Ross MacDonald - Strangers in Town - Three Newly Discovered Mysteries

"Can they make it stick?"

He shot a lizard glance at the boy's mother, and shrugged. "I'd feel a little more certain that it won't if we could present a reasonable alternative, you know? I thought suicide, but I don't know if it's tenable."

"I'm afraid not. You've seen the wound?"

"Yes," he said. "Guillotine."

Mrs. Norris shuddered audibly. She was leaning forward in a rocker with her forearms on her knees, her eyes like dark weights in her head. On the wall behind her a Sunday School motto stated that Christ was a silent listener at every conversation.

"Mrs. Norris," I said, "if I could have a look at Lucy's things—"

She straightened. "The police sealed up her room, inside and outside. I can't get in myself, even to clean it up."

"You can," I told Santana.

"Yes. I'll need an order."

"Isn't there anything of hers in the rest of the house?"

Mrs. Norris rose ponderously. "She mostly stayed in her room, but I'll have a look."

As soon as she was gone, Santana moved with short quick steps across the threadbare carpet, and laid a hand on my shoulder. "I didn't like to speak out in front of her. I talked to Alex this morning, and there was another man. Alex saw him go in by Lucy's private entrance Tuesday night, night before last. That's what their fight was about yesterday. He accused her of being a prostitute. Then when he found her dead, he thought he'd forced her to suicide." He removed his weight from my shoulder and spread his hands. "Poor boy."

"Poor girl. Was she one?"

"Not here. Not in Mrs. Norris's house. That one is a highly moral woman."

"No doubt." But there was doubt in my mind about Lucy and her orange silk pyjamas. "Could he give you a description of the man?"

"A very good description." He took out a small leather notebook and opened it. "He was a white man. Curly black hair and Latin features, more Italian than Spanish. Broad-shouldered, above medium height. Light tan tweed jacket, light gabardine trousers. Two-tone sport shoes, brown and white. Dark red tie. General effect that of a prosperous thug. Discount that last though. Alex hated the man on sight, for obvious reasons."

"You've told the police about this?"

"Alex wouldn't let me. He made me swear I wouldn't. The boy's a poetry-reader, Mr. Archer. He would rather die than cast aspersions publicly on her memory. I'm going to tell them anyway, of course, now that I've told you first. Quite soon now. But it would be so much more effective if we could present the man along with the story."

"So I'm to pluck him out of the air. This state is lousy with prosperous thugs. Latin and non-Latin."

"Is it not?" He scurried back to the mohair chesterfield. "But there is your problem."

Mrs. Norris returned, laden with meager booty. A woman's hat and coat. "These were hers. She kept them in the hall closet." Toothbrush and toothpaste, a bottle of mouthwash, one of hair oil, assorted cosmetics. "She had her own little cabinet in the bathroom. Oh, and this."

She handed me a clinical thermometer. I turned it over and found the mercury column. It registered a temperature of 107. I showed it to Santana. "Lucy was really sick, apparently."

"She didn't die of a fever," he said.

Mrs. Norris examined the thermometer. "I don't believe she was running a temperature like that. She wouldn't have been able to walk around. What did Dr. Benning say about her?"

"That she had nothing serious the matter."

"Benning?" Santana said. "Was she Benning's patient?"

"Not exactly. She went to see him once."

"Most people do," he said dryly.

"Let's look at the other things."

The items from the bathroom cabinet could have been bought in any city or town in the United States. There was no druggists's prescription, nothing that could be pinned down to a definite place or person. The coat was equally anonymous. It was a plain black cloth coat, bearing the label of a New York maker who turned out thousands of cheap coats every year.

I was a little surprised by the hat. It was a soft turban made of black wool yarn interwoven with threads of gold. It was simple enough, but something about its shape suggested money.

"With your permission," I said, "I'm going to take this along with me. You're sure there's nothing else of hers around, outside of the room?"

"I don't believe so."

"Who's the best milliner in town?"

"Helen," Santana answered, so quickly that he almost blushed about it. "Her shop is on the Plaza."

Helen's was one of those shops with a single hat in the window, like a masterpiece of plastic art in a gallery. Helen herself was almost a work of art, a small dark middle-aged woman who tripped towards me like an aging ballet dancer.

"You are looking for a gift, perhaps?" Her painted mask-like face formed a slight waiting smile.

"Not exactly. In fact, not at all." I took the black-and-gold turban out of my jacket pocket and handed it to her. "You wouldn't know where this came from?"

Her curved scarlet talons poked and pulled at the hat. "Why?"

"I'm a detective. A woman was killed. This belonged to her."

"Wealth?" She turned it inside out.

"I hardly think so. It's a good hat, though, isn't it?"

"Very good. French workmanship, I do believe."

"You couldn't hazard a guess as to the maker?"

"A guess, perhaps. It has Augustin lines. The way it's folded, you know?" She plucked at the material.

"Where is Augustin?"

"Paris." She pulled the hat on suddenly, struck a pose in front of a mirror on the wall. "Pretty, but not for me. It was made for a blonde. Was your killed woman a blonde?"

"No."

"Then she had bad taste." She removed the hat and gave it back to me. "Augustin has a Los Angeles outlet, you know. Bertha Mackay on Wilshire. Might that help?"

I drove to Los Angeles. Bertha Mackay's hat shop had the hushed solemnity of a funeral chapel. A few handmaidens lazed about in the theatrical light, and paid no attention to me. Tea was being served from a silver service in the rear of the shop. I couldn't imagine Lucy coming here to buy a hat.

A stout woman with blonde coroneted braids was pouring for a bevy of spectacularly hatted females. I addressed her: "May I speak to Miss Mackay?"

"You have that privilege and pleasure." Her smile conveyed the idea that the hat shop and the tea-pouring were charades, good fun but not to be taken seriously.

"Privately, if possible."

"I'm rather busy just now—"

"It won't take a minute."

She removed her hand from the teapot and rose sighing. "Now what?" She led me into a corner.

I had a story ready, which omitted the alarming fact of murder: "I sell cars. A young lady came into the showroom this morning, and asked to try out a new convertible. She went away without leaving her name or address, and left her hat in the car. I'd like to return it to her."

"And sell her a car?"

"If I can. But the hat is worth money, isn't it?" I showed it to her.

She looked up sharply. "How did you know I sold it?"

"A woman who knows hats said it was an Augustin, and that you handled them."

"It is worth money. Two hundred dollars, to be exact. I'm not excessively wild about the notion of giving out a customer's name, though. You know all you want to do is sell her a car."

"You sold her a hat."

She smiled, but she was suspicious of me. "What did she look like?"

I took a chance: "She was blonde, a well-groomed blonde."

She didn't deny it. Glancing impatiently towards the tea-party, where the spectacular hats were twittering like birds, she said: "Oh hell, it was Fern Dee bought it. Only don't tell her I told you, she might object. Say you went to a fortune-teller, um?"

"Fern Dee. Where does she live?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. I only saw her the one time, last spring. She saw this hat in the window and walked in and paid cash for it and walked out. I recognized her from her pictures."