He looked up sharply. Now I was wearing sunglasses and he wasn’t. His eyes were very dark and bright, focusing the dark-bright intensity of his face. He had a long nose, slightly curved, which appeared both self-assertive and inquisitive. He didn’t appear to recognize me.
“What if I am?” he said in a guarded tone.
“I thought I might take it over.”
“That won’t be possible. I have it leased for the season.”
“But you’re not going to use it.”
“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
He was talking to himself more than to me. His dark gaze had moved past me down the coast. I turned and followed it. A blue wave crumbled white on the reef. Further out a dozen boys knelt on their boards like worshippers.
“Ever do any surfing?”
“No.”
“Skin diving? I notice you have some equipment there.”
“Yes, I’ve done some skin diving.”
I was listening carefully to him. He still had an accent but it was much less pronounced than in the argument with Harry Hendricks, and he wasn’t using any French words. Of course he was less excited now.
“Ever try skin diving in the Mediterranean? They say skin diving originated in the Mediterranean.”
“It did and I have,” he said. “I happen to be a native of France.”
“What part?”
“Paris.”
“That’s interesting. I was in Paris during the war.”
“A great many Americans were,” he answered dryly. “Now if you will excuse me I have to dispose of these things.”
“Can I help?”
“No. Thank you. Good day.”
He bowed curtly. I wandered away along the deck, trying to analyze my impression of him. His tar-black hair and smooth solid face and the unblunted sharpness of his eyes placed his age at not more than thirty. He had the controlled force and reticence of an older man. I didn’t know what to make of him.
I found my way into the labyrinth of the downstairs dressing rooms. School was out by now and a gang of small boys were snapping towels at each other’s legs and emitting shouts of menace and horrible laughter. I told them to shut up. They waited until I was out of sight, and laughed more horribly than they had before.
Peter was tying his tie in front of a steam-fogged mirror. He caught a glimpse of me in it and turned with a smile, the first I’d seen on his face. He was shiny and red.
“I didn’t know you were here. I was running on the beach.”
“Good,” I said. “I’ve just been talking to Martel. He’s moving the stuff out of his cabana. He may be planning to skip.”
“With Ginny?”
“I didn’t think I’d better ask him that. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t have approached him at all. It’s not a good way to operate. But we may be running short of time.”
I’d wiped out Peter’s smile and started him biting his mouth. “I was hoping you could do something to stop him.”
“I haven’t quit. The trouble is I don’t know what questions to ask. I’ve never been to France, and I don’t remember much of my high school French.”
“Neither do I. I took a freshman course from Professor Tappinger, but he flunked me.”
“Was this at the local college?”
“Yes.” He felt called upon to explain that he had been supposed to go to Princeton, and failed to make the grade. “But I did graduate from Montevista State last year.”
“And Ginny was supposed to graduate this year?”
“Yes. She took a couple of years out. She was a receptionist at Dr. Sylvester’s clinic, but she got sick of that and went back to school last year.”
“Was your man Tappinger one of her professors?”
“He taught most of her French courses.”
“Is Tappinger good at his subject?”
“Ginny thought so, and she was one of his best students.”
“Then he should be willing to help us out.”
I told Peter to make an appointment with the professor, for this afternoon if possible, and said I would meet him in the parking lot. I didn’t want Martel to see us leaving together.
chapter 6
“MR. JAMIESON just left,” the woman at the front desk said. “I don’t know how you missed him.”
She had a gently modulated voice, and she sounded really concerned. I took a closer look at her. She was a subdued young woman dressed in a brown tweed suit. Her dark hair framed an oval, piquant face. She was too heavily made up, but that was occupational.
“I talked to Mr. Jamieson inside, but don’t mention it to anyone.”
“Why should I mention it to anyone?” she said.
“Somebody might ask you.”
“I never discuss the goings and comings of the members and their guests. Besides, I don’t remember your name.”
“Archer. Lew Archer.”
“I’m Ella Strome.” The nameplate on the desk in front of her said: Mrs. Strome, Club Secretary. She saw me looking at it and added in a neutral tone: “I’m not married at present.”
“Neither am I. What time do you get off for dinner?”
“Tonight I don’t. We’re having a dinner-dance. But thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
In the parking lot by the tennis courts, Peter was waiting for me in his Corvette. The place was surrounded by massed green clouds of eucalyptus trees, and their faintly medicinal scent flavored the air. Only one of the half-dozen courts was in use: a pro in a “Tennis Club” sweatshirt was showing a very small girl how to serve, while her mother watched from the sidelines.
“Professor Tappinger isn’t in his office and he isn’t at home,” Peter said. “His wife said he should be on his way home.”
“I can use a little more time here. I understand Mrs. Bagshaw lives at the club.”
“She’s in one of the cottages.” He gestured toward the trees at the back of the lot.
“Have you asked her any questions about Martel?”
“No.”
“But you know Mrs. Bagshaw?”
“Not that well. I know everyone in Montevista,” he added without enthusiasm. “And they know me, I guess.”
