Archer - The Chill Part 16

"That's queer. I'd like to talk to Mrs. Bradshaw."

"I'll see if she's busy."

I stepped inside uninvited and sat on a gilt chair in the entrance hail while Maria went upstairs. She came down and told me that Mrs. Bradshaw would be with me shortly.

It was at least half-an-hour before she came limping down. She had primped her gray head and rouged her cheeks and put on a dress with lace at her slack throat held in place by a diamond brooch. I wondered, as she made me the dubious gift of her hand, if all this had been done for my benefit.

The old lady seemed glad to see me. "How are you, Mr. -- it's Mr. Archer, isn't it? I've been so hoping somebody would call. This fog makes one feel so isolated, and with my driver gone--" She seemed to hear the note of complaint rising in her voice, and cut it off. "How is the girl?" she said briskly.

"She's being taken care of. Dr. G.o.dwin thinks she's better than she was last night."

"Good. You'll be glad to know," she said with a bright ironic stare, "that I'm somewhat better myself than I was last night. My son informed me this morning that I staged one of my exhibitions, as he calls them. Frankly, I was upset. Nights aren't my best season."

"It was a rough night for everybody."

"And I'm a selfish old woman. Isn't that what you're thinking?"

"People don't seem to change much as they get older."

"That has all the earmarks of an insult." But she was smiling, almost flirtatiously. "You imply that I've always been this way."

"You'd know better than I would."

She laughed outright. It wasn't a joyous sound, but there was. humor in it. "You're a bold young man, and a bright one. I like bright young men. Come into the study and I'll see that you get a drink."

"Thank you, but I can't stay--"

"Then I'll sit here." She lowered herself carefully onto the gilt chair. "My moral qualities may not have altered for the worse. My physical capabilities certainly have. This fog is very bad for my arthritis." She added, with a gingerly shake of her head: "But I mustn't complain. I promised my son, in penance for last night, that I would go through an entire day without uttering a word of complaint."

"How are you doing?"

"Not so well," she said with her wry and wrinkled smile. "It's like solitaire, you always cheat a little. Or don't you?"

"I don't play the game."

"You're not missing a great deal, but it helps to pa.s.s the days for me. Well, I won't keep you if you have business."

"I have business with Dr. Bradshaw. Do you know where I can contact him?"

"Roy flew to Reno this morning."

"Reno?"

"Not to gamble, I a.s.sure you. He hasn't an iota of gambling instinct. In fact I sometimes think he's excessively cautious. Roy is a bit of a mother's boy, wouldn't you say?" She looked up at me with complex irony, unembarra.s.sed by his condition or her complicity in it.

"I'm a little surprised that he'd go away in the middle of this murder case."

"So was I, but there was no stopping him. He isn't exactly running away from it. They're holding a conference of smallcollege deans at the University of Nevada. It's been planned for months, and Roy is slated as one of the princ.i.p.al speakers. He felt it was his duty to be there. But I could see very well that he was eager to go. He loves the public eye, you know-- he's always been a bit of an actor--but he isn't so terribly fond of the responsibilities that go with it."

I was amused and intrigued and a little appalled by her realism. She seemed to be enjoying it herself. Conversation was better than solitaire.

Mrs. Bradshaw rose creakingly and leaned on my arm. "You might as well come into the study. It's drafty here. I've taken a fancy to you, young man."

I didn't know if this was a blessing or a curse. She grinned up into my face as if she could read my doubts there. "Don't worry, I won't eat you." She placed the emphasis on the final word, as though she had already eaten her son for breakfast.

We went into the study together and sat in facing highbacked leather chairs. She rang for Maria and ordered me a highball. Then she leaned back and scanned the bookshelves. The phalanxes of books seemed to remind her of Bradshaw's importance.

"Don't misunderstand me. I love my son profoundly and I'm proud of him. I'm proud of his good looks and I'm proud of his brains. He graduated _summa c.u.m laude_ from Harvard and went on to take a most distinguished doctorate. One of these days he's going to be the president of a major university or a great foundation."

