If Jean Putnam had been trying to direct me to the chapel, I had no idea why. The place was barren, almost cold feeling now. No candles burned. The air was stale. I was of the opinion that the chapel hadn’t been opened since the old lady had died.
I closed the door, turned, and moved on. The hallway right-angled, paralleling the outside portico. I could look through the windows, under the portico arches, and see the preparations for the festivities going on outside.
I was in a bedroom wing with southern exposure, the likely location of the old señora’s boudoir. I decided that the old lady would have chosen a large corner room, the one at the end of the wing.
I moved quickly on the strength of the hunch, tried a door, found it unlocked. I left the door open to admit light from outside and let my eyes get used to the gloom.
A wheel chair of lightweight aluminum tubing was standing near the tall windows. I decided this was the place. The bed was vast, sheltered by a canopy on its four posters. The other furniture was as solid as carved stone.
Searching rapidly, I covered the bedroom, the adjoining dressing room and bath, and the little sun-sitting room adjacent on the other side of the huge master room.
Except for the wheel chair, there was no evidence of the old woman’s ever having lived here. Not even a loose hairpin in a drawer. The room was a tomb, musty from being closed, without its corpse.
I stood in the middle of the room for a few seconds, thinking about it. They’d certainly wiped out the memory of her, leaving not even a portrait on the walls. And yet... neither Keith Sigmon nor Elena had moved into the room. It was almost as if they were afraid of the old woman; or maybe Keith Sigmon was determined to convince himself she had never existed.
I re-entered the hallway and figured how an old lady would have wanted her household arranged. Her secretary-companion must naturally be placed nearby. So I retraced my way a few yards down the hallway and opened a door on a room that had been converted into a sort of combination study and office. There was a desk, a three-drawer filing cabinet, a typewriter on a small metal typewriter table, a matching couch and chair.
None of the filing cabinet or desk drawers was locked. All were empty. The same meticulous vacuum had erased every trace of a girl named Jean Putnam ever having worked here.
I got the pattern. I went into the next room, which I guessed had been Jean Putnam’s bedroom, out of force of habit from years of being in my profession.
The pattern wasn’t broken. The bedroom had the same lack of sign of human habitation. Nothing in this entire portion of the house remained of the days, weeks, and months when an old woman had hired a very nice young woman to do personal chores.
The honking of a car horn and a burst of laughter drifted to me from outside. I came out of Jean Putnam’s bedroom, walked down the hallway to the el, opened a door, and stepped onto the portico.
I was in a shadowed corner, not easily seen. Beyond the courtyard, half a dozen cars were pulling to a stop in the driveway. Laughing, chattering people were spilling out. Several were in costume. The men were pirates or Spanish grandees. The sleek dames were something else again, in señorita outfits with cleavage to the belly button, or poured into wispy piratess costumes that looked as if they’d been painted on.
From the way they were already letting down their hair, I guessed the gang was continuing a party that had started with cocktails someplace else. They paused at the bar and began drifting inside, where the musician had got his combo together and given them a downbeat.
I didn’t spot Keith and Elena Sigmon right away, and I didn’t hang around to do so. I went down the shadowed portico, skirted the courtyard, and headed toward my car.
I was within a few yards of the jalopy when a car stopped near by. Two men and a woman got out. One of the men said, “It’s Rivers!... Hello, there.”
Nervously quick footsteps came toward me. When a man drew closer I saw that it was Van Clavery. Coming forward behind him were his wife and Fred Eppling.
None of the three was in costume. Clavery and the lawyer wore dark business suits. Natalie Clavery had on an expensively simple cocktail dress that gave her a sleek allure not dependent on the exposure of naked flesh.
Clavery looked at me hopefully. “Were you looking for me?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t.”
His lean, tense face went swiftly dismal. His sandy brows pulled together. “Seeing you... I thought you might have found the old señora’s missing brief case.”
Natalie Clavery and Fred Eppling reached Clavery’s side. We nodded hellos.
“Not yet,” I told Clavery. “As a matter of fact, the brief case isn’t the only disappearing item.”
“What else?”
“A diary,” I said. “It belonged to Jean Putnam. It was handed over to Ben McJunkin by Lura Thackery.”
Clavery grabbed my arm. “Then you were looking for Lura. Have you talked with her? She might have had a look at whatever Jean had written.”
“McJunkin had the same idea,” I said. “He reached Lura before I did.”
Clavery recoiled, jerking his hand from my arm. Fred Eppling gasped. Natalie Clavery’s face turned to carven ivory. In a controlled voice, she said, “Lura is dead?”
“So recently,” I said, “it hasn’t had time to make the newscasts.”
“Is there any doubt that McJunkin did it?”
“I don’t think so. He was the tool, the instrument.”
“Poor Lura,” Natalie said. Her voice had a strange lack of feeling, as if her inner control were taking her beyond human emotion. “She was the ’fraidy-cat, Rivers. She died without ever having really lived.”
Very slowly, the cool, sleek woman turned her head to look toward the house. “The brief case, the meaning of all the violence, is still in there.”
“You seem very sure,” I said.
“Where else?” She faced me directly. “There is a way of making sure.”
Her husband was too immersed in his own nerves to notice the hard sheen on her eyes.
Thirteen
Eppling sensed the thing working in her. He glanced at me with concern.
“Have you been in the house?” he said.
I hesitated, then admitted that I had.
“Rivers is a professional,” Eppling told Natalie Clavery. “If Van’s confession and promissory note were still in there, Rivers would have found them.”
She looked at him with a touch of bitterness and contempt. “The Sigmons wouldn’t leave such things where even Rivers would find them. But there is a way...”
“I’m not Houdini,” I conceded. Divorced from my words was a thought: Clavery, take notice and have care with this woman. Clavery, for your sake, your wife has reached the point where she is dangerous.
“Anyway,” I added, “I didn’t have much time.”
“Why not take a little more?” Clavery said, brightening slightly.
“Yes.” Eppling nodded. “You might go in as we go.”
“Drift into any part of the house you like!” Clavery said.
I looked at the molded perfection of Natalie’s profile. “What do you say?”
“I don’t think you’ll find what you’re after.”
“It’s worth a try,” Clavery insisted.
Natalie continued to look at me. “If Keith Sigmon catches you prowling, he’ll have you jailed.”
“Fred will get a writ,” Clavery said. “He’d have you out immediately.”
“After facing a man like Ben McJunkin,” Eppling said drily, “I don’t think jail holds any terrors for Rivers.”
I studied Natalie a moment longer; then I turned and headed toward the house.