The High Window (3 page)

FOUR

After the bell had rung three times at the other end of the line a light childish sort of girl’s voice filtered itself through a hank of gum and said: “Good morning. Mr. Morningstar’s office.”

“Is the old gentleman in?”

“Who is calling, please?”

“Marlowe.”

“Does he know you, Mr. Marlowe?”

“Ask him if he wants to buy any early American gold coins.”

“Just a minute, please.”

There was a pause suitable to an elderly party in an inner office having his attention called to the fact that somebody on the telephone wanted to talk to him. Then the phone clicked and a man spoke. He had a dry voice. You might even call it parched.

“This is Mr. Morningstar.”

“I’m told you called Mrs. Murdock in Pasadena, Mr. Morningstar. About a certain coin.”

“About a certain coin,” he repeated. “Indeed. Well?”

“My understanding is that you wished to buy the coin in question from the Murdock collection.”

“Indeed? And who are you, sir?”

“Philip Marlowe. A private detective. I’m working for Mrs. Murdock.”

“Indeed,” he said for the third time. He cleared his throat carefully. “And what did you wish to talk to me about, Mr. Marlowe?”

“About this coin.”

“But I was informed it was not for sale.”

“I still want to talk to you about it. In person.”

“Do you mean she has changed her mind about selling?”

“No.”

“Then I’m afraid I don’t understand what you want, Mr. Marlowe. What have we to talk about?” He sounded sly now.

I took the ace out of my sleeve and played it with a languid grace. “The point is, Mr. Morningstar, that at the time you called up you already knew the coin wasn’t for sale.”

“Interesting,” he said slowly. “How?”

“You’re in the business, you couldn’t help knowing. It’s a matter of public record that the Murdock collection cannot be sold during Mrs. Murdock’s lifetime.”

“Ah,” he said. “Ah.” There was a silence. Then, “At three o’clock,” he said, not sharp, but quick. “I shall be glad to see you here in my office. You probably know where it is. Will that suit you?”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

I hung up and lit my pipe again and sat there looking at the wall. My face was stiff with thought, or with something that made my face stiff. I took Linda Murdock’s photo out of my pocket, stared at it for a while, decided that the face was pretty commonplace after all, locked the photo away in my desk. I picked Murdock’s second match out of my ashtray and looked it over. The lettering on this one read:
TOP ROW W. D. WRIGHT
’36.

I dropped it back in the tray, wondering what made this important. Maybe it was a clue.

I got Mrs. Murdock’s check out of my wallet, endorsed it, made out a deposit slip and a check for cash, got my bank book out of the desk, and folded the lot under a rubber band and put them in my pocket.

Lois Magic was not listed in the phone book.

I got the classified section up on the desk and made a list of the half dozen theatrical agencies that showed in the largest type and called them. They all had bright cheerful voices and wanted to ask a lot of questions, but they either didn’t know or didn’t care to tell me anything about a Miss Lois Magic, said to be an entertainer.

I threw the list in the waste basket and called Kenny Haste, a crime reporter on the
Chronicle.

“What do you know about Alex Morny?” I asked him when we were through cracking wise at each other.

“Runs a plushy night club and gambling joint in Idle Valley, about two miles off the highway back towards the hills. Used to be in pictures. Lousy actor. Seems to have plenty of protection. I never heard of him shooting anybody on the public square at high noon. Or at any other time for that matter. But I wouldn’t like to bet on it.”

“Dangerous?”

“I’d say he might be, if necessary. All those boys have been to picture shows and know how night club bosses are supposed to act. He has a bodyguard who is quite a character. His name’s Eddie Prue, he’s about six feet five inches tall and thin as an honest alibi. He has a frozen eye, the result of a war wound.”

“Is Morny dangerous to women? ”

“Don’t be Victorian, old top. Women don’t call it danger.”

“Do you know a girl named Lois Magic, said to be an entertainer. A tall gaudy blond, I hear.”

“No. Sounds as though I might like to.”

“Don’t be cute. Do you know anybody named Vannier? None of these people are in the phone book.”

“Nope. But I could ask Gertie Arbogast, if you want to call back. He knows all the night club aristocrats. And heels.”

“Thanks, Kenny. I’ll do that. Half an hour?”

He said that would be fine, and we hung up. I locked the office and left.

At the end of the corridor, in the angle of the wall, a youngish blond man in a brown suit and a cocoa-colored straw hat with a brown and yellow tropical print band was reading the evening paper with his back to the wall. As I passed him he yawned and tucked the paper under his arm and straightened up.

