She held out her hand to me. It was ice cold. `I don't mean to monopolize the heat. Are you a policeman? I thought we weren't to use them.'
`I'm a private detective. Lew Archer is my name.'
Her husband called from the alcove: `What will you drink, darling?'
`Absinthe.'
`Is that such a good idea?'
`It has wormwood in it, which suits my mood. But I'll settle for a short Scotch.'
`What about you, Mr. Archer?'
I asked for the same. I needed it. While I rather liked both of the Hillmans, they were getting on my nerves. Their joint handling of their anxiety was almost professional, as if they were actors improvising a tragedy before an audience of one. I don't mean the anxiety wasn't sincere. They were close to dying of it.
Hillman came back across the room with three lowball glasses on a tray. He set it down on a long table in front of the fireplace and handed each of us a glass. Then he shook up the wood fire with a poker. Flames hissed up the chimney. Their reflection changed his face for a moment to a red savage mask.
His wife's face hung like a dead moon over her drink. `Our son is very dear to us, Mr. Archer. Can you help us get him back?'
`I can try. I'm not sure it's wise to keep the police out of this. I'm only one man, and this isn't my normal stomping ground.'
`Does that make a difference?'
`I have no informers here.'
`Do you hear him, Ralph?' she said to her crouching husband. `Mr. Archer thinks we should have the police in.'
`I hear him. But it isn't possible.'
He straightened up with a sigh, as if the whole weight of the house was on his shoulders. `I'm not going to endanger Tom's life by anything I do.'
`I feel the same way,' she said. `I'm willing to pay through the nose to get him back. What use is money without a son to spend it on?'
That was another phrase that was faintly strange. I was getting the impression that Tom was the center of the household, but a fairly unknown center, like a god they made sacrifices to and expected benefits from, and maybe punishments, too. I was beginning to sympathize with Tom.
`Tell me about him, Mrs. Hillman.'
Some life came up into her dead face. But before she could open her mouth Hillman said: `No. You're not going to put Elaine through that now.'
`But Tom's a pretty shadowy figure to me. I'm trying to get some idea of where he might have gone yesterday, how he got tangled up with extortionists.'
`I don't know where he went,' the woman said.
`Neither do I. If I had,' Hillman said, `I'd have gone to him yesterday.'
`Then I'm going to have to go out and do some legwork. You can let me have a picture, I suppose.'
Hillman went into an adjoining room, twilit behind pulled drapes, where the open top of a grand piano leaned up out of the shadows. He came back with a silver-framed studio photograph of a boy whose features resembled his own. The boy's dark eyes were rebellious, unless I was projecting my own sense of the household into them. They were also intelligent and imaginative. His mouth was spoiled.
`Can I take this out of the frame? Or if you have a smaller one, it would be better to show around.'
`To show around?'
`That's what I said, Mr. Hillman. It's not for my memory book.'
Elaine Hillman said: `I have a smaller one upstairs on my dressing table. I'll get it.'
`Why don't I go up with you? It might help if I went through his room.'
`You can look at his room,' Hillman said, `but I don't want you searching it.'
'Why?'
`I just don't like the idea. Tom has the right to some privacy, even now.'
The three of us went upstairs, keeping an eye on each other. I wondered what Hillman was afraid I might find, but I hesitated to ask him. While everything seemed to be under control, Hillman could flare up at any moment and order me out of his house.
He stood at the door while I gave the room a quick once-over. It was a front bedroom, very large, furnished with plain chests of drawers and chairs and a table and a bed which all looked hand-finished and expensive. A bright red telephone sat on the bedside table. There were engravings of sailing ships and Audubon prints hung with geometric precision around the walls, Navajo rugs on the floor, and a wool bedspread matching one of them.
I turned to Hillman. `Was he interested in boats and sailing?'
`Not particularly. He used to come out and crew for me occasionally, on the sloop, when I couldn't get anyone else. Does it matter?'
`I was just wondering if he hung around the harbor much.'
