The Vanished

vanishing of Sands and the affair. If it were not for that portrait and its as yet unexplained importance, which made for a strong link between the two. And if it were not for one other nagging little fact that formed a nebulous but potentially important connection.

Diane Emery’s parents lived in Roxbury, California, near the city of Eureka-and Eureka was in the northern part of the state, approximately halfway between San Francisco and Eugene, Oregon, the two places where Sands had last been seen.

I got out of my chair and paced awhile, remembering what Chuck Hendryx had told me about his brief meeting with Sands at the Presidio in San Francisco. Well, suppose the something Sands had said he had to do before meeting Elaine was to see the parents of the girl whose death he had indirectly caused- either because the guilt was still strong in him and confession was a balm for an aching soul, or for some other intangible reason. If so, had he gone to Roxbury? Or had something detoured him to Eugene first? And if he had stopped in Roxbury, was the key to his eventual disappearance to be found there?

I stopped pacing and sat down again, and the telephone bell sounded. It was the desk man to tell me that there was a flight leaving Frankfurt at eight-thirty in the morning, and a polar non-stop departing London at one tomorrow afternoon; I was confirmed on both flights. I thanked him and put the receiver down and got my suitcase out of the closet.

After I had packed, I went downstairs and out into the rain again, to see if there was anything more to be unearthed. When I came back six hours later-having spoken to Diane Emery’s neighbors, to a couple of casual acquaintances of Roy Sands at Larson Barracks, to the proprietor of another, smaller art gallery-I had to answer to that: there was nothing.

I told myself once more that I was making the right decision in leaving, picked up my suitcase and my car from the Bayerischer Hof, and began the trip back to Frankfurt and home.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I came back to San Francisco the same way I had arrived in Germany: bone-tired.

There had been delays at Heathrow again, and inclement weather on the transatlantic flight, and it was after three when the plane landed at San Francisco International on Wednesday. I had regained the nine hours lost going over, and so it was midnight European time and better than eighteen hours since I had last slept.

It was cold and clear in The City, and that was a pleasant change from the sweeping rain and snow which had blanketed most of Europe. I took the shuttle into the Downtown Terminal, went directly from there to the Argonaut Hotel.

Not quite as genteel as the Royal Gate, it was nonetheless another of those gilt-edged mirrors of old San Francisco; Elaine Kavanaugh had, for one thing, excellent taste. I spoke to a desk clerk who might have been a younger brother of the one at the Royal Gate, found out that Elaine was in her room, and waited while he had me announced. A couple of minutes later he came back with her approval and told me I would find her in 722.

When I came out of the elevator on the seventh floor, she had her door open at the far end of the hall, waiting for me. She wore a yellow sweater and a plaid skirt, and her hair was carelessly combed, her face haggard and etched with desperate hope and infinite weariness. There were purplish half-moons under her eyes, and worry lines on her forehead and at the corners of her unpainted mouth. Her flesh had a loose quality, a kind of mass relaxation of the molecules of her being, and she looked at least as old as I am.

If I tell her what I suspect, I thought, she’ll age even more, she’ll disintegrate right here in front of me. The prospect was an ugly one. During the plane flights I had tried to think of different ways of handling my meeting with her, using half-truths at this or that level, but none of it was particularly appealing. Finally, I had decided to just let it happen spontaneously, que sera sera, and that still seemed to be the best idea.

She caught my arm and drew me inside, and then shut the door and leaned back against it, looking at me with those desperate eyes. ‘My God, I thought you were never going to come,’ she said. ‘I’ve been waiting and waiting- why didn’t you say something in your wire?’

‘There was nothing immediate to say.’

‘But didn’t you find out something?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘What does that mean? Did you or didn’t you?’

‘I’m just not sure.’

‘There must be some reason you decided to come home so quickly, for God’s sake.’

‘There’s a possibility I have to check out,’ I said. ‘Some people your fiance may have gone to see in Northern California.’

‘Where in Northern California?’

‘A town called Roxbury.’

‘Where’s that? I’ve never heard of it.’

‘It’s near Eureka.’

‘Who would Roy know up there?’

‘The family of someone he… met over in Germany.’

‘Why would he go to visit this family?’

‘I didn’t say that he did.’

‘But you think he might have?’

‘There’s the chance.’

‘Who was this someone he met in Germany?’

‘Just a guy,’ I lied automatically, and I felt uncomfortable, I felt lousy about this whole damned thing. I could not look at Elaine. I went to the window across the room and stared out at the city, lighting a cigarette; my cough had gone away again, the way it always did, and I knew I was back fighting to keep myself under a pack a day, same old circus, same old carousel.

She came up behind me, and I could see her reflection in the window glass. I said, ‘Have you been all right?’

‘I’m beginning to understand what people with claustrophobia must feel like.’

‘But you didn’t go out.’

‘No. And no one has bothered me.’

‘Well, I’m glad to hear that.’

‘Look at me,’ she said, and there was some of that desperation in her voice now.

I did not want to look at her, but I turned anyway, slowly, and met her eyes and tried to keep my own blank and gentle. She said, ‘Why won’t you tell me what you found out? About these people Roy might have gone to see?’

‘Because I’m not sure it means anything. I don’t want to get your hopes up.’

‘I have a right to know. You’re working for me, you know.’

‘Listen, Miss Kavanaugh, bear with me a little. I’m not withholding anything important. I just want to have a chance to look into this thing before I talk about it. That’s all.’

‘Does it have something to do with that portrait of Roy?’

‘It might.’

‘Did you find out anything about it in Germany?’

‘Possibly.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it just yet.’

‘Do you have an idea now why it’s important?’

‘No,’ I said truthfully.

‘Or who stole it? Or who made those telephone calls?’

‘No.’

‘Or where Roy is now?’