And if it wasn't a gag-or at least not the Monk's gag-there could be more drastic and disturbing reasons for Mrs. McLain's absence. I was just starting to run them through my mind when I heard quick footsteps approaching through the garden, and there she was, dark glasses and all, in a white suit that managed to look summery and smart at the same time, unlike some of this thin summer stuff they wear that's really pretty amorphous.
"I'm terribly sorry," she said, coming up a little breathlessly, which was flattering. I had the impression she was a lady who didn't hurry for just anybody. She even offered an excuse for her tardiness, "I simply had to have my hair done after last night, and the girl took practically forever." She hesitated. "If you want me dressed up, you're going to have to wait a little longer while I change."
I said, "I don't mind waiting, but you look pretty dressed up to me. Judging by what I've seen around here so far, at least half the lady patrons will be dazzling in bedroom slippers and old flour bags."
"Well, all right," she said, smiling. "I guess there's nothing I need in my room." She took my arm as we turned away and leaned close to ask softly, "Did you bring it, as I asked, Mr. Helm?"
"What?"
"The gun."
"Sure." I opened my coat surreptitiously to give her a glimpse of the butt protruding above the waistband of my pants on the left side.
"Is it loaded?"
"Naturally," I said. Well, it wasn't really a lie, the weapon did hold cartridges of a sort. Buttoning my coat again, I went on, "Who'd carry an unloaded gun? Might as well pack around a chunk of scrap iron."
"Do you carry it all the time?"
"It depends. In foreign countries, a gun can cause you more trouble than it's worth. As a matter of fact, firearms are highly overrated implements, particularly short-range firearms like this. There are lots of quieter and tidier ways of killing people close up if you really have to. However, we're on American soil, and I'm not impersonating anybody for whom a gun would be out of character, and as it happens, I may need the damn thing for its moral effect, which is about all it's good for, anyway."
She absorbed this lecture with bright-eyed interest, as if I were recounting a piece of fascinating social gossip. "Don't you use a holster?" she asked. "I thought they were always worn in funny-looking holsters under the left armpit."
I grinned. "That's movie stuff, ma'am. Or gangster stuff. And the F.B.I. likes belt holsters under the coat on the right hip, I understand. They're supposed to do real fancy quick-draw work from that position. But they operate in a more friendly environment, so to speak, than we do. They've got badges to flash if anybody questions the artillery. Me, I'm just as likely to have to get rid of it fast as I am to have to shoot it fast. And getting rid of a gun alone isn't too hard, but just try jettisoning a holster rig that's got your belt through it, or your whole left arm."
"Why, I never thought of that," she said. She laughed happily and tightened her grip on my arm possessively. "And to think that yesterday I was practically bored to extinction with not a ray of excitement in sight!"
"You make it sound real desperate, ma'am," I said. "Was that before you'd checked on my arrival or afterward?" She stopped abruptly, bringing me to a halt as well. I looked up and said, "My God, bananas! Did you know that each banana tree like that produces only one bunch of bananas before it dies clear back to the root? That's kind of sad, when you come to think of it."
She smiled at my irrelevant nonsense. "So you've found me out, Mr. Helm. Well, that's more or less your business, isn't it? Once I learned that you were a professional, I knew I wouldn't fool you very long."
I looked down at her. She was really a very attractive woman, and I liked the calm way she took things. "Are you going to tell me about it, ma'am?"
"Of course," she said. "But suppose you call me Isobel and I'll call you Matt. Ma'am, indeed! And suppose we claim our table at the Royal Hawaiian before they give it to somebody else. And then suppose we promote me a large double Scotch before we make me lay bare my guilty soul. Sitting under hair dryers always gives me a thirst." She gave me a reproachful glance. "And you haven't even asked how my head is this morning!"
I grinned. "I don't have to ask. I can see there's not a damn thing wrong with your head, inside or out. That's what scares me."
The Monk's moon-faced youth tailed us from the Halekulani in his little Datsun. Well, I hadn't really expected friend Monk to pull everybody off me just because I'd talked tough; I'd have been disappointed if he had. It was a short drive, and soon we were sitting on the terrace of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, surrounded by important-acting people who seemed to be trying to prove something to each other, I couldn't figure out just what. Isobel picked up her loaded highball when it arrived, saluted me with it, and drank gratefully. She set the glass down and produced a cigarette, which she lit with a butane lighter before I could make like a gentleman. I was glad for the small sign of nervousness. It showed she was human after all.
