Silliman forced the words out: “Did you take the Chardin home with you last night?”
“I did not. Is it gone?”
“It’s missing from the gallery,” Alice said. She held herself uncertainly, as though the old man frightened her a little. “We thought you might have taken it.”
“Me take it? That’s absurd! Absolutely absurd and preposterous!” The short white hair bristled on his head. “When was it taken?”
“We don’t know. It was gone when we opened the gallery. We discovered it just now.”
“God damn it, what goes on?” He glared at her and then he glared at me, from eyes like round blue gun muzzles. “And who the hell are you?”
He was only a retired admiral, and I’d been out of uniform for years, but he gave me a qualm. Alice put in: “A friend of Hugh’s, Father. Mr. Archer.” He didn’t offer his hand. I looked away. A woman in a white bathing suit was poised on the ten-foot board at the end of the pool. She took three quick steps and a bounce. Her body hung jack-knifed in the air, straightened and dropped, cut the water with hardly a splash.
“Where is Hugh?” the Admiral said petulantly. “If this is some of his carelessness, I’ll ream the bastard.”
“Father!”
“Don’t father me. Where is he, Allie? You ought to know if anyone does.”
“But I don’t.” She added in a small voice: “He’s been gone all night.”
“He has?” The old man sat down suddenly, as if his legs were too weak to bear the weight of his feelings. “He didn’t say anything to me about going away.”
The woman in the white bathing suit came up the steps behind him. “Who’s gone away?” she said.
The Admiral craned his wattled neck to look at her. She was worth the effort from anyone, though she wouldn’t see thirty again. Her dripping body was tanned and disciplined, full in the right places and narrow in the others. I didn’t remember her face, but her shape seemed familiar. Silliman introduced her as Admiral Turner’s wife. When she pulled off her rubber cap, her red hair flared like a minor conflagration.
“You won’t believe what they’ve been telling me, Sarah. My Chardin’s been stolen.”
“Which one?”
“I’ve only the one. The ‘Apple on a Table’.”
She turned on Silliman like a pouncing cat. “Is it insured?”
“For twenty-five thousand dollars. But I’m afraid it’s irreplaceable.”
“And who’s gone away?”
“Hugh has,” Alice said. “Of course it’s nothing to do with the picture.”
“You’re sure?” She turned to her husband with an intensity that made her almost ungainly. “Hugh was at the gallery when you dropped in there last night. You told me so yourself. And hasn’t he been trying to buy the Chardin?”
“I don’t believe it,” Alice said flatly. “He didn’t have the money.”
“I know that perfectly well. He was acting as agent for someone. Wasn’t he, Johnston?”
“Yes,” the old man admitted. “He wouldn’t tell me who his principal was, which is one of the reasons I wouldn’t listen to the offer. Still, it’s foolish to jump to conclusions about Hugh. I was with him when he left the gallery, and I know for a fact he didn’t have the Chardin. It was the last thing I looked at.”
“What time did he leave you?”
“Some time around eight – I don’t remember exactly.” He seemed to be growing older and smaller under her questioning. “He walked with me as far as my car.”
“There was nothing to prevent him from walking right back.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to prove,” Alice said.
The older woman smiled poisonously. “I’m simply trying to bring out the facts, so we’ll know what to do. I notice that no one has suggested calling in the police.” She looked at each of the others in turn. “Well? Do we call them? Or do we assume as a working hypothesis that dear Hugh took the picture?”
Nobody answered her for a while. The Admiral finally broke the ugly silence. “We can’t bring in the authorities if Hugh’s involved. He’s virtually a member of the family.”
Alice put a grateful hand on his shoulder, but Silliman said uneasily, “We’ll have to take some steps. If we don’t make an effort to recover it, we may not be able to collect the insurance.”
“I realize that,” the Admiral said. “We’ll have to take that chance.”
Sarah Turner smiled with tight-lipped complacency. She’d won her point, though I still wasn’t sure what her point was. During the family argument I’d moved a few feet away, leaning on the railing at the head of the stairs and pretending not to listen.
She moved towards me now, her narrow eyes appraising me as if maleness was a commodity she prized.
“And who are you?” she said, her sharp smile widening.
I identified myself. I didn’t smile back. But she came up very close to me. I could smell the chlorine on her, and under it the not so very subtle odor of sex.
“You look uncomfortable,” she said. “Why don’t you come swimming with me?”
“My hydrophobia won’t let me. Sorry.”
“What a pity. I hate to do things alone.”
Silliman nudged me gently. He said in an undertone: “I really must be getting back to the gallery. I can call a cab if you prefer.”
“No, I’ll drive you.” I wanted a chance to talk to him in private.
There were quick footsteps in the patio below. I looked down and saw the naked crown of Hilary Todd’s head. At almost the same instant he glanced up at us. He turned abruptly and started to walk away, then changed his mind when Silliman called down.
“Hello there. Are you looking for the Turners?”
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
From the corner of my eye, I noticed Sarah Turner’s reaction to the sound of his voice. She stiffened, and her hand went up to her flaming hair.
“They’re up here,” Silliman said.
Todd climbed the stairs with obvious reluctance. We passed him going down. In a pastel shirt and a matching tie under a bright tweed jacket he looked very elegant, and very self-conscious and tense. Sarah Turner met him at the head of the stairs. I wanted to linger a bit, for eavesdropping purposes, but Silliman hustled me out.
“Mrs. Turner seems very much aware of Todd,” I said to him in the car. “Do they have things in common?”
He answered tartly: “I’ve never considered the question. They’re no more than casual acquaintances, so far as I know.”
“What about Hugh? Is he just a casual acquaintance of hers, too?”
He studied me for a minute as the convertible picked up speed. “You notice things, don’t you?”
“Noticing things is my business.”
“Just what is your business? You’re not an artist?”
“Hardly. I’m a private detective.”
“A detective?” He jumped in the seat, as if I had offered to bite him. “You’re not a friend of Western’s then? Are you from the insurance company?”
“Not me. I’m a friend of Hugh’s, and that’s my only interest in this case. I more or less stumbled into it.”
“I see.” But he sounded a little dubious.
“Getting back to Mrs. Turner – she didn’t make that scene with her husband for fun. She must have had some reason. Love or hate.”
Silliman held his tongue for a minute, but he couldn’t resist a chance to gossip. “I expect that it’s a mixture of love and hate. She’s been interested in Hugh ever since the Admiral brought her here. She’s not a San Marcos girl, you know.” He seemed to take comfort from that. “She was a Wave officer in Washington during the war. The Admiral noticed her – Sarah knows how to make herself conspicuous – and added her to his personal staff. When he retired he married her and came here to live in his family home. Alice’s mother has been dead for many years. Well, Sarah hadn’t been here two months before she was making eyes at Hugh.” He pressed his lips together in spinsterly disapproval. “The rest is local history.”