The Archer Files

by Ross Macdonald

  I looked around. There were too many people on the street for me to do a wind-wing job.

  Back in my own car, I made a note of the license number and waited. The blue glare from the sea, relayed by the chrome of passing cars, bothered my eyes. I put on a pair of sunglasses. A few minutes later, Lister appeared on the sidewalk, swaggering towards me. He had taken off his dark glasses, and his blue eyes seemed to be popping from white lids. He looked elated. I remembered what Schilling had said about his manic side, and wished I could see the lower part of his face, where danger often shows. Perhaps the beard had a purpose.

  Lister got into the Buick and headed north. I trailed him through heavy noon traffic at a variable distance. He drove with artistic abandon, burning rubber at the Sunset stoplight. Six or eight miles north of it he turned off the highway, tires screeching again. I braked hard and took the turn onto gravel slowly.

  The gravel road slanted steeply up a hillside. The Buick disappeared over the rim. I ate my way through its dust to the top and saw it a quarter-mile ahead, going fast. The road wound down into a small closed valley where a few ranch houses stood in cultivated fields. A tractor clung like a slow orange beetle to the far hillside. The air between was so still that the Buick’s dust hung like a colloid over the road. I ate another couple of miles of it, by way of lunch.

  Beyond the third and last ranch house, a County sign announced: This is not a through road. A rusty mailbox sagged on a post beside it. I caught a glimpse of the faded stenciling on the mailbox. “Leonard Lister,” I thought it said.

  The Buick was far ahead by now, spinning into the defile between two bluffs at the inner end of the valley. It spun out of sight. The road got worse, became a single dirt track rutted and eroded by the rains of many springs. At its narrowest point an old landslide almost blocked it.

  I was so taken up with the road that I almost passed the house before I noticed it. It stood far back, at the end of a eucalyptus-shadowed lane. I saw the Buick, standing empty, through the trees; and I kept on going. When I was out of sight of the house I turned my car and left it with the doors locked.

  I climbed through yellow mustard and purple lupine to a point from which I could look down on the house. It was a ruin. Its cracked stucco walls leaned crazily. Part of the tile roof had caved in. I guessed that it had been abandoned when water undermined its foundations. Rank geraniums rioted in the front yard, and wild oats stood fender-high around the Buick.

  In the back yard, close against the wall of the house, a broad-backed man was digging a hole. The bright iron of his spade flashed now and then in the sun. I moved down the slope towards him. The hole was about six feet long by two feet wide. Lister’s head, when he paused to rest, cast a jut-jawed shadow at the foot of the stucco wall.

  I sat down with the yellow mustard up to my eyes, and watched him work. After a while he took his shirt off. His heavy white shoulders were peppered with reddish freckles. The metal of his spade was losing its brightness. An hour later the hole was approximately four feet deep. Lister’s red hair was dark with sweat, and his arms were running with it. He stuck the spade into the pile of adobe he had dug, and went into the house.

  I started down the hillside. A hen pheasant whirred up from under my feet. In the glazed stillness, its wings made a noise like a jet takeoff. I watched the house but there was no response, no face at the broken windows. I stepped over the sagging wire fence and crossed the back yard.

  The door hung open on what had been a back kitchen. Its floor was littered with broken plaster which crunched under my feet. Through the bare ribs of the ceiling daylight gleamed. The silence was finely stitched with a tiny tumult of insects. I thought I could hear the murmur of voices somewhere; then the sound of heavy footsteps moved towards me through the house.

  I had my revolver ready. Lister came through the inner doorway, carrying a burlap bundle upright in his arms. His head was craned awkwardly sideways, watching his feet, and he failed to see me until I spoke.

  “Hold it, gravedigger.”

  His head came up, eyes wide and blue in the red sweat-streaked face. His reaction was incredibly quick and strong. Without losing a step he came forward, thrusting his bundle out at arm’s length into my face. I fired as I went down backwards with the burlap thing on top of me. I pushed it off. It was heavy and stiff, like refrigerated meat. One of Lister’s heels stamped down on my gun hand, the other came into my face. The daylight in the ceiling glimmered redly and died.

  When my eyes blinked open, sunlight stabbed into them from the open door. One of my arms was numb, pinned under the thing in the burlap shroud. I disengaged myself from its embrace and sat up against the wall. The rumor of insects sounded in my head like small-arms fire between the heavy artillery of my pulse. I sat poised for a while between consciousness and unconsciousness. Then my vision cleared. I dabbed at my swollen face with my usable hand.

  My revolver lay on the floor. I picked it up and spun the cylinder: its chambers had been emptied. Still sitting, I dragged the burlap bundle towards me and untied the twine that held its wrapping in place. Peeling the burlap down with a shaky hand, I saw a lock of black wavy hair stiff with blood.

  I got up and unwrapped the body completely. It was the body of a woman who had been beautiful. Its beauty was marred by a depressed contusion which cut slantwise like a groove across the left temple. Bending close, I could also see a pair of purplish ovals on the front of the throat. Thumbprints.

  Her skin shone like ivory in the light from the doorway. I covered her with the burlap. Then I noticed that my wallet was lying open on the floor. Nothing seemed to be missing from it, but the photostat of my license was halfway out of its holder.

