“Does he know she is dead?”

Webber sat quiet for a long moment before he said: “Not from anything he has said. But how could he help it, if it’s the same girl?”

“He never found her in the mountains—so far as we know.” I stood up and leaned down on the desk.

“Look, captain, you’re not kidding me, are you?”

“No. Not one damn bit. Some men are like that and some women can make them like it. If you think Degarmo went up there looking for her because he wanted to hurt her, you’re as wet as a bar towel.”

“I never quite thought that,” I said. “It would be possible, provided Degarmo knew the country up there pretty well. Whoever murdered the girl did.”

“This is all between us,” he said. “I’d like you to keep it that way.”

I nodded, but I didn’t promise him. I said goodnight again and left. He looked after me as I went down the room. He looked hurt and sad.

The Chrysler was in the police lot at the side of the building with the keys in the ignition and none of the fenders smashed. Cooney hadn’t made good on his threat. I drove back to Hollywood and went up to my apartment in the Bristol. It was late, almost midnight.

The green and ivory hallway was empty of all sound except that a telephone bell was ringing in one of the apartments. It rang insistently and got louder as I came near to my door. I unlocked the door. It was my telephone.

I walked across the room in darkness to where the phone stood on the ledge of an oak desk against the side wall. It must have rung at least ten times before I got to it.

I lifted it out of the cradle and answered, and it was Derace Kingsley on the line.

His voice sounded tight and brittle and strained. “Good Lord, where in hell have you been?” he snapped. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

“All right. I’m here now,” I said. “What is it?”

“I’ve heard from her.”

I held the telephone very tight and drew my breath in slowly and let it out slowly. “Go ahead,” I said.

“I’m not far away. I’ll be over there in five or six minutes. Be prepared to move.”

He hung up.

I stood there holding the telephone halfway between my ear and the cradle. Then I put it down very slowly and looked at the hand that had held it. It was half open and clenched stiff, as if it was still holding the instrument.

TWENTY-NINE

The discreet midnight tapping sounded on the door and I went over and opened it. Kingsley looked as big as a horse in a creamy Shetland sports coat with a green and yellow scarf around the neck inside the loosely turned-up collar. A dark reddish brown snapbrim hat was pulled low on his forehead and under its brim, his eyes looked like the eyes of a sick animal.

Miss Fromsett was with him. She was wearing slacks and sandals and a dark green coat and no hat and her hair had a wicked lustre. In her ears hung ear drops made of a pair of tiny artificial gardenia blooms, hanging one above the other, two on each ear. Gillerlain Regal, the Champagne of Perfumes, came in at the door with her.

I shut the door and indicated the furniture and said: “A drink will probably help.”

Miss Fromsett sat in an armchair and crossed her legs and looked around for cigarettes. She found one and lit it with a long casual flourish and smiled bleakly at a corner of the ceiling.

Kingsley stood in the middle of the floor trying to bite his chin. I went out to the dinette and mixed three drinks and brought them in and handed them. I went over to the chair by the chess table with mine.

Kingsley said: “What have you been doing and what’s the matter with the leg?”

I said: “A cop kicked me. A present from the Bay City police department. It’s a regular service they give down there. As to where I’ve been in jail for drunk driving. And from the expression on your face, I think I may be right back there soon.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said shortly. “I haven’t the foggiest idea. This is no time to kid around.”

“All right, don’t,” I said. “What did you hear and where is she?”

He sat down with his drink and flexed the fingers of his right hand, and put it inside his coat. It came out with an envelope, a long one.

“You have to take this to her,” he said. “Five hundred dollars. She wanted more, but this is all I could raise. I cashed a check at a night club. It wasn’t easy. She has to get out of town.”

I said: “Out of what town?”

“Bay City somewhere. I don’t know where. She’ll meet you at a place called the Peacock Lounge, on Arguello Boulevard, at Eighth Street, or near it.”

I looked at Miss Fromsett. She was still looking at the corner of the ceiling as if she had just come along for the ride.

Kingsley tossed the envelope across and it fell on the chess table. I looked inside. It was money all right. That much of his story made sense. I let it lie on the small polished table with its inlaid squares of brown and pale gold.

I said: “What’s the matter with her drawing her own money? Any hotel would clear a check for her. Most of them would cash one. Has her bank account got lockjaw or something?”

“That’s no way to talk,” Kingsley said heavily. “She’s in trouble. I don’t know how she knows she’s in trouble. Unless a pickup order has been broadcast. Has it?”

I said I didn’t know. I hadn’t had much time to listen to police calls. I had been too busy listening to live policemen.

Kingsley said: “Well, she won’t risk cashing a check now. It was all right before. But not now.” He lifted his eyes slowly and gave me one of the emptiest stares I had ever seen.

“All right, we can’t make sense where there isn’t any,” I said. “So she’s in Bay City. Did you talk to her?”

“No. Miss Fromsett talked to her. She called the office. It was just after hours but that cop from the beach, Captain Webber, was with me. Miss Fromsett naturally didn’t want her to talk at all then. She told her to call back. She wouldn’t give any number we could call.”

I looked at Miss Fromsett. She brought her glance down from the ceiling and pointed it at the top of my head. There was nothing in her eyes at all. They were like drawn curtains.

Kingsley went on: “I didn’t want to talk to her. She didn’t want to talk to me. I don’t want to see her. I guess there’s no doubt she shot Lavery. Webber seemed quite sure of it.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “What he says and what he thinks don’t even have to be on the same map. I don’t like her knowing the cops were after her. It’s a long time since anybody listened to the police short wave for amusement. So she called back later. And then?”

“It was almost half-past six,” Kingsley said. “We had to sit there in the office and wait for her to call. You tell him.” He turned his head to the girl.

Miss Fromsett said: “I took the call in Mr. Kingsley’s office. He was sitting right beside me, but he didn’t speak. She said to send the money down to the Peacock place and asked who would bring it.”