Robert Sinclair - The Eleventh Hour

Bauer opened his mouth twice, like a seal coming up for air, but if he planned to say anything, he thought better of it. On the third try he said, “I’ve got to go,” and went for his hat. At the door he turned to Betty.

“Where will you be if I want to get hold of your” he asked.

“I suppose what you mean is if you want to communicate with me,” she said. “And I’ll be right here, naturally.”

Conway’s jaw dropped and the detective’s eyes widened. “Here?” he said.

“After all, the reason I came out was to help Arthur through this awful thing,” she said.

“But you can’t stay here with me,” Conway said.

“Well, we can talk about it later. You’ll let me stay long enough to have a bath and change my clothes, won’t you?”

“Yes — I suppose so.”

“Then I’ll do that right now, if the sergeant will excuse me. Would you mind bringing the luggage up, and showing me which room you want me to use?” She started up the stairs, and Conway felt the detective eying him.

“I’ll drop in the next time I’m in the neighborhood,” Bauer said, and there was something in the tone that chilled Conway. He closed the door after the sergeant, and walked slowly up the stairs with Betty’s bags.

He found her already in Helen’s room.

“I’m dying to talk to you,” she said. “And you must want to ask me a lot of things. But do you mind waiting till after I’ve bathed and changed? I’ll feel so much better then.” She looked up from hunting the zipper on the side of her skirt, and gave him what could only be described as a winning smile.

He wanted desperately to talk to her, to find out what her game was. But he didn’t know where to begin; he needed time to think, to plan his strategy. He had never been more unsure of himself. Perhaps this was the breathing space he needed; it would give him time to pull himself together.

“I’ll put some towels in the bathroom,” he said, and went out and closed the door.

Downstairs, he listened to the bedroom door open, the bathroom door close, and the bath being run. Some time later he heard the water running out of the tub, the bathroom door open, and the bedroom door close. And insistently he searched for the reason for her being here. Why had she come? There was, of course, one possible reason which was almost too frightening to contemplate: that Helen had written her recently. What Helen might have said that had roused her suspicions, he could not imagine; Helen certainly had had no inkling of the fate in store for her. But, he thought, that was not essential, because almost anything Helen would have said in a recent letter would be enough to give the lie to the story of their relationship he had already told the police. No matter how little this girl knew, it was too much. The mere fact of her presence had already roused Bauer’s suspicions, however vague. Anything she might inadvertently say could be enough to make those suspicions dangerously concrete. He knew that Bauer would make a point of talking to her, questioning her. And regardless of how stupid or clumsy he might be, it was inevitable that he would learn something.

All this, of course, was assuming that the girl had not purposely come for some sinister reason of her own. But had she some devious scheme in mind which had brought her here so quickly? Blackmail, perhaps? It was more than possible. She had seemingly tried to antagonize Bauer, so her project might not involve the police. Conway began to realize that his plan for the perfect murder was something considerably less than that: it was good chiefly in that it provided him with an alibi; it had served to divert suspicion, at first glance, from himself and point to another, unknown culprit. Already she had managed to point at least a tiny finger of suspicion at him. The chance coincidence, which he had rejected as unworthy of his story, was intruding itself into his life with no regard for its lack of artistic merit.

What would her next move be? He had to talk to her, try to find out what lay behind this hurried trip, but he had not the vaguest notion of where to start. One thing he did know: if he was not able to persuade her to return home immediately, he would have to let her remain in the house; it would be too dangerous to have her on the loose, available at any time to Bauer or, perhaps, some shrewder, more acute questioner. Here he might be able to have some control over her meetings with the police.

“They say planes aren’t dirty, but I must say I feel a lot less soiled than I did.” The voice came from the top of the stairs, and Conway turned and watched her as she descended. She was wearing a light, printed silk dress which caressed an enchanting figure, and her hair, freed now of a hat, made a luscious frame for the piquant face. The picture held him for only a moment; it was crowded out almost instantly by the fears and desperate suspicions she aroused in him, but because he still did not know what he was going to say, nor even how to begin, he said nothing. Betty apparently found this a normal reaction: there was no trace of embarrassment or coquettishness as she walked into the room.

“That detective was something to get rid of, wasn’t he?” she said.

“Why were you so anxious to get rid of him?”

“I wanted to talk to you, naturally — and I thought maybe you’d be a little curious about my turning up this way.”

She’s not going to hold back, Conway thought. She’s going to come out with it. At least I’ll know where I stand. “I’m more than a little curious,” he said.

“For one thing, I did want to see if I could be of any help to you. You wouldn’t know about this, but I’ve had sort of a schoolgirl crush on you ever since Helen sent on your picture and told us about you, when you got married. I’d always wanted to meet you, but then, of course, when Mama died, and Helen got so furious, there didn’t seem to be much chance of that. So this is the first chance I’ve had to meet my only living relative.”

The combination of naiveté and utter poise was engaging, her sincerity was disarming, and Conway decided that she was going to be more devious than he had expected. “There couldn’t have been another reason, could there?” he asked.

“Well, yes, in a way. You see, I’ll probably be getting married one of these days, and if I marry in Topeka I probably wouldn’t ever go anyplace much. I have this little income from Mama’s house, and I’ve always wanted to see California, and this seemed like a good time to do it. Can you fix it so I can go through one of the studios?”

“No,” Conway said, “I’ve never been in one myself.”

“Really? That’s too bad. Well, maybe I’ll meet someone while I’m here who could arrange it.”

“Just how long are you planning to stay?”

“I don’t know exactly. It all depends.”

“On what, if I’m not too inquisitive?”

“Oh, lots of things. My financial status, and what turns up out here, and how much I like California, and — it gets awfully hot in the summer in Topeka, you know.”

“And awfully cold in the winter.”

“Yes.” Then she realized his implication. “But I wouldn’t impose on you indefinitely — I’d find an apartment.”

“I see. No other reasons for the trip?”

“No,” she said, a little puzzled at his tone. “That’s all.”

“A desire to pay your respects to Helen’s memory wasn’t one of them, obviously.” He realized how stuffy he sounded before he even finished the sentence.

“You and I don’t have to be hypocritical about that, do we?” What does she know? he asked himself. What does she mean, you and I?

“When was the last time you heard from Helen?” he said.