“Is that bad?”
“It could be.” Ellery put her hand back in her lap. “A woman like you has no right to remain tied to a man who’s half-dead. If he were some saintly character, if there were love between you, I’d understand it. But I gather he’s a brute and that you loathe him. Then why haven’t you done something with your life? Why haven’t you divorced him? Is there a religious reason?”
“There might have been when I was young. Now...” She shook her head. “Now it’s the way it would look. You see, I’m stripping myself quite bare.”
Ellery looked pained.
“You’re very gallant to an old woman.” She laughed. “No, I’m serious, Mr. Queen. I come from one of the old California families. Formal upbringing. Convent-trained. Duennas in the old fashion. A pride of caste and tradition. I could never take it as seriously as they did...
“My mother had married a heretic from New England. They ostracized her and it killed her when I was a little girl. I’d have got away from them completely, except that when my mother died they talked my father into giving me into their custody. I was brought up by an aunt who wore a mantilla. I married the first man who came along just to get away from them. He wasn’t their choice ― he was an ‘American,’ like my father. I didn’t love him, but he had money, we were very poor, and I wanted to escape. It cut me off from my family, my church, and my world. I have a ninety-year-old grandmother who lives only three miles from this spot. I haven’t seen her for eighteen years. She considers me dead.”
Her head rolled. “Harvey died when we’d been married three years, leaving me with a child. Then I met Roger Priam. I couldn’t go back to my mother’s family, my father was off on one of his jaunts, and Roger attracted me. I would have followed him to hell.” She laughed again. “And that’s exactly where he led me.
“When I found out what Roger really was, and then when he became crippled and I lost even that, there was nothing left. I’ve filled the vacuum by trying to go back where I came from.
“It hasn’t been easy,” murmured Delia Priam. “They don’t forget such things, and they never forgive. But the younger generation is softer-bottomed and corrupted by modern ways. Their men, of course, have helped... Now it’s the only thing 1 have to hang on to.” Her face showed a passion not to be shared or relished. Ellery was glad when the moment passed. “The life I lead in Roger Priam’s house isn’t even suspected by these people. If they knew the truth, I’d be dropped and there’d be no return. And if I left Roger, they’d say I deserted my husband. Upper caste women of the old California society don’t do that sort of thing, Mr. Queen; it doesn’t matter what the husband is. So... I don’t do it.
“Now something is happening, I don’t know what. If Laurel had kept her mouth shut, I wouldn’t have lifted a finger. But by going about insisting that Leander Hill was murdered, Laurel’s created an atmosphere of suspicion that threatens my position. Sooner or later the papers will get hold of it ― it’s a wonder they haven’t already ― and the fact that Roger is apparently in the same danger might come out. I can’t sit by and wait for that. My people will expect me to be the loyal wife. So that’s what I’m being. Mr. Queen, I ask you to proceed as if I’m terribly concerned about my husband’s safety.” Delia Priam shrugged. “Or is this all too involved for you?”
“It would seem to me far simpler,” said Ellery, “to clear out and start over again somewhere else.”
“This is where I was born.” She looked out at Hollywood. Laurel had moved over to a corner of the garden. “I don’t mean all that popcorn and false front down there. I mean the hills, the orchards, the old missions. But there’s another reason, and it has nothing to do with me, or my people, or Southern California.”
“What’s that, Mrs. Priam?”
“Roger wouldn’t let me go. He’s a man of violence, Mr. Queen. You don’t ― you can’t ― know his furious possessiveness, his pride, his compulsion to dominate, his... depravity. Sometimes I think I’m married to a maniac.”
She closed her eyes. The room was still. From below Ellery heard Mrs. Williams’s Louisiana-bred tones complaining to the gold parakeet she kept in a cage above the kitchen sink about the scandalous price of coffee. An invisible finger was writing in the sky above the Wilshire district: MUNTZ TV. The empty typewriter nudged his elbow.
But there she sat, the jungle in batiste and colored cotton. His slick and characterless Hollywood house would never be the same again. It was exciting just to be able to look at her lying in the silly chair. It was dismaying to imagine the chair empty.
“Mrs. Priam.”
“Yes?”
“Why,” asked Ellery, trying not to think of Roger Priam, “didn’t you want Laurel Hill to hear what you just told me?”
The woman opened her eyes. “I don’t mind undressing before a man,” she said, “but I do draw the line at a woman.”
She said it lightly, but something ran up Ellery’s spine.
He jumped to his feet. “Take me to your husband.”
Chapter Three
When they came out of Ellery’s house Laurel said pleasantly, “Has a contract been drawn up, Ellery? And if so, with which one of us? Or is the question incompetent and none of my business?”
“No contract,” said Ellery testily. “No contract, Laurel. I’m just going to take a look around.”
“Starting at the Priam house, of course.”
“Yes.”
“In that case, since we’re all in this together ― aren’t we, Delia? ― I suppose there’s no objection if I trail along?”
“Of course not, darling,” said Delia. “But do try not to antagonize Roger. He always takes it out on me afterwards.”
“What do you think he’s going to say when he finds out you’ve brought a detective around?”
“Oh, dear,” said Delia. Then she brightened. “Why, darling, you’re bringing Mr. Queen around, don’t you see? Do you mind very much? I know it’s yellow, but I have to live with him. And you did get to Mr. Queen first.”
“All right,” said Laurel with a shrug. “We’ll give you a head start, Delia. You take Franklin and Outpost, and I’ll go around the long way, over Cahuenga and Mulholland. Where have you been, shop-ping?”
Delia Priam laughed. She got into her car, a new cream Cadillac convertible, and drove off down the hill.
“Hardly a substitute,” said Laurel after a moment. Ellery started. Laurel was holding open the door of her car, a tiny green Austin.
“Either car or driver. Can you see Delia in an Austin? Like the Queen of Sheba in a rowboat. Get in.”
“Unusual type,” remarked Ellery absently, as the little car shot off.
“The adjective, yes. But as to the noun,” said Laurel, “there is only one Delia Priam.”
“She seems remarkably frank and honest.”
“Does she?”
“I thought so. Don’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“By which you tell me what you think.”
“No, you don’t! But if you must know... You never get to the bottom of Delia. She doesn’t lie, but she doesn’t tell the truth, either ― I mean the whole truth. She always keeps something in reserve that you dig out much, much later, if you’re lucky to dig it out at all. Now I’m not going to say anything more about Delia, because whatever I say you’ll hold, not against her, but against me. Delia bowls over big shots especially... I suppose it’s no use asking you what she wanted to talk to you alone about?”
“Take ― it ― easy,” said Ellery, holding his hat. “Another bounce like that and my knees will stab me to death.”
“Nice try, Laurel,” said Laurel; and she darted into the Free-way-bound traffic on North Highland with a savage flip of her exhaust.