'How long have you been at it?'
'In the last hour or so.'
'You're a good witness. How would you like to join my staff permanently?'
'It would depend on what I had to witness.'
We smiled at each other, warily. We had both had unsuccessful marriages.
I retreated into the records room. Malkovsky was bent over the pulled-out drawer of a cabinet, riffling through file cards.
'I'm making some progress. I hope. As far as I can see there were seven outside guests, individuals and couples, in September of 1959. I've ruled out four of them - people I remember personally, mostly repeaters. That leaves three: the Sandersons, and the de Houvenels, and the Berglunds. But none of the names rings a bell.'
'Try Ketchel.'
'Ketchel!'
He blinked and smiled. 'I believe that's the name. I couldn't find it among the guest cards, though.'
'It could have been taken out.'
'Or lost,' he said. 'These older files are in a pretty poor shape. But I'm morally certain Ketchel is the name. Where did you pick it up from?'
'From one of the members.'
I got out the negative. 'Can you make me some copies of this?'
'I don't see why not.'
'How long would it take you?'
'I guess I could have some by tomorrow.'
'Tomorrow morning at eight?'
After a moment's hesitation, he said: 'I can try.'
I gave him the negative, with a lecture about not losing it, and said goodnight to him at the front door. When he was out of hearing, Ella said dryly: 'I hope you're paying him decently. All he makes out of his photography is a bare living. And he has a wife and children.'
'I'm paying him decently. There's no record in the files of the Ketchels being guests here.'
'Mrs. Sylvester could have given you the wrong name.'
'I doubt, it. Eric recognized it. More likely someone took the record out f the files. Are they easily accessible?'
'I'm afraid they are. People are in and out of the office, and the records room is open a good deal of the time. Is it very important?'
'It may be. I want to know who sponsored the Ketchels as guests.'
'Mr. Stoll might remember. But he's gone off for the night.'
She directed me to the manager's cottage. It was closed and dark. The wind whimpered like a lost dog in the shrubbery.
I went back to the main entrance of the club. Dr Sylvester still hadn't returned. I looked in at the bar, saw Mrs. Sylvester slouched over a drink, and retreated before she saw me.
Ella told me more about her second marriage. Her husband Strome was an attorney in the city, an older man, a widower when she married him. She had been his secretary originally, but being his wife was much more demanding, in subtle ways. Her first husband had been too young; her second was too old. An older man was deeply set in his habits, including sexual habits.
I let the conversation go on. Such desultory continuing conversations were one of my best sources of information. Besides I liked the woman, and I was interested in her marriage.
The story of it blended with the long rough night we were having. She'd stayed with Strome for six years but in the end she couldn't stick it out. She hadn't even asked for alimony.
Some people left the party, and Ella said goodnight to them by name. Others were staying on. Our conversation, or Ella's monologue, was punctuated by gusts of music, laughter, wind.
Dr Sylvester's arrival brought it to a full stop. He pushed through the door with angry force.
'Is my wife still here?' he asked Ella.
'I think so, doctor.'
'What kind of shape is she in?'
'She's still upright,' I said.
He turned a stony eye on me. 'Nobody asked you.'
He started off toward the bar, hesitated, and turned back to Ella: 'Would you get her for me, Mrs. Strome? I don't feel like facing that mob again tonight.'
'I'll be glad to. How is Mrs. Fablon?'
'She'll be all right. I got her calmed down. She's upset about her daughter, and it was complicated by barbiturates.'
'She didn't try to take too many?'
'Nothing like that. She took regular sleeping pills and then decided to come down here to see her friends. Add one drink and the result was predictable.'
He paused, and dropped his professional tone: 'Go and get Audrey, will you'' Ella hurried away down the lighted corridor. I leaned on the reception desk and watched Dr Sylvester in the mirror. He lit a cigarette and pretended to forget me, but my presence seemed to make him uncomfortable. He coughed smoke and said: 'Look here, what gives you the right to stand there watching me? Are you the new doorman or something?'
'I'm bucking for the job. The wages are poor but think of the fringe benefits, like getting to know all the best people.'
'You're bucking to get thrown out on your ear.'
His jaw had converted itself into a blunt instrument. His hands were shaking.
He was big enough to hit, and unpleasant enough, but everything else about the occasion was wrong. Besides, he was in transit from one troubled woman to another, and it gave him a certain license.
'Take it easy, doctor. We're on the same side.'
'Are we?'
He looked at me over his cigarette, smoke crawling on his face. Then, as if its burning tip had touched off his outburst, he threw it down on the marble floor and scotched it under his heel. 'I don't even know what the game is,' he said in a friendlier tone.
'It's a new kind of game.'
I didn't have the negative of Kitty and Ketchel, so I described it to him. 'The man in the picture, the one with the diamond ring, do you know who he'd be?'
It was an honesty test, but I didn't know whose honesty was being tested, his or his wife's.
He hedged: 'It's difficult to tell from a verbal description. Does he have a name?'
'It may be Ketchel. I heard he was your patient.'
'Ketchel.'
He stroked his jaw as if to massage it back into human shape. 'I believe I did have a patient of that name once.'
'In 1959?'
'It might have been. It might well have been.'
'Did he stay here?'
'I believe he did.'
I showed him Kitty's picture.
He nodded. 'That's Mrs. Ketchel. I couldn't be mistaken about her. She came to my office once, before they left, to get instructions about a salt-free diet. I treated her husband for hypertension. His blood pressure was way up, but I managed to bring it down within the normal range.'
'Who is he?'
Sylvester's face went through the motions of remembering. 'A retired man from New York. He told me he got in at the start of the bull market, lucky stiff. He owned a cattle spread somewhere in the Southwest.'
'In California?'
'I don't remember, at this late date.'
