“I realize that. I’ll keep it confidential. All this is simply for my own information.”
“Well.” He turned back to me. All he’d needed was a little coaxing. “Leonard had a habit of messing with his women students, with one of them in particular. Rumors got around, as they always do, and I cautioned Leonard. I gave him fair warning. He failed to profit by it, so I kept a close eye on him. This Department is precarious enough without a major scandal on top of everything else. Fortunately, I caught him personally, and kept it quiet.”
Schilling was lighting up with a theatrical glow. Apparently he was reenacting his big moment. “Along towards the end of the fall semester, on an afternoon in December, I saw them go into his office together – it’s just down the hall from mine. You should have seen the look on her face, the cowlike adoration. Well, I secured a master key from the maintenance department and after a suitable interval, I went in. There they were, in flagrante, if you understand me.”
“Was she a young girl?”
“No. It could have been worse. As a matter of fact, she was a married woman. Quite a few of our students are young married women with – ah – theatrical ambitions. But even as it was, the situation was too bad to be allowed to continue. I put an end to it, and Leonard left us. I haven’t seen him since.”
“What happened to the woman?”
“She dropped out of her course. She showed no promise, anyway, and I for one was happy to see her go. You should have heard the names she called me that afternoon, when after all I was only doing my duty. I told Leonard he was playing with dynamite. Why, the woman was a hellcat.” With the forefinger of his left hand, he traced his profile from hairline to chin, and smiled to himself. “I’m afraid that’s all the information I have.”
“One more thing. You said he was honest.”
“Except in that little matter of women, yes.”
“Honest in money matters?”
“So far as I know. Leonard never cared for money. He cares so little for it, in fact, that he’s financially irresponsible. Well, now that he’s married into wealth, I suppose he’ll be settling down. I hope for his sake he can. And I very much hope I haven’t said anything that will damage his standing with the family.”
“Not if he’s dropped the other woman. What was her name, by the way?”
“Dolphine. Stella Dolphine. Quite an unusual name.” He spelled it for me.
I looked it up in Schilling’s telephone directory. There was only one Dolphine listed: a Jack Dolphine who lived at the same address as Leonard Lister.
In full daylight, the stucco house in Santa Monica had an abandoned look. The blinds were drawn on all the windows, upstairs and down. The dying lawn, the unkempt flowerbeds strangling in crab grass, seemed to reflect the lives of people bound and paralyzed by their unhappiness. I noticed, though, that the lawn had recently been hosed, and a few drying puddles lay on the uneven concrete of the driveway.
I climbed the outside stairs to Lister’s apartment. Nobody answered my knock. I turned the knob. The door was locked. I went down and lifted the overhead door of the garage. It was empty.
I pressed the bellpush beside the front door and waited. Shuffling footsteps dragged through the house. The gray-haired man in the Hawaiian shirt opened the door and peered out into the sun. He had had a bad night. His eyes were blurred by alcohol and grief, his mouth was raw and defenseless. The slack flesh of his face hung like melting Plasticine on the bones. So did his body. He was a soft-boiled egg without a shell.
He didn’t seem to recognize me.
“Mr. Dolphine?”
“Yeah.” He recognized my voice. “Say, what’s the pitch? You were here last night; you said you were a cop.”
“It was your idea. I’m a private cop. Name’s Archer.”
“Whattaya know, I was a private cop myself – plant guard at Douglas. But I retired when my investments started to pay off. I own six houses and an apartment court. Maybe you wouldn’t think it to look at me.”
“Good for you. What happened to the tenants in your apartment?”
“Lister, you mean? You tell me. He moved out.”
“For keeps?”
“Damn right for keeps.” He floundered across the doorstep, preceded by his breath, and laid one hand on my shoulder, confidentially. It also helped to hold him up. “I was all set to give him his walking papers, only he saved me the trouble. Packed up his stuff, what there was of it, and left.”
“And the woman went with him? His wife?”
“Yeah, she went along.”
“In his car?”
“That’s correct.”
He gave me a description of the car, a blue Buick sedan, prewar, on its second or third hundred thousand. Dolphine didn’t know the license number. The Listers had left no forwarding address.
“Could I speak to Mrs. Dolphine?”
“What you want with her?” His hand grew heavier on my shoulder. His eyes were narrow and empty between puffed lids.
“She might know where Lister went.”
“You think so?”
“Yes.” I shrugged, dislodging his hand. “I hear she’s a friend of his.”
“You do, eh?”
He fell against me, his upturned face transfigured by sudden rage, and reached for my throat. He was strong but his reactions were clumsy. I knocked his hands up and away. He staggered back against the doorpost, his arms outstretched in the attitude of crucifixion.
“That was a silly thing to do, Dolphine.”
“I’m sorry.” He was shuddering, as if he had given himself a terrible scare. “I’m not a well man. This excitement–” His hands came together, clutching at the hula girls on his chest. An asthmatic wheeze twanged like a loose guitar string in the back passages of his head. His face was blotched white.
“What excitement?”
“Stella’s left me. She took me for all she could, then dropped me like a hotcake. I’ll give you a piece of advice. Don’t ever marry a younger woman–”
“When did this happen?”
“Last night. She took off with Lister.”
“Both of the women went with him?”
“Yessir. Stella and the other one. Both of them.” A drunken whimsy pulled his face lopsided. “I guess the big red bull thinks he can look after two. He’s welcome. I’ve had enough.”
“Did you see them leave?”
“Not me. I was in bed.”
“How do you know your wife took off with Lister?”
“She told me she was gonna.” He lifted the heavy burden of his shoulders, and dropped it. “What could I do?”
“You must have some idea where they went.”
“Nah, I don’t know and I don’t want to. Let them go. She was no good to me anyway.” The asthma wheezed behind his words, like an unspoken grief. “So I say let her go, it’s a good riddance for me.”
He sat down on the step and covered his face with his hands. His hair was wild and torn, like a handful of gray feathers. I left him.
I drove to the Oceano Hotel and called Harlan on the intramural telephone. He answered immediately, his voice high and nagging.
“Where on earth have you been? I’ve been trying to get you.”
“Checking on Lister,” I said. “He’s decamped with your sister–”
“I know. He telephoned me. My worst forebodings were justified. It’s money he wants, and he’s coming here to try and collect.”
“When?”
“At twelve noon. I’m to meet him in the lobby.”
I looked at the electric clock on the wall of the desk clerk’s alcove: twenty minutes past eleven.