I went through the eucalyptus grove and through a gate in a picket fence which enclosed an expanse of lawn next to the pool enclosure. A dozen or so gray-painted brick cottages were dispersed around the lawn, shielded from their neighbors by patio walls and flowering shrubs. A small Mexican in a khaki coverall was manipulating a hose among the shrubbery.
“Buenos días.”
“It is a fine day,” he said with a white flash of teeth, and turned the stream from his hose toward the sky, like a fountain. “You looking for somebody?”
“Mrs. Bagshaw.”
“That’s her cottage there.” Its roof was half-hidden by a purple avalanche of bougainvillea. “She just came back a couple of minutes ago.”
Mrs. Bagshaw turned out to be one of the poolside bridge-players, the one who had ordered the coffee. She was an alert-looking seventy or so.
“Didn’t I see you talking to Stanley just now?” she asked me at the door.
“I was, yes.”
“And then to Mr. Martel?”
“Yes.”
“And now you come to me. It’s an interesting progression.” She shook her white curls. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or discomfited.”
“Don’t be either, Mrs. Bagshaw. My name is Archer, and I’m a detective, as you may have guessed.”
She let me into a sitting room which contained too much furniture. The Oriental rug on the floor was so good I hated to step on it. She noticed my noticing it.
“It doesn’t go with this place at all. But I couldn’t bear to leave it behind.” Without changing her tone, she said: “Sit down. I suppose you’re engaged in the current village sport of prying into Francis Martel’s affairs.”
“It’s my profession, not my sport.”
“Who brou
ght you here?” she said brusquely.
“A local family.”
“Marietta Fablon?”
“She’s interested in the outcome of my researches, yes.”
“Researches is a glossy word for what you do, Mr. Archer. You’re driving Mr. Martel out of town. Is that your purpose?”
“No.”
“I wonder about that. He’s leaving, you know. He told me so not fifteen minutes ago.”
“Is Ginny Fablon going with him?”
She lowered her eyes to her lap. “Miss Fablon was not discussed. She is in any case a young woman of twenty-four—at her age I had been married for five years—and she’s perfectly capable of looking after herself and making her own choices.” Her voice, which had faltered for a moment, regained its strength. “More capable than most young women, in my opinion.”
“So you think she’s going with him.”
“I don’t know. But this is a free country, I believe.”
“It is for people who know what and who they’re dealing with. You can’t make valid choices without facts.”
She shook her curls. Her face remained unshaken, like cement. “I don’t wish to be lectured at. I brought Francis Martel into Montevista—ah—circles, and I feel perfectly sanguine about doing so. I like him. It’s true I can’t provide you with a copy of his genealogical tree. But I’m sure it’s a good one. He’s one of the most distinguished young Frenchmen of my acquaintance.”
“He is a Frenchman, then?”
“Is there any doubt of that?”
“There’s always doubt, until the facts are established.”
“And you are the great arbiter of the facts, are you?”
“In my own investigations I naturally tend to be.”
It was a fairly sharp interchange, and it made her angry. She resolved her anger by laughing out loud at me. “You talk up, don’t you?”
“I might as well. I’m not getting anywhere anyway.”
“That’s because there’s nowhere to get. Merely because Mr. Martel doesn’t look like other people, they assume there’s some dark secret in his past. The trouble with my neighbors is a simple one. They haven’t enough to do, and they live like the Scilly islanders by taking in each other’s dirty linen. If there isn’t enough dirty linen to go around, they manufacture it.”
She must be uncertain, I thought, or she wouldn’t be talking so much and so well. Martel was in some degree her responsibility. She said into the silence between us:
“Have you found out anything against him?”
“Not really. Not yet.”
“You imply that you expect to.”
“I don’t know. How did you become acquainted with him, through a real-estate broker?”
“Oh no, we have friends in common.”
“Here in Montevista?”
“In Washington,” she said, “more precisely, in Georgetown. General Bagshaw and I once lived in Georgetown.”
“And you met Martel there?”
“I didn’t say that. He knew some old neighbors of ours—” She hesitated, looking at me doubtfully. “I don’t believe I ought to give you their name.”
“It would help if you did.”
“No. They’re very fine and gentle people, and I don’t want them bothered with this sort of thing.”
“Martel used them as a reference. They might not approve of that. They may not even know him.”
“I’m sure they do.”
“Did they give him a letter of introduction?”
“No.”
“Then all you have is his word?”
“It seems—it seemed to be enough. He talked very freely and fully about them.” But the doubt with which she regarded me was spreading and deepening, undercutting her confidence in her own judgment. “Do you seriously believe he’s some sort of an impostor?”
“My mind is open on the subject. I’m trying to open yours.”
“And pry a name out of me,” she said rather grimly.
“I don’t need the name if you’ll help.”
“How can I help?”
“Call your Georgetown friends and ask them what they know about Martel.”
She lifted her head. “I may do that.”
