The two hoods went back down the stairs.
Conant looked down at Carmady, kicked him in the ribs lightly, kept on kicking them until Carmady opened his eyes and stirred.
NINE
The car waited at the top of a hill, before a pair of tall wrought-iron gates, inside which there was a lodge. A door of the lodge stood open and yellow light framed a big man in an overcoat and pulled-down hat. He came forward slowly into the rain, his hands down in his pockets.
The rain slithered about his feet and the albino leaned against the uprights of the gate, clicking his teeth. The big man said: «What yuh want? I can see yuh.»
«Shake it up, rube. Mister Conant wants to call on your boss.»
The man inside spat into the wet darkness. «So what? Know what time it is?»
Conant opened the car door suddenly and went over to the gates. The rain made noise between the car and the voices.
Carmady turned his head slowly and patted Jean Adrian’s hand. She pushed his hand away from her quickly.
Her voice said softly: «You fool — oh, you fool!»
Carmady sighed. «I’m having a swell time, angel. A swell time.»
The man inside the gates took out keys on a long chain, unlocked the gates and pushed them back until they clicked on the chocks. Conant and the albino came back to the car.
Conant stood in the rain with a heel hooked on the running board. Carmady took his big flask out of his pocket, felt it over to see if it was dented, then unscrewed the top. He held it out towards the girl, said: «Have a little bottle courage.»
She didn’t answer him, didn’t move. He drank from the flask, put it away, looked past Conant’s broad back at acres of dripping trees, a cluster of lighted windows that seemed to hang in the sky.
A car came up the hill stabbing the wet dark with its headlights, pulled behind the sedan and stopped. Conant went over to it, put his head into it and said something. The car backed, turned into the driveway, and its lights splashed on retaining walls, disappeared, reappeared at the top of the drive as a hard white oval against a stone porte-cochère.
Conant got into the sedan and the albino swung it into the driveway after the other car. At the top, in a cement parking circle ringed with cypresses they all got out.
At the top of steps a big door was open and a man in a bathrobe stood in it. Targo, between two men who leaned hard against him, was halfway up the steps. He was bareheaded and without an overcoat. His big body in the white coat looked enormous between the two gunmen.
The rest of the party went up the steps and into the house and followed the bathrobed butler down a hall lined with portraits of somebody’s ancestors, through a still oval foyer to another hall and into a paneled study with soft lights and heavy drapes and deep leather chairs.
A man stood behind a big dark desk that was set in an alcove made by low, outjutting bookcases. He was enormously tall and thin. His white hair was so thick and fine that no single hair was visible in it. He had a small straight bitter mouth, black eyes without depth in a white lined face. He stooped a little and a blue corduroy bathrobe faced with satin was wrapped around his almost freakish thinness.
The butler shut the door and Conant opened it again and jerked his chin at the two men who had come in with Targo. They went out. The albino stepped behind Targo and pushed him down into a chair. Targo looked dazed, stupid. There was a smear of dirt on one side of his face and his eyes had a drugged look.
The girl went over to him quickly, said: «Oh, Duke — are you all right, Duke?»
Targo blinked at her, half-grinned. «So you had to rat, huh? Skip it. I’m fine.» His voice had an unnatural sound.
Jean Adrian went away from him and sat down and hunched herself together as if she was cold.
The tall man stared coldly at everyone in the room in turn, then said lifelessly: «Are these the blackmailers — and was it necessary to bring them here in the middle of the night?»
Conant shook himself out of his coat, threw it on the floor behind a lamp. He lit a fresh cigarette and stood spread-legged in the middle of the room, a big, rough, rugged man very sure of himself. He said: «The girl wanted to see you and tell you she was sorry and wants to play ball. The guy in the ice-cream coat is Targo, the fighter. He got himself in a shooting scrape at a night spot and acted so wild downtown they fed him sleep tablets to quiet him. The other guy is Carmady, old Marcus Carmady’s boy. I don’t figure him yet.»
Carmady said dryly: «I’m a private detective, Senator. I’m here in the interests of my client, Miss Adrian.» He laughed.
The girl looked at him suddenly, then looked at the floor.
Conant said gruffly. «Shenvair, the one you know about, got himself bumped off. Not by us. That’s still to straighten out.»
The tall man nodded coldly. He sat down at his desk and picked up a white quill pen, tickled one ear with it.
«And what is your idea of the way to handle this matter, Conant?» he asked thinly.
Conant shrugged. «I’m a rough boy, but I’d handle this one legal. Talk to the D.A., toss them in a coop on suspicion of extortion. Cook up a story for the papers, then give it time to cool. Then dump these birds across the state line and tell them not to come back — or else.»
Senator Courtway moved the quill around to his other ear. «They could attack me again, from a distance,» he said icily. «I’m in favor of a showdown, put them where they belong.»
«You can’t try them, Courtway. It would kill you politically.»
«I’m tired of public life, Conant. I’ll be glad to retire.» The tall thin man curved his mouth into a faint smile.
«The hell you are,» Conant growled. He jerked his head around, snapped: «Come here, sister.»
Jean Adrian stood up, came slowly across the room, stood in front of the desk.
«Make her?» Conant snarled.
Courtway stared at the girl’s set face for a long time, without a trace of expression. He put his quill down on the desk, opened a drawer and took out a photograph. He looked from the photo to the girl, back to the photo, said tonelessly: «This was taken a number of years ago, but there’s a very strong resemblance. I don’t think I’d hesitate to say it’s the same face.»
He put the photo down on the desk and with the same unhurried motion took an automatic out of the drawer and put it down on the desk beside the photo.
Conant stared at the gun. His mouth twisted. He said thickly: «You won’t need that, Senator. Listen, your showdown idea is all wrong. I’ll get detailed confessions from these people and we’ll hold them. If they ever act up again, it’ll be time enough then to crack down with the big one.»
Carmady smiled a little and walked across the carpet until he was near the end of the desk. He said: «I’d like to see that photograph» and leaned over suddenly and took it.
Courtway’s thin hand dropped to the gun, then relaxed. He leaned back in his chair and stared at Carmady.
Carmady stared at the photograph, lowered it, said softly to Jean Adrian: «Go sit down.»
She turned and went back to her chair, dropped into it wearily.
Carmady said: «I like your showdown idea, Senator. It’s clean and straightforward and a wholesome change in policy from Mr. Conant. But it won’t work.» He snicked a fingernail at the photo. «This has a superficial resemblance, no more. I don’t think it’s the same girl at all myself. Her ears are differently shaped and lower on her head. Her eyes are closer together than Miss Adrian’s eyes, the line of her jaw is longer. Those things don’t change. So what have you got? An extortion letter. Maybe, but you can’t tie it to anyone or you’d have done it already. The girl’s name. Just coincidence. What else?»