Black money (5 page)

"Professor Tappinger isn't in his office and he isn't at home," Peter said. "His wife said he should be on his way home."

"I can use a little more time here. I understand Mrs. Bagshaw lives at the club."

"She's in one of the cottages."

He gestured toward the trees at the back of the lot.

"Have you asked her any questions about Martel?"

"No." "But you know Mrs. Bagshaw?"

"Not that well. I know everyone in Montevista," he added without enthusiasm. "And they know me, I guess."

I went through the eucalyptus grove and through a gate in a picket fence, which enclosed an expanse of lawn next to the pool enclosure. A dozen or so gray-painted brick cottages were dispersed around the lawn, shielded from their neighbors by patio walls and flowering shrubs. A small Mexican in a khaki coverall was manipulating a hose among the shrubbery.

"Buenos dias."

"It is a fine day," he said with a white flash of teeth, and turned the stream from his hose toward the sky, like a fountain. "You looking for somebody?"

"Mrs. Bagshaw."

"That's her cottage there."

Its roof was half-hidden by a purple avalanche of bougainvillea. "She just came back a couple of minutes ago."

Mrs. Bagshaw turned out to be one of the poolside bridge-players, the one who had ordered the coffee. She was an alert-looking seventy or so.

"Didn't I see you talking to Stanley just now?" she asked me at the door.

"I was, yes."

"And then to Mr. Martel?"

"Yes."

"And now you come to me. It's an interesting progression."

She shook her white curls. "I don't know whether to be flattered or discomfited."

"Don't be either, Mrs. Bagshaw. My name is Archer, and I'm a detective, as you may have guessed."

She let me into a sitting room, which contained too much furniture. The Oriental rug on the floor was so good I hated to step on it. She noticed my noticing it.

"It doesn't go with this place at all. But I couldn't bear to leave it behind."

Without changing her tone, she said: "Sit down. I suppose you're engaged in the current village sport of prying into Francis Martel's affairs."

"It's my profession, not my sport."

"Who brought you here?" she said brusquely.

"A local family."

"Marietta Fablon?"

"She's interested in the outcome of my researches, yes."

"Researches is a glossy word for what you do, Mr. Archer. You're driving Mr. Martel out of town. Is that your purpose?"

"No."

"I wonder about that. He's leaving, you know. He told me so not fifteen minutes ago."

"Is Ginny Fablon going with him?"

She lowered her eyes to her lap. "Miss Fablon was not discussed. She is in any case a young woman of twenty-four - at her age I had been married for five years - and she's perfectly capable of looking after herself and making her own choices."

Her voice, which had faltered for a moment, regained its strength. "More capable than most young women, in my opinion."

"So you think she's going with him."

"I don't know. But this is a free country, I believe."

"It is for people who know what and who they're dealing with. You can't make valid choices without facts."

She shook her curls. Her face remained unshaken, like cement. "I don't wish to be lectured at. I brought Francis Martel into Montevista ah - circles, and I feel perfectly sanguine about doing so. I like him. It's true I can't provide you with a copy of his genealogical tree. But I'm sure it's a good one. He's one of the most distinguished young Frenchmen of my acquaintance."

"He is a Frenchman, then?"

"Is there any doubt of that?"

"There's always doubt, until the facts are established."

"And you are the great arbiter of the facts, are you?"

"In my own investigations I naturally tend to be."

It was a fairly sharp interchange, and it made her angry. She resolved her anger by laughing out loud at me. "You talk up don't you?"

"I might as well. I'm not getting anywhere anyway."

"That's because there's nowhere to get. Merely because Mr. Martel doesn't look like other people, they assume there's some dark secret in his past. The trouble with my neighbors is a simple one. They haven't enough to do, and they live like the Scilly islanders by taking in each other's dirty linen. If there isn't enough dirty linen to go around, they manufacture it."

She must be uncertain, I thought, or she wouldn't be talking so much and so well. Martel was in some degree her responsibility. She said into the silence between us: "Have you found out anything against him?' "Not really. Not yet."