He got into the elevator with me. He could hardly keep his eyes open he was so tired. I went out on the street and walked a block to the bank to deposit my check and draw out a little folding money for expenses. From there I went to the Tigertail Lounge and sat in a shallow booth and drank a martini and ate a sandwich. The man in the brown suit posted himself at the end of the bar and drank coca colas and looked bored and piled pennies in front of him, carefully smoothing the edges. He had his dark glasses on again. That made him invisible.

I dragged my sandwich out as long as I could and then strolled back to the telephone booth at the inner end of the bar. The man in the brown suit turned his head quickly and then covered the motion by lifting his glass. I dialed the
Chronicle
office again.

“Okay,” Kenny Haste said. “Gertie Arbogast says Morny married your gaudy blond not very long ago. Lois Magic. He doesn’t know Vannier. He says Morny bought a place out beyond Bel-Air, a white house on Stillwood Crescent Drive, about five blocks north of Sunset. Gertie says Morny took it over from a busted flush named Arthur Blake Popham who got caught in a mail fraud rap. Popham’s initials are still on the gates. And probably on the toilet paper, Gertie says. He was that kind of a guy. That’s all we seem to know.”

“Nobody could ask more. Many thanks, Kenny.”

I hung up, stepped out of the booth, met the dark glasses above the brown suit under the cocoa straw hat and watched them turn quickly away.

I spun around and went back through a swing door into the kitchen and through that to the alley and along the alley a quarter block to the back of the parking lot where I had put my car.

No sand-colored coupé succeeded in getting behind me as I drove off, in the general direction of Bel-Air.

FIVE

Stillwood Crescent Drive curved leisurely north from Sunset Boulevard, well beyond the Bel-Air Country Club golf course. The road was lined with walled and fenced estates. Some had high walls, some had low walls, some had ornamental iron fences, some were a bit old-fashioned and got along with tall hedges. The street had no sidewalk. Nobody walked in that neighborhood, not even the mailman.

The afternoon was hot, but not hot like Pasadena. There was a drowsy smell of flowers and sun, a swishing of lawn sprinklers gentle behind hedges and walls, the clear ratchety sound of lawn mowers moving delicately over serene and confident lawns.

I drove up the hill slowly, looking for monograms on gates. Arthur Blake Popham was the name. ABP would be the initials. I found them almost at the top, gilt on a black shield, the gates folded back on a black composition driveway.

It was a glaring white house that had the air of being brand new, but the landscaping was well advanced. It was modest enough for the neighborhood, not more than fourteen rooms and probably only one swimming pool. Its wall was low, made of brick with the concrete all oozed out between and set that way and painted over white. On top of the wall a low iron railing painted black. The name A. P. Morny was stencilled on the large silver-colored mailbox at the service entrance.

I parked my crate on the street and walked up the black driveway to a side door of glittering white paint shot with patches of color from the stained glass canopy over it. I hammered on a large brass knocker. Back along the side of the house a chauffeur was washing off a Cadillac.

The door opened and a hard-eyed Filipino in a white coat curled his lip at me. I gave him a card.

“Mrs. Morny,” I said.

He shut the door. Time passed, as it always does when I go calling. The swish of water on the Cadillac had a cool sound. The chauffeur was a little runt in breeches and leggings and a sweat-stained shirt. He looked like an overgrown jockey and he made the same kind of hissing noise as he worked on the car that a groom makes rubbing down a horse.

A red-throated hummingbird went into a scarlet bush beside the door, shook the long tubular blooms around a little, and zoomed off so fast he simply disappeared in the air.

The door opened, the Filipino poked my card at me. I didn’t take it.

“What you want?”

It was a tight crackling voice, like someone tiptoeing across a lot of eggshells.

“Want to see Mrs. Morny.”

“She not at home.”

“Didn’t you know that when I gave you the card?”

He opened his fingers and let the card flutter to the ground. He grinned, showing me a lot of cut-rate dental work.

“I know when she tell me.”

He shut the door in my face, not gently.

I picked the card up and walked along the side of the house to where the chauffeur was squirting water on the Cadillac sedan and rubbing the dirt off with a big sponge. He had red rimmed eyes and a bang of corn-colored hair. A cigarette hung exhausted at the corner of his lower lip.

He gave me the quick side glance of a man who is minding his own business with difficulty. I said:

“Where’s the boss?”

The cigarette jiggled in his mouth. The water went on swishing gently on the paint.

“Ask at the house, Jack.”

“I done asked. They done shut the door in mah face.”

“You’re breaking my heart, Jack.”

“How about Mrs. Morny?”

“Same answer, Jack. I just work here. Selling something?”

