by Robert Bloch
"Come inside, won't you?"
"Well—" She hesitated, glancing down at her feet, and then Sam noticed the small suitcase on the sidewalk.
"Here, let me take this for you." He scooped it up. As he passed her in the doorway he switched on the rear light. "My room is in back," he told her. "Follow me."
She trailed after him in silence. Not quite silence, because Respighi's tone poem still resounded from the radio. As they entered his makeshift living quarters, Sam went over to switch it off. She lifted her hand.
"Don't," she told him. "I'm trying to recognize that music." She nodded. "Villa-Lobos?"
"Respighi. Something called Brazilian Impressions. It's on the Urania label, I believe."
"Oh. We don't stock that." For the first time he remembered that Lila worked in a record shop.
"You want me to leave it on, or do you want to talk?" he asked.
"Turn it off. We'd better talk."
He nodded, bent over the set, then faced her. "Sit down," he invited. "Take off your coat."
"Thanks. I don't intend to stay long. I've got to find a room." . .
"You're here on a visit?"
"Just overnight. I'll probably leave again in the morning. And it isn't exactly a visit. I'm looking for Mary."
"Looking for—" Sam stared at her. "But what would she be doing here?"
"I was hoping you could tell me that."
"But how could I? Mary isn't here."
"Was she here? Earlier this week, I mean?"
"Of course not. Why, I haven't seen her since she drove up last summer." Sam sat down on the sofa bed. "What's the matter, Lila? What's this all about?"
"I wish I knew."
She avoided his gaze, lowering her lashes and staring at her hands. They twisted in her lap, twisted like serpents. In the bright light, Sam noticed that her hair was almost blond. She didn't resemble Mary at all, now. She was quite another girl. A nervous, unhappy girl.
"Please," he said. "Tell me."
Lila looked up suddenly, her wide hazel eyes searching his. "You weren't lying when you said Mary hasn't been here?"
"No, it's the truth. I haven't even heard from her these last few weeks. I was beginning to get worried. Then you come bursting in here and—" His voice broke off. "Tell me!"
"All right. I believe you. But there isn't much to tell." She took a deep breath and started to speak again, her hands roaming restlessly across the front of her skirt. "I haven't seen Mary since a week ago last night, at the apartment. That's the night I left for Dallas, to see some wholesale suppliers down there—I do the buying for the shop. Anyway, I spent the weekend and took a train back up late Sunday night. I got in early Monday morning. Mary wasn't at the apartment. At first I wasn't concerned; maybe she'd left early for work. But she usually called me sometime during the day, and when she didn't phone by noon, I decided to call her at the office. Mr. Lowery answered the phone. He said he was just getting ready to call me and see what was wrong. Mary hadn't come in that morning. He hadn't seen or heard from her since the middle of Friday afternoon."
"Wait a minute," Sam said, slowly. "Let me get this straight. Are you trying to tell me that Mary has been missing for an entire week?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Then why wasn't I notified before this?" He stood up, feeling the renewed tension in his neck muscles, feeling it in his throat and his voice. "Why didn't you get in touch with me, phone me? What about the police?"
"Sam. I—"
"Instead, you waited all this time and then came up here to ask if I'd seen her. It doesn't make sense!"
"Nothing makes sense. You see, the police don't know about this. And Mr. Lowery doesn't know about you. After what he told me, I agreed not to call them. But I was so worried, so frightened, and I had to know. That's why, today, I decided to drive up here and find out for myself. I thought maybe the two of you might have planned it together."
"Planned what?" Sam shouted.
"That's what I'd like to know." The answer was soft, but there was nothing soft about the face of the man who stood in the doorway. He was tall, thin, and deeply tanned; a gray Stetson shadowed his forehead but not his eyes. The eyes were ice-blue and ice-hard.
"Who are you?" Sam muttered. "How did you get in here?"
"Front door was unlocked, so I just stepped inside. I came here to get a little information, but I see Miss Crane already beat me to the question. Maybe you'd like to give us both an answer now."
"Answer?"
