“You denied that this morning.”
“I do as I please with my own possessions. I’m accountable to no one, certainly not to you.”
“Dr. Silliman might like to know,” I said with irony.
“I’ll tell him in my own good time.”
“Will you tell him why you took it?”
“Certainly. Now, if you’ve made yourself sufficiently obnoxious, I’ll ask you to leave my house.”
“Father.” Alice came up to him and placed a hand on his arm. “Mr. Archer has only been trying to help.”
“And getting nowhere,” I said. “I made the mistake of assuming that some of Hugh’s friends were honest.”
“That’s enough!” he roared. “Get out!”
Alice caught up with me on the veranda. “Don’t go away angry. Father can be terribly childish, but he means well.”
“I don’t get it. He lied this morning, or else he’s lying now.”
“He isn’t lying,” she said earnestly. “He was simply playing a trick on Dr. Silliman and the trustees. It’s what happened to Hugh afterwards that made it seem important.”
“Did you know that he took the picture himself?”
“He told me just now, before you came into the house. I made him tell you.”
“You’d better let Silliman in on the joke,” I said unpleasantly. “He’s probably going crazy.”
“He is,” she said. “I saw him at the gallery this afternoon, and he was tearing his hair. Do you have your car?”
“I came up here in a taxi.”
“I’ll drive you down.”
“Are you sure you feel up to it?”
“It’s better when I’m doing something,” she said.
An old black sedan was standing in the drive beside the house. We got in, and she backed it into the street, then turned downhill toward the center of town.
Watching her face I said, “Of course you realize I don’t believe his story.”
“Father’s, you mean?” She didn’t seem surprised. “I don’t know what to believe, myself.”
“When did he say he took the Chardin?”
“Last night. Hugh was working on the mezzanine. Father slipped away and took the picture out to the car.”
“Didn’t Hugh keep the door locked?”
“Apparently not. Father said not.”
“But what possible reason could he have for stealing his own picture?”
“To prove a point. Father’s been arguing for a long time that it would be easy to steal a picture from the gallery. He’s been trying to get the board of trustees to install a burglar alarm. He’s really hipped on the subject. He wouldn’t lend his Chardin to the gallery until they agreed to insure it.”
“For twenty-five thousand dollars,” I said, half to myself. Twenty-five thousand dollars was motive enough for a man to steal his own picture. And if Hugh Western witnessed the theft, there was motive for murder. “Your father’s made a pretty good story out of it. But where’s the picture now?”
“He didn’t tell me. It’s probably hidden in the house somewhere.”
“I doubt it. It’s more likely somewhere in Walter Hendryx’ house.”
She let out a little gasp. “What makes you say that? Do you know Walter Hendryx?”
“I’ve met him. Do you know him?”
“He’s a horrible man,” she said. “I can’t imagine why you think he has it.”
“It’s pure hunch.”
“Where would he get it? Father wouldn’t dream of selling it to him.”
“Hilary Todd would.”
“Hilary? You think Hilary stole it?”
“I’m going to ask him. Let me off at his shop, will you? I’ll see you at the gallery later.”
The Closed sign was still hanging inside the plate glass, and the front door was locked. I went around to the back of the shop by the alley. The door under the stairs was standing partly open. I went in without knocking.
The living-room was empty. The smell of alcohol rose from the stain on the wall where Sara had smashed her glass. I crossed the passage to the door on the other side. It, too, was partly open. I pushed it wider and went in.
Hilary Todd was sprawled face down on the bed, with an open suitcase crushed under the weight of his body. The silver handle of his ice pick stood up between his shoulder blades in the center of a wet, dark stain. The silver glinted coldly in a ray of light which came through the half-closed Venetian blinds.
I felt for his pulse and couldn’t find it. His head was twisted sideways, and his empty dark eyes stared unblinking at the wall. A slight breeze from the open window at the foot of the bed ruffled the hair along the side of his head.
I burrowed under the heavy body and went through the pockets. In the inside breast pocket of the coat I found what I was looking for: a plain white business envelope, unsealed, containing $15,000 in large bills.
I was standing over the bed with the money in my hand when I heard someone in the hallway. A moment later Mary appeared at the door.
“I saw you come in,” she said. “I thought—” Then she saw the body.
“Someone killed Hilary,” I said quietly.
“Killed Hilary?” She looked at the body on the bed and then at me. I realized that I was holding the money in plain view.
“What are you doing with that?”
I folded the bills and tucked them into my inside pocket. “I’m going to try an experiment. Be a good girl and call the police for me.”
“Where did you get that money?”
“From someone it didn’t belong to. Don’t tell the sheriff about it. Just say that I’ll be back in half an hour.”
“They’ll want to know where you went.”
“And if you don’t know, you won’t be able to tell them. Now do as I say.”
She looked into my face, wondering if she could trust me. Her voice was uncertain. “If you’re sure you’re doing the right thing.”
“Nobody ever is.”
I went out to my car and drove to Foothill Drive. The sun had dipped low over the sea, and the air was turning colder. By the time I reached the iron gates that cut off Walter Hendryx from ordinary mortals, the valley beyond them was in shadow.
The burly man came out of the gatehouse as if I had pressed a button. He recognized me, then pushed his face up to the window of the car. “Beat it, chum. I got orders to keep you away from here.”
I restrained an impulse to push the face away, and tried diplomacy. “I came here to do your boss a favor.”
“That’s not the way he feels. Now blow.”
“Look here.” I brought the wad of bills out of my pocket, and passed them back and forth under his nose. “There’s big money involved.”
His eyes followed the moving bills as if they were hypnotized. “I don’t take bribes,” he said in a hoarse and passionate whisper.
“I’m not offering you one. But you should phone down to Hendryx, before you do anything rash, and tell him there’s money in it.”
“Money for him?” There was a wistful note in his voice. “How much?”
“Fifteen thousand, tell him.”
“Some bonus.” He whistled. “What kind of a house is he building for you, bud, that you should give him an extra fifteen grand?”
I didn’t answer. His question gave me too much to think about. He went back into the gatehouse.
Two minutes later he came out and opened the gates. “Mr. Hendryx’ll see you. But don’t try any funny stuff or you won’t come out on your own power.”
The same maid was waiting at the door. She took me into a big rectangular room with French windows on one side, opening on the terrace. The rest of the walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling — the kind of books that are bought by the set and never read. In front of the fireplace, at the far end, Hendryx was sitting half submerged in an overstuffed armchair, with a blanket over his knees.