mysterious as a statue, with half-closed eyes.
I said to the younger man: `Did you drive her to the Barcelona Hotel, Dick?'
'Yessir.'
With one shoulder high and his head on one side, he held himself in an awkward pose which gave the effect of writhing. `I had no w-way of knowing what was on her mind. I still don't know.'
`But you have a pretty good idea. Why all the secrecy?'
`She said I should borrow a car, that they had phoned for more money and Skipper wasn't here so we would have to deliver it. Or else they'd kill him. We were to keep it secret from the police, and afterwards she said I must never tell anyone.'
`And you believed her story?'
`I c-certainly did.'
`When did you start to doubt it?'
`Well, I couldn't figure out how she could get hold of all that c-cash.'
`How much?'
`Another twenty-five thousand, she said. She said it was in her bag-she was carrying her big knitting bag-but I didn't actually see the money.'
`What did you see?'
`I didn't actually see anything.'
Like a stealthy animal that would eventually take over his entire forehead, his hair was creeping down toward his eyes. `I mean, I saw this character, the one she - I saw this character come out of the hotel and they went around the back and I heard this scream.'
He scratched the front of his throat.
`What did you do?'
`I stayed in the car. She told me to stay in the car. When she came back, she said it was an owl.'
`And you believed her?'
`I don't know much about birds. Do I, Skipper?'
Elaine cried out very brightly from her doorway: `What under heaven are you men talking about?'
I walked toward her. `You. The owl you heard last night in the hotel garden. What kind of an owl was it?'
`A screech-' Her hand flew up and pressed against her lips.
`He looked human to me. He wasn't a very good specimen, but he was human.'
She stopped breathing, and then gasped for breath. `He was a devil,' she said, `the scum of the earth.'
`Because he wanted more money?'
`It would have gone on and on. I had to stop him.'
She stood shuddering in the doorway. With a fierce effort of will, she brought her emotions under control. `Speaking of money, I can take care of you. I'm sure the police would understand my position, but there's no need to connect me with this-this-' She couldn't think of a noun. `I can take care of you and I can take care of Dick.'
`How much are you offering?'
`She looked at me imperiously, from the moral stilts of inherited wealth.
`Come into the sitting room,' she said, `and we'll talk about it.'
The three of us followed her into the room and took up positions around her chesterfield. Hillman looked at me curiously. He was very silent and subdued, but the calculator behind his eyes was still working. Dick Leandro was coming back to life. His eyes had brightened. Perhaps he still imagined that somehow, sometime, there would be Hillman money coming to him.
`How much?' I said to her.
`Twenty-five thousand.'
`That's better than a knife between the ribs. Does that mean twenty-five thousand overall or twenty-five thousand for each murder?'
`Each murder?'
`There were two, done with the same knife, almost certainly by the same person. You.'
She moved her head away from my pointing finger, like a stage-shy girl. A stage-shy girl playing the role of an aging woman with monkey wrinkles and fading fine blonde hair.
`Fifty thousand then,' she said.
`He's playing with you,' Hillman said. `You can't buy him.'
She turned toward him. `My late father once said that you can buy anyone, anyone at all. I proved that when I bought you.'
She made a gesture of repugnance. `I wish I hadn't. You turned out to be a bad bargain.'