"That's right." The tall man moved forward, one hand dipping into the pocket of his gray jacket. Sam lifted his arm, then dropped it, as the hand came forth, extending a wallet. The tall man flipped it open. "The name's Arbogast. Milton Arbogast. Licensed investigator, representing Parity Mutual. We carry a bonding policy on the Lowery Agency your girl-friend worked for. That's why I'm here now. I want to find out what you two did with the forty thousand dollars."
SEVEN
The gray Stetson was on the table now, and the gray jacket was draped over the back of one of Sam's chairs. Arbogast snubbed his third cigarette in the ashtray and immediately lighted another.
"All right," he said. "You didn't leave Fairvale any time during the past week. I'll buy that, Loomis. You'd know better than to lie. Too easy for me to check your story around town here." The investigator inhaled slowly. "Of course that doesn't prove Mary Crane hasn't been to see you. She could have sneaked in some evening after your store closed, just like her sister did, tonight."
Sam sighed. "But she didn't. Look, you heard what Lila here just told you. I haven't even heard from Mary for weeks. I wrote her a letter last Friday, the very day she's supposed to have disappeared. Why should I do a thing like that if I knew she was going to come here ?"
"To cover up, of course. Very smart move." Arbogast exhaled savagely.
Sam rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not that smart. Not that smart at all. I didn't know about the money. The way you've explained it, not even Mr. Lowery knew in advance that somebody was going to bring him forty thousand dollars in cash on Friday afternoon. Certainly Mary didn't know. How could we possibly plan anything together?"
"She could have phoned you from a pay station after she took the money, on Friday night, and told you to write her."
"Check with the phone company here," Sam answered wearily. "You'll find I haven't had any long-distance calls for a month."
Arbogast nodded. "So she didn't phone you. She drove straight up, told you what had happened, and made a date to meet you later, after things cooled down."
Lila bit her lip. "My sister's not a criminal. You don't have any right to talk about her that way. You have no real proof that she took the money. Maybe Mr. Lowery took it himself. Maybe he cooked up this whole story, just to cover up—"
"Sorry," Arbogast murmured. "I know how you feel, but you can't make him your patsy. Unless the thief is found, tried and convicted, our company doesn't pay off—and Lowery is out of the forty grand. So he couldn't profit from the deal in any way. Besides, you're overlooking obvious facts. Mary Crane is missing. She has been missing ever since the afternoon she received that money. She didn't take it to the bank. She didn't hide it in the apartment. But it's gone. And her car is gone. And she's gone." Again a cigarette died and was interred in the ash tray. "It all adds up."
Lila began to sob softly. "No, it doesn't! You should have listened to me when I wanted to call the police. Instead I let you and Mr. Lowery talk me out of it. Because you said you wanted to keep things quiet, and maybe if we waited Mary would decide to bring the money back. You wouldn't believe what I said, but I know now that I was right. Mary didn't take that money. Somebody must have kidnapped her. Somebody who knew about it—"
Arbogast shrugged, then rose wearily and walked over to the girl. He patted her shoulder. "Listen, Miss Crane—we went through this before, remember? Nobody else knew about the money. Your sister wasn't kidnapped. She went home and packed her bags, drove off in her own car, and she w
as alone. Didn't your landlady see her off? So be reasonable."
"I am reasonable! You're the one who doesn't make sense! Following me up here to see Mr. Loomis—"
The investigator shook his head. "What makes you think I followed you?" he asked quietly.
"How else did you happen to come here tonight? You didn't know that Mary and Sam Loomis were engaged. Outside of me, no one knew. You didn't even know Sam Loomis existed."
Arbogast shook his head. "I knew. Remember up at your apartment, when I looked through your sister's desk? I came across this envelope." He flourished it.
"Why, it's addressed to me," Sam muttered—and rose to reach for it.
Arbogast drew his hand away. "You won't need this," he said. "There's no letter inside, just the envelope. But I can use it, because it's in her handwriting." He paused. "As a matter of fact, I have been using it, ever since Wednesday morning when I started out for here."
"You started out for here—on Wednesday?" Lila dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
"That's right. I wasn't following you. I was way ahead of you. The address on the envelope gave me a lead. That, plus Loomis' picture in the frame next to your sister's bed. 'With all my love—Sam.' Easy enough to figure out the connection. So I decided to put myself in your sister's place. I've just laid my hands on forty thousand dollars in cash. I've got to get out of town, fast. Where do I go? Canada, Mexico, the West Indies? Too risky. Besides, I haven't had time to make long-range plans. My natural impulses would be to come straight to loverboy, here."
