Fletcher Flora - The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK™ - 26 Stories by Fletcher Flora

“It looks hopeless,” I said. “You’d be wasting your money.”

“Perhaps so. If I don’t waste it on you, I’ll waste it on someone else.”

“In that case, it might as well be me.”

“You agree, then? You’ll take the job?”

Looking up at her, I was beginning to feel dominated, which was not good, so I removed the feeling by standing.

“Tentatively,” I said.

“What do you mean, tentatively?”

“I’ll make a preliminary investigation. If anything significant or interesting comes out of it, I’ll go ahead. If not, I’ll quit. You’ll pay my expenses and twenty-five dollars a day. Are those terms acceptable?”

“Yes. I accept.”

“Another thing. I’m to be allowed to talk with whomever I think necessary. Is that also agreed?”

“Yes, of course.” She hesitated, her soft lower lip protruding again in the darkly brooding expression. “You mean Graham, I suppose. I’d prefer, naturally, that he not know whom you’re working for.”

“I won’t tell him unless I think it’s advisable. I promise that much.”

“That’s good enough. I have confidence in your word, Mr. Hand.”

“Ethical. Someone told you, and you believe it, and that’s what I am. I’ll begin my investigation, it you don’t mind, by asking you one more question. What are you afraid of?”

“Afraid? I’m afraid of nothing. I honestly believe that I’ve never been afraid of anything in my life.”

“I’m ready to concede that you probably haven’t. Let me put it differently. What disturbs you about Constance Markley’s disappearance?”

“I’ve explained that. I don’t like loose ends. Graham has asked me to marry him. For my own reasons, I want to accept. First, however, he has to get a divorce. He can get it, I suppose, on grounds of desertion. I only want to know that it really was desertion.”

“That’s not quite convincing. What alternative to desertion, specifically, do you have in mind?”

“You said you would ask one more question, Mr. Hand. You’ve asked two.”

“Excuse me. You can see how dedicated I become to my work.”

“I should appreciate that, of course, and I do. I honestly have no specific alternative in mind. I just don’t like the situation as it stands. There’s another thing, however. I knew Constance, and I liked her, and now by an exceptional turn of events I’m in the position of appropriating something that was hers. I want to know that it’s all right. I want to know where she went, and why she went wherever she did, and that everything is all right there and will be all right here, whatever happens.”

I believed her. I believed everything she told me. She was a woman I could not doubt or condemn or even criticize. If I had been as rich as Graham Markley, I’d have taken her away, later if not then, and I’d have kept her, and there would have been between us, in the end, more than the money which would have been essential in the beginning.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “Do you have a photograph of Constance Markley that I can take along?”

“Yes. There’s one here that Maria brought. I’ll get it for you.”

She went inside and was gone for a few minutes and came back with the photograph. I took it from her and put it into the side pocket of my coat without looking at it. There would be plenty of time later to look at it, and now, in the last seconds of our first meeting, I wanted to look at Faith Salem.

“Goodbye,” I said. “I’ll see you again in a few days and let you know if I intend to go ahead.”

“Call before you come,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “Certainly.”

“I’ll see you to the door.”

“No. Don’t bother. You’d better stay here in the sun. In another half hour, it’ll be gone.”

“Yes. So it will.” She looked up at the white disk in the sky beyond a ridge of tooled stone. “Goodbye, then. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

She offered me her hand, and I took it and held it and released it. In the middle of the black and white acre, I paused and looked back. She had already removed the short white coat and was lying on her stomach on the yellow pad. Her face was buried in the crook of an elbow.

I went on out and back to my office and put my feet on the desk and thought about her lying there in the sun. There was no sun in my office. In front of me was a blank wall, and behind me was a narrow window, and outside the narrow window was a narrow alley. Whenever I got tired of looking at the wall I could get up and stand by the window and look down into the alley, and whenever I got tired of looking into the alley I could sit down and look at the wall again, and whenever I got tired of looking at both the wall and the alley, which was frequently, I could go out somewhere and look at something else. Now I simply closed my eyes and saw clearly behind the lids a lean brown body interrupted in two places by the briefest of white hiatuses.

This was pleasant but not of the first importance. It was more important, though less pleasant, to think about Graham Markley. Conceding the priority of importance, I began reluctantly to think about him, and after a few minutes of reluctant thinking, I lowered my feet and reached for a telephone directory. After locating his name and number, I dialed the number and waited through a couple of rings, and then a voice came on that made me feel with its first careful syllable as if I’d neglected recently to bathe and clean my fingernails.

“Graham Markley’s residence,” the voice said.

“This is Percival Hand,” I said. “I’m a private detective. I’d like to speak with Mr. Markley.” Ordinarily I use the abbreviated version of my name, just plain Percy, but I felt compelled by the voice to be as proper and impressive as possible. As it was, in the exorbitantly long pause that followed, I felt as if I had been unpardonably offensive.

“If you will just hold the wire,” the voice said at last, “I shall see if Mr. Markley is at home.” Which meant, of course, that Mr. Markley was certainly at home, but that it remained to be seen if he would be so irresponsible as to talk with a private detective on the telephone, which was surely unlikely. I held the wire and waited. I inspected my nails and found them clean. I tried to smell myself and couldn’t. Another voice came on abruptly, and it was, as it developed, the voice of Graham Markley.

“Graham Markley speaking. What can I do for you, Mr. Hand?”

“I’d like to make an appointment to see you personally, if possible.”

“About what?”

I had already considered the relative advantages in this particular instance of candor and deception, and I had decided that there was probably little or nothing to choose between them. In cases where deception gains me nothing, I’m always prepared to be candid, and that’s what I was now.

“About your wife. Your third wife, that is.”

“I can’t imagine why my wife should be a point of discussion between you and me, Mr. Hand.”

“I thought you might be able to give me some useful information.” There was a moment of waiting. The wire sang softly in the interim.

“For what purpose?” he said. “Am I to understand that you’re investigating my wife’s disappearance?”

“That’s right.”

“At whose request?”

“I’m not at liberty to say at the moment.”

“Come, Mr. Hand. If you expect any cooperation from me, you’ll have to be less reticent.”

“I haven’t received any cooperation from you yet, Mr. Markley.”

“It was reasonably apparent to everyone, including the police and myself, why my wife went away. I confess that I can’t see any use in stirring up an unpleasant matter that I had hoped was forgotten. Do you know anything that would justify it?”