"Is he ambitious, or are you?"

"I used to be, for him. As Roy became more ambitious, I became less so. There are better things in life than climbing an endless ladder. I haven't entirely given up hope that he'll marry." She c.o.c.ked a bright old eye at me. "He _likes_ women, you know."

"I'm sure he does."

"In fact I was beginning to persuade myself that he was interested in Miss Haggerty. I've never known him to pay so much attention to any other woman." She dropped the statement so that it became a question.

"He mentioned to me that he took her out several times. But he also said that they were never close in any way. His reaction to her death confirmed that."

"What was his reaction to her death?"

I'd done a lot of pumping in my time, and I knew when it was being done to me. "I mean his general reaction. He wouldn't have flown to Reno this morning, deans' conference or no deans' conference, if he had been really fond of Helen Haggerty. He'd be here in Pacific Point trying to find out who did her in."

"You seem quite let down about it.

"I was looking for his help. He seemed genuinely concerned about Dolly Kincaid."

"He is. We both are. In fact Roy asked me at breakfast to do what I could for the girl. But what can I do?" She displayed her crumpled hands, making a show of her helplessness.

Maria came in with my clinking highball, handed it to me unceremoniously, and asked her employer if there was anything else. There wasn't. I sipped my drink, wondering if Mrs. Bradshaw was a client I could possibly handle, if she became my client. She had the money, all right. The diamonds winking at her throat would have bought my services for several years.

"You can hire me," I said.

"Hire you?"

"If you really want to do something for Dolly, and not just sit there paying lip-service to the idea. Do you think we could get along?"

"I was getting along with men when you were in the cradle, Mr. Archer. Are you implying I can't get along with people?"

"I seem to be the one who can't. Alex Kincaid just fired me, with a strong a.s.sist from his father. They want no part of Dolly and her problems, now that the chips are down."

Her black eyes flashed. "I saw through that boy immediately. He's a moilycoddle."

"I don't have the resources to go on by myself. It isn't good practice, anyway. I need somebody to back me, preferably somebody with local standing and--I'll be frank--a substantial bank balance."

"How much would it cost me?"

"It depends on how long the case goes on and how many ramifications develop. I get a hundred a day and expenses. Also I have a team of detectives in Reno working on a lead that may be a hot one."

"A lead in Reno?"

"It originated here, last night."

I told her about the man in the convertible which belonged to Mrs. Sally Burke, a woman with many boy friends. She leaned forward in her chair in mounting interest: "Why aren't the police working on that lead?"

"They may be. If they are, I don't know about it. They seem to have settled for the idea that Dolly's guilty and everything else is irrelevant. It's simpler that way."

"You don't accept that idea?"

"No."

"In spite of the gun they found in her bed?"

"You know about that, then."

"Sheriff Crane showed it to me this morning. He wanted to know if I recognized it. Of course I didn't. I abhor the very sight of guns myself. I've never permitted Roy to own a gun."

"And you have no idea who owned that one?"

"No, but the Sheriff appeared to take it for granted that it was Dolly's, and that it tied her to the murder."

"We have no reason to think it was hers. If it was, the last place she'd put it would be under her own mattress. Her husband denies she did, and he was with her continuously once she got back to the gatehouse. There's the further point that there's no definite proof it's the murder weapon."

"Really?"

"Really. It will take ballistics tests, and they're not scheduled until Monday. If my luck holds, I think I can throw more light on the situation by then."

"Do you have a definite theory of your own, Mr. Archer?"

"I have an idea that the ramifications of this thing go far back beyond Dolly. It wasn't Dolly who threatened Miss Haggerty's life. She would have recognized her voice, they were close friends. I think Dolly walked up to her house simply to ask her advice about whether to go back to her husband. She stumbled over the body and panicked. She's still in panic."

"Why?"

"I'm not prepared to explain it. I want to go into her background further. I also want to go into Miss Haggerty's background."

