traffic. 'We have a policy of not giving out information about students, except to parents.'
'What about husbands?'
'You're her husband?'
'I represent her husband. I think you'd better let me talk to the Dean about her.'
'I can't do that,' she said in a final tone. 'Dean Bradshaw is in conference with the department heads. About what do you wish to see Miss McGee?'
'It's a private matter.'
'I see.'
We had reached an impasse. I said in the hope of making her smile: 'We have a policy of not giving out information.'
She looked insulted, and went back to her typewriter. I stood and waited. Voices rose and fell behind the door of the inner office. 'Budget' was the word I caught most frequently. After a while the secretary said:
'I suppose you could try Dean Sutherland, if she's in. Dean Sutherland is Dean of Women. Her office is just across the hail.'
Its door was standing open. The woman in it was the wellscrubbed ageless type who looks old in her twenties and young in her forties. She wore her brown hair rolled in a bun at the back of her neck. Her only concession to glamour was a thin pink line of lipstick accenting her straight mouth.
She was a good-looking woman in spite of this. Her face was finely chiseled. The front of her blouse curved out over her desk like a spinnaker going downwind.
'Come in,' she said with a severity that I was getting used to. 'What are you waiting for?'
Her fine eyes had me hypnotized. Looking into them was like looking into the beautiful core of an iceberg, all green ice and cold blazing light.
'Sit down,' she said. 'What is your problem?'
I told her who I was and why I was there.
'But we have no Dolly McGee or Dolly Kincaid on campus.'
'She must be using a third name, then. I know she's a student here. She has a job driving for Dean Bradshaw's mother.' I showed her my photograph.
'But this is Dorothy Smith. Why would she register with us under a false name?'
'That's what her husband would like to know.'
'Is this her husband in the picture with her?'
'Yes.'
'He appears to be a nice enough boy.'
'Apparently she didn't think so.'
'I wonder why.' Her eyes were looking past me, and I felt cheated. 'As a matter of fact, I don't see how she _could_ register under a false name, unless she came to us with forged credentials.' She rose abruptly. 'Excuse
