“I’m Marlowe. I live here.”
“Come in, Mr. Marlowe. Dr. Moss told me.”
I shut the door quietly and we spoke in low voices. “How is she?” I asked.
“She’s asleep. She was already drowsy when I got here. I’m Miss Lymington. I don’t know very much about her except that her temperature is normal and her pulse still rather fast, but going down. A mental disturbance, I gather.”
“She found a man murdered,” I said. “It shot her full of holes. Is she hard enough asleep so that I could go in and get a few things to take to the hotel?”
“Oh, yes. If you’re quiet. She probably won’t wake. If she does, it won’t matter.”
I went over and put some money on the desk. “There’s coffee and bacon and eggs and bread and tomato juice and oranges and liquor here,” I said. “Anything else you’ll have to phone for.”
“I’ve already investigated your supplies,” she said, smiling. “We have all we need until after breakfast tomorrow. Is she going to stay here?”
“That’s up to Dr. Moss. I think she’ll be going home as soon as she is fit for it. Home being quite a long way off, in Wichita.”
“I’m only a nurse,” she said. “But I don’t think there is anything the matter with her that a good night’s sleep won’t cure.”
“A good night’s sleep and a change of company,” I said, but that didn’t mean anything to Miss Lymington.
I went along the hallway and peeked into the bedroom. They had put a pair of my pajamas on her. She lay almost on her back with one arm outside the bedclothes. The sleeve of the pajama coat was turned up six inches or more. The small hand below the end of the sleeve was in a tight fist. Her face looked drawn and white and quite peaceful. I poked about in the closet and got a suitcase and put some junk in it. As I started back out I looked at Merle again. Her eyes opened and looked straight up at the ceiling. Then they moved just enough to see me and a faint little smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
“Hello.” It was a weak spent little voice, a voice that knew its owner was in bed and had a nurse and everything.
“Hello.”
I went around near her and stood looking down, with my polished smile on my clear-cut features.
“I’m all right,” she whispered. “I’m fine. Ain’t I?”
“Sure.”
“Is this your bed I’m in?”
“That’s all right. It won’t bite you.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said. A hand came sliding towards me and lay palm up, waiting to be held. I held it. “I’m not afraid of you. No woman would ever be afraid of you, would she?”
“Coming from you,” I said, “I guess that’s meant to be a compliment.”
Her eyes smiled, then got grave again. “I lied to you,” she said softly. “I—I didn’t shoot anybody.”
“I know. I was over there. Forget it. Don’t think about it.”
“People are always telling you to forget unpleasant things. But you never do. It’s so kind of silly to tell you to, I mean.”
“Okay,” I said, pretending to be hurt. “I’m silly. How about making some more sleep?”
She turned her head until she was looking into my eyes. I sat on the edge of the bed, holding her hand.
“Will the police come here?” she asked.
“No. And try not to be disappointed.”
She frowned. “You must think I’m an awful fool.”
“Well—maybe.”
A couple of tears formed in her eyes and slid out at the corners and rolled gently down her cheeks.
“Does Mrs. Murdock know where I am?”
“Not yet. I’m going over and tell her.”
“Will you have to tell her—everything?”
“Yeah, why not?”
She turned the head away from me. “She’ll understand,” her voice said softly. “She knows the awful thing I did eight years ago. The frightful terrible thing.”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s why she’s been paying Vannier money all this time.”
“Oh dear,” she said, and brought her other hand out from under the bedclothes and pulled away the one I was holding so that she could squeeze them tightly together. “I wish you hadn’t had to know that. I wish you hadn’t. Nobody ever knew but Mrs. Murdock. My parents never knew. I wish you hadn’t.”
The nurse came in at the door and looked at me severely. “I don’t think she ought to be talking like this, Mr. Marlowe. I think you should leave now.”
“Look, Miss Lymington, I’ve known this little girl two days. You’ve only known her two hours. This is doing her a
