Brandon pulled at his thick nose.
‘Yeah, now about this girclass="underline" what did she call herself?’
‘Mary Jerome.’
‘Yeah; Mary Jerome.’ He allowed a cloud of cigar smoke to obscure his face, went on, ‘She said she was Mrs. Dedrick’s secretary: right?’
‘Yes.’
‘She isn’t staying at the Orchid Hotel.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Did she strike you as the secretary type?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think she had anything to do with Dedrick’s kidnapping?’
‘I doubt it. She seemed genuinely startled when I told her. And, besides, why did she come back here after Dedrick had been taken away if she knew?’
‘That’s right, Malloy,’ Brandon said, and gave me a foxy smile. ‘You’re on the right lines. She seemed upset, uh?’
‘That’s right.’
He sat farther down in the chair, stared up at the ceiling and rolled thoughts around in his mind. After a while, he said, ‘Now, look, Malloy, I want you to get this straight. When the Press are told about this snatch there’s going to be a lot of publicity and excitement. Dedrick’s wife is an important woman. She’s more than that: she’s a household name. And another thing, she’s got a lot of powerful friends. You and I could step off with the wrong foot if we’re not very careful. I’m going to be careful, and you’re going to do what you’re told.’
I looked at him and he looked at me.
‘It’s my bet this Jerome girl is Dedrick’sa mistress,’ Brandon went on. ‘It sticks out a mile. He comes down here to rent this house. Mrs. Dedrick stays in New York. We don’t know much about this guy, Dedrick. We haven’t had much time since this broke, but we’ve already done a little digging. The wedding was secret. These two met eight weeks ago in Paris, and got married. Old man Marshland, Mrs. Dedrick’s father, wasn’t told until the two of them arrived at his house in New York as man and wife. I don’t know why the marriage was secret unless Dedrick isn’t anything to shout about, and she thought it would be better to present him to Marshland as her husband and not as her husband-to-be. I don’t know, and it’s not my business. But it looks as if Dedrick was playing along with another woman, and this woman is Mary Jerome. It is pretty obviously they intended to spend the night together here, only Dedrick got kidnapped before he could stop her turning up. The facts fit together. You can see why she didn’t want to be questioned by the police, so she pulled a gun on you and cleared off before we turned up, and I don’t mind telling you, I’m glad she did clear off.’
He waited to see if I had anything to say, but I hadn’t. I thought it was likely he was right. The facts, as he had said, fitted together.
That’s why I wanted to have this little talk with you, Malloy,’ he went on, his cold eyes on my face. ‘Dedrick’s been kidnapped. Okay, that’s something we can do something about, but the other thing isn’t our business. You’re not to say a word about Mary Jerome, if you do, you’ll be sorry. I’ll take you both in as material witnesses and my boys will give you a working over every day you’re with us. I promise you that if any information gets into the Press about this woman. I’m not going to have any muck-raking in this case. Mrs. Dedrick is going to receive every possible consideration from me. It’s bad enough for her to lose her husband this way, but no one is to know her husband was cheating on her. Understand?’
I thought of Mrs. Dedrick’s possible powerful friends. Probably the Governor, who could crack Brandon on her say-so. He wasn’t looking after her interests or considering her feelings, he was safeguarding himself.
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘Okay,’ Brandon said, getting to his feet. ‘Keep your traps shut, or you’ll regret it. You two get out of here, and stay out of here. If you try to horn in on this case, I’ll make you wish you were never born.’
‘That’ll be no new experience,’ Kerman said languidly as he drifted to the door. ‘Most mornings when I wake up I wish just that very thing.’
‘Get out!’ Brandon barked.
We got out.
CHAPTER TWO
I
THE following evening, around ten o’clock, I was trying to decide whether to go to bed early or open a new bottle of Scotch and make a night of it, when the telephone bell rang.
The bell sounded shrill and urgent and startled me, probably because, up to now, the cabin had been as still and as silent as a poor relation at a wedding.
I lifted the receiver.
‘Hello?’
Above the faint humming on the line I could hear a dance band playing a waltz. The high notes of the muted trumpet suggested Glyn Boos’s Serenaders; that would make the call from the Country Club.
‘Mr. Malloy?’ A woman’s voice: pitched low with a little drawl in it. A voice calculated to stimulate male interest. At any rate it stimulated mine.
‘Speaking.’
‘My name is Serena Dedrick. I’m at the Country Club just now. Can you come over? I can offer you a job if you want it.’
I wondered why she couldn’t have waited until the morning, but then the Dedricks seemed to specialize in out-of-office hours. It didn’t worry me. I wanted her custom.
‘Certainly, Mrs. Dedrick. I’ll be right over. Do I ask at the desk for you?’
‘I’ll be in my car in the parking lot. It’s a black Cad. Will you be long?’
‘A quarter of an hour.’
‘I will wait that long, but no longer.’ The drawl had sharpened
‘I’m on my way…’ I began, but she had hung up.
I went into the bathroom to inspect myself in the mirror, and decided I looked neat enough without being gaudy. As I straightened my tie, I wondered what she wanted: probably some first-hand information about the kidnapping. From the pictures I had seen of her and from the sound of her voice, she wouldn’t be satisfied with anything second-hand.
I got the Buick out of the garage and drove fast up Ross-more Avenue that skirts the golfcourse, where a couple of cranks were trying to play golf in the moonlight with the aid of luminous balls, turned left up Glendora Avenue and arrived I at the imposing entrance of the Country Club with four I minutes of the quarter of an hour in hand.
The wooded gardens were ablaze with lights, and as I drove up the drive I could see a bunch of half-naked men and women clustered around the swimming pool, while Glyn Boos’s Serenaders played under the arclights in a flower-decked alcove nearby.
The car park was around the back of the clubhouse. I edged my way in, and parked in what seemed to be the only vacant space left. I got out, looked up and down the long rows of cars, and decided it would be easier to pick the needle out of the haystack than find one particular black Cad. from this collection of luxury cars. There must have been over three hundred of them, and probably a third of that number were Cadillacs.
Parking lights flickered on and off, away to my left. I set off hopefully towards them. They continued to go on and off until I drew close enough to see they were attached to the glittering black car I had seen outside Ocean End two nights ago. I walked up to the car and looked in at the window. She was sitting behind the wheel, smoking a cigarette. The cold, hard light of the moon fell directly on her, and the first thing I noticed was the string of diamonds that flashed and sparkled like fire-flies in her hair. The moonlight gave her a sculptured-in-alabaster effect. She was wearing a low-cull strapless creation in gold lame, and she looked exactly what she was: the fourth richest woman in the world, from the diamonds in her hair to the cold, haughty expression on her rather long but distinctly lovely face.