“You know I did. Why should you ask?”
“Detectives like questions they already know the answers to. Why did you come down here, Mrs. Haldorn?”
“Is that another whose answer you know?”
“I know you came for one or both of two reasons.”
“Yes?”
“First, to learn how close we were to our riddle’s answer. Right?”
“I’ve my share of curiosity, naturally,” she confessed.
“I don’t mind making that much of your trip a success. I know the answer.”
She stopped in the path, facing me, her eyes phosphorescent in the deep twilight. She put a hand on my shoulder: she was taller than I. The other hand was in her coat-pocket. She put her face nearer mine. She spoke very slowly, as if taking great pains to be understood:
“Tell me truthfully. Don’t pretend. I don’t want to do an unnecessary wrong. Wait, wait—think before you speak—and believe me when I say this isn’t the time for pretending, for lying, for bluffing. Now tell me the truth: do you know the answer?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled faintly, taking her hand from my shoulder, saying:
“Then there’s no use of our fencing.”
I jumped at her. If she had fired from her pocket she might have plugged me. But she tried to get the gun out. By then I had a hand on her wrist. The bullet went into the ground between our feet. The nails of her free hand put three red ribbons down the side of my face. I tucked my head under her chin, turned my hip to her before her knee came up, brought her body hard against mine with one arm around her, and bent her gun-hand behind her. She dropped the gun as we fell. I was on top. I stayed there until I had found the gun. I was getting up when MacMan arrived.
“Everything’s eggs in the coffee,” I told him, having trouble with my voice.
“Have to plug her?” he asked, looking at the woman lying still on the ground.
“No, she’s all right. See that the chauffeur’s behaving.”
MacMan went away. The woman sat up, tucked her legs under her, and rubbed her wrist. I said:
“That’s the second reason for your coming, though I thought you meant it for Mrs. Collinson.”
She got up, not saying anything. I didn’t help her up, not wanting her to know how shaky I was. I said:
“Since we’ve gone this far, it won’t do any harm and it might do some good to talk.”
“I don’t think anything will do any good now.” She set her hat straight. “You say you know. Then lies are worthless, and only lies would help.” She shrugged. “Well, what now?”
“Nothing now, if you’ll promise to remember that the time for being desperate is past. This kind of thing splits up in three parts—being caught, being convicted, and being punished. Admit it’s too late to do anything about the first, and—well, you know what California courts and prison boards are.”
She looked curiously at me and asked: “Why do you tell me this?”
“Because being shot at’s no treat to me, and because when a job’s done I like to get it cleaned up and over with. I’m not interested in trying to convict you for your part in the racket, and it’s a nuisance having you horning in now, trying to muddy things up. Go home and behave.”
Neither of us said anything more until we had walked back to the limousine. Then she turned, put out her hand to me, and said:
“I think—I don’t know yet—I think I owe you even more now than before.”
I didn’t say anything and I didn’t take her hand. Perhaps it was because she was holding her hand out that she asked:
“May I have my pistol now?”
“No.”
“Will you give my best wishes to Mrs. Collinson, and tell her I’m so sorry I couldn’t see her?”
“Yeah.”
She said, “Goodbye,” and got into the car; I took off my hat and she rode away.
XXII
Confessional
Mickey Linehan opened the front door for me. He looked at my scratched face and laughed:
“You do have one hell of a time with your women. Why don’t you ask them instead of trying to take it away from them? It’d save you a lot of skin.” He poked a thumb at the ceiling. “Better go up and negotiate with that one. She’s been raising hell.”
I went up to Gabrielle’s room. She was sitting in the middle of the wallowed-up bed. Her hands were in her hair, tugging at it. Her soggy face was thirty-five years old. She was making hurt-animal noises in her throat.
“It’s a fight, huh?” I said from the door.
She took her hands out of her hair.
“I won’t die?” The question was a whimper between edge-to-edge teeth.
“Not a chance.”
She sobbed and lay down. I straightened the covers over her. She complained that there was a lump in her throat, that her jaws and the hollows behind her knees ached.
“Regular symptoms,” I assured her. “They won’t bother you much, and you’ll miss the cramps.”
Fingernails scratched the door. Gabrielle jumped up in bed, crying:
“Don’t go away again.”
“No farther than the door,” I promised, and went to it.
MacMan was there.
“That Mexican Mary,” he whispered, “was hiding in the bushes watching you and the woman. I spotted her when she came out, and tailed her across to the road below. She stopped the limousine and talked with the woman—five-ten minutes. I couldn’t get near enough to hear any of it.”
“Where is she now?”
“In the kitchen. She came back. The woman in the heap went on. Mickey says the Mex is packing a knife and is going to make grief for us. Reckon he’s right?”
“He generally is,” I said. “She’s strong for Mrs. Collinson, and doesn’t think we mean her any good. Why in hell can’t she mind her own business? It adds up that she peeped and saw Mrs. Haldorn wasn’t for us, figured she was for Mrs. Collinson, and braced her. I hope Mrs. Haldorn had sense enough to tell her