  I went through the house. It was a strange place for a honeymoon, even for a honeymoon that ended in murder. There were no lights, and no furniture, with the exception of some patio furniture—canvas chairs and a redwood chaise with a ruptured pad—in what had been the living room. This room had a fairly weatherproof ceiling, and was clearly the one that Lister and his wife had occupied. There were traces of a recent fire in the fireplace: burned fragments of eucalyptus bark and a few scraps of scorched cloth. The ashes were not quite cold.

  I crossed the room to the wooden chaise, noticing the marks of a woman’s heels in the dust on the floor. In the dust beside the chaise someone had written three words in long sloping script: Ora pro nobis. The meaning of the phrase came back to me across twenty years or more. Ora pro nobis. Pray for us. Now and in the hour of our death….

  For a minute I felt as insubstantial as a ghost. The dead woman and the living words were realer than I was. The actual world was a house with its roof falling in, dissolved so thin you could see the sunlight through it.

  When I heard the car noise outside, I didn’t believe my ears. I went to the front door, which stood open. A new tan Studebaker was toiling up the overgrown lane under the eucalyptus trees. It stopped where the Buick had been, and Harlan got out.

  I stood back behind the door and watched him through the crack. He approached cautiously, his black glance shifting from one side to the other. When his foot was on the lintel, I showed myself and the empty gun in my hand. He froze in midstride, with a rigor that matched the dead woman’s.

  “For heaven’s sake, put that gun down. You gave me a dreadful start.”

  “Before I put it down, I want to know how you got here. Have you been talking to Lister?”

  “I saw him at noon, you know that. He told me about this place he used to own. I didn’t get out on the street in time to intercept you. Now put the gun away, there’s a good fellow. What on earth happened to you?”

  “That can wait. I don’t understand yet why you’re here.”

  “Wasn’t that the plan, that I should join you here? I rented a car and got here as soon as I could. It took me a long time to find this place. And no wonder. Are they inside?”

  “One of them is.”

  “My sister?” His hand grasped my arm. The
long white fingers were stronger than they looked, and they were hard to shake off.

  “You tell me.”

  I took him through the house to the back kitchen. Pulling back the burlap that covered the damaged head, I watched Harlan’s face. It didn’t change. Not a muscle moved. Either Harlan was as cold as the cadaver, or deliberately suppressing his emotion.

  “I’ve never seen this woman before.”

  “She’s not your sister? Take a good long look.” I uncovered the body.

  Harlan averted his eyes, his cheeks flushing purple. But his look came creeping sideways back to the body.

  I had to repeat the question to make him hear. He shook his head. “I never saw her before.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t seriously think I’d refuse to identify my own flesh and blood?”

  “If there was money in it.”

  He didn’t hear me. He was fascinated by the uncovered body. I replaced the burlap and told him what had happened, cutting it short when I saw he wasn’t interested.

  I took him to the front room and showed him the writing in the dust.

  “Is that your sister’s handwriting?”

  “I couldn’t possibly tell.”

  “Look closely.”

  Harlan squatted, leaning one arm on the chaise. “It’s not her writing.”

  “Did she know Latin?”

  “Of course. She taught it. I’m surprised that you do.”

  “I don’t, but my mother was Catholic.”

  “I see.” Rising awkwardly he stumbled forward on one knee, obliterating the writing.

  “Damn you, Harlan!” I said. “You’re acting as if you murdered her yourself.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” He smiled his thin white-edged smile. “You’re morally certain that’s Maude in the back room, aren’t you?”

  “I’m morally certain you were lying. You were too careful not to recognize her.”

  “Well.” He dusted his knee with his hands. “I suppose I had better tell you the truth, since you know it anyway. You’re perfectly right, it’s my sister. She wasn’t murdered, however.”

  The sense of unreality returned to the room. I sat down on the chaise, which complained like an animal under my weight.

  “It’s a tragic story,” Harlan said slowly. “I was rather hoping not to have to tell it. Maude died last night by accident. After I left the studio, she quarreled with Lister over his refusal to admit me. She became quite irrational, in fact. Lister tried to quiet her, but she got away from him and flung herself bodily down those outside steps. The fall killed her.”

  “Is that Lister’s version?”

  “It’s the simple truth. He came to my hotel room a short while ago, and told me what had happened. The man was in terrible earnest. I know genuine anguish when I see it, and I can tell when a man is telling the truth.”

  “You’re better than I am, then. I think he’s playing you for a sucker.”

  “What?”

  “I caught him practically red-handed, trying to bury the body. Now he’s lying out of it the best way he can. It strikes me as very peculiar that you swallowed it.”

  Harlan’s black eyes probed my face. “I assure you his story is the truth. He told me about everything, you see, including the matter of—burial. Put yourself in his place. When Maude killed herself—was killed—last night, Lister saw immediately that suspicion would fall on him, especially my suspicion. He’s had some trouble with the police, he told me. Inevitably in his panic he acted like a guilty man. He thought of this deserted place, and brought the body here to dispose of it. His action was rash and even illegal, but I think understandable under the circumstances.”

