“I wouldn’t say so. Not so difficult. I’ve already considered that motivation, as a matter of fact. It seems compatible with the little I know about her. There’s another point, however, that bothers me. Was Regis Lawler the kind of man to fall in with such a scheme?”
“I can’t answer that. If he was devoted to her, it’s fair to assume that he would do as she wished, especially if she convinced him that it was something she desperately needed.”
“Possibly. I didn’t know Lawler well enough to have an idea. Miss Salem said that Mrs. Markley’s family had quite a lot of money. Did Mrs. Markley herself have any?”
“No. Her mother and father were both dead when we married. If they had money at one time, which I believe was so, it had been dissipated. The estate, I understand, did little more than pay the claims against it.”
“Then your wife had no personal financial matters to settle before she left?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Was Regis Lawler a wealthy man?”
“I have no idea. His brother apparently is.”
“Well, you can see what I’m getting at. It would not be a simple matter for a man of wealth to disappear. It would certainly entail the liquidation of assets — securities, property, things like that. He’d have to convert his wealth to negotiable paper that he could carry with him. If he wanted to assure his not being traced through it, he’d have to convert to cash. Do you know if Regis Lawler did any such thing?”
“No. But the police surely made such an obvious investigation. Since it was not an issue, it follows that Lawler did do something of the sort, or that he had no holdings to convert.”
“Right. If Lawler had left much behind, the police wouldn’t have quit investigating. They’d have smelled more than a love affair. As you say, he either converted or had nothing to convert. At any rate, he must have had considerable cash in hand. Running away with a woman, I mean, wouldn’t be any two-dollar tour. Unless he had a job arranged somewhere, an assured income, he must have been, putting it mildly, damn well heeled.”
“Oh, I think it’s safe to assume that he had at least enough cash to last a while. I can’t imagine that Regis Lawler was a pauper.”
His tone implied that no one but a simpleton, specifically me, would waste time speculating about it. I was beginning to think he was right. That was okay, though. I had been convinced from the beginning that I was wasting my time on the whole case. That was okay, too, since I was doing it for a fee.
“How long ago was it that Mrs. Markley left?” I said.
“Two years ago next month.”
“Did she take anything with her? Any clothes, for example? I know from talking with her maid that she took nothing when she left home that night, but I’m thinking that she might have taken or sent luggage ahead to be picked up later. She’d have done something like that, I imagine, if she was being secretive.”
“No doubt. On the other hand, if you accept the theory that she intended to make a complete break, she might not have wanted to keep any of her old possessions, not even her clothes. I don’t find this incredible in her case. Anyhow, I honestly don’t know if she took anything. She had closets full of clothes, of course. If anything was missing, I wouldn’t know.”
“How about the maid?”
“She thought that nothing was missing, but she wasn’t positive.”
He looked at his wrist watch and stood up abruptly, his knees still together as they had been all the time he was sitting, and he had, looking down at me, a kind of stiff, military bearing and collateral arrogance. “I’m sorry to end this interview, Mr. Hand, but I have another appointment. You’ll have to excuse me.”
“Certainly,” I said. “I was running out of questions, anyhow. Thanks very much for coming in.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t been very helpful.”
“You never know. It doesn’t sound like much now, but it may mean something later.”
I walked around the desk and with him to the door. I didn’t offer to shake hands, and neither did he.
“Please inform Miss Salem or me of any progress,” he said.
“I’m not optimistic,” I said.
The door closed between us, and I went back and sat down. As far as I was concerned, I was still wasting time.
4
From street level I went up two shallow steps into a spacious hall. The floor was carpeted. The walls were paneled with dark and lustrous walnut. At the far end of the hall, a broad sweep of stairs ascended. To my right as I entered was the dining room. The floor was carpeted in there also, and the walls were also walnut-paneled. Tables were covered with snowy cloths and set with shining silver. A few early diners were dining. The string quartet was playing something softly that I remembered by sound and remembered after a moment by name. “Stars in My Eyes,” by Fritz Kreisler. A very pretty tune.
I looked right. A cocktail lounge was over that way, beyond a wide entrance and down a step. A number of people were drinking cocktails. There was no music. I recognized a martini, which was all right, a manhattan, which was better, and an alexander, which you can have. Everything was very elegant, very sedate. Maybe someone saw me, maybe not. No one spoke to me or tried to stop me. I walked down the hall and up the stairs.
The carpet went up with me, but the walnut stayed below. The hall upstairs ran a gauntlet of closed doors recessed in plaster. It was nice plaster, though, rough-textured and painted a nice shade of brown. Cinnamon or nutmeg or one of the names that brown acquires when it becomes a decorator color. It was too early for the games, and the rooms behind the doors were quiet. All, that is, except the last room behind the last door, which was the private room of Silas Lawler. Someone in there was playing a piano. A Chopin waltz was being played. I thought at first it was a recording, but then I decided it wasn’t. It was good, but not good enough.
I opened the door softly and stepped inside and closed the door behind me. It was Silas Lawler himself at the piano. He turned his face toward me, but his eyes had the kind of blind glaze that the eyes of a man may have when he is listening to good music or looking at his mistress or thinking of something a long way off. A pretty girl was sitting in a deep chair on the back of her neck. She had short black hair and smoky eyes and a small red petulant mouth. She was facing the door and me directly, and her eyes moved over me lazily without interest. Otherwise, she did not move in the slightest, and she did not speak.
Lawler finished the Chopin waltz, and the girl said, “That was nice, Lover.” She moved nothing but her lips, in shaping the words, and her eyes, which she rolled toward him in her head. She didn’t sound as if she meant what she said, and Lawler didn’t look as if he believed her. He didn’t even look as if he heard her. He was still staring at me, and the glaze was dissolving in his eyes.
“Who are you?” he said.
“Percy Hand,” I said. “We’ve met.”
“That’s right,” he said. “I remember you. Don’t you believe in knocking?”
“I didn’t want to interrupt the music. I like Chopin.”
“Do you? It’s better when it’s played right.”
“You play it fine. I thought at first it was Brailowsky.”
“If you thought it was Brailowsky, you’ve never heard him.”
“I’ve heard him, all right. I went to a concert once. I’ve got a couple records.”
“In that case, you’ve got no ear for music. Brailowsky and I don’t sound alike.”
“Maybe not. Maybe it was just the shock of hearing you play at all. I never figured Silas Lawler for a pianist.”