I held my card so that he could read it. It was a business card this time. He put the sponge down on the running board, and the hose on the cement. He stepped around the water to wipe his hands on a towel that hung at the side of the garage doors. He fished a match out of his pants, struck it and tilted his head back to light the dead butt that was stuck in his face.

His foxy little eyes flicked around this way and that and he moved behind the car, with a jerk of the head. I went over near him.

“How’s the little old expense account?” he asked in a small careful voice.

“Fat with inactivity.”

“For five I could start thinking.”

“I wouldn’t want to make it that tough for you.”

“For ten I could sing like four canaries and a steel guitar.”

“I don’t like these plushy orchestrations,” I said.

He cocked his head sideways. “Talk English, Jack.”

“I don’t want you to lose your job, son. All I want to know is whether Mrs. Morny is home. Does that rate more than a buck?”

“Don’t worry about my job, Jack. I’m solid.”

“With Morny—or somebody else?”

“You want that for the same buck?”

“Two bucks.”

He eyed me over. “You ain’t working for him, are you?”

“Sure.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Sure.”

“Gimme the two bucks,” he snapped.

I gave him two dollars.

“She’s in the backyard with a friend,” he said. “A nice friend. You got a friend that don’t work and a husband that works, you’re all set, see?” he leered.

“You’ll be all set in an irrigation ditch one of these days.”

“Not me, Jack. I’m wise. I know how to play ’em. I monkeyed around these kind of people all my life.”

He rubbed the two dollar bills between his palms, blew on them, folded them longways and wideways and tucked them in the watch pocket of his breeches.

“That was just the soup,” he said. “Now for five more—”

A rather large blond cocker spaniel tore around the Cadillac, skidded a little on the wet concrete, took off neatly, hit me in the stomach and thighs with all four paws, licked my face, dropped to the ground, ran around my legs, sat down between them, let his tongue out all the way and started to pant.

I stepped over him and braced myself against the side of the car and got my handkerchief out.

A male voice called: “Here, Heathcliff. Here, Heathcliff.” Steps sounded on a hard walk.

“That’s Heathcliff,” the chauffeur said sourly.

“Heathcliff?”

“Cripes, that’s what they call the dog, Jack.”

“
Wuthering Heights
?” I asked.

“Now you’re double-talking again,” he sneered. “Look out—company.”

He picked up the sponge and the hose and went back to washing the car. I moved away from him. The cocker spaniel immediately moved between my legs again, almost tripping me.

“Here, Heathcliff,” the male voice called out louder, and a man came into view through the opening of a latticed tunnel covered with climbing roses.

Tall, dark, with a clear olive skin, brilliant black eyes, gleaming white teeth. Sideburns. A narrow black mustache. Sideburns too long, much too long. White shirt with embroidered initials on the pocket, white slacks, white shoes. A wrist watch that curved halfway around a lean dark wrist, held on by a gold chain. A yellow scarf around a bronzed slender neck.

He saw the dog squatted between my legs and didn’t like it. He snapped long fingers and snapped a clear hard voice:

“Here, Heathcliff. Come here at once!”

The dog breathed hard and didn’t move, except to lean a little closer to my right leg.

“Who are you?” the man asked, staring me down.

I held out my card. Olive fingers took the card. The dog quietly backed out from between my legs, edged around the front end of the car, and faded silently into the distance.

“Marlowe,” the man said. “Marlowe, eh? What’s this? A detective? What do you want?”

“Want to see Mrs. Morny.”

He looked me up and down, brilliant black eyes sweeping slowly and the silky fringes of long eyelashes following them.

“Weren’t you told she was not in?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t believe it. Are you Mr. Morny?”

“No.”

“That’s Mr. Vannier,” the chauffeur said behind my back, in the drawled, over-polite voice of deliberate insolence. “Mr. Vannier’s a friend of the family. He comes here quite a lot.”

Vannier looked past my shoulder, his eyes furious. The chauffeur came around the car and spit the cigarette stub out of his mouth with casual contempt.

“I told the shamus the boss wasn’t here, Mr. Vannier.”

“I see.”

“I told him Mrs. Morny and you was here. Did I do wrong?”

Vannier said: “You could have minded your own business.”

The chauffeur said: “I wonder why the hell I didn’t think of that.”

Vannier said: “Get out before I break your dirty little neck for you.”

The chauffeur eyed him quietly and then went back into the gloom of the garage and started to whistle. Vannier moved his hot angry eyes over to me and snapped:

“You were told Mrs. Morny was not in, but it didn’t take. Is that it? In other words the information failed to satisfy you.”

“If we have to have other words,” I said, “those might do.”

“I see. Could you bring yourself to say what point you wish to discuss with Mrs. Morny?”

“I’d prefer to explain that to Mrs. Morny herself.”