"You imply that you expect to."

"I don't know. How did you become acquainted with him, through a real-estate broker?"

"Oh no, we have friends in common."

"Here in Montevista?"

"In Washington," she said, "more precisely, in Georgetown. General Bagshaw and I once lived in Georgetown."

"And you met Martel there?"

"I didn't say that. He knew some old neighbors of ours-" She hesitated, looking at me doubtfully. "I don't believe I ought to give you their name."

"It would help if you did."

"No. They're very fine and gentle people, and I don't want them bothered with this sort of thing."

"Martel used them as a reference. They might not approve of that. They may not even know him."

"I'm sure they do."

"Did they give him a letter of introduction?"

"No."

"Then all you have is his word?"

"It seems - it seemed to be enough. He talked very freely and fully about them."

But the doubt with which she regarded me was spreading and deepening, undercutting her confidence in her own judgment. "Do you seriously believe he's some sort of impostor?"

"My mind is open on the subject. I'm trying to open yours."

"And pry a name out of me," she said rather grimly.

"I don't need the name if you'll help."

"How can I help?"

"Call your Georgetown friends and ask them what they know about Martel."

She lifted her head. "I may do that."

"Please do. They're the only real lead I have."

"I will. Tonight."

"May I check with you later then?"

"I suppose you may."

"I'm sorry if I've upset you."

"You haven't. It's the moral question, really. Did I do right or wrong? Of course if we stopped to consider the possible consequences of everything we do, we'd end up doing nothing."

"How soon is he leaving?"

"Immediately, I think. Today or tomorrow."

"Did he say why?"

"No. He's very reticent. But I know why. Everyone's suspicious of him. He's made no friends here."

"Except Ginny."

"He didn't mention her."

"Or say where he was going?"

"No."

7

PETER MET ME at the gate in the picket fence. Professor Tappinger was home now, and would see us.

He lived in the adjoining harbor city, in a rather rundown tract whose one obvious advantage was a view of the ocean. The sun, heavy and red, was almost down on the horizon now. Its image floated like spilled fire on the water.

The Tappinger house was a green stucco cottage, which except for its color duplicated every third house in the block. The cement walk which led up to the front door was an obstacle course of roller skates, a bicycle, a tricycle. A girl of six or seven answered the door. She had a Dutch bob and enormous watching eyes.

"Daddy says that you can join him in the study."

She led us through the trampled-looking living room into the kitchen. A woman was bowed over the sink in a passive-aggressive attitude, peeling potatoes. A boy of about three was butting her in the legs and chortling. She paid no attention to him and very little to us. She was a good-looking woman no more than thirty, with a youthful ponytail, and blue eyes, which passed over me coolly.

"He's in the study," she said, and gestured with one elbow toward a door.

It let us into a converted garage lined with bookshelves. A fluorescent fixture hung on a chain over a work table cluttered with open books and papers. The professor was seated there with his back to us. He didn't turn around when Peter spoke to him. The implication seemed to be that we were interrupting important brainwork.

"Professor Tappinger?" Peter said again.

"I hear you."

His voice was impatient. "Excuse me for another minute, please. I'm trying to finish a sentence."

He scratched at his head with the blunt end of his pen, and jotted something down. His coppery brown hair had a frost of gray at the edges. I saw what he eventually got up that he was a short man, and at least ten years older than his handsome wife. He had probably been handsome, too, with his sensitive mouth and clean features. But he looked as if he had had a recent illness, and the eyes behind his reading glasses were haunted by the memory of it. His handshake was cold.

"How are you, Mr. Archer? How are you, Peter? Forgive me for keeping you waiting. I snatch these precious moments of concentration from the Bergsonian flux. With a twelve-hour teaching load and all the preparation it entails, it isn't easy to get anything written. I envy Flaubert the luxury he had of spending whole days in search of the right world, le mot juste-"

Tappinger seemed to have the professional habit of non-stop talking. I interrupted him: "What are you working on?"

