Росс Макдональд - The Chill

This room was dominated by an oil painting over the fireplace. It was a full-length portrait, almost life-size, of a handsome gentleman wearing sweeping white mustaches and a cutaway. His black eyes followed me across the room to the armchair which Mrs. Bradshaw indicated. She sat in an upholstered platform rocker with her slippered feet on a small petit point hassock.

“I’ve been a selfish old woman,” she said unexpectedly. “I’ve been thinking it over, and I’ve decided to pay your expenses after all. I don’t like what they’re doing to that girl.”

“You probably know more about it than I do.”

“Probably. I have some good friends in this city.” She didn’t elaborate.

“I appreciate the offer,” I said, “but my expenses are being taken care of. Dolly’s husband came back.”

“Really? I’m so glad.” She tried to warm herself at the thought, and failed. “I’m deeply concerned about Roy.”

“So am I, Mrs. Bradshaw.” I decided to tell her what I knew, or part of it. She was bound to find out soon about his marriage, his marriages. “You don’t have to worry about his physical safety. I saw him last night in Reno, and he was in good shape. He checked in at the college today.”

“His secretary lied to me then. I don’t know what they’re trying to do to me out there, or what my son is up to. What was he really doing in Reno?”

“Attending a conference, as he said. He also went there to look into a suspect in Helen Haggerty’s murder.”

“He must have been very fond of her, after all, to go to such lengths.”

“He was involved with Miss Haggerty. I don’t think the involvement was romantic.”

“What was it then?”

“Financial. I think he was paying her money, and incidentally he got her a job at the college, through Laura Sutherland. To put it bluntly, the Haggerty woman was blackmailing your son. She may have called it something different herself. But she used a crooked friend in Reno to check on his bank balance before she ever came here. This was the same man Roy went to Reno to talk to.”

Mrs. Bradshaw didn’t throw a fit, as I was afraid she might. She said in a grave tone: “Are these facts, Mr. Archer, or are you exercising your imagination?”

“I wish I were. I’m not.”

“But how could Roy be blackmailed? He’s led a blameless life, a dedicated life. I’m his mother. I ought to know.”

“That may be. But the standard varies for different people. A rising college administrator has to be lily-white. An unfortunate marriage, for instance, would queer his chances for that university presidency you were telling me about.”

“An unfortunate marriage? But Roy has never been married.”

“I’m afraid he has,” I said. “Does the name Letitia Macready mean anything to you?”

“It does not.”

She was lying. The name drew a net of lines across her face, reduced her eyes to bright black points and her mouth to a purse with a drawstring. She knew the name and hated it, I thought; perhaps she was even afraid of Letitia Macready.

“The name ought to mean something to you, Mrs. Bradshaw. The Macready woman was your daughter-in-law.”

“You must be insane. My son has never married.”

She spoke with such force and assurance that I had a moment of doubt. It wasn’t likely that Arnie had made a mistake – he seldom did – but it was possible that there were two Roy Bradshaws. No, Arnie had talked to Bradshaw’s lawyer in Reno, and must have made a positive identification.

“You have to get married,” I said, “before you can get a divorce. Roy got a Reno divorce a few weeks ago. He was in Nevada establishing residence for it from the middle of July till the end of August.”

“Now I know you’re insane. He was in Europe all that time, and I can prove it.” She got up, on creaking reluctant limbs, and went to the eighteenth-century secretary against one wall. She came back toward me with a sheaf of letters and postcards in her shaking hands. “He sent me these. You can see for yourself that he was in Europe.”

I looked over the postcards. There were about fifteen of them, arranged in order: the Tower of London (postmarked London, July 18), the Bodleian Library (Oxford, July 21), York Cathedral (York, July 25), Edinburgh Castle (Edinburgh, July 29), The Giant’s Causeway (Londonderry, August 3), The Abbey Theatre (Dublin, August 6), Land’s End (St. Ives, August 8), The Arc de Triomphe (Paris, August 12), and so on through Switzerland and Italy and Germany. I read the card from Munich (a view of the English Gardens, postmarked August 25):

Dear Moms:

Yesterday I visited Hitler’s eyrie at Berchtesgaden – a beautiful setting made grim by its associations – and today, by way of contrast, I took a bus to Oberammergau, where the Passion Play is performed. I was struck by the almost Biblical simplicity of the villagers. This whole Bavarian countryside is studded with the most stunning little churches. How I wish you could enjoy them with me! I’m sorry to hear that your summer companion is presenting certain prickly aspects. Well, the summer will soon be over and I for one will be happy to turn my back on the splendors of Europe and come home. All my love.

Roy

I turned to Mrs. Bradshaw. “Is this your son’s handwriting?”

“Yes. It’s unmistakable. I know he wrote those cards, and these letters, too.”

She brandished several letters under my nose. I looked at the postmarks: London, July 19; Dublin, August 7; Geneva, August 15; Rome, August 20; Berlin, August 27; Amsterdam, August 30. I started to read the last one (“Dear Moms: Just a hasty note, which may arrive after I do, to tell you how I loved your letter about the blackbirds…”) but Mrs. Bradshaw snatched it out of my hand.

“Please don’t read the letters. My son and I are very close, and he wouldn’t like me to show our correspondence to a stranger.” She gathered all the letters and cards and locked them up in the secretary. “I believe I’ve proved my point, that Roy couldn’t have been in Nevada when you say he was.”

For all her assurance, her voice was questioning. I said:

“Did you write letters to him while he was away?”

“I did. That is to say, I dictated them to Miss What’s-hername, except for once or twice when my arthritis allowed me to write. I had a nurse-companion during the summer. Miss Wadley, her name was. She was one of these completely young women–”

I cut in: “Did you write a letter about the blackbirds?”

“Yes. We had an invasion of them last month. It was more of a fanciful little tale than a letter, having to do with blackbirds baked in a pie.”

“Where did you send the blackbird letter?”

“Where? I think to Rome, to American Express in Rome. Roy gave me an itinerary before he left here.”

“He was supposed to be in Rome on August 20. The blackbird letter was answered from Amsterdam on August 30.”

“You have an impressive memory, Mr. Archer, but I fail to see what you’re getting at.”

“Just this. There was a lapse of at least ten days between the receiving and the answering of that letter – time enough for an accomplice to pick it up in Rome, airmail it to Roy in Reno, get his airmail reply in Amsterdam, and remail it to you here.”

“I don’t believe it.” But she half-believed it. “Why would he go to such lengths to deceive his mother?”

“Because he was ashamed of what he was actually doing – divorcing the Macready woman in Reno – and he didn’t want you, or anyone else, to know about it. Has he been to Europe before?”

“Of course. I took him there soon after the war, when he was in graduate school at Harvard.”

“And did you visit many of these same places?”