“But it could have been. This character Shriber could have dragged her to the foot of the stairs and then called you, couldn’t he?”
“He could have, I suppose,” Walter said, “but I never dreamed that…” His voice petered out in a nervous giggle.
“Who is he, anyway?” I asked.
“An agent,” Walter said. “He handles some very top people.”
“How well do you know him?”
“I know him only slightly,” Walter said. “At the moment we are associated in a business way. He is more or less a partner of mine in a small transaction.”
Walter stood up and lit a cigarette. “Richard, there is something I want to talk to you about very seriously. But first I simply must shower and dress.”
I started to protest, but Walter interrupted me.
“I won’t be ten minutes,” he said. “And I promise you that what I have to say to you will be well worth your time. I had intended to talk to you about this in any case. Your coming here this morning of your own accord was practically telepathy.”
“What did you want to talk to me about, Walter? What’s on your mind?”
Walter stood up. “I wanted to talk to you about a book.”
“You’ve written a book?” I said.
“No, I have a book. I thought perhaps you might be interested in publishing it.”
I felt as if I had heard this conversation before.
“What is the book?” I asked.
I stood tensely, waiting for him to answer, knowing what he was going to say.
“A novel,” Walter said, “that was completed by Charles Anstruther, just before his death.”
Suddenly my head began to ache.
“Listen, Walter,” I said weakly. “Have you got a drink around this place?”
Walter opened a cabinet and took out a bottle of brandy. He poured several inches into a glass and handed it to me.
I sank into the armchair. I felt tired. My hangover had returned with full force. I did not seem to be able to follow what was going on.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Walter said. “If you look around you’ll find all sorts of amusing things. Books, magazines, pictures. Or, if you like, there’s the radio or records. Or the television. The switches are right there by your arm. If you press the red switch at the end you might provide yourself with some live entertainment. I’ll be out of the shower in less than ten minutes. Cigarettes in the box. Liquor in the cabinet.”
He turned and disappeared into the bedroom. In a moment or two I could hear the faint sound of a shower.
I sank back in the chair and sipped the brandy. I didn’t think. I didn’t move. I sat there and let the warmth of the brandy spread through my body.
Then, for the first time, I looked around the room, taking notice of my surroundings.
Walter’s sitting room was dominated by a gigantic picture on the wall opposite the bedroom door. Walter claimed it was a Titian and worth a quarter of a million dollars. I guess it was.
The room also included a small piano, an entire wall of bookshelves, and a fireplace. Inside a glass cabinet was Walter’s famous collection of antique dueling pistols, all very deadly-looking.
I slumped in the chair, admiring the Titian and listening to the sound of Walter’s shower.
Beside the arm of the chair was the amplifier for Walter’s record player and radio. On top of it was a complex row of buttons and gadgets. It looked like the instrument panel on a B-29.
Even if I wanted to play records, I thought, it would take me a week to figure out how.
Experimentally, I pushed a button. Just at random, to see what would happen.
I waited.
Across the room, at eye level, a section of bookcase slid noiselessly to one side, revealing the largest television screen I’d ever seen outside a saloon.
Very neat. Very mechanical.
I pushed the button again and the bookshelves slid back into place.
Then I noticed the red button at the end.
The brandy, on top of an empty stomach on top of half a bottle of bourbon from the night before, was beginning to have a strange effect.
I felt light-headed.
I felt cool and detached and whimsical.
I drained the rest of the brandy in my glass.
Then, for the second time, I noticed the red button on the end. I leaned over and pushed it.
I sat expectantly, waiting to see what would happen.
I half expected the floor to open up and half a dozen dancing girls to appear.
Or a symphony orchestra to slide out from under the couch.
Even so, I was caught off guard.
Silently, moving on oiled hinges or ball bearings or whatever they were, the enormous two hundred and fifty thousand dollar Titian began to slide along the wall.
I watched it, fascinated.
Behind the picture was a glass window about eight feet high and five feet wide.
On the other side of the window, about six feet from the tip of my nose, was Janis Whitney.
She was wearing only the bottom half of what I think they call a bikini bathing suit. She was looking straight at me, brushing her hair.
I waited for a startled expression to appear on her face, but her expression did not change. She continued to stare directly at me. Her lips moved as she counted strokes.
I am not very quick about things like this.
It took me about that long to figure out why her expression did not change. As far as she was concerned she was all alone in the next room, brushing her hair before a large, conveniently placed mirror.
I’d read about one-way glass.
They use it at places like the Yale Nursery when they want to study the behavior of the infant and child in the culture of today without the infant and child tumbling to the fact that the culture is watching him.
They use it at Klein’s to keep an eye on shoplifters.
And Walter used it.
I wondered how many of Hollywood’s most beautiful female stars had, at one time or another, admired themselves in the mirror of Walter’s number one guest room.
Janis Whitney reached one hundred and stopped brushing.
She looked down and examined the fastenings of her swimming suit. They were held in place by a knot on her right hip. She began to loosen the knot.
I reached for the red button. I reached for it, but I didn’t push it.
Janis Whitney stood for a long time admiring herself in the mirror.
She was something to admire. Soft dark hair, cut short, framing her head. Green eyes and a wide mouth with perfect teeth.
Her skin was very white. She had firm, full breasts, and her body, while it was slim, was not a boyish, dancer’s body. It was softer, and more feminine. Her hands and feet, I noticed, were extremely small.
She smiled at her reflection in the mirror.
So did I.
Then, abruptly, she turned and in a second was out of range of the mirror.
When she returned she was wearing a green linen dress.
She stood close to the mirror with her mouth open, examining her perfect teeth. Then, using her little finger and a brush, she began to put on her lipstick.
I’d had enough.
I pushed the red button again and watched as the picture slid back into place.
I got up out of the chair.
There were no push buttons on Walter’s liquor cabinet. It worked manually. What you did was reach in, pull out a brandy bottle, pour the brandy into a glass and drink.
I did all those things.
Walter was still in the shower. I could hear the sound of spraying water.
Suddenly a recurrence of the feeling I’d had when I read about Jean Dahl’s accident swept over me.
Someone had killed her here in Walter’s house not twelve hours before.
And no one seemed to give a damn.
Least of all Walter.
Suddenly, Walter’s dawdling in the shower offended me.
I stood listening to the sound of the shower and the sound drove me into a frenzy.