“Four-eighteen,” Clarendon put in calmly. “On the ocean side.
Fourteen dollars a day out of season, eighteen in season.”
“Not exactly cheap for a guy on his uppers. But he still has it, let’s say. So whatever happened, he’s just away for a few days. Took his car out, put his luggage in around seven A.M. this morning. A damn funny time to leave when he was as drunk as a skunk late last night.”
Clarendon leaned back and let his gloved hands hang limp. I could see that he was getting tired. “If it happened that way, wouldn’t the hotel prefer to have you think he had left for good? Then you’d have to search for him somewhere else. That is, if you really are searching for him.”
I met his pale stare. He grinned.
“You’re not making very good sense to me, Mr. Marlowe. I talk and talk, but not merely to hear the sound of my voice. I don’t hear it naturally in any case. Talking gives me an opportunity to study people without seeming altogether rude. I have studied you. My intuition, if such be the correct word, tells me that your interest in Mitchell is rather tangential. Otherwise you would not be so open about it.”
“Uh-huh. Could be,” I said. It was a spot for a paragraph of lucid prose. Henry Clarendon IV would have obliged. I didn’t have a damn thing more to say.
“Run along now,” he said. “I’m tired. I’m going up to my room and lie down a little. A pleasure to have met you, Mr. Marlowe.” He got slowly to his feet and steadied himself with the stick. It was an effort. I stood up beside him.
“I never shake hands,” he said. “My hands are ugly and painful. I wear gloves for that reason. Good evening. If I don’t see you again, good luck.”
He went off, walking slowly and keeping his head erect. I could see that walking wasn’t any fun for him. The two steps up from the main lobby to the arch were made one at a time, with a pause in between. His right foot always moved first. The cane bore down hard beside his left. He went out through the arch and I watched him move towards an elevator. I decided Mr. Henry Clarendon IV was a pretty smooth article.
I strolled along to the bar. Mrs. Margo West was sitting in the amber shadows with one of the canasta players. The waiter was just setting drinks before them. I didn’t pay too much attention because farther along in a little booth against the wall was someone I knew better. And alone.
She had the same clothes on except that she had taken the bandeau off her hair and it hung loose around her face.
I sat down. The waiter came over and I ordered. He went away. The music from the invisible record player was low and ingratiating.
She smiled a little. “I’m sorry I lost my temper,” she said.
“I was very rude.”
“Forget it. I had it coming.”
“Were you looking for me in here?”
“Not especially.”
“Were you—oh, I forgot.” She reached for her bag and put it in her lap. She fumbled in it and then passed something rather small across the table, something not small enough for her hand to hide that it was a folder of traveler’s checks. “I promised you these.”
“No.”
“Take them, you fool! I don’t want the waiter to see.”
I took the folder and slipped it into my pocket. I reached into my inside pocket and got out a small receipt book. I entered the counterfoil and then the body of the receipt. “Received from Miss Betty Mayfield, Hotel Casa del Poniente, Esmeralda, California, the sum of $5000 in American Express Company traveler’s checks of $100 denomination, countersigned by the owner, and remaining her property subject to her demand at any time until a fee is arranged with, and an employment accepted by me, the undersigned.”
I signed this rigmarole and held the book for her to see it.
“Read it and sign your name in the lower left-hand corner.”
She took it and held it close to the light.
“You make me tired,” she said. “Whatever are you trying to spring?”
“That I’m on the level and you think so.”
She took the pen I held out and signed and gave the stuff back to me. I tore out the original and handed it to her. I put the book away.
The waiter came and put my drink down. He didn’t wait to be paid. Betty shook her head at him. He went away.
“Why don’t you ask me if I have found Larry?”
“All right. Have you found Larry, Mr. Marlowe?”
“No. He has skipped the hotel. He had a room on the fourth floor on the same side as your room. Must be fairly nearly under it. He took nine pieces of luggage and beat it in his Buick. The house peeper, whose name is Javonen —he calls himself an assistant manager and security officer—is satisfied that Mitchell paid his bill and even a week in advance for his room. He has no worries. He doesn’t like me, of course.”
“Does somebody?”
“You do—five thousand dollars worth.”
“Oh, you are an idiot. Do you think Mitchell will come back?”
