«Mr. Jeeter home? Mr. Jeeter, Senior?»
May I arsk who is calling?» The accent was a little too thick, like cut Scotch.
«Philip Marlowe. I’m working for him. Maybe I had ought to of gone to the servant’s entrance.»
He hitched a finger at a wing collar and looked at me without pleasure. «Aw, possibly. You may step in. I shall inform Mr. Jeeter. I believe he is engaged at the moment. Kindly wait ’ere in the ’all.»
«The act stinks,» I said. «English butlers aren’t dropping their h’s this year.»
«Smart guy, huh?» he snarled, in a voice from not any farther across the Atlantic than Hoboken. «Wait here.» He slid away.
I sat down in a carved chair and felt thirsty. After a while the butler came cat-footing back along the hall and jerked his chin at me unpleasantly.
We went along a mile of hallway. At the end it broadened without any doors into a huge sunroom. On the far side of the sunroom the butler opened a wide door and I stepped past him into an oval room with a black-and-silver oval rug, a black marble table in the middle of the rug, stiff high-backed carved chairs against the walls, a huge oval mirror with a rounded surface that made me look like a pygmy with water on the brain, and in the room three people.
By the door opposite where I came in, George the chauffeur stood stiffly in his neat dark uniform, with his peaked cap in his hand. In the least uncomfortable of the chairs sat Miss Harriet Huntress holding a glass in which there was half a drink. And around the silver margin of the oval rug, Mr. Jeeter, Senior, was trying his legs out in a brisk canter, still under wraps, but mad inside. His face was red and the veins on his nose were distended. His hands were in the pockets of a velvet smoking jacket. He wore a pleated shirt with a black pearl in the bosom, a batwing black tie and one of his patent-leather oxfords was unlaced.
He whirled and yelled at the butler behind me: «Get out and keep those doors shut! And I’m not at home to anybody, understand? Nobody!»
The butler closed the doors. Presumably, he went away. I didn’t hear him go.
George gave me a cool one-sided smile and Miss Huntress gave me a bland stare over her glass. «You made a nice comeback,» she said demurely.
«You took a chance leaving me alone in your apartment,» I told her. «I might have sneaked some of your perfume.’
«Well, what do you want?» Jeeter yelled at me. «A nice sort of detective you turned out to be. I put you on a confidential job and you walk right in on Miss Huntress and explain the whole thing to her.»
«It worked, didn’t it?»
He stared. They all stared. «How do you know that?» he barked.
«I know a nice girl when I see one. She’s here telling you she had an idea she got not to like, and for you to quit worrying about it. Where’s Mister Gerald?»
Old man Jeeter stopped and gave me a hard level stare. «I still regard you as incompetent,» he said. «My son is missing.»
«I’m not working for you. I’m working for Anna Halsey. Any complaints you have to make should be addressed to her, Do I pour my own drink or do you have a flunky in a purple suit to do it? And what do you mean, your son is missing?»
«Should I give him the heave, sir?» George asked quietly.
Jeeter waved his hand at a decanter and siphon and glasses on the black marble table and started around the rug again. «Don’t be silly,» he snapped at George.
George flushed a little, high on his cheekbones. His mouth looked tough.
I mixed myself a drink and sat down with it and tasted it and asked again: «What do you mean your son is missing, Mr. Jeeter?»
«I’m paying you good money,» he started to yell at me, still mad.
«When?»
He stopped dead in his canter and looked at me again. Miss Huntress laughed lightly. George scowled.
«What do you suppose I mean — my son is missing?» he snapped. «I should have thought that would be clear enough even to you. Nobody knows where he is. Miss Huntress doesn’t know. I don’t know. No one at any of the places where he might be known.»
«But I’m smarter than they are,» I said. «I know.»
Nobody moved for a long minute. Jeeter stared at me fisheyed. George stared at me. The girl stared at me. She looked puzzled. The other two just stared.
I looked at her. «Where did you go when you went out, if you’re telling?»
Her dark blue eyes were water-clear. «There’s no secret about it. We went out together — in a taxi. Gerald had had his driving license suspended for a month. Too many tickets. We went down towards the beach and I had a change of heart, as you guessed. I decided I was just being a chiseler after all. I didn’t want Gerald’s money really. What I wanted was revenge. On Mr. Jeeter here for ruining my father. Done all legally of course, but done just the same. But I got myself in a spot where I couldn’t have my revenge and not look like a cheap chiseler. So I told George to find some other girl to play with. He was sore and we quarreled. I stopped the taxi and got out in Beverly Hills. He went on. I don’t know where. Later I went back to the El Milano and got my car out of the garage and came here. To tell Mr. Jeeter to forget the whole thing and not bother to sick sleuths on to me.»
«You say you went with him in a taxi,» I said. «Why wasn’t George driving him, if he couldn’t drive himself?»
I stared at her, but I wasn’t talking to her. Jeeter answered me, frostily. «George drove me home from the office, of course. At that time Gerald had already gone out. Is there anything important about that?»
I turned to him. «Yeah. There’s going to be. Mister Gerald is at the El Milano. Hawkins the house dick told me. He went back there to wait for Miss Huntress and Hawkins let him into her apartment. Hawkins will do you those little favors — for ten bucks. He may be there still and he may not.»
I kept on watching them. It was hard to watch all three of them. But they didn’t move. They just looked at me.
«Well — I’m glad to hear it,» old man Jeeter said. «I was afraid he was off somewhere getting drunk.»
«No. He’s not off anywhere getting drunk,» I said. «By the way, among these places you called to see if he was there, you didn’t call the El Milano?»
George nodded. «Yes, I did. They said he wasn’t there. Looks like this house peeper tipped the phone girl off not to say anything.»
«He wouldn’t have to do that. She’d just ring the apartment and he wouldn’t answer — naturally.» I watched old man Jeeter hard then, with a lot of interest. It was going to be hard for him to take that up, but he was going to have to do it.
He did. He licked his lips first. «Why — naturally, if I may ask?» he said coldly.
I put my glass down on the marble table and stood against the wall, with my hands hanging free. I still tried to watch them — all three of them.
«Let’s go back over this thing a little,» I said. «We’re all wise to the situation. I know George is, although he shouldn’t be, being just a servant. I know Miss Huntress is. And of course you are, Mr. Jeeter. So let’s see what we have got. We have a lot of things that don’t add up, but I’m smart. I’m going to add them up anyhow. First-off a handful of photostats of notes from Marty Estel. Gerald denies having given these and Mr. Jeeter won’t pay them, but he has a handwriting man named Arbogast check the signatures, to see if they look genuine. They do. They are. This Arbogast may have done other things. I don’t know. I couldn’t ask him. When I went to see him, he was dead — shot three times — as I’ve since heard — with a twenty-two. No, I didn’t tell the police, Mr. Jeeter.»
The tall silver-haired man looked horribly shocked. His lean body shook like a bullrush. «Dead?» he whispered. «Murdered?»