“Please do. They’re the only real lead I have.”
“I will. Tonight.”
“May I check with you later then?”
“I suppose you may.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”
“You haven’t. It’s the moral question, really. Did I do right or wrong? Of course if we stopped to consider the possible consequences of everything we do, we’d end up doing nothing.”
“How soon is he leaving?”
“Immediately, I think. Today or tomorrow.”
“Did he say why?”
“No. He’s very reticent. But I know why. Everyone’s suspicious of him. He’s made no friends here.”
“Except Ginny.”
“He didn’t mention her.”
“Or say where he was going?”
“No.”
chapter 7
PETER MET ME at the gate in the picket fence. Professor Tappinger was home now, and would see us.
He lived in the adjoining harbor city, in a rather rundown tract whose one obvious advantage was a view of the ocean. The sun, heavy and red, was almost down on the horizon now. Its image floated like spilled fire on the water.
The Tappinger house was a green stucco cottage which except for its color duplicated every third house in the block. The cement walk which led up to the front door was an obstacle course of roller skates, a bicycle, a tricycle. A girl of six or seven answered the door. She had a dutch bob and enormous watching eyes.
“Daddy says that you can join him in the study.”
She led us through the trampled-looking living room into the kitchen. A woman was bowed over the sink in a passive-aggressive attitude, peeling potatoes. A boy of about three was butting her in the legs and chortling. She paid no attention to him and very little to us. She was a good-looking woman, no more than thirty, with a youthful ponytail, and blue eyes which passed over me coolly.
“He’s in the study,” she said, and gestured with one elbow toward a door.
It let us into a converted garage lined with bookshelves. A fluorescent fixture hung on a chain over a work table cluttered with open books and papers. The professor was seated there with his back to us. He didn’t turn around when Peter spoke to him. The implication seemed to be that we were interrupting important brainwork.
“Professor Tappinger?” Peter said again.
“I hear you.” His voice was impatient. “Excuse me for another minute, please. I’m trying to finish a sentence.”
He scratched at his head with the blunt end of his pen, and jotted something down. His coppery brown hair had a frost of gray at the edges. I saw when he eventually got up that he was a short man, and at least ten years older than his handsome wife. He had probably been handsome, too, with his sensitive mouth and clean features. But he looked as if he had had a recent illness, and the eyes behind his reading glasses were haunted by the memory of it. His handshake was cold.
“How are you, Mr. Archer? How are you, Peter? Forgive me for keeping you waiting. I snatch these precious moments of concentration from the Bergsonian flux. With a twelve-hour teaching load and all the preparation it entails, it isn’t easy to get anything written. I envy Flaubert the luxury he had of spending whole days in search of the right word, le mot juste—”
Tappinger seemed to have the professional habit of nonstop talking. I interrupted him: “What are you working on?”
“A book, if I can ever get the time to do it. My subject is the French influence on modern American literature—at the moment I’m studying the vexed question of Stephen Crane. But that wouldn’t interest you. Peter tells me you’re a detective.”
“Yes. I’m trying to get some information about a man named Francis Martel. Have you run into him?”
“I doubt it, but his name is certainly interesting. It’s one of the ancient names of France.”
“Martel is supposed to be a Frenchman. His story is that he’s a political refugee.”
“How old is he?”
“About thirty.” I described him: “He’s a man of medium height, trim and fast on his feet. Black hair, black eyes, dark complexion. He has a French accent which varies from strong to weak.”
“And you think he’s putting it on?”
“I don’t know. If he’s a phony, he’s fooled quite a few people. I’m trying to find out who and what he really is.”
“Reality is an illusive thing,” Tappinger said sententiously. “What do you want me to do—listen to his French and pronounce on its authenticity?”
He was only half-serious, but I answered him seriously: “That might be a good idea, if we could work it out. But Martel is on the point of leaving town. I thought if you could provide me with a few questions that only an educated Frenchman could answer—”
“You wish me to prepare a test, is that it?”
“With the answers.”
“I suppose I can do that. When do you need it? Tomorrow?”
“Right now.”
“That’s simply impossible.”
“But he may be leaving any minute.”
“I can’t help that!” Tappinger’s voice had risen womanishly. “I have forty papers to read tonight—those bureaucrats at the college don’t even provide me with a student reader. I have no time for my own children—”
I said: “Okay, we’ll skip it. It wasn’t a very good idea in the first place.”
“But we have to do something,” Peter said. “I’ll be glad to pay you for your time, professor.”
“I don’t want your money. All I want is the free use of my own days.” Tappinger was practically wailing.
His wife opened the kitchen door and looked out. Her face was set in a look of concern which somehow gave the impression that it had been blunted by use.
“What’s the trouble, Daddy?”
“Nothing, and don’t call me Daddy. I’m not that much older than you are.”
She lifted and dropped one shoulder in a gesture of physical contempt, and looked at me. “Is something the matter out here?”
“We seem to be getting on your husband’s nerves. This wasn’t a good time to come.”
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