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Authors: Ross MacDonald
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can get her back for him. For all of us, but especially for him.” Her hands had climbed to her throat and were picking at her pearls. “I’m deeply concerned about how this shock will affect my husband’s health. I’ve seldom known him to be so disturbed. And he blames me for what happened.”
“Blames you?”
“When Phoebe didn’t answer our Christmas invitation, he wanted to drive down to Boulder Beach and see that she was all right. I persuaded him not to—he’s not supposed to drive. Besides, I felt she had a right to be on her own if she chose. I naturally believed that it was her choice, that she wanted to be free of family for once in her young life. Perhaps I was a little impatient with her, too, when she failed to acknowledge my letter. In any case, we didn’t go. We should have. We should at least have phoned.”
Her fingers were active at her throat. Her pearls broke, cascading down her body, rolling in all directions on the floor.
“Damn it!” she cried. “This is the day when everything happens to me.”
Kicking pearls out from under her feet, she moved to the doorway and jabbed a bell push with her thumb. The maid came running, got down on her knees at once and began to pick up the pearls.
A middle-aged man in a plaid smoking jacket leaned in the doorway and watched the scene with barely repressed amusement. His balding head was large for his body, and rested like a pale cannonball on his shoulders without much intervention from his neck. His voice was deep, and seemed to take a certain pleasure in its own depth:
“What goes on, Helen?”
“I’ve broken my pearls.” Her narrow look implied that in some obscure way he was responsible.
“It isn’t the end of the world.”
“No, but it’s exasperating. Everything seems to be happening at once.”
The kneeling maid gave her a quick glance, sideways and upward. She said nothing. Mrs. Trevor moved on her husband with a kind of furious maternality:
“You’re supposed to be lying down. We don’t want anything else to happen today.” It sounded like a move in a complex verbal game which nobody ever won.
“Nothing will,” he said. “I’m feeling much better.” He looked inquiringly at me. His eyes were blue and intelligent.
“I’d like to talk to you, Mr. Trevor.”
I started to tell him who I was, but Helen Trevor intervened:
“No, Mr. Archer. Please. I don’t want my husband troubled with these affairs. I’ll be glad to answer any other questions you—”
“Nonsense, Helen, let me talk to him. I’m perfectly all right now. Come with me, Mr.—Archer, is it?”
“Archer.”
Trevor turned his back on his wife’s protests and led me into a small study off the library. He closed the door with a small sigh of relief.
“Women,” he said under his breath. “Let me get you a drink, Mr. Archer. Scotch or Bourbon?”
“Nothing, thanks. I’m driving, and Bayshore is murder.”
“Is it not? I prefer to commute by Southern Pacific. Now sit down and tell me what all this is about Phoebe. The version I got came by way of my wife, and it’s probably garbled.”
He placed me in a leather armchair facing his and listened to what I had to tell him. There was a silence when I’d finished. Trevor sat immobile. He gave the impression of mental or physical pain stoically endured.
“I blame myself,” he said finally. “I should have looked out for her, if Homer wasn’t willing to. Why he had to choose this winter to forsake his responsibilities and become a white shadow in the South Seas—” He punctuated the unfinished sentence with his fist on his knee. “But the real question is, what are we going to do about it?”
“Find her.”
“If she’s alive.”
“They usually are,” I said with more assurance than I felt. “They turn up counting change in Vegas, or waiting table in the Tenderloin, or setting up light housekeeping in a beat pad, or bucking the modelling racket in Hollywood.”
Trevor’s thick
“Blames you?”
“When Phoebe didn’t answer our Christmas invitation, he wanted to drive down to Boulder Beach and see that she was all right. I persuaded him not to—he’s not supposed to drive. Besides, I felt she had a right to be on her own if she chose. I naturally believed that it was her choice, that she wanted to be free of family for once in her young life. Perhaps I was a little impatient with her, too, when she failed to acknowledge my letter. In any case, we didn’t go. We should have. We should at least have phoned.”
Her fingers were active at her throat. Her pearls broke, cascading down her body, rolling in all directions on the floor.
“Damn it!” she cried. “This is the day when everything happens to me.”
Kicking pearls out from under her feet, she moved to the doorway and jabbed a bell push with her thumb. The maid came running, got down on her knees at once and began to pick up the pearls.
A middle-aged man in a plaid smoking jacket leaned in the doorway and watched the scene with barely repressed amusement. His balding head was large for his body, and rested like a pale cannonball on his shoulders without much intervention from his neck. His voice was deep, and seemed to take a certain pleasure in its own depth:
“What goes on, Helen?”
“I’ve broken my pearls.” Her narrow look implied that in some obscure way he was responsible.
“It isn’t the end of the world.”
“No, but it’s exasperating. Everything seems to be happening at once.”
The kneeling maid gave her a quick glance, sideways and upward. She said nothing. Mrs. Trevor moved on her husband with a kind of furious maternality:
“You’re supposed to be lying down. We don’t want anything else to happen today.” It sounded like a move in a complex verbal game which nobody ever won.
“Nothing will,” he said. “I’m feeling much better.” He looked inquiringly at me. His eyes were blue and intelligent.
“I’d like to talk to you, Mr. Trevor.”
I started to tell him who I was, but Helen Trevor intervened:
“No, Mr. Archer. Please. I don’t want my husband troubled with these affairs. I’ll be glad to answer any other questions you—”
“Nonsense, Helen, let me talk to him. I’m perfectly all right now. Come with me, Mr.—Archer, is it?”
“Archer.”
Trevor turned his back on his wife’s protests and led me into a small study off the library. He closed the door with a small sigh of relief.
“Women,” he said under his breath. “Let me get you a drink, Mr. Archer. Scotch or Bourbon?”
“Nothing, thanks. I’m driving, and Bayshore is murder.”
“Is it not? I prefer to commute by Southern Pacific. Now sit down and tell me what all this is about Phoebe. The version I got came by way of my wife, and it’s probably garbled.”
He placed me in a leather armchair facing his and listened to what I had to tell him. There was a silence when I’d finished. Trevor sat immobile. He gave the impression of mental or physical pain stoically endured.
“I blame myself,” he said finally. “I should have looked out for her, if Homer wasn’t willing to. Why he had to choose this winter to forsake his responsibilities and become a white shadow in the South Seas—” He punctuated the unfinished sentence with his fist on his knee. “But the real question is, what are we going to do about it?”
“Find her.”
“If she’s alive.”
“They usually are,” I said with more assurance than I felt. “They turn up counting change in Vegas, or waiting table in the Tenderloin, or setting up light housekeeping in a beat pad, or bucking the modelling racket in Hollywood.”
Trevor’s thick
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