He said: "I've come to take Mrs. Collinson back to San Francisco."
She didn't say anything. I said:
"Not to San Mateo?"
"What do you mean by that?" The white tangles of his brows came down to hide all but the bottom halves of his blue eyes.
"God knows. Maybe my mind's been corrupted by the questions the newspapers have been asking me."
He didn't quite wince. He said, slowly, deliberately:
"Mrs. Haldorn sent for me professionally. I went to see her to explain how impossible it would be, in the circumstances, for me to advise or represent her."
"That's all right with me," I said. "And if it took you thirty hours to explain that to her, it's nobody's business."
"Precisely."
"But-I'd be careful how I told the reporters waiting downstairs that. You know how suspicious they are-for no reason at all."
He turned to Gabrielle again, speaking quietly, but with some impatience:
"Well, Gabrielle, are you going with me?"
"Should I?" she asked me.
"Not unless you especially want to."
"I-I don't."
"Then that's settled," I said.
Andrews nodded and went forward to take her hand, saying:
"I'm sorry, but I must get back to the city now, my dear. You should have a phone put in, so you can reach me in case you need to."
He declined her invitation to stay to dinner, said, "Good evening," not unpleasantly, to me, and went out. Through a window I could see him presently getting into his car, giving as little attention as possible to the newspaper men gathered around him.
Gabrielle was frowning at me when I turned away from the window.
"What did you mean by what you said about San Mateo?" she asked.
"How friendly are he and Aaronia Haldorn?" I asked.
"I haven't any idea. Why? Why did you talk to him as you did?"
"Detective business. For one thing, there's a rumor that getting control of the estate may have helped him keep his own head above water. Maybe there's nothing in it. But it won't hurt to give him a little scare, so he'll get busy straightening things out-if he has done any juggling— between now and clean-up day. No use of you losing money along with the rest of your troubles."
"Then he-?" she began.
"He's got a week-several days at least-to unjuggle in. That ought to be enough."
"But-"
Mrs. Herman, calling us to dinner, ended the conversation.
Gabrielle ate very little. She and I had to do most of the talking until I got Mickey started telling about a job he had been on up in Eureka, where he posed as a foreigner who knew no English. Since English was the only language he did know, and Eureka normally held at least one specimen of every nationality there is, he'd had a hell of a time keeping people from finding out just what he was supposed to be. He made a long and laughable story of it. Maybe some of it was the truth: he always got a lot of fun out of acting like the other half of a half-wit.
After the meal he and I strolled around outside while the spring night darkened the grounds.
"MacMan will be down in the morning," I told him. "You and he will have to do the watchdog. Divide it between you anyway you want, but one will have to be on the job all the time."
"Don't give yourself any of the worst of it," he complained. "What's this supposed to be down here-a trap?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe. Uh-huh. You don't know what the hell you're doing. You're stalling around waiting for the horseshoe in your pocket to work."
"The outcome of successful planning always looks like luck to saps. Did Dick have any news?"
"No. He tailed Andrews straight here from his house."
The front door opened, throwing yellow light across the porch. Gabrielle, a dark cape on her shoulders, came into the yellow light, shut the door, and came down the gravel walk.
"Take a nap now if you want," I told Mickey. "I'll call you when I turn in. You'll have to stand guard till morning."
"You're a darb." He laughed in the dark. "By God, you're a darb."
"There's a gallon of gin in the car."
"Huh? Why didn't you say so instead of wasting my time just talking?" The lawn grass swished against his shoes as he walked away.
I moved towards the gravel walk, meeting the girl.
"Isn't it a lovely night?" she said.
"Yeah. But you're not supposed to go roaming around alone in the dark, even if your troubles are practically over."
"I didn't intend to," she said, taking my arm. "And what does practically over mean?"
"That there are a few details to be taken care of-the morphine, for instance."
She shivered and said:
"I've only enough left for tonight. You promised to-"
"Fifty grains coming in the morning."
She kept quiet, as if waiting for me to say something else. I didn't say anything else. Her fingers wriggled on my sleeve.
"You said it wouldn't be hard to cure me." She spoke half-questioningly, as if expecting me to deny having said anything of the sort.
"It wouldn't."
"You said, perhaps . . ." letting the words fade off.
"We'd do it while we were here?"
"Yes."
"Want to?" I asked. "It's no go if you don't."
"Do I want to?" She stood still in the road, facing me. "I'd give-" A sob ended that sentence. Her voice came again, high-pitched, thin: "Are you being honest with me? Are you? Is what you've told me-all you told me last night and this afternoon-as true as you made it sound? Do I believe in you because you're sincere? Or because you've learned how-as a trick of your business-to make people believe in you?"
