"Is the investigation still going on?"
"Couldn't say. One thing is sure. They know by now whether he had drunk enough hooch to pass him out. If he had, there may still be trouble."
"And you want to talk to her," he said slowly, "in the presence of a witness."
"That's right."
"That means only one of two things to me, Marlowe. Either you are badly scared or you think she ought to be."
I nodded.
"Which one?" he asked grimly.
"I'm not scared."
He looked at his watch. "I hope to God you're crazy."
We looked at each other in silence.
42
North through Coldwater Canyon it began to get hot. When we topped the rise and started to wind down to. wards the San Fernando Valley it was breathless and blazing. I looked sideways at Spencer. He had a vest on, but the heat didn't seem to bother him. He had something else to bother him a lot more. He looked straight ahead through the windshield and said nothing. The valley had a thick layer of smog nuzzling down on it. From above it looked like a ground mist and then we were in it and it jerked Spencer out of his silence.
"My God, I thought Southern California had a dimate," he said. "What are they doing-burning old truck tires?"
"It'll be all right in Idle Valley," I told him soothingly. "They get an ocean breeze in there."
"I'm glad they get something besides drunk," he said. "From what I've seen of the local crowd in the rich suburbs I think Roger made a tragic mistake in coming out here to live. A writer needs stimulation-and not the kind they bottle. There's nothing around here but one great big suntanned hangover. I'm referring to the upper crust people of course."
I turned off and slowed down for the dusty stretch to the entrance of Idle Valley, then hit the paving again and in a little while the ocean breeze made itself felt, drifting down through the gap in the hills at the far end of the lake. High sprinklers revolved over the big smooth lawns and the water made a swishing sound as it licked at the grass. By this time most of the well-heeled people were away somewhere else. You could tell by the shuttered look of the houses and the way the gardener's truck was parked smack in the middle of the driveway. Then we reached the Wades' place and I swung through the gateposts and stopped behind Eileen's Jaguar. Spencer got out and marched stolidly across the fiagstones to the portico of the house. He rang the bell and the door opened almost at once. Candy was there in the white jacket and the dark good-looking -face and the sharp black eyes. Everything was in order.
Spencer went in. Candy gave me a brief look and nearly shut the door in my face. I waited and nothing happened. I leaned on the bell and heard the chimes. The door swung wide and Candy came out snarling.
"Beat it! Turn blue. You want a knife in the belly?"
"I came to see Mrs. Wade."
"She don't want any part of you."
"Out of my way, peasant. I got business here."
"Candy!" It was her voice, and it was sharp. He gave me a final scowl and backed -into the house. I went in and shut the- door. She was standing at the end of one of the facing davenports, and Spencer was standing beside her. She looked like a million. She had white slacks on, very high-waisted, and a white sport shirt with half sleeves, and a lilac-colored handkerchief budding from the pocket over her left breast.
"Candy is getting rather dictatorial lately," she said to Spencer. "It's so good to see you, Howard. And so nice of you to come all this way. I didn't realize you were bringing someone with you."
"Marlowe drove me out," Spencer said. "Also he wanted to see you."
"I can't imagine why," she said coolly. Finally she looked at me, but not as if not seeing me for a week had lMt an emptiness in her life. "Well?"
"It's going to take a little time," I said.
She sat down slowly. I sat down on the other davenport. Spencer was frowning. He took his glasses off and polished them. That gave him a chance to frown more naturally, Then he sat on the other end of the davenport from me.
"I was sure you would come in time for lunch," she told him, smiling.
"Not today, thanks."
"No? Well, of course if you are too busy. Then you just want to see that script."
"If I may."
"Of course. Candy! Oh, he's gone. It's on the desk in Roger's study. I'll get it."
Spencer stood up. "May I get it?"
Without waiting for an answer he started across the room. Ten feet behind her he stopped and gave me a strained look. Then he went on. I just sat there and waited until her head came around and her eyes gave me a cool impersonal stare.
"What was it you wanted to see me about?" she asked curtly.
"This and that. I see you are wearing that pendant again.
"I often wear it. It was given to me by a very dear friend a long time ago."
"Yeah. You told me. It's a British military badge of some sort, isn't it?"
She held it out at the end of the thin chain. "It's a jeweler's reproduction of one. Smaller than the original and in gold and enamel"
Spencer came back across the room and sat down again and put a thick pile of yellow paper on the corner of the cocktail table in front of him. He glanced at it idly, then his eyes were watching Eileen.
"Could I look at it a little doser?" I asked her.
She pulled the chain around until she could unfasten the dasp. She handed the pendant to me, or rather she dropped it in my hand. Then she folded -her hands in her lap and just looked curious. "Why are you so interested? It's the badge of a regiment called the Artists Rifles, a Territorial regiment. The man who gave it to me was lost soon afterwards. At Andalsnes in Norway, in the spring of that terrible year-1940." She smiled and made a brief gesture with one hand. "He was in love with me."
"Eileen was in London all through the Blitz," Spencer said in an empty voice. "She couldn't get away."
We both ignored Spencer. "And you were in love with him," I said.
She looked down and then raised her head and our glances locked. "It was -a long time ago," she said. "And there was a war. Strange things happen."
"There was a little more to it than that, Mrs. Wade. I guess you forget how much you opened up about him. 'The wild mysterious improbable kind of love that never comes but once.' I'm quoting you. In a way you're still in love with him. It's darn nice of me to have the same initials. I suppose that had something to do with your picking me out."
"His name was nothing like yours," she said coldly. "And he is dead, dead, dead."
I held the gold and enamel pendant out to Spencer. He took it reluctantly. "I've seen it before," he muttered.
"Check me on the design," I said. "It consists of a broad dagger in white enamel with a gold edge. The dagger points downwards and the flat of the blade crosses in front of a pair of upward-curling pale blue enamel wings. Then it crosses in back of a scroll. On the scroll are the words: WHO DARES WINS."
"That seems to be correct," he said. "What makes it important?"
"She says it's a badge of the Artists Rifles, a Territorial outfit. She says it was-given to her by a man who was in that outfit and was lost in the Norwegian campaign with the British Army in the spring of 1940 at Andaisnes."
I had their attention. Spencer watched me steadily. I wasn't talking to the birds and he knew it. Eileen knew it too. Her tawny eyebrows were crimped in a puzzled frown which could have been genuine. It was also unfriendly.
"This is a sleeve badge," I said. "It came into existence because the Artists Rifles were made over or attached or seconded or whatever the correct term is into a Special Air Service Outfit. They had originally been a Territorial Regiment of infantry. This badge didn't even exist until 1947. Therefore nobody gave it to Mrs. Wade in 1940. Also, no Artists Rifles were landed at Andalsnes in Norway in 1940. Sherwood Foresters and Leicestershires, yes. Both Territorial. Artists Rifles, no. Am I being nasty?"