“Only that Creedy uses him for his rough stuff. I don’t know a thing about him except that. Well, thanks for walking in when you did. I’ve really got to be going. Do you mind seeing yourself out? I’m late as it is.”
“That’s okay.” I got to my feet. “I’ll be seeing you.”
Nodding to him, I crossed the lounge and went through the french doors on to the verandah.
The jigsaw pieces were beginning to fall into shape, I thought, as I started across the verandah.
The Siamese cat raised its head to stare at me. I paused to tickle its tummy. Its paw with the claws out made a quick dab at my hand, but I got it out of reach just in time.
“Take it easy,” I said to the cat. “You don’t have to be neurotic too.”
I set off across the lawn, aware that Thrisby was watching me from behind the curtains.
II
I drove slowly back to St. Raphael City, my mind busy. There now seemed a reasonable possibility that I had two separate investigations on my hands: Sheppey’s murder and the mystery of the match folder. It was possible that neither of them had any direct bearing on the other.
Thrisby’s theory that Sheppey had been killed by mistake seemed to me to be an acceptable one. Having seen the murderous, uncontrolled expression on Bridgette Creedy’s face, I couldn’t now rule out the possibility that she had hired someone to kill the girl who was taking Thrisby away from her. Sheppey might have tried to protect the girl and had got killed instead.
I decided it was time to have a talk to Bridgette Creedy, but before doing so I had to make up my mind what line to take with her.
The time was now half past one and I was hungry. I pulled up outside a small sea-food restaurant, left the car and went in.
I gave myself a nice meal and took my time over it. The food was good, even though the check, when it came, made me look three times to be sure the waiter hadn’t added in the date by mistake. By the time I had left the restaurant, it was close on half past two. I drove over to a drug store, shut myself in a telephone booth and called Creedy’s residence.
The butler answered. His adenoids were no better nor, come to think of it, no worse. I asked for Mrs. Creedy.
“I’ll put you through to her secretary,” he said, and after a few clicks and pops a cool efficient, voice said it belonged to Mrs. Creedy’s secretary.
“I want an appointment to see Mrs. Creedy,” I said. “I met her this morning. I have something that belongs to her. Will you ask her when she can see me?”
“What is your name, please?”
“The name doesn’t matter: just tell her what I’ve told you.”
“Will you hold on, please?”
There was a longish pause. I looked through the glass door of the booth and admired a blonde girl, wearing a French swim suit, who came into the drug store, climbed up on a high stool and ordered a hamburger with onions. I was glad I wasn’t going to be the boy to be taking her out this night.
The cool, efficient voice said, “Mrs. Creedy will see you at three o’clock if that will be convenient.”
I smiled into the receiver.
“I’ll be there,” I said, and hung up.
I walked out of the drug store, got into the Buick and, driving slowly, I drifted along the crowded promenade, packed with glittering Cadillacs and Clippers, until I was within sight of the Creedys’ residence. I pulled into a space between two cars, lit a cigarette and let the sun, coming through the open car window, add another layer to my sunburn.
At five minutes to three, I started the engine and drove along the private road leading to the Creedy estate.
The two guards came over as I pulled up before the barrier.
“Mrs. Creedy,” I said to one of them.
He looked me over. I could see my rolled-up shirt-sleeves and slacks were causing him pain, but he decided against making remarks. He walked over to the barrier and raised it. There was no list to be consulted, no telephoning the house, no nothing. Mrs. Creedy wasn’t important, but ask for her husband and then see the trouble you’d buy yourself.
I drove up the now-familiar drive, past the massed rose beds and the Chinese gardeners, who had just finished the third bed of begonias and were sitting on their haunches, staring at the begonias as if willing them to remain on their best behaviour and produce large and continuous blooms.
I parked the car next to a big black Rolls-Royce, got out and walked up the steps, along the terrace to the front door.
The butler opened the door two minutes after I had rung the bell. He gave me his steady, searching stare, said, “Mr. Brandon?” But not in the way an old friend greets another.
“Yes,” I said. “I have an appointment with Mrs. Creedy.”
He took me down a passage, through a door, up some stairs, along another passage, then opened a door and stood aside.
“You should buy yourself a Vespa,” I said, as I moved past him. “It would save your legs.”
He went away smoothly as if he were on wheels, not looking back and with no change of expression. Frivolous remarks were a sprinkle of rain in a desert to him.
I walked into a small room, fitted as an office with filing cabinets and a desk. At the desk was the girl I had seen at the inquest. She was wearing the same grey linen frock, set off by white cuffs and a white collar, and, of course, the rimless glasses.
“Mr. Brandon?”
“How did you know?”
“I recognized you.”
“Oh, yes: we were at the inquest together.”
She flushed a little and looked pretty and slightly confused.
“Will you sit down? Mrs. Creedy won’t keep you long.”
I sat down on an upright chair and tried to look less like a tourist than I knew I looked. I decided I should have gone back to the bungalow and put on my best suit: a shirt and slacks were scarcely the right attire to be in a place like this.
The girl busied herself with a typewriter. Every now and then she looked over the top of her glasses at me as if to assure herself she was seeing a man in shirt-sleeves and slacks and wasn’t just imagining it.
At a quarter past three, I decided not to be pushed around any longer.
I got to my feet.
“Well, thanks for the chair,” I said, with a wide, friendly smile. “It’s been nice breathing the same air as you. It’s been nice too to see how quick you are on the typewriter. Tell Mrs. C. any time she would like to talk to me I can be found in the bungalow out at Arrow Point.” And I started towards the door.
I thought that would get some action and it did.
“Mr. Brandon...”
I paused, turned and looked pleasantly inquiring.
“Yes?”
“I think Mrs. Ceedy will see you now. Please let me go and ask her.”
She looked flustered and worried. In spite of her rimless glasses she was a pretty thing and I didn’t want to distress her.
“Sure, go ahead,” I said, and looked at my watch. “I’ll be out of here in two minutes, so let’s snap it up.”
She crossed the room, opened the door, went into a room and closed the door behind her.
She was gone fifty-five seconds by my watch, then she appeared, holding the door open.
“Mrs. Creedy will see you now.”
As I passed her to enter the room I gave her a quick wink. It may have been my imagination, but I fancied her eyelid flickered in return.
Bridgette Creedy was standing in the bay window that overlooked the rose garden. She was wearing a pale green shirt and yellow slacks. She had the figure for slacks and she knew it.
She turned slowly the way they are taught to turn in Hollywood and gave me a careful, cold stare. This was scene 234 of a heart-throb movie directed by Cecil B. de Mille, complete with the ornate room, rose beds seen through the window and the slightly fading actress who, in the past, has won a number of Oscars and is still considered pretty sound, but possibly slipping.