`And Tom caught on that your husband wasn't his father.'
She looked at me nervously. `You think he did?'
`I'm reasonably certain of it,' I said, remembering what Fred Tyndal had told me. `Mrs. Hillman, what happened on the Sunday morning that you put Tom in Laguna Perdida?'
She said quickly: `It was Ralph's doing, not mine.'
`Had they quarreled?'
`Yes. Ralph was horribly angry with him.'
`What about?'
She bowed her head. `My husband has forbidden me to speak of it.'
`Did Tom say something or do something very wrong?'
She sat with her head bowed and wouldn't answer me. `I've told you more than I should have,' she said eventually, `in the hope of getting to the bottom of this mess. Now will you tell me something? You mentioned a hotel called the Barcelona, and you said that Tom had been hiding there. You used the word 'hiding.'
`Yes.'
`Wasn't he being held?'
`I don't know. There may have been some duress, possibly psychological duress. But I doubt that he was held in the ordinary sense.'
She looked at me with distaste. I'd brought her some very tough pieces of information to chew on, and probably this was the hardest one of all.
`You've hinted from the beginning that Tom cooperated willingly with the kidnappers.'
`It was a possibility that had to be considered. It still is.'
`Please don't sidestep the question. I can stand a direct answer.'
She smiled dimly. `At this point I couldn't stand anything else.'
`All right. I think Tom went with Harley of his own free will, rode in the trunk of Harley's car to the Barcelona Hotel, and stayed there without anybody having to hold a gun on him. I don't understand his reasons, and I won't until I talk to him. But he probably didn't know about the extortion angle. There's no evidence that he profited from it, anyway. He's broke.'
`How do you know? Have you seen him?'
'I've talked to somebody who talked to him. Tom said he needed money.'
`I suppose that's good news in a way.'
`I thought it was.'
I made a move to go, but she detained me. There was more on her mind: `This Barcelona Hotel you speak of, is it the big old rundown place on the coast highway?'
`Yes. It's closed up now.'
`And Tom hid, or was hidden, there?'
I nodded. `The watchman at the hotel, a man named Sipe, was a partner in the extortion. He may have been the brains behind it, to the extent that it took any brains. He was shot to death this morning. The other partner, Harley, was stabbed to death last night.'
Her face was open, uncomprehending, as if she couldn't quite take in these terrible events.
`How extraordinary,' she breathed.
`Not so very. They were heavy thieves, and they came to a heavy end.'
`I don't mean those violent deaths, although they're part of it. I mean the deep connections you get in life, the coming together of the past and the present.'
`What do you have in mind?'
She grimaced. `Something ugly, but I'm afraid it has to be said. You see, the Barcelona Hotel, where my son, my adopted son, has been staying with criminals, apparently' - she took a shuddering breath - `that very place was the scene of Ralph's affair with Susanna Drew. And did you say that the watchman's name was Sipe, the one who was shot?'
`Yes. Otto Sipe.'
`Did he once work as a detective in the hotel?'
`Yes. He was the kind of detective who gives our trade a bad name.'
`I have reason to know that,' she said. `I knew Mr. Sipe. That is, I talked to him once, and he left an impression that I haven't been able to wipe out of my memory. He was a gross, corrupt man. He came to my house in Brentwood in the spring of 1945.
He was the one who told me about Ralph's affair with Miss Drew.'
`He wanted money, of course.'
`Yes, and I gave him money. Two hundred dollars, he asked for, and when he saw that I was willing to pay he raised it to five hundred, all the cash I had on hand. Well, the money part is unimportant. It always is,' she said, reminding me that she had never needed money.
