Walter looked like a man in a dream. “Lord, she’s lovely!” he said. “Who is she, Dune?”
I sipped my coffee. “A neighbor,” I said lightly.
“Do you…do you think I could get to meet her?”
“Perhaps. She’s quite young and just a little bit shy and it would be better to have her see me with you a few times before introductions are in order.”
He sounded hoarse. His face had taken on an avid, hungry look. “Anything you say, but I have to meet her.” He turned around with a grin. “By golly, I’ll stay here until I do, too!”
We laughed over that and went back to our cigarettes, but every so often I caught him glancing back toward the hedge with that desperate expression creasing his face.
Being familiar with her schedule, I knew that we wouldn’t see her again that day, but Walter knew nothing of this. He tried to keep away from the subject, yet it persisted in coming back. Finally he said, “Incidentally, just who is she?”
“Her name is Evelyn Vaughn. Comes from quite a well-to-do family.”
“She here alone?”
“No, besides the servants she has a nurse and a doctor in attendance. She hasn’t been quite well.”
“Hell, she looks the picture of health.”
“Oh, she is now,” I agreed. I walked over and turned on the television and we watched the fights. For the sixth time a call came in for Walter, but his reply was the same. He wasn’t going back to New York. I felt the anticipation in his voice, knowing why he was staying, and had to concentrate on the screen to keep from smiling.
Evelyn was there the next day and the next. Walter had taken to waving when I did, and when she waved back his face seemed to light up until it looked almost boyish. The sun had tanned him nicely and he pranced around like a colt, especially when she could see him. He pestered me with questions and received evasive answers. Somehow he got the idea that his importance warranted a visit from the house across the way. When I told him that to Evelyn neither wealth nor position meant a thing, he looked at me sharply to see if I was telling the truth. To have become what he was he had to be a good reader of faces, and he knew that it was the truth, beyond the shadow of a doubt.
So I sat there day after day watching Walter Harrison fall helplessly in love with a woman he hadn’t met yet. He fell in love with the way she waved, until each movement of her hand seemed to be for him alone. He fell in love with the luxuriant beauty of her body, letting his eyes follow her as she walked to the water from the house, aching to be close to her. She would turn sometimes and see us watching, and wave.
At night he would stand by the window, not hearing what I said because he was watching her windows, hoping for just one glimpse of her, and often I would hear him repeating her name slowly, letting it roll off his tongue like a precious thing.
It couldn’t go on that way. I knew it and he knew it. She had just come up from the beach and the water glistened on her skin. She laughed at something the woman said who was with her and shook her head back so that her hair flowed down her back.
Walter shouted and waved and she laughed again, waving back. The wind brought her voice to him and Walter stood there, his breath hot in my face. “Look here, Duncan, I’m going over and meet her. I can’t stand this waiting. Good Lord, what does a guy have to go through to meet a woman?”
“You’ve never had any trouble before, have you?”
“Never like this!” he said. “Usually they’re dropping at my feet. I haven’t changed, have I? There’s nothing repulsive about me, is there?”
I wanted to tell the truth, but I laughed instead. “You’re the same as ever. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was dying to meet you, too. I can tell you this …she’s never been outside as much as since you’ve been here.”
His eyes lit up boyishly. “Really, Dune. Do you think so?”
“I think so. I can assure you of this, too. If she does seem to like you, it’s certainly for yourself alone.”
As crudely as the barb was placed, it went home. Walter never so much as glanced at me. He was lost in thought for a long time, then: “I’m going over there now, Duncan. I’m crazy about that girl. By God, I’ll marry her if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Don’t spoil it, Walter. Tomorrow, I promise you. I’ll go over with you.”
His eagerness was pathetic. I don’t think he slept a wink that night. Long before breakfast, he was waiting for me on the veranda; we ate in silence, each minute an eternity for him. He turned repeatedly to look over the hedge, and I caught a flash of worry when she didn’t appear.
Tight little lines had appeared at the corners of his eyes, and he said, “Where is she, Dune? She should be there by now, shouldn’t she?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It does seem strange. Just a moment.” I rang the bell on the table and my housekeeper came to the door. “Have you seen the Vaughns, Martha?” I asked her.
She nodded sagely. “Oh, yes, sir. They left very early this morning to go back to the city.”
Walter turned to me. “Hell!”
“Well, she’ll be back,” I assured him.
“Damn it, Dune, that isn’t the point!” He stood up and threw his napkin on the seat. “Can’t you realize that I’m in love with the girl? I can’t wait for her to get back!”
His face flushed with frustration. There was no anger, only the crazy hunger for the woman. I held back my smile. It happened. It happened the way I planned for it to happen. Walter Harrison had fallen so deeply in love, so truly in love, that he couldn’t control himself. I might have felt sorry for him at that moment if I hadn’t asked him, “Walter, as I told you, I know very little about her. Supposing she is already married.”
He answered my question with a nasty grimace. “Then she’ll get a divorce if I have to break the guy in pieces. I’ll break anything that stands in my way, Duncan. I’m going to have her if it’s the last thing I do!”
He stalked off to his room. Later I heard the car roar down the road. I let myself laugh then.
I went back to New York and was there a week when my contacts told me of Walter’s fruitless search. He used every means at his disposal, but he couldn’t locate the girl. I gave him seven days, exactly seven days. You see, that seventh day was the anniversary of the date I introduced him to Adrianne. I’ll never forget it. Wherever Walter is now, neither will he.
When I called him, I was amazed at the change in his voice. He sounded weak and lost. We exchanged the usual formalities; then I said, “Walter, have you found Evelyn yet?”
He took a long time to answer. “No, she’s disappeared completely.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” I said.
He didn’t get it at first. It was almost too much to hope for. “You…mean you know where she is?”
“Exactly.”
“Where? Please, Dune …where is she?” In a split second he became a vital being again. He was bursting with life and energy, demanding that I tell him.
I laughed and told him to let me get a word in and I would. The silence was ominous then. “She’s not very far from here, Walter, in a small hotel right off Fifth Avenue.” I gave him the address and had hardly finished when I heard his phone slam against the desk. He was in such a hurry he hadn’t bothered to hang up …
Duncan stopped and drained his glass, then stared at it remorsefully. The inspector coughed lightly to attract his attention, his curiosity prompting him to speak. “He found her?” he asked eagerly.
“Oh yes, he found her. He burst right in over all protests, expecting to sweep her off her feet.”
This time the inspector fidgeted nervously. “Well, go on.”