“Darla.”

Something made me glance at Ellie. Her shoulders were set and her head cocked forward. She looked to be concentrating intently. “Darla Sandoval,” I said. “Right. That ring any kind of a bell for you, Ellie?”

“No. I don’t think you mentioned her name before. Why?”

“No reason. Why don’t you call her, Wes?”

“She calls me. I’m not supposed to call her.”

“Call her and see if she wants the box back.”

“But you don’t have the box, Bernie.” He eyed me in his oblique fashion. “Or do you? I’m getting more confused by the minute. Do you have the box or don’t you?

“I don’t.

“I didn’t think so because you didn’t even believe there was a box. You didn’t get the box from Flaxford’s apartment, then. Did you see it there and-”

“No.”

“You went through the desk? There was a desk there, wasn’t there? A large rolltop?”

“There was, and I went through it pretty carefully. But I couldn’t find any kind of blue box in it.”

“Shit,” he said, and this time he didn’t think to apologize to Ellie. I don’t think she minded. I’m not even sure she heard him. She seemed to have something else on her mind.

“That means they got it,” he said.

“Who?”

“Whoever killed him. You didn’t commit the murder or steal the box, so somebody else did both those little things and that’s why the box was gone when you got there. So that’s the end of everything.”

“Call Darla.”

“What’s the point?”

“I know where the box is,” I said. “Call her.”

Chapter Thirteen

Her hair was still blond, and if she had changed much in any other respect I didn’t notice it. She was still slim and elegant, with strength in her face and assurance in her carriage. Wes and I met her as arranged over the phone at a brownstone apartment a few blocks from the one I’d been caught burgling a few years back. She opened the door, greeted me by name, and told Wes his presence would not be necessary.

“You run along, Wesley. It’s quite all right, Mr. Rhodenbarr and I will work things out.” It was the dismissal of a servant, and whether he liked it or not he took it without a murmur. She was swinging the door shut even as he was turning. She bolted it-with the burglar already inside, I thought-and favored me with a cool and regal smile. She asked if I’d like a drink and I said Scotch would be fine and told her how to fix it.

While she made the drinks I stood around thinking of Ellie. She’d decided rather abruptly that she wouldn’t come along to meet Darla Sandoval. A quick glance at her watch, a sudden realization that it was much later than she’d thought, an uncertain bit of chatter about an unspecified appointment for which she was already late, a promise to meet me back at Rodney’s apartment later on, and away she went. I’d see her later, after her appointment had been kept, after her legendary cats had been fed, after her legendary stained-glass sculpture had been assembled…

I was running various thoughts through my mind when Darla Sandoval came back with drinks for both of us. Hers was a darker shade of amber than mine. She raised her glass as if to toast, failed to hit on a suitable phrase, and looked slightly less than certain for the first time in our acquaintance. “Well,” she said, which was toast enough, and we took sips of our drinks. It was excellent Scotch and this did not much surprise me.

“Nice place you’ve got here.”

“Oh, this? I borrowed it from a friend.”

“Still live at the same spot? Where we met?”

“Oh, yes. Nothing’s changed.” She sighed. “I want you to know I’m sorry about all this,” she said, sounding apologetic if not devastated. “I never expected to get you involved in anything so complicated. I thought you’d do a very simple job of burglary for me. I remembered how skillfully you opened our locks that night-”

“That was skill, all right. Hitting the place with you two in it.”

“Accidents do happen. I thought you’d do perfectly, though, and of course you’re the only person I know who could possibly do the job. I remembered you, of course, your name, and I just glanced through the telephone book on the chance that you might be in it, and there you were.”

“There I was,” I agreed. “They charge extra for an unlisted number and I’ve always considered it a waste of money. The idea of paying them for an unperformed service. Goes against the grain.”

“I never thought Fran would be home that night. There was an opening downtown.”

“An opening?”

“An experimental play. He was supposed to be in the audience and at the cast party afterward. Carter and I were there, you see, and when Fran didn’t turn up I got very nervous. I knew you were going to be burgling his apartment and I didn’t know where he could be, whether he’d gone somewhere else or stayed home or what. Wesley says you didn’t kill him.”

“He was dead when I got there.”

“And the police-”

I gave her a quick summary of what had happened in Flaxford’s apartment. Her eyes widened when I mentioned how I’d arranged to buy my way out. Here her husband was battling police corruption and she didn’t seem to know that cops took money from crooks. I guess civilians just don’t understand how the system works.

“Then someone else actually killed him,” she said. “I don’t suppose it could have been accidental? No, of course it couldn’t. But you did look in the desk before the police came? I saw Fran put the box in the desk. It was a deep blue, a little darker than royal blue, and the box itself was about the size of a hardcover novel. Maybe larger, perhaps as big as a dictionary. And I saw him put it in the desk.”

“Where in the desk? Under the rolltop?”

“One of the lower drawers. I don’t know which one.”

“It doesn’t matter. I went through those drawers.”

“Thoroughly?”

“Very thoroughly. If the box was there I would have found it.”

“Then someone else got it first.” Her face paled slightly beneath her make-up. She drank some more of her drink, sat down in a straight chair with a needlepoint seat. “Whoever killed Fran took the box,” she said.

“I don’t think so. That desk was locked when I found it, Mrs. Sandoval. Desk locks are always easy to open but you have to know what you’re doing.”

“The killer could have had a key.”

“But would he have bothered to lock up afterward? With a corpse in the bedroom? I don’t think so. He’d have thrown things all over the place and left a mess behind him.” I thought of my own ravaged apartment. “Besides,” I went on, “somebody’s still looking for the box and you don’t go on looking for something you already have. I went back to my own place a couple of hours ago and it looked as though Attila had marched his Huns through it. You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, you could have hired someone. No hard feelings if you did, but you’d better tell me or we’ll be wasting our time chasing wild geese.”

She assured me she had had nothing to do with looting my place and I decided she was telling the truth. I hadn’t really figured she’d been involved in the first place. It was more logical to assume it had been tossed by the same person who had scrambled Flaxford’s brains.

“I think I know where the box is,” I said.

“Where?”

“Where it’s been all along. Flaxford’s apartment.”

“You said you looked.”

“I looked in the desk, but that’s as far as I got. I’d have kept on looking if the Marines hadn’t landed and I think I probably would have found it. It could have been anywhere in the apartment. Just because you saw him put it in the desk doesn’t mean he left it there forever. Maybe he had a wall safe behind a picture. Maybe he stuck it in a drawer in the bedside table. It could even be in the desk but not in a drawer. Those old rolltops have secret compartments. Maybe he put the box in one of them after you left. Anyway, I’ll bet it’s still there, right where he put it, and the killer assumes I’ve got it, and the apartment’s all locked up with a police seal on the door.”