“I don’t.”
“This false arrest business would never do, you understand that.”
“Quite.” He didn’t remind her that he’d said the same thing himself, at least twice.
“Virginia can be very persuasive. I... I beg of you not to pay any attention to her. She doesn’t realize the consequences of such a thing — more publicity and investigations, policemen prying into things.”
“What things?”
“Everything,” she said, spreading her small plump hands. “Paul has suffered enough. Crank phone calls and letters, and reporters stopping him on the street.”
“It will all blow over.”
“Not if Virginia does anything further. Like this suit she wants to start.”
“No lawyer would touch it.”
It was his third or fourth reassurance. “That’s a relief,” she said, and Meecham thought the subject was closed until she added, “Why does Virginia want money so badly?”
“You’d better ask her.”
“She’d lie.”
“Maybe.”
“Not that she’s a liar, a real liar, but she’s secretive sometimes because she doesn’t understand how completely sympathetic I am to her.” She repeated the word completely with emphasis, as if denying an unspoken accusation of lack of sympathy. “I understand her, she’s my girl. We’ve always been very close.”
“I see that.”
“Tell me frankly, Mr. Meecham. Did you examine any of the reports about Virginia?”
“What reports?”
“While she was in — while she was there, they must have asked her questions, given her tests, things like that. They usually do, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know how they — turned out?”
“No.”
“I thought since you were... Well, it doesn’t really matter. Virginia’s normal, of course. A little spoiled, but completely normal.”
“I agree,” Meecham said. It was futile to say anything else.
Mrs. Hamilton looked at him gratefully. She had received the answer she wanted and now it was time to change the subject before Meecham could reverse or modify his answer. She said, “It’s been a sordid business. I’m glad it’s over, and I suppose you are too.”
“In a way.”
“Send me your bill as soon as possible. I don’t know how long I’ll be staying here. Or I can pay you right now, if you like, in cash.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Somewhere in the house a telephone rang, twice.
“You’ll come to our little celebration dinner tonight, Mr. Meecham?”
“Thanks, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it.” He never wanted to set foot in that house again, to be subtly imprisoned by a soft chair and a glass table and a quiet frantic woman. “I have some business to attend to.”
“Of course. You must have other clients, hundreds.”
“A few, anyway.”
“This man, Loftus. He’ll undoubtedly get a good lawyer?”
“Money or no money, he’ll get a lawyer of some kind.”
“Why do you say, money or no money?”
“If he can’t afford to pay, the court will appoint two lawyers for the defense. There’s no Public Defender here as there is in Los Angeles.”
“I didn’t realize we had such a thing. I’ve never had occasion to be interested in — matters like that.”
Quick light footsteps sounded in the hall, and a moment later Alice appeared in the doorway. She looked as if she had been working. Her hair was drawn back tightly behind her ears and tied with a blue ribbon, and she wore an apron that reached almost to her ankles. Her face was warm and flushed and pretty.
Mrs. Hamilton frowned, faintly but pointedly, in Alice’s direction, like a mother silencing a little girl, warning her not to interrupt while the grownups were talking. Or, if she had to interrupt, at least to remove her apron first.
“My dear Alice,” she said, “what have you been doing?”
“Cleaning.”
“You know perfectly well you’re not expected to do any of the household work.”
“I don’t mind. And it needed doing.”
Mrs. Hamilton turned to Meecham with a smile that seemed forced. “Now what would you do with a girl like that?”
“I don’t know,” Meecham said. He felt, quite irrationally, that Alice’s appearance had changed something in the room, broken a tension, snapped an invisible wire. He got up from the chair, pushing the glass table away until its bamboo legs shrieked in protest. The table was lighter than he thought.
Alice was watching him gravely from the doorway. “Your office called, Mr. Meecham. You’re to drop in there after you talk to Mr. Loftus.”
“Thank you.”
In the silence that followed Meecham could hear the ivy-planted wall bracket still dripping, very slowly and softly, like the final blood from a death wound.
Mrs. Hamilton had risen too, to face Meecham. “I think you might be quite a clever and devious creature, Mr. Meecham.”
“So is a weasel, so I won’t bother thanking you for that, Mrs. Hamilton.”
“You’ve been stringing me along,” she said in a cold flat voice. “You’re going to be Loftus’ lawyer, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“You can lie about it. Go on. Everybody else lies.”
“I’m not lying.”
“How can I believe you? How can I believe anybody?” She crossed the room, moving with agonizing slowness like a deep-sea diver forcing his leaden feet across the ocean floor, fighting a pressure he can’t see or understand. “I... Alice, I think I’ll go up to my room and rest awhile. Please see that Mr. Meecham is — looked after.”
Meecham watched her until she disappeared around a corner of the hall. Then he turned his head and looked at Alice, and in that moment he had two wishes, diverging in means, but with a common purpose: to get Alice away from that house. His first wish was that he had a mother or a father or a family of some kind so that he could invite Alice to stay with them. Since he had no family at all, he wished that Mrs. Hamilton would take Alice and board the earliest plane for home. Some day, some remote day when he had surplus time and money, he might go to see her. She might be married, by that time, married and with a couple of children; a placid contented matron, shopping, going to movies, lying in the sun. This projection into the future was so vivid, his sense of loss so acute, that he felt a tide of rage rise in him, rise and ebb, leaving a taste of salt.
He said, abruptly, “When are you leaving for home?”
“You mean L.A.?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. Mrs. Hamilton hasn’t told me.”
“You could tell her. Tell her you want to leave.”
“But I don’t want to,” she protested.
“Have you seen Virginia?”
“Yes, a few minutes ago, with Carney.”
“Suppose I told you I think Virginia is dangerous?”
“Are you trying to scare me? I don’t understand. Everything is all right now, isn’t it? Everything’s been settled?” She took a step back, away from him. “Or has it? Why are you going to see Loftus if you’re not his lawyer?”
“Because he asked me to.”
“As an old pal?”
“More or less.”
“You never saw him before last night, does that make you an old pal?”
“He thought I had an honest face,” Meecham said, “so I became his old pal right away. It happens, now and then, especially to a lonely guy in trouble. I’m a lonely guy myself and I’ve been in trouble, so I know a little about these things.” He put on his coat. “Nobody seems to like the idea of me talking to Loftus. I wonder why.”
“I don’t care, one way or the other. I was just puzzled.” She thrust her hands deep into the pockets of the oversize apron. “I guess I’m getting suspicious of everybody. I don’t know why.”