Sam hit the kitchen table so hard that the cigarette butts jumped out of the ash tray. "That's about enough!" he said. "You have no official right to make such accusations. So far you haven't offered one word of proof to back up any of this."
Arbogast fumbled for another cigarette. "You want proof, eh? What do you think I've been doing back there on the road, ever since Wednesday morning? That's when I found the car."
"You found my sister's car?" Lila was on her feet.
"Sure. I had a funny hunch that one of the first things she'd do would be to ditch it. So I called around town, to all the dealers and the used car lots, giving a description and the license number. Sure enough, it paid off. I found the place. Showed the guy my credentials and he talked. Talked fast, too—guess he thought the car was hot. I didn't exactly contradict his notion, either.
"Turned out that Mary Crane made a fast trade with him on Friday night, just before closing time. Took a hell of a beating on the deal, too. But I got all the info on the title, and a full description of the heap she drove out with. Heading north.
"So I headed north, too. But I couldn't go very fast. I was playing one hunch—that she'd stick to the highway because she was coming here. Probably drive straight through, the first night. So I drove straight through, for eight hours. Then I spent a lot of time around Oklahoma City, checking motels along the highway, and used car places on the road. I figured she might switch again, just to be on the safe side. But no dice. Thursday I got up as far as Tulsa. Same routine, same results. It wasn't until this morning when the needle turned up in the haystack. Another lot, another dealer, just north of there. She made the second trade early last Saturday—took another shellacking and ended up with a blue 1953 Plymouth, with a bad front fender.
He took a notebook from his pocket. "It's all down here in black and white," he said. "Title dope, engine number, everything. Both dealers are having photostats made and sending them back to the home office for me. But that doesn't matter, now. What matters is that Mary Crane drove north out of Tulsa on the main highway last Saturday morning, after switching cars twice in sixteen hours. As far as I'm concerned, this is the place she was heading for. And unless something unexpected happened—unless the car broke down, or there was an accident—she should have arrived here last Saturday night."
"But she didn't," Sam said. "I haven't seen her. Look, I can dig up proof, if you want it. Last Saturday night I was over at the Legion Hall playing cards. Plenty of witnesses. Sunday morning I went to church. Sunday noon I had dinner at—"
Arbogast raised a hand wearily. "Okay I get the message. You didn't see her. So something must have happened. I'll start checking back."
"What about the police?" Lila asked. "I still think you ought to go to the police." She moistened her lips. "Suppose there was an accident—you couldn't stop at every hospital between here and Tulsa. Why, for all we know, Mary may be lying unconscious somewhere right now. She might even be—"
This time it was Sam who patted her shoulder. "Nonsense," he muttered. "If anything like that had happened, you'd have been notified by now. Mary's all right." But he glared over Lila's shoulder at the investigator. "You can't do a thorough job all alone," he said. "Lila's being sensible. Why not let the police in on it? Report Mary missing, see if they can locate her—"
Arbogast picked up the gray Stetson. "We've tried it the hard way so far. I admit it. Because if we could locate her without dragging in the authorities, we might save our client and the company a lot of bad publicity. For that matter, we could save Mary Crane some grief, too, if we picked her up ourselves and recovered the money. Maybe there wouldn't be any charges that way. You've got to agree it was worth a
"But if you're right, and Mary did get this far, then why hasn't she been to see me? That's what I want to know, just as badly as you do," Sam told him. "And I'm not going to wait much longer to find out."
"Will you wait another twenty-four hours?" Arbogast asked.
"What do you have in mind?"
"More checking, like I said." He raised his hand to forestall Sam's objections. "Not all the way back to Tulsa—I admit that's impossible. But I'd like to nose around this territory a bit; visit the highway restaurants, filling stations, car dealers, motels. Maybe somebody saw her. Because I still think my hunch is right. She intended to come here. Perhaps she changed her mind after she arrived, and went on. But I'd like to be sure."
"And if you don't find out in twenty-four hours—?"
"Then I'm willing to call it quits, go to the police, do the whole Missing Persons routine. Okay?
