“How were you cheated, Captain?”
“I’m not sure I can explain. My lawyer could. But the case is pending before the Real Estate Commission, and I doubt that he would be willing to discuss it with you. It’s nothing to do with this missing girl of yours, in any case.”
“I’m not too sure of that.”
“Well, if you insist. Sit down, sir.”
He picked up a Yachting magazine which lay open on a chair, waved me into the chair with it and sat down opposite me:
“Mrs. Mandeville died last spring and very shortly afterward my housekeeper left: it seems she couldn’t stand my temper unalloyed by Mrs. Mandeville’s presence. I decided to sell my house in Atherton and move into cozier quarters. This fellow Merriman got wind of my intention, I don’t know how, and approached me. He offered to sell my house for me and give me a fifty per cent kickback on the commission. I’m not a businessman, and I didn’t realize that the very offer was illegal. Merriman represented it as a favor from one old Navy man to another; he’d been in the Reserve during the last war.
“I don’t know how he got in. The man’s a rascal. I didn’t know that at the time, of course. I’ve found out since, from a friend in the Bureau of Personnel, that he was asked to resign his commission in 1945. He was a supply officer stationed in the Eleventh District at the time, and he was using his position to sell San Diego building lots to enlisted men. In addition to which, he had unpaid gambling debts – the man’s an inveterate gambler.
“Unfortunately for me, I knew nothing of all this when I gave him authority to sell my house for me. He came to the house at my invitation and looked the place over. He pretended not to be greatly impressed. In fact, he bore down heavily on its drawbacks – the old-fashioned plumbing, the need for repainting and decorating, that sort of thing. With the current tightness of money, he told me I would be lucky to sell the house and land for fifty thousand dollars.
“It sounded to me like a reasonable figure. When I had the place built, some thirty years ago, it cost me no more than twenty-five thousand, including the acreage. I’m no student of real-estate values, and a hundred per cent profit seemed a veritable bonanza.
“Besides,” he added, “I was keen to get out of there. I built the house for Mrs. Mandeville, and after she went the place was a whispering gallery of memories. I sold it to the first man who made an offer. He offered me the full fifty thousand, and I took it gratefully.”
“What man was that?”
“I’m afraid his name escapes me. He claimed to be a radio executive who was being transferred from Los Angeles. He was transferred, all right,” the old man said grimly. “I’ve learned since that he was a disc jockey, so-called, on some minor radio station in the South. The station fired him for accepting payments from record companies. He’d been on the Peninsula for some time, looking for a job, and he’d often been seen in Merriman’s company.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I have friends,” he said. “I asked my friends to make some discreet inquiries, belatedly. They discovered that a few days after this fellow bought my house from me for fifty thousand he turned around and resold it to Mrs. Wycherly for seventy-five. Merriman handled both deals, of course. He double-escrowed the property, as they say.”
“Was your first buyer acting as a stand-in for Merriman?”
“That is what we strongly suspect. My lawyer and I have asked the Real Estate Commission to look into it. I’ve always hated litigation, but when a man’s been defrauded of nearly a third of his capital–” Overcome with outrage, he couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Who is your lawyer, Captain?”
“Chap named John Burns, completely dependable, I’ve known Burns at the Yacht Club for years. He tells me this isn’t the first time that Merriman has been suspected of double dealing. I’m determined that it shall be the last.”
“What does Mr. Burns think of your chances of getting your money back?”
“We have a fair chance, he believes, if the thieves still have the money. It’s hard to deal with these fly-by-nights, but we intend to bring the utmost legal pressure on Merriman. Unless he refunds the difference to me, he’s bound to lose his license. He may, anyway.”
“Did Merriman know this?”
“Presumably. I told his wife. I went to his house last week and tried to talk to him, but he slipped out the back way. The woman tried to tell me that his skill in salesmanship was what made the difference in the price, that my house was only worth fifty thousand dollars after all. But I happen to know that they had it listed again last week, at eighty!” He pounded his knee with his veined fist. “God damn them to hell, they’re nothing but sea-lawyers. Sea-lawyers, salesmen, paid liars, are taking over the country!”
The Captain’s face had turned the color of cordovan. “I shouldn’t attempt to talk about it. It’s too hard on my coronaries. Let the law take care of Merriman and his cohorts.”
“Have you ever thought of taking care of him yourself?”
His hot eyes turned frosty. “I don’t understand you, sir.”
“I heard you threatened Merriman with a gun.”
“I don’t deny it. I thought I could frighten him into honesty. But he wouldn’t even talk to me face to face. He hid behind his wife’s skirts–”
“Have you seen him today, Captain Mandeville?”
“No. I haven’t seen him for some time. I take no pleasure in the sight of him, and my lawyer advised me not to approach him again.”
“Did you?”
“Certainly not. What are you getting at, sir?”
“Merriman was beaten to death within the last three hours, in your old house on Whiteoaks Avenue.”
His face went pale in patches. “Beaten to death? It’s a dreadful thing to say about any man, but I can’t say I’m sorry.”
“Did you do it, Captain, or have it done?”
“I did not. The accusation is outrageous, outlandish.”
“His widow is making it, though. You can expect a visit from the police before long. Can you account for the last three hours?”
“I resent the question.”
“No matter. I have to ask it.”
“But I don’t have to answer it.”
“No.”
He rose trembling. “Then I’ll ask you to leave. I’ll be glad to explain myself to the duly constituted authorities.”
I hoped he could.
Chapter 10
The highway ran across flatland, prairie-like under the moon, to the edge of the Sacramento River. In the queer pale light the abrupt bridge which spanned the river resembled the approach to an ancient fortified city. The slums on the other side of the river didn’t do much to dispel the illusion. The night girls prowling the late streets, the furtive men in the doorways, looked sunk and lost forever in deep time.
The Champion Hotel was on the edge of the slums. It hadn’t subsided into them yet, but it appeared to be slipping. It was a narrow six-story building with a grimy stone face, put up around the turn of the century, when it had probably been a good family hotel. Now it had the air of a place where you could get cheap lodging without amenities you couldn’t afford: a place for one-night stands and last stands.
In a bar-and-grill next door people were singing “Auld Lang Syne.” An old man wearing a faded maroon uniform and a stubble of beard was guarding the unbesieged door of the Champion. He crossed the sidewalk on mincing feet. His shoes had been cut across the toes to make room for bunions, and his voice rose through his withered body like the audible complaint of the bunions themselves: