‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Come over to the car where we can talk.’
As I got ready to move he went on, ‘Just a second, pally, I gotta fix up a date with glamour puss. She wants me to read her bumps. Join you in a second.’
I went over to the car, lit a cigarette and waited for him. He came over, rubbing his hands and climbed in beside me.
‘Some doll!’ he said enthusiastically. ‘One little puff of air will blow her over.’
‘Concentrate, you pocket Casanova,’ I said irritably. ‘What have you got?’
‘I haven’t run across one solitary soul who saw Dana last night,’ he said, and leaned over to tap me on the chest. ‘But I’ve found two guys who saw Anita.’
‘Anita?’
‘Yeah. One is the taxi driver who took her to the edge of the dunes. He’ll swear to the flame-coloured evening dress, lie pulled up under a street light and had a good look at her. She interested him because she obviously didn’t want him to recognize her again. He thought it was queer she wanted to be dropped at such a lonely spot and not for him to wait.’
‘What time was this, Ed?’
‘Just after midnight.’
‘And who was the other guy?’
‘A fisherman. He’d just come back from setting lobster pots and saw a woman on her own walking across the dunes. She was too far away for him to see details, but the moon was up and he did notice she was wearing evening dress.’
I flicked my cigarette through the car window.
‘Looks as if Anita was right there when Dana was shot, doesn’t it?’ I said, running my fingers through my hair. ‘No wonder she’s hidden herself away.’
‘It’s a damn funny thing I haven’t been able to pick up Dana’s trail anywhere, isn’t it?’ Benny said, worried. ‘I’ve tried every taxi rank near her place, but no one’s seen her.’
I leaned over the back seat, hoisted up Dana’s coat and skirt and dropped the garments into Benny’s lap.
‘Get a load of this,’ I said.
His red, rubbery face went the colour of weak tea, and he turned to stare at me, clutching at the garments, his eyes complete circles.
‘Jeepers, Vic!’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Hanging in George Barclay’s cupboard.’ I went on to tell him what I had found out about Mills and the house on Beechwood Avenue and showed him Anita’s photograph. He was so shocked by the discovery of Dana’s clothes in Barclay’s cupboard that he didn’t even crackwise over the photograph.
‘Looks as if Barclay did it,’ he said. ‘Maybe that’s the reason why I haven’t picked up her trail. Do you think he shot her at his place, stripped her and took her over to the dunes in his car? Do you think that’s how it was done?’
‘I don’t know, Ed I’m through with jumping to conclusions. Every time I think I’ve got something, something else turns up and kicks the first something to hell. The only way to solve this murder is to collect every scrap of information we can lay our hands on, keep an open mind, and when there’s nothing else to collect, then, and only then, see what we’ve got. I’m going over now to throw a scare into Leadbetter. You’d better come along.’
As I steered the car through the narrow parking lot exit I said, ‘After we have talked to Leadbetter, we’d better go back to the office. We’re collecting a lot of stuff, and if we’re not careful we won’t know how to use it.’
‘Have you any idea why Mills was nosing around in Barclay’s place?’ Benny asked.
‘Not a clue, but I’m glad I got there first. I bet he wouldn’t have missed that photograph. And Ed, I think I’ll get you to take a trip to San Francisco and check up on Anita’s background. It looks to me she was more a showgirl than a mannequin to judge from that picture. You might dig up something interesting.’
Benny reached over the back of the seat and picked the picture off the floor. He studied it as I drove the car along Orchid Boulevard.
‘Well, a doll doesn’t get herself photographed like this for the fun of it,’ he said. ‘These theatrical photographers don’t have such a dull life, do they? Imagine focusing a camera on a honey like this.’
I grunted.
‘Yeah, I think a trip to Frisco might be an idea at that,’ he went on. He held the photograph at arm’s length and squinted at it. ‘I wish she’d wave at me.’
‘Put it away,’ I said shortly. ‘The trouble with you—’
‘It’s not a trouble, pally, it’s a pleasure. It’d be a nice idea to gum this picture to the end of Leadbetter’s telescope. I bet it’d get his mind off bird’s eggs.’
We had reached the end of the Boulevard and were now bumping over the beach road that led to the sand dunes. I had an idea where Leadbetter’s place was. If it was the place. I was thinking of I had seen it from time to time when I had gone out with a party of friends for a day’s bathing. It was a lonely, two-storey cabin of redwood, bleached white by the sun. It stood on a little ridge of high ground, boxed in by a half-circle of blue palmettoes, but with wide, uninterrupted views of the coast, seashore and dunes.
The road petered out about a quarter of a mile from the cabin, and after locking the photograph and Dana’s clothes in the car boot, we set off across the hot, loose sand at an easy pace.
‘The moon was like a searchlight last night,’ I said as we tramped along. ‘If this guy was at his telescope there’s no knowing what he did see.’
‘Are you going to offer him any dough?’ Benny asked.
‘I don’t know. I think the thing to do is to be very tough. If we can get him going he might spill his guts without it costing anything.’
‘If he wasn’t holding out for dough I think Jack would have got him going.’
‘We’ll see.’
We cut through a thicket of red-and-black mangroves, picked our way over the sprawling, elephant-tusk-shaped roots and came out on to the vast stretch of open sand dunes. Fifty yards ahead of us, almost invisible against the row of palmettoes was Leadbetter’s cabin.
On the flat roof, half-concealed by a solid wooden screen, the six-inch lens of the telescope glittered like a ball of fire in the sunshine There was no sign of life nor movement in or around the cabin. It looked as forsaken and as quiet as a cross-eyed girl at a beauty parade.
We sloshed through the sand up to the cracked and weather beaten door. It was full of old, plush-covered furniture, and on the table was the remains of a meal. A greasy looking newspaper served as a tablecloth, and amongst the debris was an interesting-looking earthenware jar that might contain applejack.
Benny rapped on the door which hung open at his touch. We both peered into the dirty, sordid little room while we waited. Nothing happened; no one came to answer our knock.
‘Probably looking for a quail’s nest or watching some doll take a sunbath,’ Benny said.
‘Maybe he’s up on the roof.’
We stepped back and looked up, but all we could see was the glittering eye of the telescope pointing out to sea. Benny unleashed a whistle that sent a Pock of ibis flapping out of the mangroves, but it didn’t produce Leadbetter.
‘Let’s go up on the roof,’ I said. ‘We might be able to spot him through the telescope.’
‘That’s a hot idea,’ Benny said. ‘We might be able to spot something else besides old Snoopy.’
We entered the cabin, climbed the rickety stairs to the second floor. On the landing was a ladder that led to a trapdoor and the roof.
I mounted the three rungs of the ladder, heaved on the trapdoor and it went up with a crash. Hot sunlight poured down on me as I swung myself up the rest of the ladder to the roof. Benny followed mc.
We stood motionless, looking at the big telescope on its brass-wheeled stand. There was a wooden box for a seat set behind the apparatus, and a crate of bee and a lot of empty bottles close by. It was hot up there, and a great swarm of flies buzzed angrily away from us, swarmed above us and then went back to their gruesome meal.