“Then again I hardly ever wore the jade. After all, it’s a museum piece, probably not many like it in the world, a very rare type of jade. Yet they snapped at it. I wouldn’t expect them to think it had any value much, would you?”
“They’d know you wouldn’t wear it otherwise. Who knew about its value?”
She thought. It was nice to watch her thinking. She still had her legs crossed, and still carelessly.
“All sorts of people, I suppose.”
“But they didn’t know you would be wearing it that night? Who knew that?”
She shrugged her pale blue shoulders. I tried to keep my eyes where they belonged.
“My maid. But she’s had a hundred chances. And I trust her — “
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I just trust some people. I trust you.”
“Did you trust Marriott?”
Her face got a little hard. Her eyes a little watchful. “Not in some things. In others, yes. There are degrees.” She had a nice way of talking, cool, half-cynical, and yet not hardboiled. She rounded her words well.
“All right — besides the maid. The chauffeur?”
She shook her head, no. “Lin drove me that night, in his own car. I don’t think George was around at all. Wasn’t it Thursday?”
“I wasn’t there. Marriott said four or five days before in telling me about it. Thursday would have been an even week from last night.”
“Well, it was Thursday.” She reached for my glass and her fingers touched mine a little, and were soft to the touch. “George gets Thursday evening off. That’s the usual day, you know.” She poured a fat slug of mellow- looking Scotch into my glass and squirted in some fizz-water. It was the kind of liquor you think you can drink forever, and all you do is get reckless. She gave herself the same treatment.
“Lin told you my name?” she asked softly, the eyes still watchful.
“He was careful not to.”
“Then he probably misled you a little about the time. Let’s see what we have. Maid and chauffeur out. Out of consideration as accomplices, I mean.”
“They’re not out by me.”
“Well, at least I’m trying,” she laughed. “Then there’s Newton, the butler. He might have seen it on my neck that night. But it hangs down rather low and I was wearing a white fox evening wrap; no, I don’t think he could have seen it.”
“I bet you looked like a dream,” I said.
“You’re not getting a little tight, are you?”
“I’ve been known to be soberer.”
She put her head back and went off into a peal of laughter. I have only known four women in my life who could do that and still look beautiful. She was one of them.
“Newton is okey,” I said. “His type don’t run with hoodlums. That’s just guessing, though. How about the footman?”
She thought and remembered, then shook her head. “He didn’t see me.”
“Anybody ask you to wear the jade?”
Her eyes instantly got more guarded. “You’re not fooling me a damn bit,” she said.
She reached for my glass to refill it. I let her have it, even though it still had an inch to go. I studied the lovely lines of her neck.
When she had filled the glasses and we were playing with them again I said, “Let’s get the record straight and then I’ll tell you something. Describe the evening.”
She looked at her wrist watch, drawing a full length sleeve back to do it. “I ought to be — “
“Let him wait.”
Her eyes flashed at that. I liked them that way. “There’s such a thing as being just a little too frank,” she said.
“Not in my business. Describe the evening. Or have me thrown out on my ear. One or the other. Make your lovely mind up.”
“You’d better sit over here beside me.”
“I’ve been thinking that a long time,” I said. “Ever since you crossed your legs, to be exact.”
She pulled her dress down. “These damn things are always up around your neck.”
I sat beside her on the yellow leather chesterfield. “Aren’t you a pretty fast worker?” she asked quietly.
I didn’t answer her.
“Do you do much of this sort of thing?” she asked with a sidelong look.
“Practically none. I’m a Tibetan monk, in my spare time.”
“Only you don’t have any spare time.”
“Let’s focus,” I said. “Let’s get what’s left of our minds — or mine — on the problem. How much are you going to pay me?”
“Oh, that’s the problem. I thought you were going to get my necklace back. Or try to.”
“I have to work in my own way. This way.” I took a long drink and it nearly stood me on my head. I swallowed a little air.
“And investigate a murder,” I said.
“That has nothing to do with it. I mean that’s a police affair, isn’t it?”
“Yeah — only the poor guy paid me a hundred bucks to take care of him — and I didn’t. Makes me feel guilty. Makes we want to cry. Shall I cry?”
“Have a drink.” She poured us some more Scotch. It didn’t seem to affect her any more than water affects Boulder Dam.
“Well, where have we got to?” I said, trying to hold my glass so that the whiskey would stay inside it. “No maid, no chauffeur, no butler, no footman. We’ll be doing our own laundry next. How did the holdup happen? Your version might have a few details Marriott didn’t give me.”
She leaned forward and cupped her chin in her hand. She looked serious without looking silly-serious.
“We went to a party in Brentwood Heights. Then Lin suggested we run over to the Troc for a few drinks and a few dances. So we did. They were doing some work on Sunset and it was very dusty. So coming back Lin dropped down to Santa Monica. That took us past a shabby looking hotel called the Hotel Indio, which I happened to notice for some silly meaningless reason. Across the street from it was a beer joint and a car was parked in front of that.”
“Only one car — in front of a beer joint?”
“Yes. Only one. It was a very dingy place. Well, this car started up and followed us and of course I thought nothing of that either. There was no reason to. Then before we got to where Santa Monica turns into Arguello Boulevard, Lin said, ‘Let’s go over the other road’ and turned up some curving residential street. Then all of a sudden a car rushed by us and grazed the fender and then pulled over to stop. A man in an overcoat and scarf and hat low on his face came back to apologize. It was a white scarf bunched out and it drew my eyes. It was about all I really saw of him except that he was tall and thin. As soon as he got close — and I remembered afterwards that he didn’t walk in our headlights at all — “
“That’s natural. Nobody likes to look into headlights. Have a drink. My treat this time.”
She was leaning forward, her fine eyebrows — not daubs of paint — drawn together in a frown of thought. I made two drinks. She went on:
“As soon as he got close to the side where Lin was sitting he jerked the scarf up over his nose and a gun was shining at us. ‘Stick-up,’ he said. ‘Be very quiet and everything will be jake.’ Then another man came over on the other side.”
“In Beverly Hills,” I said, “the best policed four square miles in California.”
She shrugged. “It happened just the same. They asked for my jewelry and bag. The man with the scarf did. The one on my side never spoke at all. I passed the things across Lin and the man gave me back my bag and one ring. He said to hold off calling the police and insurance people for a while. They would make us a nice smooth easy deal. He said they found it easier to work on a straight percentage. He seemed to have all the time in the world. He
