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Authors: Ross MacDonald
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which was just as well. I got.
Crossing Bayshore on an overpass, I felt as if I was crossing a frontier between two countries. There were some white people on the streets of East Palo Alto, but most of the people were colored. The cheap tract houses laid out in rows between the salt flats and the highway had the faint peculiar atmosphere of a suburban ghetto.
Sammy Green earned Sailors’ Union wages and lived in one of the better houses on one of the better streets, almost out of hearing of the highway and almost out of smelling of the Bay. His wife was a handsome young Negro woman wearing a party dress and a complicated hairdo, under which earrings sparkled.
She told me that her husband was in Gilroy for the night; he always visited his folks the second night of his vacation, and took the children with him. No, his parents had no telephone, but she’d be glad to give me their address.
I asked her instead how to get to Woodside, where Phoebe’s aunt and uncle lived.
chapter
7
I T WAS FIVE WINDING MILES across the hinterland of the Stanford campus. Eventually I found Carl Trevor’s mailbox on the road that climbed towards the coastal ridge. His place had a name: Leafy Acres. A horse whickered at me from somewhere as I turned up the drive. I didn’t whicker back.
I rounded a wooded curve and saw the long low redwood and stone house, many windowed, full of light. A maid in a black and white uniform answered the door. She turned on outside floodlights before she unhooked the screen.
“Is Mrs. Trevor at home?”
“She isn’t back from Palo Alto yet.”
“Mr. Trevor?”
“If she isn’t back he isn’t back,” she said in an instructive tone. “She went to the station to meet his train. They ought to be here any time now, they’re later than usual.”
“I’ll wait.”
She looked me over, apparently trying to decide whether I belonged in the front part of the house or the kitchen. I assumed my most respectable expression and got bidden into the library, as she called it. It was a beautiful panelled room with actual books on its shelves. The Trevors went in heavily for history, particularly Western Americana.
I leafed through a copy of
American Heritage
until I heard a car engine in the drive. I went to the window and saw them get out of their Cadillac convertible. She climbed out on the driver’s side, a thin woman of about fifty with a face like a silver hatchet. He was a heavy-shouldered man wearing a Homburg and carrying the inevitable brief case. He looked sick.
She offered him her arm as they started up the front steps. He pushed her away, without touching her, in a gesture that combined irritation and pride. He ran up the steps two at a time. She watched him go with naked fear on her face.
The fear was still in her eyes when she came into the library a few minutes later. She had on pearls and a simple dark gown which had probably cost a fortune. A wasted fortune. It accentuated the taut angularity of her body and left her frying-chicken shoulders bare.
“What do you want?”
“My name is Archer, I’m a private detective. Your brotherHomer Wycherly hired me to look for your niece Phoebe. I don’t know whether you’ve heard from him—”
“I’ve heard. My brother phoned me this afternoon. I don’t know what to make of it.” She wrung her hands so hard that they creaked. “What do you make of it? Is she a runaway?”
“I have no theories, Mrs. Trevor. Not yet. I’ve just been over in Atherton, where I found out that Phoebe isn’t the only one on the missing list. Her mother’s house is up for sale, and apparently empty. I was hoping you could tell me where Mrs. Wycherly is.”
“Catherine?” She sat down suddenly, and let me sit down. “What has Catherine to do with this?”
“Phoebe was last seen in her mother’s company. They left the ship together the day your brother sailed. Shortly after that, Mrs. Wycherly seems to have moved out of her house. Do you know anything
Crossing Bayshore on an overpass, I felt as if I was crossing a frontier between two countries. There were some white people on the streets of East Palo Alto, but most of the people were colored. The cheap tract houses laid out in rows between the salt flats and the highway had the faint peculiar atmosphere of a suburban ghetto.
Sammy Green earned Sailors’ Union wages and lived in one of the better houses on one of the better streets, almost out of hearing of the highway and almost out of smelling of the Bay. His wife was a handsome young Negro woman wearing a party dress and a complicated hairdo, under which earrings sparkled.
She told me that her husband was in Gilroy for the night; he always visited his folks the second night of his vacation, and took the children with him. No, his parents had no telephone, but she’d be glad to give me their address.
I asked her instead how to get to Woodside, where Phoebe’s aunt and uncle lived.
chapter
7
I T WAS FIVE WINDING MILES across the hinterland of the Stanford campus. Eventually I found Carl Trevor’s mailbox on the road that climbed towards the coastal ridge. His place had a name: Leafy Acres. A horse whickered at me from somewhere as I turned up the drive. I didn’t whicker back.
I rounded a wooded curve and saw the long low redwood and stone house, many windowed, full of light. A maid in a black and white uniform answered the door. She turned on outside floodlights before she unhooked the screen.
“Is Mrs. Trevor at home?”
“She isn’t back from Palo Alto yet.”
“Mr. Trevor?”
“If she isn’t back he isn’t back,” she said in an instructive tone. “She went to the station to meet his train. They ought to be here any time now, they’re later than usual.”
“I’ll wait.”
She looked me over, apparently trying to decide whether I belonged in the front part of the house or the kitchen. I assumed my most respectable expression and got bidden into the library, as she called it. It was a beautiful panelled room with actual books on its shelves. The Trevors went in heavily for history, particularly Western Americana.
I leafed through a copy of
American Heritage
until I heard a car engine in the drive. I went to the window and saw them get out of their Cadillac convertible. She climbed out on the driver’s side, a thin woman of about fifty with a face like a silver hatchet. He was a heavy-shouldered man wearing a Homburg and carrying the inevitable brief case. He looked sick.
She offered him her arm as they started up the front steps. He pushed her away, without touching her, in a gesture that combined irritation and pride. He ran up the steps two at a time. She watched him go with naked fear on her face.
The fear was still in her eyes when she came into the library a few minutes later. She had on pearls and a simple dark gown which had probably cost a fortune. A wasted fortune. It accentuated the taut angularity of her body and left her frying-chicken shoulders bare.
“What do you want?”
“My name is Archer, I’m a private detective. Your brotherHomer Wycherly hired me to look for your niece Phoebe. I don’t know whether you’ve heard from him—”
“I’ve heard. My brother phoned me this afternoon. I don’t know what to make of it.” She wrung her hands so hard that they creaked. “What do you make of it? Is she a runaway?”
“I have no theories, Mrs. Trevor. Not yet. I’ve just been over in Atherton, where I found out that Phoebe isn’t the only one on the missing list. Her mother’s house is up for sale, and apparently empty. I was hoping you could tell me where Mrs. Wycherly is.”
“Catherine?” She sat down suddenly, and let me sit down. “What has Catherine to do with this?”
“Phoebe was last seen in her mother’s company. They left the ship together the day your brother sailed. Shortly after that, Mrs. Wycherly seems to have moved out of her house. Do you know anything
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