  “You’re very tolerant all of a sudden. What about the five grand he’s been trying to con you for?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The check for five thousand, has it slipped your mind?”

  “We’ll forget about it,” he said impassively. “It’s my affair, strictly between him and me.”

  I was beginning to get hold of the situation, if not the motives behind it. Somehow or other Lister had persuaded Harlan to cover for him. I said with all the irony I could muster:

  “So we’ll bury the body and forget about it.”

  “Precisely my idea. Not we, however. You. I can’t afford to become involved in any illegality whatsoever.”

  “What makes you think I can?”

  He brought a leatherette folder out of his coat pocket and opened it to show me the travelers’ checks inside. There were ten hundreds. “One thousand dollars,” he said, “seems to me an adequate sexton’s fee. Enough to assure forgetfulness as well.”

  His look was very knowing, but his passion for money was making him look idiotic. He was like a tone-deaf man who couldn’t believe that other people heard music and even liked it. But I didn’t argue. I let him sign the checks and listened to his instructions. Bury her and forget her.

  “I sincerely hate to do this to Maude,” he said before he left. “It goes against my grain to leave my sister in an unmarked grave, but I have to consider the greatest good of the greatest number. It would ruin the School if this matter got into the newspapers. I can’t let mere fraternal piety interfere with the welfare of the School.”

  Naturally I didn’t bury the body. I left it where it lay and followed Harlan back to Santa Monica. I caught the Studebaker before it reached the city, but I let it stay ahead of me.

  He parked on Wilshire Boulevard and went into an air travel agency. Before I could find a parking space, he was out again and climbing into his car. I made a note of the agency’s name, and followed the Studebaker back to the Oceano Hotel. Harlan left it at the white curb for the garageman. There were shells in my dashboard compartment, and I reloaded my revolver.

  The lobby of the hotel was deserted except for the desk clerk and a pair of old ladies playing canasta. I found a telephone booth at the rear, and called the travel agency. A carefully preserved British accent said:

  “Sanders’ travel agency, Mr. Sanders speaking.”

  “This is J. Reginald Harlan,” I said fussily. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Indeed it does, Mr. Harlan. I trust your reservations are satisfactory?”

  “I’m not entirely sure about that. You see, I’m eager to get there as soon as I can.”

  “I absolutely assure you, Mr. Harlan, I’ve put you on the earliest available flight. Ten o’clock from International Airport.” A trace of impatience threaded through the genteel tones.

  “When do I get there?”

  “I thought I’d made that clear. It’s written on your envelope.”

  “I seem to have misplaced the envelope.”

  “You’re scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning at eight o’clock, Chicago time. All right?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Not at all.”

  I called the hotel switchboard and asked for Harlan.

  “Who is speaking, please?” the operator yodeled.

  “Lister. Leonard Lister.”

  “One moment, Mr. Lister, I’ll ring Mr. Harlan’s room. He’s expecting you.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll just go up. What was the number again?”

  “Three-fourteen, sir.”

  I took the elevator to the third floor. The elevator boy noticed my face, opened his mouth to comment, caught my eye, and shut his mouth without speaking. Harlan’s room was at the front of the hotel, in a good location. I knocked.

  “Is that you, Leonard?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Harlan opened the door, and I crowded through. He raised his fists together in front of his chest, like a woman. Looking at me as if he hated me, he said:

  “Come in, Mr. Archer.”

  “I’m in.”

  “Sit down then. I’m afraid I wasn’t expecting to see you again. So soon,” he added. “There hasn’t been any trouble?”

  “No trouble. Just the same routine murder.”


  “But it was an accident—”

  “Maybe the fall downstairs was an accident. I don’t think that fall killed her. There are thumbprints on her throat.”

  “But this is all news to me. Do sit down, Mr. Archer, won’t you?”

  “I’ll stand. In the second place, your sister wrote a prayer in the dust in that house. She was alive when Lister took her there. In the third place, you just bought tickets to Chicago, and you’re expecting another visit from Lister. Aren’t you getting pretty cozy with him?”

  “He’s my brother-in-law, after all.” His voice was bland.

  “And you’re very fond of him, eh?”

  “Leonard has his points.”

  He sat down in an armchair by the window. Past his narrow cormorant skull I could see the sky and the sea, wide and candid, flecked with the white purity of sails. I spent too much of my time trying to question liars in rented rooms.

  “I think he’s your partner in crime. You both stand to gain by your sister’s death. From what I’ve seen of the two of you, you’re capable of murdering for gain.”

  “You’ve changed your mind about Lister, eh?”

  “Not as much as you have.”

  Harlan made his hands flop in the air. “My dear good fellow, you couldn’t possibly be further wrong. Even apart from the money I’ve paid you, I do earnestly hope for your sake that you won’t act on your ridiculous theory. In the first place,” he mimicked me, “if I were in league with Lister, I wouldn’t have sought your help yesterday, would I?”

  “You must have had a reason. I don’t see it, though.”

  “I came to you in all sincerity. But now I know more about the situation. I tell you in all sincerity that if Lister had killed my sister I’d hunt him down to the ends of the earth. You don’t know me.”

  “What about the plane tickets?”