‘Carol Blandish. I want to speak to you.’
She heard Miss Lolly catch her breath, then the door opened a few inches, stopped as the chain on the inside prevented it opening further.
‘Why have you come back?’ Miss Lolly asked out of the darkness.
‘I want to talk to you,’ Carol said, leaning against the door-post and speaking close to the narrow opening.
‘But you can’t come in,’ Miss Lolly said. ‘I want to be left alone.’
‘You helped me before. I was hoping you would help me now. I am looking for the Sullivans.’
Miss Lolly drew in a sharp breath.
‘What do you want with them?’ she asked fiercely. ‘They are hunting for you, you little fool. Leave them alone!’
‘They shot my lover,’ Carol said in her hard flat voice. ‘Do you think I’m going to leave them alone after that?’
‘Oh!’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘Revenge?’ Miss Lolly asked, a new and eager note in her voice. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘I want to find them,’ Carol said.
The chain grated, then the door opened.
‘Come in,’ Miss Lolly said out of the darkness. ‘I am alone here now. Mr. Sherill left soon after you did.’
Carol followed her down the long dark passage into the back room, where a lamp burned brightly on the table. The room was full of old, shabby furniture, and it was not easy to move about without touching something.
Miss Lolly kept in the shadows. Carol could see her big tragic eyes looking at her. Around her throat was twisted a white scarf, hiding her beard.
‘Sit down,’ Miss Lolly said. ‘So you are looking for them? If I were younger I would look for them too.’
Carol opened her light dust-coat, pulled off her close-fitting hat. She shook out her hair with a quick movement of her head.
‘Do you know where they are?’ she asked as she sat down.
‘But what can you do to them if you do find them?’ Miss Lolly said, a note of despair in her voice. ‘What could I do? They are so cunning, so quick, so strong. No one can do anything to them.’
Carol turned her head, and for a moment the two women looked at each other. Miss Lolly was startled to see the hard, bitter expression on Carol’s face, and the icy bleakness of her eyes.
‘I will make them pay,’ Carol said softly, ‘no matter how cunning and quick and strong they are. I will make them pay if it takes me the rest of my life. I have nothing else to live for.’
Miss Lolly nodded, and her fingers touched the scarf at her throat.
‘I feel like that too,’ she said, and two tears ran out of her eyes and dropped on to her hand. ‘You see, Max cut off my beard.’
Carol didn’t move nor did her expression change.
‘Why did he do that?’ she asked.
‘Because I let you go,’ Miss Lolly said, clasping her hands. ‘I would rather they had killed me. I’m a vain old woman, my dear: it may seem horrible to you, but I loved my beard. I have had it a long time.’
‘Tell me what happened.’
Miss Lolly drew up a chair, again adjusted the scarf round her chin, sat down. She put out a hand hopefully, but Carol drew away, her face cold and hard.
‘Tell me,’ she repeated.
‘They came back two days after you had gone. Frank remained in the car and Max came in here. I was a little frightened, but I sat where you are sitting now and waited to see what he would do to me. He seemed to know you had gone, for he didn’t ask for you. He asked for Mr. Sherill, and I told him he had left here. He stood looking at me for a long time, then he asked why I hadn’t gone too, and I told him there was nowhere for me to go.’ Miss Lolly fidgeted with her scarf, then went on after a long pause: ‘He hit me over the head, and later when I came to they had gone. He had cut off my beard. You may remember it?’ She looked wistfully at Carol. ‘It was a very beautiful beard, and he burnt it. He’s a devil,’ she said, raising her voice. ‘He knew nothing would give me more pain than that.’
‘And Frank?’ Carol asked.
‘He remained in the car,’ Miss Lolly said, looking bewildered. ‘I don’t know why, for he is cruel, and it is not like him to keep away when someone is going to be hurt, but he remained in the car.’
Carol smiled. Looking at her, Miss Lolly felt a chill run down her spine.
‘He stayed in the car because he is blind,’ Carol said. ‘I blinded him after he had killed Steve.’
Miss Lolly remained still. She was surprised that she felt a shocked kind of pity for Frank.
‘Blind? I wouldn’t wish anyone to be blind,’ she said.
Carol made an impatient movement.
‘Where are they?’ she asked, a harsh note creeping into her voice. ‘If you know, tell me, but don’t waste my time. Every moment I remain here means they are getting further away from me. Where are they?’
Miss Lolly shrank back, alarmed at the suppressed venom in the green eyes.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but they had a room upstairs where they kept their things. They took everything when they left except a photograph which had slipped between the floorboards. That may tell you something.’
‘Where is it?’ Carol demanded.
‘I have it here. I was looking at it when you knocked.’ Miss Lolly opened a drawer, took out a photograph, laid it on the table under the white light of the lamp.
Carol bent over it.
It was a photograph of a girl whose dark hair was parted in the middle; the broad white line between the parting was pronounced. It was a curious face: a little coarse, full-lipped, wide-eyed and fleshy. There was something magnetic about it: sensual, animal quality; an uncontrolled wantonness; a badness that was scarcely concealed by the veneer of polished sophistication. Under the brazenly skimpy swim-suit she wore was a shape to set a man crazy. Across the bottom of the photograph, scrawled in white ink and in a big sprawling hand, was the inscription: To darling Frank from Linda.
Without change of expression, Carol turned the photograph, read the name of the photographer stamped on the back: Kenneth Carr, 3971 Main Street, Santo Rio. Then she once more turned the photograph to study the girl’s face.
Miss Lolly watched her closely.
‘She is the kind of woman a man wouldn’t forget easily,’ she said, leaning forward to peer over Carol’s shoulder. ‘She’s bad, but attractive. A man would return to her again and again. Find her, and I think you will find Frank.’
‘Yes,’ Carol said.
Santo Rio is a small, compact little town on the Pacific Coast: a millionaire’s playground. It has no industry unless you call every form of lavish and luxurious entertainment an industry; in which case Santo Rio’s industry is a thriving one. The main bulk of its citizens earn their living by entertaining the rich visitors who come in their thousands to Santo Rio all the year round. Gambling, racing, yachting, dancing, ordinary and extraordinary forms of vice, night clubs, theatres, cinemas and so on employ those people who are not smart enough to stand on their own feet and run their own rackets.
The smart ones — of whom Eddie Regan was a leading member — make a comfortable living out of blackmail, con tricks, being gigolos or practising any other nefarious racket that brings in easy money.
Eddie Regan was tall, wide and handsome. He had black curly hair, a tanned complexion, excellent teeth as white as orange pith, and sparkling blue eyes that proved irresistible to rich, elderly women who came to Santo Rio to kick over the traces, probably for the last time.