I told him the truth, or part of it: `He's a runaway from a boarding school. I'm a private detective representing the school.'
The moist gleam of lechery faded out of Stanislaus's eyes. Something bleaker took its place, a fantasy of punishment perhaps. His whole face underwent a transformation, like quick-setting concrete.
`You can't make me responsible for what the renters do.'
`Nobody said I could.'
He didn't seem to hear me. `Let's see that picture again.'
I showed it to him. He shook his head over it. `I made a mistake. My eyes ain't what they used to be. I never seen him before.'
`You made a positive identification.'
`I take it back. You were talking to me under false pretenses, trying to suck me in and get something on me. Well, you got nothing on me. It's been tried before,' he said darkly. `And you can march yourself off my property.'
`Aren't you going to rent me the cottage?'
He hesitated a moment, saying a silent goodbye to the ten dollars. `No sir, I want no spies and peepers in my place.'
`You may be harboring something worse.'
I think he suspected it, and the suspicion was the source of his anger.
`I'll take my chances. Now you git. If you're not off my property in one minute, I'm going to call the sheriff.'
That was the last thing I wanted. I'd already done enough to endanger the ransom payment and Tom's return. I got.
8
A BLUE SPORTS car stood in the drive behind the Hillman Cadillac. An athletic-looking young man who looked as if he belonged in the sports car came out of the house and confronted me on the front steps. He wore an Ivy League suit and had an alligator coat slung over his arm and hand, with something bulky and gun-shaped under it.
`Point that thing away from me. I'm not armed.'
`I w-want to know who you are.'
He had a faint stammer.
'Lew Archer. Who are you?'
`I'm Dick Leandro.'
He spoke the words almost questioningly, as if he didn't quite know what it meant to be Dick Leandro.
`Lower that gun,' I reminded him. `Try pointing it at your leg.'
He dropped his arm. The alligator coat slid off it, onto the flagstone steps, and I saw that he was holding a heavy old revolver. He picked up the coat and looked at me in a rather confused way. He was a handsome boy in his early twenties, with brown eyes and dark curly hair. A certain little dancing light in his eyes told me that he was aware of being handsome.
`Since you're here,' I said, `I take it the money's here, too.'
`Yes. I brought it out from the office several hours ago.'
`Has Hillman been given instructions for delivering it?'
He shook his head. `We're still waiting.'
I found Ralph and Elaine Hillman in the downstairs room where the telephone was. They were sitting close together as if for warmth, on a chesterfield near the front window. The waiting had aged them both.
The evening light fell like gray paint across their faces. She was knitting something out of red wool. Her hands moved rapidly and precisely as if they had independent life.
Hillman got to his feet. He had been holding a newspaper-wrapped parcel in his lap, and he laid it down on the chesterfield, gently, like a father handling an infant.
`Hello, Archer,' he said in a monotone.' I moved toward him with some idea of comforting him. But the expression in his eyes, hurt and proud and lonely, discouraged me from touching him or saying anything very personal.
`You've had a long hard day.'
He nodded slowly, once. His wife let out a sound like a dry sob. `Why haven't we heard anything from that man?'
`It's hard to say. He seems to be putting on the screws deliberately.'
She pushed her knitting to one side, and it fell on the floor unnoticed. Her faded pretty face wrinkled up as if she could feel the physical pressure of torture instruments. `He's keeping us in hell, in absolute hell. But why?'
`He's probably waiting for dark,' I said. `I'm sure you'll be hearing from him soon. Twenty-five thousand dollars is a powerful attraction.'
`He's welcome to the money, five times over. Why doesn't he simply take it and give us back our boy?'
