“I feel as if I could understand that too,” I said. “How long have you known Mr. Vannier?”
“I’ve known him eight years. I haven’t known him very well. I have had to take him a—a parcel now and then. He liked to have me bring it myself.”
I tried again with a smoke ring. Nope.
“Of course,” she said, “I never liked him very well. I was afraid he would—I was afraid he—”
“But he didn’t,” I said.
For the first time her face got a human natural expression—surprise.
“No,” she said. “He didn’t. That is, he didn’t really. But he had his pajamas on.”
“Taking it easy,” I said. “Lying around all afternoon with his pajamas on. Well, some guys have all the luck, don’t they?”
“Well you have to know something,” she said seriously. “Something that makes people pay you money. Mrs. Murdock has been wonderful to me, hasn’t she?”
“She certainly has,” I said. “How much were you taking him today?”
“Only five hundred dollars. Mrs. Murdock said that was all she could spare, and she couldn’t really spare that. She said it would have to stop. It couldn’t go on. Mr. Vannier would always promise to stop, but he never did.”
“It’s a way they have,” I said.
“So there was only one thing to do. I’ve known that for years, really. It was all my fault and Mrs. Murdock has been so wonderful to me. It couldn’t make me any worse than I was already, could it?”
I put my hand up and rubbed my cheek hard, to quiet the nerve. She forgot that I hadn’t answered her and went on again.
“So I did it,” she said. “He was there in his pajamas, with a glass beside him. He was leering at me. He didn’t even get up to let me in. But there was a key in the front door. Somebody had left a key there. It was—it was—” her voice jammed in her throat.
“It was a key in the front door,” I said. “So you were able to get in.”
“Yes.” She nodded and almost smiled again. “There wasn’t anything to it, really. I don’t even remember hearing the noise. But there must have been a noise, of course. Quite a loud noise.”
“I suppose so,” I said.
“I went over quite close to him, so I couldn’t miss,” she said.
“And what did Mr. Vannier do?”
“He didn’t do anything at all. He just leered, sort of. Well, that’s all there is to it. I didn’t like to go back to Mrs. Murdock and make any more trouble for her. And for Leslie.” Her voice hushed on the name, and hung suspended, and a little shiver rippled over her body. “So I came here,” she said. “And when you didn’t answer the bell, I found the office and asked the manager to let me in and wait for you. I knew you would know what to do.”
“And what did you touch in the house while you were there?” I asked. “Can you remember at all? I mean, besides the front door. Did you just go in at the door and come out without touching anything in the house?”
She thought and her face stopped moving. “Oh, I remember one thing,” she said. “I put the light out. Before I left. It was a lamp. One of these lamps that shine upwards, with big bulbs. I put that out.”
I nodded and smiled at her. Marlowe, one smile, cheerful. “What time was this—how long ago?”
“Oh just before I came over here. I drove. I had Mrs. Murdock’s car. The one you asked about yesterday. I forgot to tell you that she didn’t take it when she went away. Or did I? No, I remember now I did tell you.”
“Let’s see,” I said. “Half an hour to drive here anyway. You’ve been here close to an hour. That would be about five-thirty when you left Mr. Vannier’s house. And you put the light off.”
“That’s right.” She nodded again, quite brightly. Pleased at remembering. “I put the light out.”
“Would you care for a drink?” I asked her.
“Oh, no.” She shook her head quite vigorously. “I never drink anything at all.”
“Would you mind if I had one?”
“Certainly not. Why should I?”
I stood up, gave her a studying look. Her lip was still going up and her head was still going around, but I thought not so far. It was like a rhythm which is dying down.
It was difficult to know how far to go with this. It might be that the more she talked, the better. Nobody knows very much about the time of absorption of a shock.
I said: “Where is your home?”
“Why—I live with Mrs. Murdock. In Pasadena.”
“I mean, your real home. Where your folks are.”
“My parents live in Wichita,” she said. “But I don’t go there—ever. I write once in a while, but I haven’t seen them for years.”
“What does your father do?”
“He has a dog and cat hospital. He’s a veterinarian. I hope they won’t have to know. They didn’t about the other time. Mrs. Murdock kept it from everybody.”