"That might be interesting," she said, as if she was considering attending a double-feature movie. "How much is all this going to cost me?"

"I'll keep it as low as I can. But it could mount up in the thousands, two or three or even four."

"That's rather an expensive penance."

"Penance?"

"For all my selfishness, past and present and future. I'll think about it, Mr. Archer."

"How long do you need to think about it?"

"Call me tonight. Roy will be telephoning me around dinnertime--he telephones me every night when he's away--and I couldn't possibly give you an answer before I discuss it with him. We live on a tighter budget than you might think," she said earnestly, fingering the diamonds at her throat.

chapter 15.

I drove up under the dripping trees to Helen Haggerty's place. Two deputies messing around outside the front door wouldn't let me in or answer any questions. It was turning out to be a bad day.

I drifted over to the campus and into the Administration Building. I had some idea of talking to Laura Sutherland, the Dean of Women, but her office was locked. All the offices were locked. The building was deserted except for a white-headed man in blue jeans who was sweeping the corridor with a longhandled push-broom. He looked like Father Time, and I had a nightmare moment of thinking that he was sweeping Helen's last vestiges away.

In a kind of defensive reflex I got out my notebook and looked up the name of the chairman of the modem languages department. Dr. Geisman. The old man with the push-broom knew where his office was: "It's in the new Humanity Building, down the line." He pointed. "But he won't be there on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon."

The old man was mistaken. I found Geisman in the department office on the first floor of the Humanities Building, sitting with a telephone receiver in one hand and a pencil in the other. I had seen him coming out of Bradshaw's conference the day before, a heavy middle-aged man with thick spectacles imperfectly masking anxious little eyes.

"One moment," he said to me; and into the telephone: "I'm sorry you can't help us, Mrs. Ba.s.s. I realize you have your family responsibilities and of course the remuneration is not great for a special lecturer."

He sounded foreign, though he had no accent. His voice was denatured, as if English was just another language he had learned.

"I am Dr. Geisman," he said as he hung up and stroked out a name on the list in front of him. "Are you Dr. de Falla?"

"No. My name is Archer."

"What are your qualifications? Do you have an advanced degree?"

"In the university of hard knocks."

He didn't respond to my smile. "A member of our faculty is defunct, as you must know, and I've had to give up my Sat.u.r.day to an attempt to find a replacement for her. If you expect me to take your application seriously--"

"I'm not applying for anything, doctor, except possibly a little information. I'm a private detective investigating Professor Haggerty's death, and I'm interested in how she happened to land here."

"I have no time to go into all that again. There are cla.s.ses which must be met on Monday. If this Dr. de Falla doesn't arrive, or proves impossible, I don't know what to do." He peered at his wrist.w.a.tch. "I'm due at the Los Angeles airport at six-thirty."

"You can spare five minutes, anybody can."

"Very well. Five minutes." He tapped the crystal of his watch. "You wish to know how Miss Haggerty came here? I can't say, except that she appeared in my office one day and asked for a position. She had heard about Professor Farrand's heart attack. This is our second emergency in a month."

"Who told her about the heart attack?"

"I don't know. Perhaps Dean Sutherland. She gave Dean Sutherland as a local reference. But it was common knowledge, it was in the paper."

"Was she living here before she applied for a job with you?"

"I believe so. Yes, she was. She told me she already had a house. She liked the place, and wished to remain. She was very eager for the post. Frankly, I had some doubts about her. She had a master's degree from Chicago but she wasn't fully qualified. The school where she had been teaching, Maple Park, is not credentialed on our leveL But Dean Sutherland told me she needed the position and I let her have it, unfortunately."

"I understood she had a private income."

He pursed his lips and shook his head. "Ladies with a private income don't take on four sections of French and German, plus counseling duties, at a salary of less than five thousand dollars. Perhaps she meant her alimony. She told me she was having difficulty collecting her alimony." His spectacles glinted as he looked up. "You knew that she had been recently divorced?"