acquitted. If he had called me up then, I would have helped him. But by making the murder a brutal affair to cover the traces of the bullet, he made it impossible. He had to run away and even that he did clumsily.”
“He certainly did, Mr. Potter. But he called you up in Pasadena first, didn’t he? He told me he did.”
The big man nodded. “I told him to disappear and I would still see what I could do. I didn’t want to know where he was. That was imperative. I could not hide a criminal. ”
“Sounds good, Mr. Potter.”
“Do I detect a note of sarcasm? No matter. When I learned the details there was nothing to be done. I could not permit the sort of trial that kind of killing would result in. To be frank, I was very glad when I learned that he had shot himself in Mexico and left a confession.”
“I can understand that, Mr. Potter.”
He beetled his eyebrows at me. “Be careful, young man. I don’t like irony. Can you understand now that I cannot tolerate any further investigation of any sort by any person? And why I have used all my influence to make what investigation there was as brief as possible and as little publicized as possible?”
“Sure—if you’re convinced he killed her.”
“Of course he killed her. With what intent is another matter it is no longer important. I am not a public character and I do not intend to be. I have always gone to a great deal of trouble to avoid any kind of publicity. I have influence but I can’t abuse it. The District Attorney of Los Angeles County is an ambitious man who has too much good sense to wreck his career for the notoriety of the moment. I see a glint in your eye, Marlowe. Get rid of it. We live in what is called a democracy, rule by the majority of the people. A fine ideal if it could be made to work. The people elect, but the party machines nominate, and the party machines to be effective must spend a great deal of money. Somebody has to give it to them, and that somebody, whether it be an individual, a financial group, a trade union or what have you, expects some consideration in return. What I and people of my kind expect is to be allowed to live our lives in decent privacy. I own newspapers, but I don’t like them. I regard them as a constant menace to whatever privacy we have left. Their constant yelping about a free press means, with a few honorable exceptions, freedom to peddle scandal, crime, sex, sensationalism, hate, innuendo, and the political and financial uses of propaganda. A newspaper is a business out to make money through advertising revenue. That is predicated on its circulation and you know what the circulation depends on.”
I got up and walked around my chair. He eyed me with cold attention. I sat down again. I needed a little luck. Hell, I needed it in carload lots. “Okay, Mr. Potter, what goes from here?”
He wasn’t listening. He was frowning at his own thoughts. “There’s a peculiar thing about money,” he went on. “In large quantities it tends to have a life of its own, even a conscience of its own. The power of money becomes very difficult to control. Man has always been a venal animal. The growth of populations, the huge costs of wars, the incessant pressure of confiscatory taxation—all these things make him more and more venal. The average man is tired and scared, and a tired, scared man can’t afford ideals. He has to buy food for his family. In our time we have seen a shocking decline in both public and private morals. You can’t expect quality from people whose lives are a subjection to a lack of quality. You can’t have quality with mass production. You don’t want it because it lasts too long. So you substitute styling, which is a commercial swindle intended to produce artificial obsolescence. Mass production couldn’t sell its goods next year unless it made what it sold this year look unfashionable a year from now. We have the whitest kitchens and the most shining bathrooms in the world. But in the lovely white kitchen the average American housewife can’t produce a meal fit to eat, and the lovely shining bathroom is mostly a receptacle for deodorants, laxatives, sleeping pills, and the products of that confidence racket called the cosmetic industry. We make the finest packages in the world, Mr. Marlowe. The stuff inside is mostly junk.”
He took out a large white handkerchief and touched his temples with it. I was sitting there with my mouth open, wondering what made the guy tick. He hated everything.
“It’s a little too warm for me in these parts,” he said. “I’m used to a cooler climate. I’m beginning to sound like an editorial that has forgotten the point it wanted to make.”
“I got your point all right, Mr. Potter. You don’t like the way the world is going so you use what power you have to close off a private corner to live in as near as possible to the way you remember people lived fifty years ago before the age of mass production. You’ve got a hundred million dollars and all it has bought you is a pain in the neck.”
He pulled the handkerchief taut by two opposite corners, then crumpled it into a ball and stuffed it in a pocket.
“And then?” he asked shortly.
“That’s all there is, there isn’t any more. You don’t care who murdered your daughter, Mr. Potter. You wrote her off as a bad job long ago. Even if Terry Lennox didn’t kill her, and the real murderer is still walking around free, you don’t care. You wouldn’t want him caught, because that would revive the scandal and there would have to be a trial and his defense would blow your privacy as high as the Empire State Building. Unless, of course, he was obliging enough to commit suicide, before there was any trial. Preferably in Tahiti or Guatemala or the middle of the Sahara Desert. Anywhere where the County would hate the expense of sending a man to verify what had happened.”
He smiled suddenly, a big rugged smile with a reasonable amount of friendliness in it.
“What do you want from me, Marlowe?”
“If you mean how much money, nothing. I didn’t ask myself here. I was brought. I told the truth about how I met Roger Wade. But he did know your daughter and he does have a record of violence, although I haven’t seen any of it. Last night the guy tried to shoot himself. He’s a haunted man. He has a massive guilt complex. If I happened to be looking for a good suspect, he might do. I realize he’s only one of many, but he happens to be the only one I’ve met.”
He stood up and standing up he was really big. Tough too. He came over and stood in front of me.
“A telephone call, Mr. Marlowe, would deprive you of your license. Don’t fence with me. I won’t put up with it.”
“Two telephone calls and I’d wake up kissing the gutter—with the back of my head missing.”
He laughed harshly. “I don’t operate that way. I suppose in your quaint line of business it is natural for you to think so. I’ve given you too much of my time. I’ll ring for the butler to show you out.”
“Not necessary,” I said, and stood up myself. “I came here and got told. Thanks for the time.”
