`I talked to Carol's parents, too,' I said. `Carol was there earlier in the summer, and she left a suitcase in her room. A letter in it explained to me why you blamed yourself for the Hillman extortion.'
`You saw my letter, eh? I should never have written a letter like that to Mike. I should have known better.'
He was hanging his head again.
`It's hard to see ahead and figure what the little things we do will lead to. And you weren't intending to suggest anything wrong.'
`Gosh, no.'
`Anyway, your letter helped me. It led me back here to Otto Sipe, and I hope eventually to the Hillman boy. The boy was holed up here with Sipe from Monday morning till Wednesday night, last night.'
`No kidding.'
`How well did you know Otto Sipe?'
Harold winced away from the question. If he could, he would have disappeared entirely, leaving his dark business suit and black tie and dusty hat suspended between the crisp brown grass and the dry leaves of the magnolia. He said in a voice that didn't want to be heard: `He was Mike's friend. I got to know him that way. He trained Mike for a boxing career.'
`What kind of a career did he train you for, Harold?'
`You. Didn't Sipe get you the job as hotel photographer here?'
`On account of- I was Mike's brother.'
`I'm sure that had something to do with it. But didn't Sipe want you to help him with his sideline?'
`What sideline was that?'
`Blackmail.'
He shook his head so vehemently that his hat almost fell off. `I never had any part of the rake-off, honest. He paid me standard rates to take those pictures, a measly buck a throw, and if I didn't do it I'd lose my job. I quit anyway, as soon as I had the chance. It was a dirty business.'
He peered up the driveway at the bland decaying face of the hotel. It was stark white now in the twilight. `I never took any benefit from it. I never even knew who the people were.'
`Not even once?'
`I don't know what you mean.'
`Didn't you take a picture of Captain Hillman and his girl?'
His face was pale and wet. `I don't know. I never knew their names.'
`Last spring at Newport you recognized Hillman.'
`Sure, he was the exec of Mike's ship. I met him when I went aboard that time.'
`And no other time?'
`No sir.'
`When were you and Mike arrested? In the spring of 1945?'
He nodded. `The fifth of March. I'm not likely to forget it. It was the only time I ever got arrested. After they let me go I never came back here. Until now.'
He looked around at the place as if it had betrayed him a second time.
`If you're telling the truth about the date, you didn't take the picture I'm interested in. It was taken in April.'
`I'm not lying. By that time Otto Sipe had another boy.'
`What gave him so much power around the hotel?'
`I think he had something on the management. He hushed up something for them, long ago, something about a movie star who stayed here.'
`Was Mike staying here at the time he was picked up?'
`Yeah. I let him and Carol use my room, the one that went with the job. I slept in the employees' dormitory. I think Otto Sipe let Carol stay on in the room for a while after me and Mike were arrested.'
`Was it the room next door to his, at the end of the corridor?'
`Yeah.'
`Did it have a brass bed in it?'
`Yeah. Why?'
`I was just wondering. They haven't changed the furnishings since the war. That interconnecting bathroom would have been handy for Sipe, if he liked Carol.'
He shook his head. `Not him. He had no use for women. And Carol had no use for him. She got out of there as soon as she could make other arrangements. She went to live with a woman friend in Burbank.'
'Susanna.'
