041
Howard Spencer called me on the following Friday morning. He was at the Ritz-Beverly and suggested I drop over for a drink in the bar. "Better make it in your room," I said. "Very well, if you prefer it. Room 828. I've just talked to Eileen Wade. She seems quite resigned. She has read the script Roger left and says she thinks it can be finished off very easily. It will be a good deal shorter than his other books, but that is balanced by the publicity value. I guess you think we publishers are a pretty callous bunch. Eileen will be home all afternoon. Naturally she wants to see me and I want to see her." "I'll be over in half an hour, Mr. Spencer." He had a nice roomy suite on the west side of the hotel. The living room had tall windows opening on a narrow iron-railed balcony. The furniture was upholstered in some candy-striped material and that with the heavily flowered design of the carpet gave it an old-fashioned air, except that everything you could put a drink down on had a plate glass top and there were nineteen ash trays spotted around. A hotel room is a pretty sharp indication of the manners of the guests. The-Ritz-Beverly wasn't expecting them to have any. Spencer shook hands. "Sit down," he said. "What will you drink?" "Anything or nothing. I don't have to have a drink." "I fancy a glass of Amontillado. California is poor drinking country in the summer. In New York you can handle four times as much for one half the hangover." "I'll take a rye whiskey sour." He went to the phone and ordered. Then he sat down on one of the candy-striped chairs and took off his rimless glasses to polish them on a handkerchief. He put them back on, adjusted them carefully, and looked at me. "I take it you have something on your mind. That's why you wanted to see me up here rather than in the bar." "I'll drive you out to Idle Valley. I'd like to see Mrs. Wade too." He looked a little uncomfortable. "I'm not sure that she wants to see you," he said. "I know she doesn't. I can get in on your ticket." "That would not be very diplomatic of me, would it?" "She tell you she didn't want to see me?" "Not exactly, not in so many words." He cleared his throat. "I get the impression that she blames you for Roger's death." "Yeah. She said that right out — to the deputy who came the afternoon he died. She probably said it to the Sheriff's homicide lieutenant that investigated the death. She didn't say it to the Coroner, however." He leaned back and scratched the inside of his hand with a finger, slowly. It was just a sort of doodling gesture. "What good would it do for you to see her, Marlowe? It was a pretty dreadful experience for her. I imagine her whole life had been pretty dreadful for some time. Why make her live it over? Do you expect to convince her that you didn't miss out a little?" "She told the deputy I killed him." "She couldn't have meant that literally. Otherwise—" The door buzzer rang. He got up to go to the door and open it. The room service waiter came in with the drinks and put them down with as much flourish as if he was serving a seven course dinner. Spencer signed the check and gave him four bits. The guy went away. Spencer picked up his glass of sherry and walked away as if he didn't want to hand me my drink. I let it stay where it was. "Otherwise what?" I asked him. "Otherwise she would have said something to the Coroner, wouldn't she?" He frowned at me. "I think we are talking nonsense. Just what did you want to see me about?" "You wanted to see me." "Only," he said coldy, "because when I talked to you from New York you said I was jumping to conclusions. That implied to me that you had something to explain. Well, what is it?" "I'd like to explain it in front of Mrs. Wade." "I don't care for the idea. I think you had better make your own arrangements. I have a great regard for Eileen Wade. As a businessman I'd like to salvage Roger's work if it can be done. If Eileen feels about you as you suggest, I can't be the means of getting you into her house. Be reasonable." "That's all right," I said. "Forget it. I can get to see her without any trouble. I just thought I'd like to have somebody along with me as a witness." "Witness to what?" he almost snapped at me. "You'll hear it in front of her or you won't hear it at all." "Then I won't hear it at all." I stood up. "You're probably doing the right thing, Spencer. You want that book of Wade's—if it can be used. And you want to be a nice guy. Both laudable ambitions. I don't shame either of them. The best of luck to you and goodbye." He stood up suddenly and started towards me. "Now just a minute, Marlowe. I don't know what's on your mind but you seem to take it hard. Is there some mystery about Roger Wade's death?" "No mystery at all. He was shot through the head with a Webley Hammerless revolver. Didn't you see a report of the inquest?" "Certainly." He was standing close to me now and he looked bothered. "That was in the eastern papers and a couple of days later a much fuller account in the Los Angeles papers. He was alone in the house, although you were not far away. The servants were away, Candy and the cook, and Eileen had been uptown shopping and arrived home just after it happened. At the moment it happened a very noisy motorboat on the lake drowned the sound of the shot, so that even you didn't hear it." "That's correct," I said. "Then the motorboat went away, and I walked back from the lake edge and into the house, heard the doorbell ringing, and opened it to find Eileen Wade had forgotten her keys. Roger was already dead. She looked into the study from the doorway, thought he was asleep on the couch, went up to her room, then out to the kitchen to make some tea. A little later than she did I also looked into the study, noticed there was no sound of breathing, and found out why. In due course I called the law." "I see no mystery," Spencer said quietly, all the sharpness gone from his voice. "It was Roger's own gun, and only the week before he had shot it off in his own room. You found Eileen struggling to get it away from him. His state of mind, his behavior, his depressions over his work—all that was brought out." "She told you the stuff is good. Why should he be depressed over it?" "That's just her opinion, you know. It may be very bad. Or he may have thought it worse than it was. Go on. I'm not a fool. I can see there is more." "The homicide dick who investigated the case is an old friend of mine. He's a bulldog and a bloodhound and an old wise cop. He doesn't like a few things. Why did Roger leave no note—when he was a writing fool? Why did he shoot himself in such a way as to leave the shock of discovery to his wife? Why did he bother to pick the moment when I couldn't hear the gun go off? Why did she forget her house keys so that she had to be let in to the house? Why did she leave him alone on the day the help got off? Remember, she said she didn't know I would be there. If she did, those two cancel out." "My God," Spencer bleated, "are you telling me the damn fool cop suspects Eileen?" "He would if he could think of a motive." "That's ridiculous. Why not suspect you? You had all afternoon. There could have been only a few minutes when she could have done it—and she had forgotten her house keys." "What motive could I have?" He reached back and grabbed my whiskey sour and swallowed it whole. He put the glass down carefully and got a handkerchief out and wiped his lips and his fingers where the chilled glass had moistened them. He put the handkerchief away. He stared at me. "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.