Lois came over to Quade. “I’ve been greatly disappointed in you, Mr. Quade,” she said.
He flushed. “I’m sorry, Miss Lanyard.” He rose, turned stiffly and followed Charlie Boston out of the restaurant, although neither of them had been served yet.
Outside, Charlie Boston whistled softly. Quade turned angrily on him. “Cut it, Charlie.”
Boston stopped whistling. He walked beside Quade without saying a word. After a moment, however, Quade apologized. “Sorry, Charlie. Nerves. I made some fool plays and I’m sore about them.”
Boston grunted assent. “We’re out of our class, Oliver. That’s all that’s wrong. Shall we ditch the books and clear out? It’s only thirty miles to New York City. Once there no one from here’d ever find us.”
“It’d probably be the smartest thing we could do, but you know how I am. I’m too stubborn to quit something I’ve started.”
In the dining-room of the Westfield Hotel, Quade and Charlie discussed the case.
“That thousand dollars Peters had, that worries me. It’s too much money for him,” Quade said between bites.
“I wouldn’t know myself,” replied Boston. “But I’ve heard there’s lots of folks have a thousand dollars.”
“Not ham actors. I read Variety, and I know that Peters hasn’t been in a show for four years or more. I wish I knew how he got his money. He dressed well.”
“Is that the important thing in this case? Seems to me some of those people haven’t told all they know.”
“Some of them don’t know any more than we do, if as much. Hmm, wonder who that is?”
The head waiter was pointing out Quade to a man who had just come into the dining room. He would have been more at home in a Greenwich Village bar than the Westfield Hotel. He was perhaps thirty, tall and hollow-cheeked. There was a three days’ growth of beard on his face. His cinnamon-colored coat didn’t match his trousers and his shirt had evidently been washed in some communal bathroom and worn unpressed.
He came up to Quade’s table. “Mr. Quade? My name’s Renfrew, Felix Renfrew. I read in the afternoon papers about — about Wes Peters and came out here.”
Quade said, “Have a seat; you interest me.”
Renfrew sat down. “Wes Peters,” he declared, “was my best friend. The minute I heard he had been killed I grabbed a bus and came out here.”
“You may have been Peters’ best friend,” said Quade, “but I bet you didn’t hear about Peters’ death in the city.”
Renfrew glared for a moment, then shrugged. “All right, I came out with Wes this morning. What difference does it make? Wes was killed, his body found in your booth. There’s a lot of talk going around town about your knowing something.”
“I do know something. More than you ever will. What’d you come to me for?”
“To find out who killed Wes, that’s why!” snapped Renfrew. “Wes was the best pal I ever had and I’m going to stick around until his murderer is found.”
Quade gave Renfrew the once over, his eyes insolently staring at the unmatched suit and unpressed shirt. “You were Peters’ pal, eh? Roommate perhaps?”
Renfrew flushed. “No, we didn’t room together. But—”
“You live in Greenwich Village?”
“Yes, but what’s that got to do with it?”
“Perhaps nothing. Wes Peters, if you’ll pardon the inference, put on the dog. And when he was found this afternoon he had a thousand dollars on him. Would you be knowing how he got that much money?”
Renfrew shrugged. “Peters always had money. We didn’t live together but he paid my rent and visited at my place a lot.”
“Why?”
“Why? Well, because there was always something doing there. I’m a playwright, you know.”
“I didn’t know. What plays have you written?”
Renfrew scowled. “I’ve written eight or ten, but none have been produced. But they’re good plays. Only the capitalistic—”
“Oh, so it’s like that. Anyway, you always had a crowd of the Village folks at your diggings. Poets and writers and artists. And Peters liked to pose as a big shot. So he paid your rent and hung around your dump. Right?”
“Something like that.”
“And you’re worried because your patron has shuffled off? Kinda puts you on the spot. Tell me, where’d Peters get his money?”
“He never told me.”
“Where’d he come from originally?”
“I don’t know. New York, I guess. I’ve only know him four or five years. But I always guessed that he got his money from relatives. Who else would send him money regularly?”
“Ah, he got it regularly?”
“Yes, I happen to know because at times he was broke but he didn’t worry about it. And he didn’t work. Not for the last four years. Before that he was on the stage. He played the juvenile lead in Hidden Faces, I know.”
“Jessie Lanyard played in that, too, didn’t she?”
Renfrew looked puzzled. He said: “I don’t know her.”
“Well, that wasn’t her name then. She’s the woman who fainted when Wes Peters was found dead. Or weren’t you around then?”
Renfrew flushed. “No, I left right after — well, right after you got through selling books.”
“Because you saw Wes Peters coming in and didn’t want him to see you around?”
Renfrew chewed at his lower lip, then suddenly rose. “I’ve got to catch my bus back to the city.”
Quade did not try to detain him. When he was gone, Charlie Boston snorted. “Wonder what the hell Peters saw in that.”
“The only difference between Peters and Renfrew is that Peters had money these last few years. Before he got the money, I’ll bet, he was just like Renfrew. Dirty finger-nails and all. Well, I guess it was a tough blow to Renfrew at that. He may even have to go to work now.”
“It won’t hurt him,” growled Boston. “Say, what did you say that made him run out so sudden-like?”
Quade grinned reflectively. “I guess I got a little too close. Renfrew had gotten curious about Peters, or maybe, he hoped to find out how and where Peters got his money. So he followed him out here today but didn’t want Peters to spot him… You know, this Renfrew interests me.”
“Not me,” said Boston. “I can find his kind anywhere. What do we do now, go see a movie or something?”
“They’ve got a crime thriller at the Bijou,” Quade said. “But I don’t think it’ll be as interesting as the one we’re in ourselves. Instead, let’s go stir up the porridge a bit.”
“Back to the dog show?”
“No, I thought we’d brace some of the suspects and others in their own backyard. The Lanyard house.”
“Ouch! After the trimming we took from the Lanyards this afternoon?”
Lanyard, Senior, had money. He must have had scads of it, to keep up the estate that Quade and Boston entered a little while later. It was about a mile out of Westfield and was surrounded by a low, trimmed hedge. The house was Georgian style and contained at least twenty rooms. A smaller house nearby was evidently the servants’ quarters. There was also a four-car garage behind the house and a long, low building with wire-enclosed runs in front of it. A dog kennel.
There were a half-dozen cars on the graveled driveway leading up to the house; the smallest a Packard. The cars didn’t phase Quade, however. He squeezed his old flivver in between a Packard and a large foreign car and leaped lightly over the hingeless door.