Ross MACDONALD - The Archer Files

A minute later he shuffled back to me with the picture in his hands. The boy in the blue waistcoat was there in the frame, watching the apple, which looked good enough to eat after more than two hundred years.

Hendryx’ withered face had settled into a kind of malevolent resignation. “You realize that this is no better than blackmail.”

“On the contrary, I’m saving you from the consequences of your own poor judgment. You shouldn’t do business with thieves and murderers.”

“You still insist the picture was stolen?”

“I think it was. You probably know it was. Will you answer one question?”

“Perhaps.”

“When Hilary Todd approached you about buying this picture, did he claim to represent Admiral Turner?”

“Of course. You have the bill of sale in your hand. It’s signed by the Admiral.”

“I see that, but I don’t know his signature.”

“I do. Now, if you have no further questions, may I have my money?”

He held out his brown hand with the palm upward. I gave him the sheaf of bills.

“And the bill of sale, if you please.”

“It wasn’t part of the bargain.”

“It has to be.”

“I suppose you’re right.” I handed it to him.

“Please don’t come back a third time,” he said as he rang for the maid. “I find your visits tiring and annoying.”

“I won’t come back,” I said. I didn’t need to.

I parked in the alley beside the art gallery and got out of the car with the Chardin under my arm. There was talk and laughter and the tinny din of cutlery in the restaurant patio beyond the hedge. On the other side of the alley a light was shining behind the barred window of Silliman’s office. I reached up between the bars and tapped on the window. I couldn’t see beyond the closed Venetian blinds.

Someone opened the casement. It was Alice, her blond head aureoled against the light. “Who is it?” she said in a frightened whisper.

“Archer.” I had a sudden, rather theatrical impulse. I held up the Chardin and passed it to her edgewise between the bars. She took it from my hands and let out a little yelp of surprise.

“It was where I thought it would be,” I said.

Silliman appeared at her shoulder, squeaking, “What is it? What is it?”

My brain was doing a double take on the action I’d just performed. I had returned the Chardin to the gallery without using the door. It could have been stolen the same way, by Hilary Todd or anyone else who had access to the building. No human being could pass through the bars, but a picture could.

Silliman’s head came out of the window like a gray mop being shaken. “Where on earth did you find it?”

I had no story ready, so I said nothing.

A gentle hand touched my arm and stayed, like a bird alighting. I started, but it was only Mary.

“I’ve been watching for you,” she said. “The sheriff’s in Hilary’s shop, and he’s raving mad. He said he’s going to put you in jail, as a material witness.”

“You didn’t tell him about the money?” I said in an undertone.

“No. Did you really get the picture?”

“Come inside and see.”

As we turned the corner of the building, a car left the curb in front of it, and started up the street with a roar. It was Admiral Turner’s black sedan.

“It looks like Alice driving,” Mary said.

“She’s gone to tell her father, probably.”

I made a sudden decision, and headed back to my car.

“Where are you going?”

“I want to see the Admiral’s reaction to the news.”

She followed me to the car. “Take me.”

“You’d better stay here. I can’t tell what might happen.”

I tried to shut the door, but she held on to it. “You’re always running off and leaving me to make your explanations.”

“All right; get in. I don’t have time to argue.”

I drove straight up the alley and across the parking lot to Rubio Street. There was a uniformed policeman standing at the back door of Hilary’s shop, but he didn’t try to stop us.

“What did the police have to say about Hilary?” I asked her.

“Not much. The ice pick had been wiped clean of fingerprints, and they had no idea who did it.”

I went through a yellow light and left a chorus of indignant honkings at the intersection behind me.

“You said you didn’t know what would happen when you got there. Do you think the Admiral–” She left the sentence unfinished.

“I don’t know. I have a feeling I soon will, though.” There were a great many things I could have said. I concentrated on my driving.

“Is this the street?” I asked her finally.

“Yes.”

My tires shrieked on the corner, and again in front of the house. She was out of the car before I was.

“Stay back,” I told her. “This may be dangerous.”

She let me go up the walk ahead of her. The black sedan was in the drive with the headlights burning and the left front door hanging open. The front door of the house was closed but there was a light behind it. I went in without knocking.

Sarah came out of the living room. All day her face had been going to pieces, and now it was old and slack and ugly. Her bright hair was ragged at the edges, and her voice was ragged. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I want to see the Admiral. Where is he?”

“How should I know? I can’t keep track of any of my men.” She took a step toward me, staggered, and almost fell.

Mary took hold of her and eased her into a chair. Her head leaned limply against the wall, and her mouth hung open. The lipstick on her mouth was like a rim of cracked dry blood.

“They must be here.”

The single shot that we heard then was an exclamation point at the end of my sentence. It came from somewhere back of the house, muffled by walls and distance.

I went through into the garden. There were lights in the gardener’s cottage, and a man’s shadow moved across the window. I ran up the path to the cottage’s open door, and froze there.

Admiral Turner was facing me with a gun in his hand. It was a heavy-caliber automatic, the kind the Navy issued. From its round, questioning mouth a wisp of blue smoke trailed. Alice lay face down on the carpeted floor between us.

I looked into the mouth of the gun, into Turner’s granite face. “You killed her.”

But Alice was the one who answered. “Go away.” The words came out in a rush of sobbing that racked her prostrate body.

“This is a private matter, Archer.” The gun stirred slightly in the Admiral’s hand. I could feel its pressure across the width of the room. “Do as she says.”

“I heard a shot. Murder is a public matter.”

“There has been no murder, as you can see.”

“You don’t remember well.”

“I have nothing to do with that,” he said. “I was cleaning my gun, and forgot that it was loaded.”

“So Alice lay down and cried? You’ll have to do better than that, Admiral.”

“Her nerves are shaken. But I assure you that mine are not.” He took three slow steps towards me, and paused by the girl on the floor. The gun was very steady in his hand. “Now go, or I’ll have to use this.”

The pressure of the gun was increasing. I put my hands on the doorframe and held myself still. “You seem to be sure it’s loaded now,” I said.

Between my words I heard the faint, harsh whispering of shifting gravel on the garden path behind me. I spoke up loudly, to drown out the sound.

“You had nothing to do with the murder, you say. Then why did Todd come to the beach club this morning? Why did you change your story about the Chardin?”

He looked down at his daughter as if she could answer the questions. She made no sound, but her shoulders were shaking with inner sobbing.