might help him and her marriage to survive.
Sylvester broke in: 'We can't keep her standing here while we cross-question her. One of us ought to call the police.'
'You should have called them before you left your office.'
Ginny seemed to think I was blaming her. 'My husband wouldn't let me. He said it would mean the end of everything.'
Her heavy look swung from side to side, as if the end of everything was upon her.
Sylvester quieted her against his shoulder. Slowly and gently he walked her into the house. I went next door. A stout executive type in a black alpaca sweater was standing outside on his front lawn, looking helpless and resentful. He owned a house on Sabado Avenue, and this was supposed to guarantee a quiet life.
'What do you want?'
'The use of your phone. There's been a shooting.'
'Is that what the noise was?'
'You heard the gun?'
'I thought it was a backfire at the time.'
'Did you see the car?'
'I saw a black Rolls drive away. Or maybe it was a Bentley. But that was some time later.'
This wasn't much help. I asked him to show me a telephone. He took me in through the back door to the kitchen. It was one of those space age kitchens, all gleaming metal and control panels, ready to go into lunar orbit. The man handed me a telephone and left the room, as if to avoid finding out something that might disturb him.
Within a few minutes a squad car arrived, followed closely by a Homicide Captain named Perlberg. Not long after that we located Martel's Bentley. It hadn't gone far.
Its gleaming nose was jammed against the metal safety barrier at the dead end of Sabado Avenue. Beyond the barrier the loose ground sloped away to the edge of a bluff which overlooked the Pacific.
The Bentley's engine was still running. Martel's chin rested on the steering wheel. The dead eyes in his yellow face were peering out into the blue ocean of air.
Perlberg and I knew each other, and I gave him a quick rundown on the case. He and his men made a search for Martel's hundred thousand, but found no trace of it in the car or at the house. The gunman who took Martel had taken the money too.
Ginny was in slightly better shape by this time, and Sylvester gave Perlberg permission to question her briefly. He and I sat in the living room with them, and monitored the interview. Ginny and Martel had been married by a judge in Beverley Hills the previous Saturday. The same day he had rented this house, completely furnished, through an agent. She didn't know who the legal owner was.
No, she didn't know who had shot her husband. She had been asleep when it happened. It was all over when she came downstairs.
'But your husband was still alive,' Perlberg said. 'What did he say?'
'Nothing.'
'He must have said something.'
'Just that I wasn't to call anyone,' she said. 'He said he wasn't badly hurt. I didn't realize he was until later.'
'How much later?'
'I don't know. I was so upset, and we have no clocks. I sat and watched the life draining out of his face. He wouldn't speak to me. He seemed to be profoundly-humiliated. When I finally realized how badly off he was, I went next door and called Dr Sylvester.'
She nodded toward the doctor who was sitting near her.
'Why didn't you call a local doctor?'
'I didn't know any.'
'Why didn't you call us?'
'I was afraid to. My husband said it would be the end of him.'
'What did he mean by that?'
'I don't know, but I was afraid. When I finally did make a call, he went away.'
She covered her face with her hands. Sylvester persuaded the Captain to cut the questioning short. Perlberg's men took pictures, and shavings of the blood-spotted parquetry, and left us alone with Ginny in the big echoing house.
She said she wanted to go home to her mother. Sylvester told her that her mother was dead. She didn't seem to take it in.
I volunteered to get some of her things together. While Sylvester stayed with her in the living room, I went up to the master bedroom on the second floor. The bed, which was its central feature, was circular, about nine feet in diameter. I was beginning to see a good many of these king-sized beds, like hopeful altars to old gods. The bed had been left unmade, and the tangled sheets suggested lovemaking.
The suitcases were on the floor of the closet under a row of empty hangers. They had been left unpacked except for a few overnight things: Ginny's nightgown and hairbrush and toothbrush and cosmetics, Martel's pajamas and safety razor. I went through his suitcases quickly. Most of his clothes were new and of fine quality, some with Bond Street labels. Apart from a book by Descartes, Meditations, in French, I could find nothing personal, and even this book had no name on the flyleaf.
Later, as we drove through the endless suburbs to Montevista, I asked Ginny if she knew who her husband was. Sylvester had given her a sedative, and she rode between us with her head on his extended arm. The shock of Martel's death had pushed her back toward childishness. Her voice sounded just a little like a sleep-talker's: 'He's Francis Martel, from Paris. You know that.'
'I thought I did, Ginny. But just today another name came up. Feliz Cervantes.'
'I never heard of any such person.'
'You met him, or at least he met you, at a Cercle Francais meeting at Professor Tapping's house.'
'When? I've been to dozens of Cercle Francais meetings.'
'This one was seven years ago, in September. Francis Martel was there under the name Cervantes. Mrs. Tappinger identified a photograph of him.'
'Can I see the photograph?'
I moved over into the slow lane and worked the picture out of my jacket pocket. She took it from me. Then for some time she was silent. The afternoon traffic fled by us on the left. The drivers looked apprehensive, as if they had been kidnapped by their cars.
'Is this really Francis standing by the wall?'
'I'm almost certain that it is. Didn't you know him in those days?'
'No. Was I supposed to have?'
'He knew you. He told his landlady that he was going to get rich some day and come back and marry you.'
'But that's ridiculous.'
'Not so very. It happened.'
Sylvester, who had been quiet until now, growled something at me about shutting up.
Ginny hung her head in thought over the picture. 'If this is Francis, what's he doing with Mr. and Mrs. Ketchel?'
'You know the Ketchels?'
'I met them once.'
'When?'
'September seven years ago. My father took me to lunch with them. It was just before he died.'
Sylvester scowled across her at me. 'This is enough of this, Archer. It's no time to poke around in explosive material.'
'It's the only time I have.'
I said to the girl: 'Do you mind talking to me about these things?'
'Not if it will help.'
She managed a wan smile.
