Henry followed the dog and the man into the self-service elevator and rode up five floors. As soon as the elevator doors were open, the Pom departed, turning right.
“You’re the other way,” the man said, again over his shoulder. “Just look for the number.”
Henry did and found it. Pressing a pearl button beside the door, he listened to a bell. He was about to press the button a second time when the door was opened without any prelude of sound, and he found himself staring at a young woman whom he took to be Lila Galvin, and who was, whoever else she was, one of the loveliest women he had ever seen. Her hair was a shimmering black cloud, gathering and holding the light, parted cleanly and drawn back sleekly into a knot on the back of her neck. The severe perfection of her face was relieved by a sensual mouth, and her body, in a black wool dress of beautiful simplicity, possessed the lean seductiveness of a high fashion model. Which was, he recalled, what she was.
“Yes?” she said. “What is it?”
“I’m looking for Miss Lila Galvin,” he said, certain that he was speaking to her.
She acknowledged her identity and continued to watch him with cool serenity tinged by a faint amusement implicit in slightly arched brows. Her loveliness and serenity and implicit amusement had altogether the effect of making him sound truculent.
“I’m Henry Harper,” he said, and waited.
“Oh?” Her brows arched, if possible, a little higher. “Is that supposed to mean something? Should I know you?”
“Probably not. There is someone else, however, whom we know in common. Ivy Galvin, your cousin.”
“I see.” Her brows descended, and she no longer looked amused, but neither did she look angry or to any degree distressed. “You’re the man she told me about when she returned for her things. She’s been staying with you.”
“That’s right. I’d like to talk with you.”
“No more than I would like to talk with you. Please come in.”
He walked past her into the living room that had a clean, modern look. The furniture, low and heavy but achieving in its simplicity an effect of lightness, was covered with a tweedy material that looked expensive. On the wall that Henry faced there was a good copy of a Van Gogh. Against the wall near a door to another room, there was a bleached console phonograph. It must be the one, he thought, to which Ivy had listened the night she meant to die. If the whole story was not, as he suspected it might be, a lie at the worst or a delusion at best.
“I just got home a few minutes ago,” Lila Galvin said. “I was about to fix myself a cocktail. Will you join me?”
“I didn’t come on a social call. Maybe, after you’ve heard me, you won’t want to give me a cocktail.”
“You sound very grim. Is something wrong?”
“Something’s wrong, all right, but I’m not sure what it is. That’s what I’d like to find out.”
“Do you know what I think? I think you really need a cocktail, and so do I. I like a martini myself. Will that do for you?”
“Whatever you like.”
“I’ll get some ice. Excuse me, please.”
She went into the kitchen, which he could not see, and returned shortly with ice. She mixed gin and vermouth in a tall frosted glass and stirred it briefly with a glass rod. After pouring the martinis and handing him one, she sat down on a sofa and crossed her knees, holding her own glass with the fingertips of both hands so that it brushed her lips below her nostrils, as if it were a snifter of brandy and she were breathing the aroma.
“I wish you would sit down and quit looking so angry,” she said. “You look on the verge of attacking me. I imagine Ivy has been telling you the most terrible things about me, however, and so it’s quite understandable. Isn’t that right? Hasn’t Ivy been telling you things?”
He sat down facing her, feeling in his joints an unusual awkwardness. The glass he held seemed so fragile in his thick fingers that he had the notion that he must handle it with the greatest care to avoid crushing it inadvertently. “What do you think she’s been telling me?” he said.
“I think, for one thing, that she probably told you that I tried to kill her. Did she?”
“Yes. Did you?”
“Do you think, if I did, that I’d be fool enough to admit it?”
“No.”
“Of course not. But, to answer your question, I didn’t. Not that there’s any point in saying so. You’ll believe whatever you wish.”
“What made you assume at once that she told me you tried to kill her?”
“Because she accused me of it when she returned. Truly a fantastic story. I was supposed to have given her an overdose of sedative, and she was able to save herself only by walking and walking in the streets until she was exhausted. It was an exceptionally brilliant bit of fiction, even for Ivy. Is that the same story she told you, or did she develop a variation?”
“That’s the one.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I shan’t blame you if you do. Ivy can be very convincing. I’ve been deceived myself many times.
“Do you mean that it’s only her imagination? That she has delusions?”
“No. I don’t mean anything of the sort.” Lila tipped her glass against her lips and smiled at him across it. She was clearly in perfectly good humor. “I mean that she’s a deliberate liar. She’s one of the most accomplished and conscienceless little liars that it’s possible to imagine.”
“On the other hand, perhaps it’s you who are the deliberate liar.”
“Think as you wish. I’m only trying to warn you. If you are determined to get yourself involved with Ivy, as you seem to be, you had better know her for what she is.”
“Why should she accuse you of trying to murder her if you didn’t, or if she didn’t at least think you did?”
“Because she’s malicious. She wanted to say the most damaging thing about me that she could think to say. I’m trying to tell you that she’s a psychopathic liar. A psychopathic personality. Do you know what a psychopathic personality is? If you do, you know what Ivy is. She has no more sense of moral values than a cat. She is absolutely incapable of love or gratitude or responsibility or remorse. She would do anything or say anything without regard for any person on earth, so long as it suited her purpose. She can also be extremely ingratiating when she pleases, as you have surely learned. Would you like another martini? Why don’t you mix another for each of us?” He looked with surprise into his glass to see that it was empty. He had not been aware of drinking, and he thought he must have spilled the contents without knowing it, but there was no sign of it on himself or the carpet. He had drunk the martini, all right, and he did badly want another, and so he got up and mixed more gin and vermouth and filled his glass and hers.
“It would make it much easier for us to talk if you sat beside me on the sofa,” she said. “Don’t you agree?”
“Not particularly.”
“Oh, please. There’s nothing to be gained by being antagonistic. You obviously didn’t come here to accuse me of anything. You can’t make up your mind about Ivy, and you think I might be able to help you. If we’re going to be confidential, we may as well get into position for it.”
He sat down beside her, and she smiled and reacted over with her free hand and patted him on the knee in a gesture of approval. It seemed to him now entirely incredible that this serene and lovely woman had ever even considered killing anyone, let alone attempting it, and it seemed equally incredible that she had been a partner in a deviant relationship. Quite the contrary, allowing for the influence of his second martini, he thought that he could sense beneath her serenity a readiness to respond to the normal incitements to love.
“Are you willing to tell me the truth?” he said.