He climbed into the back of the Buick and squatted down on the floor. I chucked a rug over him.
‘I’m going to love every minute of this,’ he said, poking his head out from the folds of the rug. ‘How long do you reckon I’ll be under this lot?’
‘Oh, about three or four hours: not more.’
‘With the temperature in the eighties, that should give me some idea what the Black Hole of Calcutta was like.’
‘It’ll get cooler in the evening,’ I said heartlessly and started the car. ‘You have a whole bottle of Scotch to help pass the time, only don’t smoke.’
‘Not smoke?’ His voice shot up in a yelp of dismay.
‘Listen; stop kidding yourself. If these guys find out you’re in the back of the car, they’ll steal up and slit your gizzard.’
That quietened him.
I drove up the two miles of private road a lot more sedately than the first time I came this way. I took the bend in the drive nice and slow, and pulled up within a yard of the balustrade surrounding the courtyard.
In the warm light of the evening sun, the house looked about as attractive as any house would look after a million dollars had been spent on it. The big black Cadillac stood before the front entrance. In the middle distance two Chinese gardeners were picking the dead roses off an umbrella standard. They worked as if the rose tree was their main source of income for the next nine months: probably it was. The big swimming pool glittered in the sun, but no one swam in it. Across the expanse of velvety lawn in the lower garden, below the terraces, six scarlet flamingoes stood looking towards me, stiff-legged and crotchety, as unreal as the blue sky of an Italian postcard. There was everything to be had this day at Ocean End except happiness.
I looked towards the house. The grass-green shutters covered the windows; a cream-andgreen striped awning flapped above the front door.
‘Well, so long,’ I said in a low voice to Kerman. ‘I’m going in now.’
‘Have a lovely time. Kerman’s voice was bitter from under the rug. ‘Don’t stint yourself. Have plenty of ice with your drinks.’
I walked along the terrace and screwed my thumb into the bell push. I could see through the glass panels of the door into a big hall and a dim, cool passage that led to the back of the house.
A tall, thin old man came down the passage and opened the front door. He looked me over in a kindly way. I had an idea he was pricing my suit and wishing he could buy me something a little better that wouldn’t disgrace the house. But I was probably wrong. He may not even have been thinking about me.
‘Mrs. Dedrick is expecting me.’
‘The name, sir?’
‘Malloy.’
He still stood squarely in the doorway.
‘Have you a card, please?’
"Well, yes, and I have a birthmark too. Remind me to show it to you one of these days.’
He tittered politely like an aged uncle out to have fun with his sister’s young hopeful.
‘So many gentlemen of the Press have tried to see Mrs. Dedrick. We have to take precautions, sir.’
I had an idea I would be standing there till next summer if I didn’t show him my card, so I got out my bill-fold and showed him my card: the non-business one.
He stood aside.
‘Would you wait in the lounge, sir?’
I went into the room where Souki had been shot. The Mexican rug had been cleaned. There were no bodies lying about this evening to welcome me; no untouched whisky and soda, no cigarette stub to spoil the repaired surface of the table.
‘If you could sneak me a double Scotch with a lot of ice in it, I’d appreciate it.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
He drifted across the room to the sideboard on which stood a bottle of Haig and Haig, glasses, a bucket of ice and White-rock.
I listened attentively as he moved, but I couldn’t hear his bones creak. I was surprised. He looked old enough for them to squeak. But, old as he was, he was no slouch when it came to mixing a drink. He handed me one strong enough to tip over a pony and trap.
‘If you would care to look at some periodicals while you wait, sir, I will get some for you.’
I lowered myself into an easy chair that accepted me as if it was doing me a favour, stretched out my legs and balanced my drink carefully on the arm of the chair.
‘You think there’ll be a long wait?’ I asked.
‘I have no experience in these matters, sir, but it would seem likely they won’t communicate with us until it is dark.’ He stood before me, not unlike one of the flamingoes I had seen in the lower garden, and every inch of him dedicated to a life of service. Probably he would never see seventy again, but the blue eyes were still alert and clear, and what he lacked in speed he made up in experienced efficiency: a family retainer straight out of Hollywood, almost too genuine to be true.
‘Yeah, I guess you’re right. Looks like a good three-hour wait: probably more.’ I dug out a package of cigarettes. He had a match flame ready before I got the cigarette into my mouth. ‘I didn’t get your name.’
The grizzled eyebrows lifted.
‘Wadlock, sir.’
‘Do you work for Mrs. Dedrick or Mr. Marshland?’
‘Oh, Mr. Marshland, sir. I have been lent to Mrs. Dedrick for the time being, and I am very happy to be of service to her.’
‘Have you been with the family long?’
He smiled benignly.
‘Fifty years, sir. I was with Mr. Marshland senior for twenty years, and I have been with Mr. Marshland junior for thirty years.’
That seemed to put us on a friendly footing, so I asked, ‘You met Mr. Dedrick when he was in New York?’
The benign expression went away like a fist when you open your fingers.
‘Oh, yes, sir. He stayed a few days with Mr. Marshland.’
‘I haven’t seen him. I’ve spoken to him on the ‘phone, and I’ve heard a lot about him, but there appears to be no photograph of him. What does he look like?’
I had an idea there was disapproval in the blue eyes now, but I wasn’t sure.
‘He is a well-built gentleman; dark, tall, athletic, with very good features. I don’t think I can describe him any better than that, sir.’
‘Did you like him?’
The bent old back stiffened.
‘Did you say you would like some periodicals, sir? You may find the wait a little tedious.’
I had my answer. Obviously for some reason or other this old man had as much use for Dedrick as I had for a punch on the jaw.
‘That’s all right. It makes a change to sit and do nothing.’
‘Very good, sir.’ He wasn’t friendly any more. ‘I will let you know when there is any news.’
He went away on his spindly old legs as dignified as an archbishop conferring a favour, and left me alone in a room full of bad memories. About a yard from my left foot Souki’s head had bled on the rug. Over by the fireplace stood the telephone into which Dedrick had breathed hurriedly and unevenly while he talked to me. I turned to stare at the casement window through which the kidnappers had probably come, gun in hand.
A short, dapper figure in a white tropical suit and a panama hat stood in the doorway, watching me. I hadn’t heard him arrive. I wasn’t expecting him. With my mind full of murder and thugs, he gave me a start that nearly took me to the ceiling.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said in a mild, rather absent-minded way. ‘I didn’t know you were in here.’
While he was speaking he came into the room and put his Panama hat on the table. I guessed he would be Franklin Marshland, and looked to see if Serena took after him. She didn’t. He had a small, beaky nose, a heavy chin, dreamy, forgetful woman eyes and a full, rather feminine mouth. His wrinkled face was sun-tanned, and the thick fringe of glossy white hair, above which was a bald, sun-tanned patch, made him look like a clean-shaven and amiable Santa Claus.