`What's the matter with him?'
I asked.
`He says he doesn't feel well.'
`Sick?'
`Depressed. But he cheered up when I told him Tom was home. He'll be out shortly.'
`Good. In the meantime I want to talk to Tom.'
Hillman came and stood over me. His face was rather obscure in the green penumbra. `Before you talk to him again, there's something you ought to know.'
I waited for him to go on. Finally I asked him: `Is it about Tom?'
`It has to do with both of us.'
He hesitated, his eyes intent on my face. `On second thought, I don't think I'll let my back hair down any further tonight.'
`You may never have another chance,' I said, `before it gets let down for you, the hard way.'
`That's where you're wrong. Nobody knows this particular thing but me.'
`And it has to do with you and Tom?'
`That's right. Now let's forget it.'
He didn't want to forget it, though. He wanted to share his secret, without taking the responsibility of speaking out. He lingered by the table, looking down at my face with his stainless steel eyes.
I thought of the feeling in Hillman's voice when he spoke of his love for Tom. Perhaps that feeling was the element which would balance the equation.
`Is Tom your natural son?'
I said.
He didn't hesitate in answering. `Yes. He's my own flesh and blood.'
`And you're the only one who knows?'
`Carol knew, of course, and Mike Harley knew. He agreed to the arrangement in exchange for certain favors I was able to do him.'
`You kept him out of Portsmouth.'
`I helped to. You mustn't imagine I was trying to mastermind some kind of plot. It all happened quite naturally. Carol came to me after Mike and his brother were arrested. She begged me to intervene on their behalf. I said I would. She was a lovely girl, and she expressed her gratitude in a natural way.
`By going to bed with you.'
`Yes. She gave me one night. I went to her room in the Barcelona Hotel. You should have seen her, Archer, when she took off her clothes for me. She lit up that shabby room with the brass bed-' I cut in on his excitement: `The brass bed is still there, and so was Otto Sipe, until last night. Did Sipe know about your big night on the brass bed?'
'Sipe?'
`The hotel detective.'
`Carol said he was gone that night.'
`And you say you only went there once.'
`Only once with Carol. I spent some nights in the Barcelona later with another girl. I suppose I was trying to recapture the rapture or something. She was a willing girl, but she was no substitute for Carol.'
I got up. He saw the look on my face and backed away. `What's the matter with you, is something wrong?'
'Susanna Drew is a friend of mine. A good friend.'
`How could I know that?' he said with his mouth lifted on one side.
`You don't know much,' I said. `You don't know how sick it makes me to sit here and listen to you while you dabble around in your dirty little warmed-over affairs.'
He was astonished. I was astonished myself. Angry shouting at witnesses is something reserved for second- rate prosecutors in courtrooms.
`Nobody talks to me like that,' Hillman said in a shaking voice. `Get out of my house and stay out.'
`I'll be delighted to.'
I got as far as the front door. It was like walking through deep, clinging mud. Then Hillman spoke behind me from the far side of the reception hall.
`Look here.'
It was his favorite phrase.
I looked there. He walked toward me under the perilous chandelier. He said with his hands slightly lifted and turned outward: `I can't go on by myself, Archer. I'm sorry if I stepped on your personal toes.'
`It's all right.'
