“Did you know Graham’s wife?” she asked suddenly.
“Which one?” I said.
“The last one. Number three, I think.”
“It doesn’t matter. There was no purpose in my asking for the distinction. I didn’t know number three, or two, or one. Graham Markley’s wives and I didn’t move in the same circles.”
“I thought perhaps you might have met her professionally.” “As an employer or subject of investigation?” “Either way.”
“Neither, as a matter of fact. And if I had, I couldn’t tell you.”
“Ethics? I heard that about you. Someone told me you were honorable and discreet. I believe it.”
“Thanks. Also thanks to someone.”
“That’s why I called you. I’m glad now that I did.”
“I know. You like my looks, and I like yours. We admire each other.”
“Are you always so flippant?”
“Scarcely ever. The truth is, I’m very serious, and I take my work seriously. Do you have some work for me to do?”
She swallowed some more of her tonic and held the glass in her lap with both hands. Her expression was again rather darkly brooding, and she seemed for a moment uncertain of herself.
“Perhaps you won’t want the job,” she said.
I nodded. “It’s possible.”
“We’ll see.” She swallowed more of the tonic and looked suddenly more decisive. “Do you remember what happened to Graham’s third wife?”
“I seem to remember that she left him, which wasn’t surprising. So did number one. So did number two. Excuse me if I’m being offensive.”
“Not at all. You’re not required to like Graham. Many people don’t. I confess that there are times when I don’t like him very much myself. I did like his third wife, however. We were in college together, as a matter of fact. We shared an apartment one year. Her name was Constance Vaughn then. I left school that year, the year we shared the apartment, and we never saw each other again.”
“You mean you never knew her as Mrs. Graham Markley?”
“Yes. I didn’t know she’d married. In college she didn’t seem, somehow, like the kind of girl who would ever marry anyone at all, let alone someone like Graham. That was a good many years ago, of course, and people change, I suppose. Anyhow, it was rather odd, wasn’t it? I came here about a year ago from Europe, where I had been living with my second husband, who is not my husband any longer, and I met Graham. After a while we entered into our present arrangement, which is comfortable but not altogether satisfactory, and then I learned that he had been married to Constance, whom I had known all that time ago. Don’t you think that was quite odd?”
“It seems to meet the requirements of the term.”
“Yes. The truth is, it made me feel rather strange. Especially when I discovered that she had simply disappeared about a year before.”
“Disappeared?”
“Simply vanished. She hasn’t been seen since by anyone who knew her here. You’ll have to admit that it’s peculiar. Numbers one and two left Graham and divorced him and tapped him for alimony, which he probably deserved, and this was sensible. It was not sensible, however, simply to disappear without a trace and never sue for divorce and alimony, or even separate maintenance. Do you think so?”
“Offhand, I don’t. There may have been good reasons. Surely an attempt was made to locate her.”
“Oh, yes. Of course. Her disappearance was reported to the police, and they made an effort to find her, but it was kept pretty quiet, and I don’t think anyone tried very hard. Because of the circumstances, you see.”
“No, I don’t see. What circumstances?”
“Well, Constance had a baby. A little boy that got to be almost two years old and died. Constance loved him intensely. That’s the way she was about anyone or anything she loved. Very intense. It was rather frightening, in a way. Anyway, when the little boy died, she seemed to be going right out of her mind with grief, and Graham was no consolation or comfort, of course. And then she met Regis Lawler. Psychologically, she was just ready for him — completely vulnerable — and she fell in love with him, and apparently they had an affair. To get to the point about circumstances, Regis Lawler disappeared the same night that Constance did, and that’s why no one got too excited or concerned. It was assumed that they’d gone away together.”
“Don’t you believe that they did?”
“I don’t know. I think I do. What do you think?”
“On the surface, it seems a reasonable assumption, but it leaves a lot of loose ends.”
“That’s it. That’s what disturbs me. Too many loose ends. I don’t like loose ends, Mr. Hand. Will you try to tie them up for me?”
“Find out where Constance Markley went?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You mean you won’t?”
“I mean I probably couldn’t. Look at it this way. The police have far greater facilities for this kind of thing than any private detective, and they’ve tried without success. Or if they did find out where Constance Markley went, it was obviously not police business and was quietly dropped. Either way, I’d be wasting my time and your money to try to find her now.”
“Don’t worry about wasting my money.”
“All right. I’ll just worry about wasting my time.”
“Is it wasted if it’s paid for?”
“That’s a good point. If you want to buy my time for a fee, why should I drag my heels? Maybe I’m too ethical.”
“Does that mean you accept?”
“No. Not yet. Be reasonable, Miss Salem. If Constance Markley and Regis Lawler went off together, they might be anywhere in the country or out of it. The West Coast. South America. Europe. Anywhere on earth.”
She finished her tonic, lit a cigarette, and let her head fall slowly against the back of the wicker chair as if she were suddenly very tired. With her eyes closed, the shadows of her lashes on her cheeks, she seemed to be asleep in an instant, except for the thin blue plume of smoke expelled slowly from her lungs. After a few moments, her eyes still closed, she spoke again.
“Why should they do that? Why disappear? Why run away at all? Women are leaving husbands every day. Men are leaving wives. They simply leave. Why didn’t Constance?”
“People do queer things sometimes. Usually there are reasons that seem good to the people in question. You said Mrs. Markley was an intense sort of person. You said she’d suffered a tragedy that nearly unbalanced her mentally. You implied that she hadn’t been happy with Graham Markley. Maybe she just wanted to go away clean — no connections, no repercussions, nothing at all left of the old life but a man she loved and the few things she’d have to remember because she couldn’t forget.”
“I know. I’ve thought of that, and it’s something that Constance might possibly have done, as I remember her.”
“How do you remember her?”
“Well, as I said, she was intense. She was always excited or depressed, and I could never quite understand what she was excited or depressed about. Ideas that occurred to her or were passed on to her by someone. Impressions and suggestions. Things like that. Little things that would never have influenced most people in the least. She was pretty, in a way, but it took quite a while before you realized it. She had a kind of delicacy or fragility about her, but I don’t believe that she was actually fragile physically. It was just an impression. She didn’t appeal to men, and I never thought that men appealed to her. In the year we lived together, she never went out with a man that I can recall. Her parents had money. That’s why I lived with her. I had practically no money at all then, and she took a fancy to me and wanted to rent an apartment for us, and so she did, and I stayed with her until near the end of the school year. I married a boy who also had money. Never mind me, though. The point is, we went away from school, and I didn’t see Constance again. She was angry with me and refused to say good-bye. I’ve always been sorry.”