Росс Макдональд - The Name is Archer

She shook her head slowly against his body. He turned and held her. I looked past them out the window to the darkening sea. They were fairly decent people, as people go, harried by the future and the past but holding together on the sharp ridge of the instant. And I was tormenting them. The case turned over behind my eyes again, a many-headed monster struggling to be born out of my mind.

Harlan opened the bathroom door and came out shakily. His nose was bleeding. He looked at me with hatred, at the lovers with desolation. Unnoticed by them, he stood like a wallflower against the doorframe.

“I should never have come here,” he said bitterly.

I turned to them. “This has gone far enough.”

They were blind and deaf, alone together on the sharp ridge, held flesh to flesh. A door creaked. I thought it was Harlan closing the bathroom door, and I looked in the wrong direction. Dolphine was in the room before I saw him. A heavy service revolver wavered in his hand. He advanced on Lister and his wife.

“You killed her, you devils.”

Lister tried to get up from the bed. The woman held him. Her back was to the gun.

The gun spoke once, very loudly, its echoes rumbling like delayed thunder. Harlan had crossed to the center of the room, perhaps with some idea of defending his sister. He took the slug in the body. It stopped him like a wall. He fell. I fired across him.

Dolphine dropped his revolver. He spread his hands across his stomach and backed against the wall, where he sat down. He was wheezing. Water ran from his eyes and nose. His face worked, trying to realize his grief and failing. Blood began to run between his fingers. I stood over him.

“How do you know they killed her?”

“I saw them. I saw it all.”

“You were in bed.”

“No, I was in the garage. They threw her down the steps, and came down after and choked her. Lister did. I saw him.”

“You didn’t call the police.”

“No. I–” His mouth groped for words. “I’m a sick man. I was too sick to call them. Upset. I couldn’t talk.”

“You’re sicker now, but you’re going to have to talk. It wasn’t Lister, was it? It was you.”

He choked, and began to cough blood. Great pumping sobs forced red words out of his mouth.

“She got what she deserved. I thought when I told her he’d married the other one, that she would come back to my bed. But she wouldn’t look at me. All she could think about was getting him back. When I was the one that loved her.”

“I can see that.”

“I did. I loved her.”

He lifted his red-laced hands in front of his eyes and began to scream. He rolled sideways with his face to the wall, screaming. He died that night.

Harlan was dead already. He should never have come there.

THE PLANE turned in towards the shoreline and began to lose altitude. Mountains detached themselves from the blue distance. Then there was a city between the sea and the mountains, a little city made of sugar cubes. The cubes increased in size. Cars crawled like colored beetles between the buildings, and matchstick figures hustled jerkily along the white morning pavements. A few minutes later I was one of them.

The woman who had telephoned me was waiting at the airport, as she had promised. She climbed out of her Cadillac when I appeared at the entrance to the waiting room, and took a few tentative steps towards me. In spite of her height and her blondeness, the dark harlequin glasses she wore gave her an oddly Oriental look.

“You must be Mr. Archer.”

I said I was, and waited for her to complete the exchange of names – she hadn’t given me her name on the telephone. All she had given me, in fact, was an urgent request to catch the first plane north, and assurances that I would be paid for my time.

She sensed what I was waiting for. “I’m sorry to be so mysterious. I really can’t afford to tell you my name. I’m taking quite a risk in coming here at all.”

I looked her over carefully, trying to decide whether this was another wild goose chase. Although she was well-groomed in a sharkskin suit, her hair and face were slightly disarranged, as if a storm had struck her a glancing blow. She took off her glasses to wipe them. I could see that the storm was inside of her, roiling the blue-green color of her eyes.

“What’s the problem?” I said.

She stood wavering between me and her car, beaten by surges of sound from the airfield where my plane was about to take off again. Behind her, in the Cadillac’s front seat, a little girl with the coloring of a Dresden doll was sitting as still as one. The woman glanced at the child and moved farther away from the car:

“I don’t want Janie to hear. She’s only three and a half but she understands a great deal.” She took a deep gasping breath, like a swimmer about to dive. “There’s a man on trial for murder here. They claim he murdered his wife.”

“Glenway Cave?”

Her whole body moved with surprise. “You know him?”

“No, I’ve been following the trial in the papers.”

“Then you know he’s testifying today. He’s probably on the witness stand right now.” Her voice was somber, as if she could see the courtroom in her mind’s eye.

“Is Mr. Cave a friend of yours?”

She bit her lip. “Let’s say that I’m an interested observer.”

“And you don’t believe he’s guilty.”

“Did I say that?”

“By implication. You said they claim he murdered his wife.”

“You have an alert ear, haven’t you? Anyway, what I believe doesn’t matter. It’s what the jury believes. Do you think they’ll acquit him?”

“It’s hard to form an opinion without attending the trial. But the average jury has a prejudice against the idea of blowing off your wife’s head with a twelve-gauge shotgun. I’d say he stands a good chance of going to the gas chamber.”

“The gas chamber.” Her nostrils dilated, and she paled, as if she had caught a whiff of the fatal stuff. “Do you seriously think there’s any danger of that?”

“They’ve built a powerful case against him. Motive. Opportunity. Weapon.”

“What motive?”

“His wife was wealthy, wasn’t she? I understand Cave isn’t. They were alone in the house; the housekeeping couple were away for the weekend. The shotgun belonged to Cave, and according to the chemical test his driving gloves were used to fire it.”

“You have been following the trial.”

“As well as I could from Los Angeles. Of course you get distortions in the newspapers. It makes a better story if he looks guilty.”

“He isn’t guilty,” she said in a quiet voice.

“Do you know that, or merely hope it?”

She pressed one hand across her mouth. The fingernails were bitten down to the quick. “We won’t go into that.”

“Do you know who murdered Ruth Cave?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Am I supposed to try and find out who did?”

“Wouldn’t that be very difficult, since it happened so long ago? Anyway, it doesn’t really matter to me. I barely knew the woman.” Her thoughts veered back to Cave. “Won’t a great deal depend on the impression he makes on the witness stand?”

“It usually does in a murder trial.”

“You’ve seen a lot of them, haven’t you?”

“Too many. I take it I’m going to see another.”

“Yes.” She spoke sharply and definitely, leaning forward. “I don’t dare go myself. I want you to observe the jurors, see how Glen – how Mr. Cave’s testimony affects them. And tell me if you think he’s going to get off.”

“What if I can’t tell?”

“You’ll have to give me a yes or no.” Her breast nudged my arm. She was too intent on what she was saying to notice. “I’ve made up my mind to go by your decision.”