I said, “Hullo,” and found a table-corner to prop myself on.
He said: “I’ve come to take Mrs. Collinson back to San Francisco.”
She didn’t say anything. I said:
“Not to San Mateo?”
“What do you mean by that?” The white tangles of his brows came down to hide all but the bottom halves of his blue eyes.
“God knows. Maybe my mind’s been corrupted by the questions the newspapers have been asking me.”
He didn’t quite wince. He said, slowly, deliberately:
“Mrs. Haldorn sent for me professionally. I went to see her to explain how impossible it would be, in the circumstances, for me to advise or represent her.”
“That’s all right with me,” I said. “And if it took you thirty hours to explain that to her, it’s nobody’s business.”
“Precisely.”
“But—I’d be careful how I told the reporters waiting downstairs that. You know how suspicious they are—for no reason at all.”
He turned to Gabrielle again, speaking quietly, but with some impatience:
“Well, Gabrielle, are you going with me?”
“Should I?” she asked me.
“Not unless you especially want to.”
“I—I don’t.”
“Then that’s settled,” I said.
Andrews nodded and went forward to take her hand, saying:
“I’m sorry, but I must get back to the city now, my dear. You should have a phone put in, so you can reach me in case you need to.”
He declined her invitation to stay to dinner, said, “Good evening,” not unpleasantly, to me, and went out. Through a window I could see him presently getting into his car, giving as little attention as possible to the newspaper men gathered around him.
Gabrielle was frowning at me when I turned away from the window.
“What did you mean by what you said about San Mateo?” she asked.
“How friendly are he and Aaronia Haldorn?” I asked.
“I haven’t any idea. Why? Why did you talk to him as you did?”
“Detective business. For one thing, there’s a rumor that getting control of the estate may have helped him keep his own head above water. Maybe there’s nothing in it. But it won’t hurt to give him a little scare, so he’ll get busy straightening things out—if he has done any juggling—between now and cleanup day. No use of you losing money along with the rest of your troubles.”
“Then he—?” she began.
“He’s got a week—several days at least—to unjuggle in. That ought to be enough.”
“But—”
Mrs. Herman, calling us to dinner, ended the conversation.
Gabrielle ate very little. She and I had to do most of the talking until I got Mickey started telling about a job he had been on up in Eureka, where he posed as a foreigner who knew no English. Since English was the only language he did know, and Eureka normally held at least one specimen of every nationality there is, he’d had a hell of a time keeping people from finding out just what he was supposed to be. He made a long and laughable story of it. Maybe some of it was the truth: he always got a lot of fun out of acting like the other half of a half-wit.
After the meal he and I strolled around outside while the spring night darkened the grounds.
“MacMan will be down in the morning,” I told him. “You and he will have to do the watchdog. Divide it between you anyway you want, but one will have to be on the job all the time.”
“Don’t give yourself any of the worst of it,” he complained. “What’s this supposed to be down here—a trap?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe. Uh-huh. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing. You’re stalling around waiting for the horseshoe in your pocket to work.”
“The outcome of successful planning always looks like luck to saps. Did Dick have any news?”
“No. He tailed Andrews straight here from his house.”
The front door opened, throwing yellow light across the porch. Gabrielle, a dark cape on her shoulders, came into the yellow light, shut the door, and came down the gravel walk.
“Take a nap now if you want,” I told Mickey. “I’ll call you when I turn in. You’ll have to stand guard till morning.”
“You’re a darb.” He laughed in the dark. “By God, you’re a darb.”
“There’s a gallon of gin in the car.”
“Huh? Why didn’t you say so instead of wasting my time just talking?” The lawn grass swished against his shoes as he walked away.
I moved towards the gravel walk, meeting the girl.
“Isn’t it a lovely night?” she said.
“Yeah. But you’re not supposed to go roaming around alone in the dark, even if your troubles are practically over.”
“I didn’t intend to,” she said, taking my arm. “And what does practically over mean?”
“That there are a few details to be taken care of—the morphine, for instance.”
She shivered and said:
“I’ve only enough left for tonight. You promised to—”
“Fifty grains coming in the morning.”
She kept quiet, as if waiting for me to say something else. I didn’t say anything else. Her fingers wriggled on my sleeve.
“You said it wouldn’t be hard to cure me.” She spoke half-questioningly, as if expecting me to deny having said anything of the sort.
“It wouldn’t.”
“You said, perhaps …” letting the words fade off.
“We’d do it while we were here?”
“Yes.”
“Want to?” I asked. “It’s no go if you don’t.”
“Do I want to?” She stood still in the road, facing me. “I’d give—” A sob ended that sentence. Her voice came again, high-pitched, thin: “Are you being honest with me? Are you? Is what you’ve told me—all you told me last night and this afternoon—as true as you made it sound? Do I believe in you because you’re sincere? Or because you’ve learned how—as a trick of your business—to make people believe in you?”
She might have been crazy, but she wasn’t so stupid.