"A book, if I can ever get the time to do it. My subject is the French influence on modern American literature - at the moment I'm studying the vexed question of Stephen Crane. But that wouldn't interest you. Peter tells me you're a detective."

"Yes. I'm trying to get some information about a man named Francis Martel. Have you run into him? "I doubt it, but his name is certainly interesting. It's one of the ancient names of France."

"Martel is supposed to be a Frenchman. His story is that he's a political refugee."

"How old is he?"

"About thirty."

I described him: "He's a man of medium height, trim and fast on his feet. Black hair, black eyes, dark complexion. He has a French accent which varies from strong to weak."

"And you think he's putting it on?"

"I don't know. If he's a phony, he's fooled quite a few people. I'm trying to find out who and what he really is."

"Reality is an illusive thing," Tappinger said sententiously. "What do you want me to do - listen to his French and pronounce on its authenticity?"

He was only half serious, but I answered him seriously: "That might be a good idea, if we could work it out. But Martel is on the point of leaving town. I thought if you could provide me with a few questions that only an educated Frenchman could answer -"

"You wish me to prepare a test, is that it?"

"With the answers."

"I suppose I can do that. When do you need it? Tomorrow?"

"Right now."

"That's simply impossible."

"But he may be leaving any minute."

"I can't help that!"

Tappinger's voice had risen womanishly. "I have forty papers to read tonight - those bureaucrats at the college don't even provide me with a student reader. I have no time for my own children -"

I said: "Okay, we'll skip it. It wasn't a very good idea in the first place."

"But we have to do something," Peter said. "I'll be glad to pay you for your time, professor."

"I don't want your money. All I want is the free use of my own days."

Tappinger was practically wailing.

His wife opened the kitchen door and looked out. Her face was set in a look of concern, which somehow gave the impression that it had been blunted by use.

"What's the trouble, Daddy?"

"Nothing, and don't call me Daddy. I'm not that much older than you are."

She lifted and dropped one shoulder in a gesture of physical contempt and looked at me. "Is something the matter out here?"

"We seem to be getting on your husband's nerves. This wasn't a good time to come."

Tappinger said to his wife in a quieter tone: "It's nothing that need concern you, Bess. I'm supposed to prepare some questions to test a certain man's knowledge of French."

"Is that all?"

"That's all."

She closed the kitchen door. Tappinger turned to us: "Forgive the elevation of the voice. I've got a headache."

He pressed his hand to his pale rounded forehead. " I suppose I can do this work for you now - I've expended twice the energy just talking about it - but I don't understand the hurry."

Peter said: "Martel is taking Ginny with him. We have to stop him."

"Ginny?" Tappinger looked puzzled.

"I thought you told him about her," I said to Peter.

"I tried to, on the phone, but he wouldn't listen."

He turned back to Tappinger. "You remember Virginia Fablon, professor?"

"Naturally I do. Is she involved in this?"

"Very much so. She says she intends to marry Martel."

"And you're in love with her yourself, is that it?"

Peter blushed. "Yes, but I'm not doing this merely for selfish reasons. Ginny doesn't realize the mess she's getting into."

"Have you talked to her about it?"

"I've tried to. But she's infatuated with Martel. He was the reason she dropped out of school last month."

"Really? I thought she was ill. That was the word that went around the college."

"There's nothing the matter with her," Peter said. "Except him."

"What is her opinion of his French-ness?"

"She's completely taken in," Peter said.

"Then he probably is French. Miss Fablon has a fair grasp of the language."

"He could be both a Frenchman and a phony," I said. "We're really trying to find out if he's the cultivated aristocrat he pretends to be."

For the first time Tappinger really looked interested. "That should be possible. Let me try."

He sat down at his cluttered table and picked up his pen. "Just give me ten minutes, gentlemen."

We retreated to the living room. Mrs. Tappinger followed us from the kitchen, trailed by the three-year-old.

"Is Daddy all right?" she asked me in a little-girl voice so thin and sweet it sounded like self-parody.