She was in slacks, a silk sport blouse and a chic red jacket with wide lapels. She had combed her wet hair back from her forehead, and tied it with a ribbon in the back. The effect was to make her look younger, less sophisticated.
She saw him, waved, then leaned across the front seat to open the wide door as Ted jumped to the running board and stepped in. As he swung the door shut, he had the satisfaction of noticing the curious hotel clerk staring with surprised incredulity. One would hardly expect salesmen who came in soaking wet to be picked up by attractive young women driving five-thousand-dollar automobiles.
“Did you get chilled?” she asked.
“No. The only mortality seems to have been suffered by my wardrobe. How about you?”
“I’m fine. Joan Harpler furnished a drink. It tasted so good I thought something should be done about you — and I wanted to talk with you.”
“Talk ahead.”
“Well, really I meant I wanted to be talked to. I’m jittery. That hit me a terrific wallop. You see, I knew both of those men. Don’t let me get talking about that — please don’t. And if I start crying, slap me. Will you promise?”
He shook his head.
She frowned. “I hope I haven’t made a mistake in you. When I was screaming, you told me to shut up. I didn’t do it because I just couldn’t. Well, you slapped me, and it did me a lot of good. It’s the first time...”
“Let’s not talk about it. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry! That’s why I came to you, because of that slap. Will you hit me again if I start crying?”
“No.”
She frowned across at him.
“I’m sorry, but it takes a major emergency to give me the necessary incentive.”
“Oh, well, perhaps you’re just being polite. After all, my jaw’s still sore where you hit me. And please let’s have no misunderstanding, Mr. Shale. The check is on me.”
“Oh, but...”
“But me no buts,” she interrupted. “And in case your masculine vanity makes you feel it’s undignified to have women paying the check, I’m entrusting you with this.”
She passed her hand over to Ted’s. A warm, folded bit of paper was left in his hand as her fingers were withdrawn.
“Now, wait a minute,” Ted protested. “After all, I’m not...”
She interrupted, “It’s plain business. I need an escort, and you need a drink.”
“I’m not a professional escort.”
“Get your hair down, Rover,” she said. “Don’t start fighting.”
Ted said, “I’m not fighting, just trying to keep a little self-respect. I could use a drink, but I’m not keen on going places with a million dollars’ worth of class in tow, and not being able to pay the freight.”
“Now listen, I’m in a spot... Someone, I think it’s the Chinese, claim that if one person interferes to save the life of another, he’s obligated thereafter to the one whose life he saved, on the theory that if he had let Fate takes its course, it would have all been over. Well, I’m calling on you to fulfill your obligation. I’m in a mess. And I’m pretty much broken up. Now then, will you, or won’t you?”
“Okay, I will,” Ted surrendered. “But my clothes...”
“Oh, forget that. We’ll go to a really swank place. The more freakish you look there, the better service they give you. They’ll think you must be a Hollywood director. What have you been doing, and how come you’re representing this pasteboard company?”
“I’m selling paper cups because I thought I saw a chance to go in business for myself. I hocked everything I had to make a go of it.”
“And?” she asked.
“And with keen business sagacity, an acumen which is doubtless destined some day to make me a millionaire, the business I selected to go into was — guess?”
“What?”
“Aluminum kitchenware.”
“Oh-oh!”
“And so,” Ted went on, “after I’d finally built up a good will that was a real asset, what with the factory notifying me that no more supplies would be available, and even refusing to fill some of the orders on which I’d already counted the commission, I found myself ‘temporarily embarrassed.’ ”
“And then?”
“I got a job with the Freelander Pasteboard Products Company... Say, why am I wallowing in all these details, anyway? Ordinarily, I never bare my soul to a girl until after the second drink.”
“Under those circumstances,” she announced, swinging her car up a graveled driveway, “let’s not waste any time with the preliminaries incident to the first.”
She surrendered the car to a young man in livery who spoke to her, Ted thought, as though he knew her. She took Ted’s arm and said, “You’ll find this place rather nice.” Ted felt quite certain that the head waiter knew her well enough to call her by name, but that there was something in the warning glance she gave him which prevented him from doing so. Ted also realized that, as the escort of this young woman, he was being treated with great deference.
When they were seated in a little private alcove with its own window overlooking the sweep of a crescent beach, the white, serrated lines of incoming surf, and the tranquil turquoise of the ocean, she said suddenly, “You can’t turn back the hands of the clock. You’ve got to keep facing forward as you go through life, and take things as they come.”
Ted said, “That’s what makes life hard — and interesting.”
The waiter brought them a wine list.
“They have some very fine brandy here,” she said. “A double brandy would do us both good. How about it?”
Ted nodded. The waiter deferentially withdrew.
“I have the feeling that you’re something of a soldier of fortune,” she said.
“I like to plunge,” he admitted.
“Perhaps you’d like to do something for me.”
“Perhaps.”
She was thoughtfully silent for a brief space. The waiter brought their drinks. She touched her glass to his, said, “Here’s to...” and then her voice suddenly choked.
Ted said, “Forget it. It’s over. Keep facing forward.”
She blinked back tears. They sipped the brandy. Abruptly, she said, “I think the best way to get anywhere with you is to come directly to the point.”
He nodded.
“What were you doing on the beach this morning?”
“Getting exercise and fresh air.”
“How long had you been there before... before I fell over-board?”
“Oh, perhaps an hour.”
“Surely you hadn’t been walking up and down that same stretch of sand for an hour?”
“I’d been in the general vicinity.”
“Near the yacht club?”
“Yes.”
“Where you could have seen anyone go aboard the Gypsy Queen?”
“Yes.”
“Look, let’s be frank with each other. You’re representing a paper company. Addison Stearne has a chain of hotels. He told me he was going to put in a large order for some supplies. Was your trip to Santa Delbarra in any way connected with that business?”
“Yes.”
“Had you seen Stearne?”
“No.”
“You were on the beach waiting for him?”
“Well — yes.”
“You were watching for him to come ashore?”
“Yes.”
She frowned down at the brandy glass. “Yet you didn’t see me go aboard? What I’m getting at,” she went on with a rush of hurried words after a brief pause, “is that there must have been some period when you had your attention distracted, or when you weren’t in a position to watch the yacht.”