her I was thinking she might be leaving there soon and I'd like to have her address.
'It's nice of you to call,' she said. 'It's a-pleasant surprise. Naturally I thought you-last week, I mean-I thought you were just being a detective.'
'Don't kid me,' I told her. 'Anyone that dances the way you do being surprised at a phone call. Not that I suppose you're doing any dancing at present.'
'Not now. No.'
'Will you be leaving there soon?'
'Not this week. We're trying to help Mr. Huddleston straighten things up.'
'Will you send me your address when you go?'
'Why-yes. Certainly. If you want it.'
'I do you know. How would it be if I drove up there? Just to say hello?'
'When? Now?'
'Right now. I can be there in twenty minutes. I'd kind of like to see you.'
'Why-' Silence. 'That would be all right. If you want to take the trouble.'
I told her it would be no trouble at all, hung up, went out to the roadster, and made for the entrance to the West Side Highway at 46th Street.
I admit my timing was terrible. If I had arrived, say, between twelve thirty and one, they might have been in the house having lunch, and I could have said I had already eaten and waited for Janet on the terrace, which would have been a perfect opportunity. Of course as it turned out that would have made a monkey of me, so it was just as well that I dubbed it. As it was, leaving the car outside the fence, with the knife in one hip pocket and the trowel in the other, and the folded paper bags in the side pocket of my coat, I walked across the lawn to where Larry stood near the pool, glowering at it. When he heard me coming he transferred the glower to me.
'Hello,' I said amiably. 'What, no alligators?'
'No. They're gone.'
'And Mister? And the bears?'
'Yes. What the hell are you doing here?'
I suppose it would have been sensible to appease him, but he was really quite irritating. Tone and look both. So I said, 'I came to play tag with Mister,' and started for the house, but Janet appeared, cutting across the lawn. She looked prettier than I remembered her, or maybe not so much prettier as more interesting. Her hair was done differently or something. She said hello to me and let me have a hand to shake, and then told Larry:
'Maryella says you'll have to help her with those Corliss bills. Some of them go back before she came, and she doesn't seem to trust my memory.'
Larry nodded at her, and, moving, was in front of me. 'What do you want?' he demanded.
'Nothing special,' I said. 'Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom-'
'If you've got a bill, mail it. You'll get about three percent.'
I suppressed impulses and shook my head. 'No bill. I came to see Miss Nichols.'
'Yes you did. You came to snoop-'
But Janet had her hand on his arm. 'Please, Larry. Mr. Goodwin phoned and asked to see me. Please?'
I would have preferred smacking him, and it was irritating to see her with her hand on his arm looking up at him the way she did, but when he turned and marched off towards the house I restrained myself and let him go.
I asked Janet, 'What's eating him?'
'Well,' she said, 'after all, you are a detective. And his aunt has died-terrible, it was terrible-'
'Sure. If you want to call that grief. What was the crack about three per cent?'
'Oh…' She hesitated. 'But there's nothing secret about it, goodness knows. Miss Huddleston's affairs are tangled up. Everybody thought she was rich, but apparently she spent it as fast as she made it.'
'Faster, if the creditors are going to get three percent.' I got started towards the terrace, and she came beside me. 'In that case, the brother and the nephew are out of luck. I apologize to Larry. He's probably overcome by grief, after all.'
'That's a mean thing to say,' Janet protested.
'Then I take it back.' I waved it away. 'Let's talk about something else.'
I was thinking the best plan was to sit with her on the terrace, with the idea of getting her to leave me alone there for a few minutes, which was all I needed, but the hot noon sun was coming straight down, and she went on into the house with me behind her. She invited me to sit on a couch with her, but with the tools in my hip pockets I thought it was safer to take a chair facing her. We had a conversation.
Of course the simplest thing would have been to tell her what I wanted to do and then go ahead and do it, and I deny that it was any suspicion of her, either as a letter writer or as a murderess, that kept me from doing that. It was the natural desire I had not to hurt her feelings by letting her know that my real purpose in coming was not just to see her. If things should develop it was good policy to have her friendly. So I played it for a