She might have been crazy, but she wasn't so stupid. I gave her the answer that seemed best at the time:
"Your belief in me is built on mine in you. If mine's unjustified, so is yours. So let me ask you a question first: were you lying when you said, 'I don't want to be evil'?"
"Oh, I don't. I don't."
"Well, then," I said with an air of finality, as if that settled it. "Now if you want to get off the junk, off we'll get you."
"How-how long will it take?"
"Say a week, to be safe. Maybe less."
"Do you mean that? No longer than that?"
"That's all for the part that counts. You'll have to take care of yourself for some time after, till your system's hitting on all eight again, but you'll be off the junk."
"Will I suffer-much?"
"A couple of bad days; but they won't be as bad as you'll think they are, and your father's toughness will carry you through them."
"If," she said slowly, "I should find out in the middle of it that I can't go through with it, can I-?"
"There'll be nothing you can do about it," I promised cheerfully. "You'll stay in till you come out the other end."
She shivered again and asked:
"When shall we start?"
"Day after tomorrow. Take your usual snort tomorrow, but don't try to stock up. And don't worry about it. It'll be tougher on me than on you: I'll have to put up with you."
"And you'll make allowances-you'll understand-if I'm not always nice while I'm going through it? Even if I'm nasty?"
"I don't know." I didn't want to encourage her to cut up on me. "I don't think so much of niceness that can be turned into nastiness by a little grief."
"Oh, but-" She stopped, wrinkled her forehead, said: "Can't we send Mrs. Herman away? I don't want to-I don't want her looking at me."
"I'll get rid of her in the morning."
"And if I'm-you won't let anybody else see me-if I'm not-if I'm too terrible?"
"No," I promised. "But look here: you're preparing to put on a show for me. Stop thinking about that end of it. You're going to behave. I don't want a lot of monkey-business out of you."
She laughed suddenly, asking:
"Will you beat me if I'm bad?"
I said she might still be young enough for a spanking to do her good.
XXI.Aaronia Haldorn
Mary Nunez arrived at half-past seven the next morning. Mickey Linehan drove Mrs. Herman to Quesada, leaving her there, returning with MacMan and a load of groceries.
MacMan was a square-built, stiff-backed ex-soldier. Ten years of the island had baked his tight-mouthed, solid-jawed, grim face a dark oak. He was the perfect soldier: he went where you sent him, stayed where you put him, and had no ideas of his own to keep him from doing exactly what you told him.
He gave me the druggist's package. I took ten grains of morphine up to Gabrielle. She was eating breakfast in bed. Her eyes were watery, her face damp and grayish. When she saw the bindles in my hand she pushed her tray aside and held her hands out eagerly, wriggling her shoulders.
"Come back in five minutes?" she asked.
"You can take your jolt in front of me. I won't blush."
"But I would," she said, and did.
I went out, shut the door, and leaned against it, hearing the crackle of paper and the clink of a spoon on the water-glass. Presently she called:
"All right."
I went in again. A crumpled ball of white paper in the tray was all that remained of one bindle. The others weren't in sight. She was leaning back against her pillows, eyes half closed, as comfortable as a cat full of goldfish. She smiled lazily at me and said:
"You're a dear. Know what I'd like to do today? Take some lunch and go out on the water-spend the whole day floating in the sun."
"That ought to be good for you. Take either Linehan or MacMan with you. You're not to go out alone."
"What are you going to do?"
"Ride up to Quesada, over to the county seat, maybe as far as the city."
"Mayn't I go with you?"
I shook my head, saying: "I've got work to do, and you're supposed to be resting."
She said, "Oh," and reached for her coffee. I turned to the door. "The rest of the morphine." She spoke over the edge of her cup. "You've put it in a safe place, where nobody will find it?"
"Yeah," I said, grinning at her, patting my coat-pocket.
In Quesada I spent half an hour talking to Rolly and reading the San Francisco papers. They were beginning to poke at Andrews with hints and questions that stopped just short of libel. That was so much to the good. The deputy sheriff hadn't anything to tell me.
I went over to the county seat. Vernon was in court. Twenty minutes of the sheriff's conversation didn't add anything to my education. I called up the agency and talked to the Old Man. He said Hubert Collinson, our client, had expressed some surprise at our continuing the operation, having supposed that Whidden's death had cleared up the mystery of his son's murder.
"Tell him it didn't," I said. "Eric's murder was tied up with Gabrielle's troubles, and we can't get to the bottom of one except through the other. It'll probably take another week. Collinson's all right," I assured the Old Man. "He'll stand for it when it's explained to him."