lot of good.”
“It might bring on another—er—spasm,” she said severely, avoiding my eyes.
“Well, if she has to have it, isn’t it better for her to have it now, while you’re here, and get it over with? Go on out to the kitchen and buy yourself a drink.”
“I never drink on duty,” she said coldly. “Besides somebody might smell my breath.”
“You’re working for me now. All my employees are required to get liquored up from time to time. Besides, if you had a good dinner and were to eat a couple of the Chasers in the kitchen cabinet, nobody would smell your breath.”
She gave me a quick grin and went back out of the room. Merle had been listening to this as if it was a frivolous interruption to a very serious play. Rather annoyed.
“I want to tell you all about it,” she said breathlessly. “I—”
I reached over and put a paw over her two locked hands. “Skip it. I know. Marlowe knows everything—except how to make a decent living. It doesn’t amount to beans. Now you’re going back to sleep and tomorrow I’m going to take you on the way back to Wichita—to visit your parents. At Mrs. Murdock’s expense.”
“Why, that’s wonderful of her,” she cried, her eyes opening wide and shining. “But she’s always been wonderful to me.”
I got up off the bed. “She’s a wonderful woman,” I said, grinning down at her. “Wonderful. I’m going over there now and we’re going to have a perfectly lovely little talk over the teacups. And if you don’t go to sleep right now, I won’t let you confess to any more murders.”
“You’re horrid,” she said. “I don’t like you.” She turned her head away and put her arms back under the bedclothes and shut her eyes.
I went towards the door. At the door I swung around and looked back quickly. She had one eye open, watching me. I gave her a leer and it snapped shut in a hurry.
I went back to the living room, gave Miss Lymington what was left of my leer, and went out with my suitcase.
I drove over to Santa Monica Boulevard. The hockshop was still open. The old Jew in the tall black skullcap seemed surprised that I was able to redeem my pledge so soon. I told him that was the way it was in Hollywood.
He got the envelope out of the safe and tore it open and took my money and pawn ticket and slipped the shining gold coin out on his palm.
“So valuable this is I am hating to give it back to you,” he said. “The workmanship, you understand, the workmanship, is beautiful.”
“And the gold in it must be worth all of twenty dollars,” I said.
He shrugged and smiled and I put the coin in my pocket and said goodnight to him.
32
The moonlight lay like a white sheet on the front lawn except under the deodar where there was the thick darkness of black velvet. Lights in two lower windows were lit and in one upstairs room visible from the front. I walked across the stumble stones and rang the bell.
I didn’t look at the little painted Negro by the hitching block. I didn’t pat his head tonight. The joke seemed to have worn thin.
A white-haired, red-faced woman I hadn’t seen before opened the door and I said: “I’m Philip Marlowe. I’d like to see Mrs. Murdock. Mrs. Elizabeth Murdock.”
She looked doubtful. “I think she’s gone to bed,” she said. “I don’t think you can see her.”
“It’s only nine o’clock.”
“Mrs. Murdock goes to bed early.” She started to close the door.
She was a nice old thing and I hated to give the door the heavy shoulder. I just leaned against it.
“It’s about Miss Davis,” I said. “It’s important. Could you tell her that?”
“I’ll see.”
I stepped back and let her shut the door.
A mockingbird sang in a dark tree nearby. A car tore down the street much too fast and skidded around the next corner. The thin shreds of a girl’s laughter came back along the dark street as if the car had spilled them out in its rush.
The door opened after a while and the woman said: “You can come in.”
I followed her across the big empty entrance room. A single dim light burned in one lamp, hardly reaching to the opposite wall. The place was too still, and the air needed freshening. We went along the hall to the end and up a flight of stairs with a carved handrail and newel post. Another hall at the top, a door open towards the back.
I was shown in at the open door and the door was closed behind me. It was a big sitting room with a lot of chintz, a blue and silver wallpaper, a couch, a blue carpet and french windows open on a balcony. There was an awning over the balcony.
Mrs. Murdock was sitting in a padded wing chair with a card table in front of her. She was wearing a quilted robe and her hair looked a little fluffed out. She was playing solitaire. She had the pack in her left hand and she put a card down and moved another one before she looked up at me.
Then she said: “Well?”
I went over by the card table and looked down at the game. It was Canfield.
