Thank you, thought Maria. She said, “All right.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven, then?” Torrant looked briefly doubtful, as though he were about to say something else, and then he nodded and opened the door and went out.
The temperature had dropped sharply. It was much the same kind of road, Torrant reflected, that Gerald Mallow must have driven on, deceptively smooth and even under the hard skin of ice left behind by the thaw and the sudden freeze. It was a surface that needed the maximum of driving attention, but he kept remembering Annabelle Blair’s eager face, glimpsed through the window, and moments later, Maria’s hand reaching out for her teacup.
Harmless? Possibly, but he was still edgy with reaction and annoyed at himself for the sharpness of it. If Maria Rowan chose to wander about like a child, bumping into the dangers of this particular world, it was no responsibility of his. The trouble, he supposed dryly, lay in the fact that she was not a child. And that without even trying, by some elusive cut of feature or quality of gaze, she exerted some mysterious claim, as though her safety belonged in his hands.
If he hadn’t lost his head, going so sharply cold at the sight of that lamplit domestic scene in Annabelle’s living room, he would have knocked over Maria’s teacup and soaked his handkerchief in it for analysis . . .
The Renault, which had been behaving like a normal car all day, lost speed, coughed once, and died slyly around a curve. Torrant gave it a moment and tried the starter without result; it had a fixed air of never moving again. He got out and walked around it once, thwartedly, because on this black stretch of road, without a flashlight, its trouble would remain invisible. After an interval of waiting, he succeeded in flooding the engine.
He had promised Mrs. Judd that he would take good care of the Renault; he hadn’t realized the Job-like patience involved. He had never felt seriously like kicking a car before. He smoked part of a cigarette, measuring in his mind the length of the walk to Mrs. Judd’s and his own opening phrases when he arrived, and then he. threw the cigarette away and gave the car one last chance. As though it had concluded its private joke, the motor responded instantly.
Torrant was not to be won so easily; he noted that it was well after six when he headed into Mrs. Judd’s driveway. There was no sign of Simeon’s convertible. Mrs. Judd was hovering nervously in the lower hall, like a woman distracted in the midst of something although she wasn’t, visibly, doing anything. She glanced at Torrant and opened her mouth and closed it again. She said finally, “Mrs. Xirby called this afternoon.”
“Oh?”
“About a house,” said Mrs. Judd primly, and added, “apparently.”
“Thank you,” said Torrant, and went on up the stairs, wondering briefly about Paulette Kirby’s mission. Was she merely holding up her end of the pretense about his house-hunting friends, or had she something to add to what she had told him about Mrs. Partridge?
He changed his clothes rapidly after a further glance at his watch. Mrs. Partridge would be at the Grotto at eight, and he wanted time first to talk to the bartender, cousin-in-law of the mechanic at Earnshaw’s garage, who had noticed the Mallows on their last evening alive. If there was a loose end about the accident, it might be here . . .
It entered his mind, not for the first time, that it might turn out to be awkward having Maria along when Mrs. Partridge arrived. It was true that she would be more at ease in the presence of another woman, partly because she had been dubious about the propriety of a trip with all expenses paid; he had realized that from her manner over the phone. But would she—just possibly—say something about Louise Mallow that her cousin would not want to hear?
All right, said Torrant forcibly to the part of himself that gave a damn; what if she does?
“This is the kind of place,” said Maria Rowan, looking thoughtfully around the upstairs bar of the Grotto, “that makes you wonder what goes on in the back room.”
“Probably something unmentionable,” said Torrant, and added with surprise, “but the drinks are honest.”
They were industriously affable with each other, covering up a mutual wariness while they waited for the bartender, Maurice, to appear in the wake of a note sent by way of the waiter. Maria was braced and a little defensive, preparing for another look at the dead woman who had been her cousin. Torrant was detached but bitterly intent, because the Mallows were markers on the road that led back to Martin Fennister.
“Mr. Torrant?”
Maurice Leatherby was a nimble young man with sharp eyes and an evocative tongue. He placed the Mallows at the other end of the room, at a table near the bar; he dressed Louise in a purple-blue suit looped with furs and Gerald in a rosy three-drink glow. Torrant, listening, was very much aware of Maria Rowan beside him on the banquette, tight and still.
Louise Mallow had ordered a Scotch old-fashioned with her husband the first time around; when Gerald kept signalling the waiter she had changed to gingerale. She had seemed to remonstrate with Gerald, and he had looked amused at first and then annoyed. At this juncture Dr. Nutter, on his way out after a late sandwich and coffee, had paused at their table to chat; the bar was idle at the moment and Maurice had heard him say something casual and friendly about the driving conditions.
The Mallows had ordered dinner then. The bartender thought that Gerald had had a brandy with his coffee. It was late for the dinner crowd at
