Uh-huh, I thought. He did not give much of a damn about my comfort. He wanted me out in the hall so he could lock the door again when he left me alone, in case I happened to have any larcenous ideas myself toward the presents. Maybe it was just another general precaution, but more likely it was the Hornback thing; he may not have been suspicious of my honesty-at least he hadn’t pulled rank on Hickox and had me thrown off the job-but he still wasn’t taking any chances.
There was movement out in the hall, and we both turned. The young bridegroom, Walker, appeared and came inside, followed by a short, wispy-looking guy about forty, wearing a pinstriped suit and carrying a small gift box with a fancy pink bow on top. Hickox was there, too; he came in last, which used up just about all the extra space in the room.
“This is Mr. Patton, sir,” Hickox said to Mollenhauer. “From Grayson Jewelers.”
Mollenhauer acknowledged the wispy guy with a nod. The bunch of us were standing so close together that I could smell the mouthwash on Walker’s breath; he glanced at me as if he were smelling something on my breath as well and not liking it much. The hell with you, buster, I thought. I gave him the kind of smile Bogart used to give people in his movies and backed away to stand in the bathroom doorway.
Patton said, “Would you care to examine the ring?” He had a voice like the squeak of a mouse.
“Yes,” Mollenhauer said. “I would.”
The wispy guy put the gift box down on the table and took off its lid. Tissue paper rustled as he reached inside. A moment later he came up with a little blue-velvet ring case, snapped it open, and handed it to Mollenhauer.
I had a glimpse of the ring it contained. A gold scrolled job with a patina of age, indicating that it was probably an heirloom, with a diamond mounted on it as big as a cherry. The diamond’s facets caught the room light and reflected it dazzlingly. I didn’t know much about precious stones, but a conservative estimate of that baby’s worth had to be in the high five figures.
“Perfect,” Mollenhauer said. “You’ve done an excellent job with the setting.”
Patton beamed at him. “Thank you, sir.”
“Carla will adore it, Clyde.” Walker said. He sounded as if he adored it, too-it or what it was worth. “It belonged to your grandmother, didn’t it?”
“Yes. Of course, the original stone was much smaller.”
Of course, I thought.
Hickox said, “It’s one-forty, Mr. Mollenhauer. Shouldn’t we be getting started for the church?”
“Yes, you’re right.”
Mollenhauer closed the case; Hickox took it and returned it to the gift box for him. He arranged the tissue paper over it and then put the lid back on.
When the four of them turned from the table Mollenhauer looked at me and frowned; the frown said he had forgotten I was there-me and my big private eyes, taking in the tempting sight of that ring. He made an abrupt gesture for me to go out into the hallway. I went and stood against the far wall while he and the rest of them filed out.
Mollenhauer shut off the lights, locked the door, and tested the knob a couple of times. Then he said to me, “The reception begins at four. You’ll be on duty until approximately eight o’clock, when Mr. Walker and my daughter will begin opening their gifts on the terrace.”
Hickox had already informed me of that. But I nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”
“You’re not to leave your post at any time,” he said. “Is that clear?”
What if I have to go to the bathroom? I thought. This time I just nodded.
“Nor are you to fraternize with any of the guests who might happen back here. I expect you to be discreet.”
“I understand.”
He put his back to me; he had nothing more to say. For all the attention the other three paid me, I might have been a floor lamp. I did not even get a glance as Mollenhauer led them away.
SEVENTEEN
After they were gone I got a chair out of the second spare bedroom and placed it so I could watch the door to the gift room, the window in the rear wall, and the length of the hallway. Then I sat down and looked at nothing in particular. My mind drifted to Kerry, to Carolyn Weeks, to the injustice of my status with both the police and the media, back to Kerry again-and before long I was mired in another funk. Which was pointless; I could brood all afternoon and into next week, and none of it would get me anywhere.
I stood up and paced back and forth for a time. When I got tired of that I reapplied ample duff to chair and took one of the pulps out of the portfolio case-Double Detective for February 1938.1 opened it on my lap and tried to read.
At first, my attention wandered. But then the silence and the boredom combined to ease me out of the troubled real world into the fictional ones in the pulp. The issue had some good stuff in it- stories by Cornell Woolrich and Judson Philips, a short novel by Norbert Davis-and pretty soon it had me occupied. Time passed, no longer so slowly or quite so unpleasantly. From time to time sounds drifted in from the terrace, and once I heard someone call out that the caterers had arrived; otherwise the wing was hushed. Nobody came to check up on me, and nobody came to steal the wedding gifts.
This was a nice easy job, all right, and after the upheaval of the first six days of this week, that was just what I needed. Stay out of trouble, Eberhardt and Kayabalian and the Chief of Police and Kerry had all said. Well, I was doing that. And getting paid good money just for spending a Saturday afternoon reading in a quiet place. Maybe it was an omen. Maybe my luck was finally starting to change for the better.
It was three-fifty, and I was about to get up for the third time to stretch my legs, when the wedding procession arrived from the church. A silent procession, without the usual blaring of horns; the rich people of Ross evidently felt themselves above that particular postnuptial custom. I didn’t even know they were there until voices and laughter rose from the front of the house and the orchestra began playing on the terrace.
Hickox paid me a call as the reception party got under way, no doubt at Mollenhauer’s instructions. He said, “Is everything in order?” in his usual stiff tones.
“No problem.”
He frowned at the pulp in my hands. “What’s that?”
“An old pulp magazine.”
“Gaudy thing. It looks like a comic book.”
“Well, it’s not. Detective short stories.”
“Well,” he said disapprovingly, “I don’t think Mr. Mollenhauer would like the idea of you reading,”
“Why not? I’ve got to do something with my time.”
“You should be staying alert.”
“I can stay a lot more alert reading than I can just sitting here,” I said. “You wouldn’t want me to go to sleep, would you?”
“I should hope not.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t fall down on the job. How was the wedding?”
“A very nice ceremony,” he said, and went away and left me alone again with my gaudy reading matter.
Out on the terrace the party was in full swing. But judging from the noise level, which was low, it was not exactly a boisterous affair. Even the orchestra played nothing but soft background music. I was glad I was in here and they were out there; not only would I have been out of place among them, I’d have been bored to tears.
At five-fifteen a maid surprised me with supper on a tray; nobody had said anything about feeding me, and I hadn’t expected the consideration. It was stuff from the party buffet: canapes, half a dozen little sandwiches with the bread crust trimmed off, two kinds of salad, and coffee. I ate all of it. Not as’ good as deli food and beer, to my taste, but then maybe I was just a lowbrow.
I had finished reading Double Detective and had opened up a second pulp-a 1941 issue of Dime Detective. The lead novelette was another by Norbert Davis, this one about a hard-boiled but wacky private eye named Max Latin. I liked Davis’s work a good deal; unlike most other pulp writers, he had a wild and irreverent sense of humor.