“What’s this job of yours?” she asked. “Do you want nursing?”
“Nothing would please me more. No. it’s not me. A friend of mine. He’s an iron-lung case, and wants a pretty nurse to cheer him up. He has plenty of money. I could put in a word for you if you like.”
She considered this, frowning, then shook her head.
“I can’t do it. I’d like to, but there are difficulties.”
“I shouldn’t have thought there would be any difficulty. The Nurses’ Association will fix it.”
“I’m not employed by the Nurses’ Association.”
“That makes it easier still, doesn’t it? If you’re a freelance…”
“I’m under contract to Dr. Salzer. He runs the Salzer Sanatorium up on Foothill Boulevard. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”
I nodded.
“Is Salzer Maureen’s doctor?”
“Yes. At least I suppose he is. He never comes near her.”
“What’s he got, then—an assistant?”
“No one comes near her.”
“That’s odd, isn’t it?”
“You’re asking a lot of questions, aren’t you?”
I grinned at her.
“I’m a curious guy. Isn’t she bad enough to have a doctor?”
She looked at me.
“Between you and me, I don’t know. I’ve never seen her.”
I sat up, spilling some of my whisky.
“You’ve never seen her? What do you mean? You nurse her, don’t you?”
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but it worries me, and I have to tell someone. Promise you won’t pass it on?”
“Who would I pass it on to? Do you mean you’ve never even seen Maureen Crosby?”
“That’s right. Nurse Flemming won’t let me into the sick-room. My job is to fob off visitors, and now no one ever visits, I haven’t a thing to do.”
“What do you do, then, at night?”
“Nothing. I sleep at the house. If the telephone rings I’m supposed to answer it. But it never rings.”
“You’ve looked in Maureen’s room when Nurse Flemming isn’t around, surely?”
“I haven’t, because they keep the door locked. It’s my bet she isn’t even in the house.”
“Where else would she be?” I asked, sitting forward and not bothering to conceal my excitement.
“If what Flemming says is right, she could be in the sanatorium.”
“And what does Nurse Flemming say?”
“I told you: she’s sweating out a drug jag.”
“If she’s in the sanatorium, then why the deception? Why not say right out she’s there? Why put in a couple of nurses and fake a sick-room?”
“Brother, if I knew I’d tell you,” Nurse Gurney said, and finished her drink. “It’s a damned funny thing, but whenever you and I get together we have to talk about Maureen Crosby.”
“Not all the time,” I said, getting up and crossing to the divan. I sat by her side. “Is there any reason why you can’t leave Salzer?”
“I’m under contract to him for another two years. I can’t leave him.”
I let my fingers stroke her knee.
“What kind of guy is Salzer? I’ve heard he’s a quack.”
She slapped my hand.
“He’s all right. Maybe he is a quack, but the people he treats are just over-fed. He starves them and collects. You don’t have to be a qualified man to do that.”
My hand strayed back to her knee again.
“Do you think you could be a clever, smart girl and find out if Maureen is in the sanatorium?” I asked, and began a complicated manoeuvre.
She slapped my hand, hard this time.
“There you go again—Maureen.”
I rubbed the back of my hand.
“You have quite a slap there.”
She giggled.
“When you have my looks you learn to slap hard.”
Then the front-door bell rang: one long, shrill peal.
“Don’t answer it,” I said. “I’m now ready not to talk about Maureen.”
“Don’t be silly.” She swung her long legs off the divan. It’s the grocerman.”
“What’s he got I haven’t? “
“I’ll show you when I come back. I can’t starve just to please you.”
She went out of the room and closed the door. I took the opportunity to freshen my drink, and then lay down on the divan. What she had told me had been very interesting. The uncared-for garden, the crap-shooting chinamen, the whittling chauffeur, the smoking butler all added up to the obvious truth that Maureen wasn’t living at Crestways. Then where was she? Was she at the sanatorium? Was she sweating out a drug jag? Nurse Flemming would know. Dr. Jonathan Salzer would know, too. Probably Benny Dwan and Eudora had known.
Perhaps Glynn & Coppley knew, or if they didn’t they might wish to know. I began to see a way to put this business on a financial footing. My mind shifted to Brandon. If I had Glynn & Coppley behind me, I didn’t think Brandon would dare start anything. Glynn & Coppley were the best, the most expensive, the top-drawer lawyers in California. They had branch offices in San Francisco, Hollywood, New York and London. They were not the kind of people who’d allow themselves to be nudged by a shyster copper like Brandon. If they wanted to they had enough influence to dust him right out of office.
I closed my eyes and thought how nice it would be to be rid of Brandon and have a good, honest Captain of Police like Mifflin in charge at Headquarters. How much easier it would be for me to get co-operation instead of threats of dark alley beatings.
Then it occurred to me that Nurse Gurney had been away longer than it was necessary to collect a few groceries, and I sat up, frowning. I couldn’t hear her talking. I couldn’t hear anything. I set my drink down and stood up. Crossing the room I opened the door and looked into the lobby. The front door was ajar, but there was no one to see. I peeped into the passage.
The door of the opposite apartment looked blankly at me and I returned to the lobby. Maybe she was in the johnny, I thought, and went back into the sitting-room. I sat and waited, getting more and more fidgety, then after five minutes I finished my drink and went to the door again.
Somewhere in the apartment a refrigerator gave a whirring grunt and made me jump halfway out of my skin. I raised my voice and called, “Hey!” but no one answered. Moving quietly, I opened the door opposite the living- room and looked around what was obviously her bedroom. She wasn’t there. I even looked under the bed. I went into the bathroom and the kitchen and a tiny room that was probably the guest-room. She wasn’t in any of these rooms.
I went back to the living-room, but she wasn’t there either. It was beginning to dawn on me she wasn’t in the apartment, so I went to the front door, along the passage until I arrived at the main corridor. I looked to right and left. Stony-faced doors looked back at me. Nothing moved, nothing happened; just two lines of doors, a mile of shabby drugget, two or three grimy windows to let in the light, but no Nurse Gurney.
V
I stared blankly out of the window of the small living-room at the roof of the Buick parked below.
Without shoes or stockings she couldn’t have gone far, I told myself, unless… and my mind skipped to