Sam glanced at Lila. "What do you think?" he asked.
"I don't know. I'm so worried now, I can't think." She sighed. "Sam, you decide."
He nodded at Arbogast. "All right. It's a deal. But I'm warning you right now. If nothing happens tomorrow, and you don't notify the police, I will."
Arbogast put on his jacket. "Guess I'll get a room over at the hotel. How about you, Miss Crane?"
Lila looked at Sam. "I'll take her over in a little while," Sam said. "First I thought we'd go and eat. But I'll see that she's checked in. And we'll both be here tomorrow. Waiting."
For the first time that evening, Arbogast smiled. It wasn't the kind of a smile that would ever offer any competition to Mona Lisa, but it was a smile.
"I believe you," he said. "Sorry about the pressure act, but I had to make sure." He nodded at Lila. "We're going to find your sister for you. Don't you worry."
Then he went out. Long before the front door closed behind him, Lisa was sobbing against Sam's shoulder. Her voice was a muffled moan. "Sam, I'm scared—something's happened to Mary, I know it!"
"It's all right," he said, wondering at the same time why there were no better words, why there never are any better words to answer fear and grief and loneliness. "It's all right, believe me."
Suddenly she stepped away from him, stepped back, and her tear-stained eyes went wide. Her voice, when it. came, was low but firm.
"Why should I believe you, Sam?" she asked softly. "Is there a reason? A reason you didn't tell that inspector? Sam—was Mary here to see you? Did you know about this, about the money?"
He shook his head. "No, I didn't know. You'll have to take my word for that. The way I have to take yours."
She turned away, facing the wall. "I guess you're right," she told him. "Mary could have come to either one of us during the week, couldn't she? But she didn't. I trust you, S
am. Only it's just that it's so hard to believe anything any more, when your own sister turns out to be a—"
"Take it easy," Sam cut in. "What you need right now is a little food, and a lot of rest. Things won't look so black tomorrow."
"Do you really think so, Sam?"
"Yes, I do."
It was the first time he'd ever lied to a woman.
EIGHT
Tomorrow became today, Saturday, and for Sam it was a time of waiting.
He phoned Lila from the store around ten, and she was already up, had already eaten breakfast. Arbogast wasn't in—apparently he'd gotten an early start. But he had left a note for Lila downstairs, saying that he would call in sometime during the day.
Why don't you come over here and keep me company?" Sam suggested, over the phone. "No sense sitting around in your room. We can have lunch together and check back at the hotel to see if Arbogast calls. Better still, I'll ask the operator to transfer any calls over here to the store.
Lila agreed, and Sam felt better. He didn't want her to be alone today. Too easy for her to start brooding about Mary. God knows, he'd done enough of it himself, all night.
He'd done his best to resist the idea, but he had to admit that Arbogast's theory made sense. Mary must have planned to come here after she took the money. If she had taken it, that is.
That was the worst part: accepting Mary in the role of a thief. Mary wasn't that kind of a person; everything he knew about her contradicted the possibility.
And yet, just how much did he know about Mary, really? Just last night he'd acknowledged to himself how little he actually understood his fiancée. Why, he knew so little that he'd even mistaken another girl for her, in a dim light.
Funny, Sam told himself, how we take it for granted that we know all there is to know about another person, just because we see them frequently or because of some strong emotional tie. Why, right here in Fairvale there were plenty of examples of what he meant. Like old Tomkins, superintendent of schools for years and a big wheel in Rotary, running away from his wife and family with a sixteen-year-old girl. Who ever suspected he'd do a thing like that? Any more than they'd suspected Mike Fisher, the biggest lush and gambler in this part of the state, would die and leave all his money to the Presbyterian Orphans' Home. Bob Summerfield, Sam's clerk in the store, had worked here every day for over a year before Sam knew he'd pulled a Section Eight in service—and for trying to beat out his chaplain's brains with a pistol butt, too. Bob was all right now, of course; a nicer, quieter guy you wouldn't find in a hundred years. But he'd been nice and quiet in the army, too, until something set him off. And nobody had noticed. Nice old ladies did away with their husbands after twenty years of happy marriage, meek little bank clerks suddenly up and embezzled the funds—you never could tell what might happen