“You’re a bit of a swine, Jacques.”
The note in the woman’s voice was ugly to hear. I moved quietly along the hot verandah and paused just outside the french doors.
“I suppose I could be called that, but it shouldn’t bother you, my pet,” the man said lightly. “You should be used to swine by now, surely.”
The sound of a siphon hissing told me he was mixing a drink. I moved another few inches closer and that allowed me to get a sight of the room.
It seemed, from where I stood, the room was over large. There was a pale blue fitted carpet on the floor and the furniture was of light oak. There were plenty of lounging chairs and two enormous settees.
Sitting in one of the lounging chairs was a woman of around thirty-six or seven. She had silky hair dyed a warm apricot colour, and she was beautiful in the way movie stars are beautiful without character in the face that gives interest. She was wearing a bikini swim suit that revealed a lot of sun-tanned flesh, just going a little soft and losing its first elasticity of youth. She was stacked well enough, but it wasn’t the kind of body that made me want to look twice: maybe ten years ago it would have done, but not now.
She was wearing open-work sandals and her toe-nails were painted silver. She wore white coral ear-rings and a white coral choker around her sun-tanned throat.
I didn’t have to guess who she was. I immediately recognized her. This would be Bridgette Creedy, ex-movie actress, Lee Creedy’s wife.
Jacques Thrisby moved into sight. He was just what I expected him to be. A big hunk of glamorous beef, heavily sun-tanned with dark curly hair, blue eyes, a hairline moustache and a handsome face. He was wearing a white singlet, dark red shorts and sandals. In his right hand he carried a highball and between his full, sensual lips hung a cigarette.
“Where were you last night, Jacques?” Bridgette asked, looking at him, her face set and hostile.
“My dear pet, how many more times? I told you: I was right here watching the fights on T.V.”
“I waited two hours for you at the club.”
“I know. You’ve already said that at least five times. I’ve said I’m sorry. Do you want me to pour ashes on my head? Our date wasn’t definite. I simply forgot.”
“Our date was definite, Jacques. I telephoned you and you said you would be there.”
He drank from his glass and put the glass down on an occasional table.
“Yes, you are quite right. You did telephone and I still forgot. I’m still sorry.” He yawned, putting his hand before his mouth. “Must we go over all this again?”
“You weren’t watching the fights, Jacques. I telephoned here and there was no answer.”
“I don’t always answer the telephone, Bridgette, darling. It’s so easy for some bore to trap me on the telephone. I heard the bell and I didn’t answer it.”
Her nostrils flared out.
“Am I a bore then?”
He smiled.
“You mustn’t jump to conclusions. You know as well as I do how easy it is for some bore to call up and trap you.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
He studied her, his smile remaining fixed, a meaningless thing.
“You are being a bore right now, darling,” he said at last. “I have told you what happened last night. I was here watching the fights. I heard the telephone bell ring I ignored it, and when the fights were over, I went to bed. I just forgot our date, and I’m very, very, very sorry.”
She sat up abruptly in her chair: her eyes smouldering.
“You’re lying! You weren’t here! I came out here and found the place in darkness and your car wasn’t in the garage. How dare you lie to me! What were you doing?”
His fixed smile suddenly went away and his face hardened. He was no longer the handsome playboy. The smooth veneer of his polish suddenly slid off him, showing the hard, unscrupulous man that lay below the surface.
“So you came out here, did you? Just how cheap are you going to make yourself, my pet? First, you hire a private dick to watch me, then when he gets murdered, you do your own spying. I’ve had enough of this. Let’s cut it out, shall we? I’m fed to the teeth if I may say so with all of it.”
She placed her silver-tipped fingers on her bare knees and squeezed. Her long thin fingers looked like claws.
“Who was the woman?”
He finished his drink and stubbed out his cigarette.
“I guess that will be all for to-day,” he said. “I’ve things to do even if you haven’t. So let’s break it up, shall we?”
“Was it Margot?” The hate in her voice was ugly to hear. “Have you started with her again?”
“Just because Margot is better looking than you and at least ten years younger, it doesn’t follow she means anything to me,” he said. “Between you and me, I find the Creedy women a drug on the market right now.” His smile widened. “If the truth must be told they are both over-sexed, too possessive and utter bores. Now, would you mind very much running along, my pet? I have a lunch date.”
“It was Margot, wasn’t it? She’s still in love with you, isn’t she? She’s determined to take you away from me,” Bridgette said, her voice shaking.
“Look, don’t let’s have a scene,” Thrisby said, and he moved out of my view. I heard the sound of a cork being twisted from a bottle. “Will you please go away now, Bridgette?”
“I’m not going until I know who the woman is you were with last night!”
“All right. If you must know she was a little blonde, very cute and young and fresh, I found on the promenade who happened to be lonely. You should know by now, Bridgette, that lonely women are utterly irresistible to me.” He came back into view with another highball in his hand, his smooth veneer back in place. “So out of the kindness of my heart I had to console her, and I was agreeably surprised by her enthusiastic response.”
“You rotten swine!” Bridgette said, her voice harsh. Her face had suddenly become pinched-looking and her glittering eyes seemed to have sunk into their sockets. “You’re lying! It was Margot!”
“Well, if you won’t go, then I must,” Thrisby said, and smiled. “Never let it be said I throw my ex-mistresses out of my house. Make yourself at home, my pet. Don’t drink too much of my liquor. I hope I find you gone when I come back.”
“So we’re through for good, is that it?” Bridgette asked.
“My dear, that is really brilliant of you. I’ve been saying that for the past ten minutes, and now you tell me. Yes, Bridgette, we’re through for good. We’ve both had a lot of fun, and now it is better for us to go our ways.”
She leaned back in her chair: her expression wasn’t pleasant to see. She seemed to have grown older during the past minutes: her near nakedness now was an embarrassment.
“All right, if we’re going to part for good, Jacques, you’d better settle up your debts,” she said in a cold, flat voice. “You haven’t forgotten you owe me some money, have you? Thirteen thousand dollars to be exact.”
His smile widened.
“Is it as much as that?” He picked up his glass, looked into it with lifted eyebrows and drank a little of the whisky. “I suppose you have it all written down in a leather-bound book?”
“I have kept an account. I want the money.”
“I dare say you do. Your elderly husband isn’t over generous, is he? I’m afraid you will have to wait for it. I haven’t got thirteen thousand dollars: nothing like it. It has cost quite a lot to take you around and amuse you. I’ll let you have it when I can, but you must make up your mind to the dismal fact that it will be a long, long wait.”
“I want it now,” she said tonelessly.
“So sorry. Well, I must be running along. Shall I see you to your car?”