“The implication is that she doesn’t care to see you.”

Behind the car the chauffeur said: “Watch his right, Jack. It might have a knife in it.”

Vannier’s olive skin turned the color of dried seaweed. He turned on his heel and rapped at me in a stifled voice: “Follow me.”

He went along the brick path under the tunnel of roses and through a white gate at the end. Beyond was a walled-in garden containing flower-beds crammed with showy annuals, a badminton court, a nice stretch of greensward, and a small tiled pool glittering angrily in the sun. Beside the pool there was a flagged space set with blue and white garden furniture, low tables with composition tops, reclining chairs with footrests and enormous cushions, and over all a blue and white umbrella as big as a small tent.

A long-limbed languorous type of showgirl blond lay at her ease in one of the chairs, with her feet raised on a padded rest and a tall misted glass at her elbow, near a silver ice bucket and a Scotch bottle. She looked at us lazily as we came over the grass. From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away. Her mouth was too wide, her eyes were too blue, her makeup was too vivid, the thin arch of her eyebrows was almost fantastic in its curve and spread, and the mascara was so thick on her eyelashes that they looked like miniature iron railings.

She wore white duck slacks, blue and white open-toed sandals over bare feet and crimson lake toenails, a white silk blouse and a necklace of green stones that were not square cut emeralds. Her hair was as artificial as a night club lobby.

On the chair beside her there was a white straw garden hat with a brim the size of a spare tire and a white satin chin strap. On the brim of the hat lay a pair of green sun glasses with lenses the size of doughnuts.

Vannier marched over to her and snapped out: “You’ve got to can that nasty little red-eyed driver of yours, but quick. Otherwise I’m liable to break his neck any minute. I can’t go near him without getting insulted.”

The blond coughed lightly, flicked a handkerchief around without doing anything with it, and said:

“Sit down and rest your sex appeal. Who’s your friend?”

Vannier looked for my card, found he was holding it in his hand and threw it on her lap. She picked it up languidly, ran her eyes over it, ran them over me, sighed and tapped her teeth with her fingernails.

“Big, isn’t he? Too much for you to handle, I guess.”

Vannier looked at me nastily. “All right, get it over with, whatever it is.”

“Do I talk to her?” I asked. “Or do I talk to you and have you put it in English?”

The blond laughed. A silvery ripple of laughter that held the unspoiled naturalness of a bubble dance. A small tongue played roguishly along her lips.

Vannier sat down and lit a gold-tipped cigarette and I stood there looking at them.

I said: “I’m looking for a friend of yours, Mrs. Morny. I understand that she shared an apartment with you about a year ago. Her name is Linda Conquest.”

Vannier flicked his eyes up, down, up, down. He turned his head and looked across the pool. The cocker spaniel named Heathcliff sat over there looking at us with the white of one eye.

Vannier snapped his fingers. “Here, Heathcliff! Here, Heathcliff! Come here, sir!”

The blond said: “Shut up. The dog hates your guts. Give your vanity a rest, for heaven’s sake.”

Vannier snapped: “Don’t talk like that to me.”

The blond giggled and petted his face with her eyes.

I said: “I’m looking for a girl named Linda Conquest, Mrs. Morny.”

The blond looked at me and said: “So you said. I was just thinking. I don’t think I’ve seen her in six months. She got married.”

“You haven’t seen her in six months?”

“That’s what I said, big boy. What do you want to know for?”

“Just a private enquiry I’m making.”

“About what?”

“About a confidential matter,” I said.

“Just think,” the blond said brightly. “He’s making a private enquiry about a confidential matter. You hear that, Lou? Busting in on total strangers that don’t want to see him is quite all right, though, isn’t it, Lou? On account of he’s making a private enquiry about a confidential matter.”

“Then you don’t know where she is, Mrs. Morny?”

“Didn’t I say so?” Her voice rose a couple of notches.

“No. You said you didn’t think you had seen her in six months. Not quite the same thing.”

“Who told you I shared an apartment with her?” the blond snapped.

“I never reveal a source of information, Mrs. Morny.”

“Sweetheart, you’re fussy enough to be a dance director. I should tell you everything, you should tell me nothing.”

“The position is quite different,” I said. “I’m a hired hand obeying instructions. The lady has no reason to hide out, has she?”

“Who’s looking for her?”

“Her folks.”

“Guess again. She doesn’t have any folks.”

“You must know her pretty well, if you know that,” I said.

“Maybe I did once. That don’t prove I do now.”

“Okay,” I said. “The answer is you know, but you won’t tell.”

“The answer,” Vannier said suddenly, “is that you’re not wanted here and the sooner you get out, the better we like it.”