It was, on the whole, exactly the kind of funeral Rose would have liked, since it left everyone in a state of confusion. Pickering finally exhausted himself and sat down; Malgradi locked himself in his office and took two stiff drinks of the sherry he kept to revive female mourners attacked by fainting spells; and Dalloway remarked sourly to the man sitting next to him that the whole thing had been a farce.
The man next to him happened to be Willett. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said it was a farce.”
Willett’s eyes were rimmed with pink and a little swollen. Willett often cried on melancholy occasions and at sad movies while Ethel chewed gum.
He gave Dalloway a cold look. “A farce, sir? I don’t agree.”
“You’re Mr. Goodfield, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“My name is Haley Dalloway. I was hoping I might meet you here today.”
“You were? Well... that is... this is my wife, Ethel. Ethel, Mr. Dalloway.”
Ethel parked her gum deftly beside a molar and acknowledged the introduction with a dreamy smile. She knew who Dalloway was and she tried to warn Willett by kicking him quite smartly on the left shinbone, a gesture that produced no reaction from Willett except pain.
“The fact is,” Dalloway said, “I’m not satisfied with the results of the inquest. Are you?”
“I... well, I haven’t thought about it. I mean to say, it’s not my business.”
“Justice is everybody’s business.”
“Oh, quite, quite. But—”
“I have a strong suspicion that there’s foul play involved and that it’s being hushed up.”
“Do you really think so?” Ethel murmured. “Isn’t that interesting.”
“It’s more than interesting. I think something should be done about it.”
“Willett would be just thrilled to do something, wouldn’t you, Willett?”
Willett denied this with some vigor. “I would not. For heaven’s sake, Ethel, I’m not a policeman, I’m a businessman.”
“So am I,” Dalloway said. “My business is lumber. What’s yours, Mr. Goodfield?”
“Dolls. That is, we manufacture dolls. The Horace Goodfield Doll Corporation of California.”
“Let me explain my interest. You see, Rose French was my first wife and the mother of my daughter. I came here looking for them.” Dalloway paused a moment. “Do you know a young man called Frank Clyde?”
“I believe I... yes, yes, he was one of the witnesses yesterday.”
“He has a curious story to tell. Would you like to hear it?”
“No,” Willett said decisively. “I mean to say, this isn’t the time or place—”
“Clyde claims he talked to Rose on the telephone a couple of hours after she died. Now Clyde seems to me to be a very sensible young fellow. It isn’t likely that he was mistaken about the time, no matter what the jury decided. But it’s quite possible that he was mistaken about the voice.”
“Voice?”
“On the telephone. It’s my conviction that he didn’t talk to Rose at all, but to an impostor. Someone, for reasons I can’t fathom, imitated Rose on the telephone.”
“Isn’t that interesting,” Ethel said. “Well, we’d better be leaving now, everybody else is. It’s been so nice meeting you, Mr. Dalloway, and we hope you’ll come out to the house and see us sometime, don’t we, Willett?”
Willett didn’t answer.
“Don’t we, Willett?”
“Oh, certainly, by all means.” Willett reached underneath the folding chair for his hat. “Be delighted.”
People had started to file out, talking quietly among themselves. In five minutes they were all gone. Malgradi cut the organ music, paid the Reverend Pickering off in cash and harsh words, and went in to see Rose. He stood beside the casket with his hands clasped and his head bowed.
“Please excuse the bungling, dear Lord, and accept this woman into your heavenly kingdom where she may see the light that she did not see on earth. Thank you. Amen.”
9
Dalloway spent a restless night. The people in the adjoining suite gave a party and there was a woman in the crowd whose full, hearty laughter reminded him of the way Rose used to laugh.
In the morning he phoned Captain Greer at his office.
“This is Haley Dalloway, Captain.”
“Yes, Dalloway.”
“I may as well say it before you do — I have this Goodfield family on my brain.”
“I hardly envy you.”
“As far as you’re concerned, I expect this business about Rose is finished.”
“It’s finished,” Greer said, “because there’s simply nothing to go on with.”
“You could be wrong.”
“I often am. You’re at liberty to correct me if you can.”
“That’s the trouble. I have nothing definite except Clyde’s statement.”
“Which is hardly definite enough.”
“I realize that. Call it a hunch, if you like, but I have a strong feeling that at some time or another Rose had a connection with the Goodfields.”
“What if she had?”
“They deny it. That’s suspicious in itself — if, of course, there was a connection.”
“My own opinion is that the Goodfields are exactly what they seem. The mother’s a tyrant, Goodfield is a mouse, and his wife has forty-eight cards in the deck. If I investigated every family like it, I’d be working seventy-two hours a day. The Goodfields are more along Clyde’s line than mine.”
“Then you intend to drop the case?”
“Officially it’s dropped.”
“What about unofficially?”
“Some time if I ever get up to Frisco I may drop in to see how dolls are being made these days. No pun intended.”
“That’s really very good of you,” Dalloway said earnestly. “I appreciate it.”
“Why?”
“Well, after all, Rose was my wife.”
“You didn’t see her for thirty years, the bonds couldn’t have been too strong.”
“Perhaps I’m getting sentimental in my old age.”
“Perhaps, but I wouldn’t bet a plugged nickel on it.” There was a pause, and a rustle of paper. “We’ve had no word so far on your daughter, Lora.”
“I didn’t expect any.”
“To be perfectly realistic about it, the police don’t break their necks on these voluntary disappearance cases unless a minor is involved. When a girl’s old enough to vote and earn a living, she’s old enough to leave home.”
“She’s never earned a living, but I suppose that’s beside the point.”
“What is the point?”
“I merely want to find out where and how she is. I have no intention of forcing her to return home or anything like that. But the fact is she’s my only child, I’m no longer young, and I have a fair amount of money to leave behind. Before I make another will, I want to know just how that money’s going to be spent.”
“You mean if you find her married to a bum, no money, eh?”
“Not a cent.”
“Those are hard words for such a sentimental man.”
Dalloway laughed. “Money and sentiment don’t mix.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Greer said. “I’ve never had enough of either to try mixing them.”
“I’ll hear from you then, perhaps soon?”
“Perhaps soon, perhaps never. I haven’t committed myself.”
“By the way, I would like to look over the things Rose left behind in her room, but I was told by Clyde that it was sealed.”
“Not anymore. One of the boys from the County Administrator’s office made a routine check through everything in case any money or valuables were hidden around. Nothing was found.”
“I suppose they checked thoroughly?”