“You didn’t ask me how I know he doesn’t exist any more.”
“Look, Marlowe.” He flicked ash from his cigarette with a contemptuous gesture. “It could be that I don’t give a damn. Get to what concerns me, or get out.”
“I also got involved down here, if involved is the word, with a man named Goble who said he was a private eye from Kansas City, and had a card which may or may not have proved it. Goble annoyed me a good deal. He kept following me around. He kept talking about Mitchell. I couldn’t figure what he was after. Then one day at the desk you got an anonymous letter. I watched you read it over and over. You asked the clerk who left it. The clerk didn’t know. You even picked the empty envelope out of the wastebasket. And when you went up in the elevator you didn’t look happy.”
Brandon was beginning to look a little less relaxed. His voice had a sharper edge.
“You could get too nosy, Mr. PI. Ever think of that?”
“That’s a silly question. How else would I make a living?”
“Better get out of here while you can still walk.”
I laughed at him, and that really burned him. He shot to his feet and came striding over to where I was sitting.
“Listen, boy friend. I’m a pretty big man in this town. I don’t get pushed around much by small-time operators like you. Out!”
“You don’t want to hear the rest?”
“I said, out!”
I stood up. “Sorry. I was prepared to settle this with you privately. And don’t get the idea that I’m trying to put a bite on you—like Goble. I just don’t do those things. But if you toss me out—without hearing me out—I’ll have to go to Captain Alessandro. He’ll listen.”
He stood glowering for a long moment. Then a curious sort of grin appeared on his face.
“So he’ll listen to you. So what? I could get him transferred with one phone call.”
“Oh, no. Not Captain Alessandro. He’s not brittle. He got tough with Henry Cumberland this morning. And Henry Cumberland isn’t a man that’s used to having anyone get tough with him, any place, any time. He just about broke Cumberland in half with a few contemptuous words. You think you could get that guy to lay off? You should live so long.”
“Jesus,” he said, still grinning, “I used to know guys like you once. I’ve lived here so long now I must have forgotten they still make them. Okay. I’ll listen.”
He went back to the chair and picked another gold-tipped cigarette from a case and lit it. “Care for one?”
“No thanks. This boy Richard Harvest—I think he was a mistake. Not good enough for the job.”
“Not nearly good enough, Marlowe. Not nearly. Just a cheap sadist. That’s what comes of getting out of touch. You lose your judgment. He could have scared Goble silly without laying a finger on him. And then taking him over to your place—what a laugh! What an amateur! And look at him now. No good for anything any more. He’ll be selling pencils. Would you care for a drink?”
“I’m not on that kind of terms with you, Brandon. Let me finish. In the middle of the night—the night I made contact with Betty Mayfield, and the night you chased Mitchell out of The Glass Room—and did it very nicely, I might add—Betty came over to my room at the Rancho Descansado. One of your properties, I believe. She said Mitchell was dead on a chaise on her porch. She offered me large things to do something about it. I came back over here and there was no man dead on her porch. The next morning the night garage man told me Mitchell had left in his car with nine suitcases. He’d paid his bill and a week in advance to hold his room. The same day his car was found abandoned in Los Penasquitos Canyon. No suitcases, no Mitchell.”
Brandon stared hard at me, but said nothing.
“Why was Betty Mayfield afraid to tell me what she was afraid of? Because she had been convicted of murder in Westfield, North Carolina, and then the verdict was reversed by the judge, who has that power in that state, and used it. But Henry Cumberland, the father of the husband she was accused of murdering, told her he would follow her anywhere she went and see that she had no peace. Now she finds a dead man on her porch. And the cops investigate and her whole story comes out. She’s frightened and confused. She thinks she couldn’t be lucky twice. After all, a jury did convict her.”
Brandon said softly: “His neck was broken. He fell over the end wall of my terrace. She couldn’t have broken his neck. Come out here. I’ll show you.”
We went out on the wide sunny terrace. Brandon marched to the end wall and I looked down over it and I was looking straight down on a chaise on Betty Mayfield’s porch.
“This wall isn’t very high,” I said. “Not high enough to be safe.”
“I agree,” Brandon said calmly. “Now suppose he was standing like this”—he stood with his back against the wall, and the top of it didn’t come very much above the middle of his thighs. And Mitchell had been a tall man too —”and he goads Betty into coming over near enough so that he can grab her, and she pushes him off hard, and over he goes. And he just happens to fall in such a way—by pure chance—that his neck snaps. And that’s exactly how her husband died. Do you blame the girl for getting in a panic?”
“I’m not sure I blame anybody, Brandon. Not even you.”
He stepped away from the wall and looked out to sea and was silent for a moment. Then he turned.
“For nothing,” I said, “except that you managed to get rid of Mitchell’s body.”
“Now, how in hell could I do that?”
“You’re a fisherman, among other things. I’ll bet that right here in this apartment you have a long strong cord. You’re a powerful man. You could get down to Betty’s porch, you could put that cord under Mitchell’s arms, and you have the strength to lower him to the ground behind the shrubbery. Then, already having his key out of his pocket, you could go to his room and pack up all his stuff, and carry it down to the garage, either in the elevator, or down