"All right, first tell me what you already know about me, Matt," she said.
"Well, you're not on any of our lists," I said. "To the best of my recollection, there's nobody who'd meet your description."
"Lists of what?"
"Of local operatives working for nations friendly and unfriendly."
She looked pleased. "Did you really think I might be an agent? A real mystery woman? That's very flattering. I like that. What else do you know?"
"That you probably don't live in the District of Columbia as you claim. That information comes from other people. I haven't checked it personally."
"The other people are quite right. I don't live anywhere near Washington, and McLain isn't my real name. What else?"
"That you nevertheless know the area pretty well."
"I was born practically on the shore of Chesapeake Bay. I went to school in Washington. Go on."
"You've been inquiring about me. You asked the hostess to introduce us." She nodded brightly. I said, "Just one thing before we go on, Isobel. You're having lots of fun, I can see. Well, some people jump out of airplanes for kicks and others play Russian roulette. It's fine with me. I've never believed in making people do things for their own good, or stop doing them. But I feel I ought to point out to you, as I started to last night, that the party can get rough. You've already had a taste of it. I don't know what your game is, but you'd be a lot safer if you played it somewhere else. I've got some unsavory friends and I'm not really a very pleasant guy myself. I mean, if a pretty lady insists on hanging around, I'm apt to start figuring how I can best make use of her-and I don't mean just in bed, although I won't turn that down, either, if it's offered."
There was a little silence. Her face was paler than it had been, and there was anger in her eyes. She drew a long breath and said, "That was… you shouldn't have said that, Matt. I mean, the last part. It… well, it kind of spoils things. You're entitled to think it, but you shouldn't say it. You make me feel like a tramp, and I don't like it."
I said, "Better to feel it now than after it's too late, sweetheart. Now you know how my low-down mind is running. I'll use you if I can and I'll lay you if I can, and if you get messed up in other ways, or even killed, I'll hoist one drink in your memory and go on to the next job."
"And the next woman?"
"Sure."
She laughed softly. Her dark glasses reflected the beach behind me as she looked at me. "You're very tough, aren't you?"
"It's a tough racket."
"There were flowers on the grave," she said quietly. "Fresh flowers."
I stared at her. "What grave?"
"Winifred's grave. In a little village cemetery in southern France. The gatekeeper said the tall man who left the money for the flowers had tears in his eyes. That couldn't be you, of course, Matt. You're the tough guy who lays them and leaves them without a backward glance." She smiled gently. "My husband thinks you're a murderer. He was very fond of his little sister. She was probably the only human being, besides himself, that he
ever really cared for. He thinks you married her for her inheritance and did away with her. We were both sure of it, when we saw the lengths to which you'd gone to make it look like a simple car accident. We learned you were coming here..
"How?" My voice sounded rusty.
"The lawyers got a forwarding address from some government department. We, Kenneth and I, decided that it would be best for me to fly out and be waiting to tackle you alone. I was t~ see if I couldn't get you to incriminate yourself somehow." Her smile widened and turned faintly bitter. "Of course, our motives aren't quite unselfish, Matt. There's a good deal of money involved, nearly half a million dollars apiece, and my husband has already run through or obligated most of his share. If we can prove you murdered Winifred, then of course you can't benefit from your crime, and her legacy will revert to the estate, meaning Kenneth and me."
I had to clear my throat before I could speak again. "Just who the hell are you?" I asked.
"Why," she said, still smiling brightly, "why, I'm your sister-in-law, darling. I'm Isobel Marner."
Chapter Eleven
THE UNEXPECTEDNESS OF it kind of took my breath away. Since my divorce several years ago, I've been strictly a non-family man. I'm not used to having relatives walk up and introduce themselves in the middle of a job, especially relatives by a marriage that was never performed. To cover up, I reached for the white purse on the table.
"Do you mind?"
Isobel had started to protest, but she laughed instead. "No, of course not. Go right ahead. Is this what they call a frisk?"
I said, "No, a frisk is lots more fun. My God, the junk you women carry in those suitcases!"
Actually, the purse was reasonably uncluttered and quite innocent of surprises. There was nothing in it you wouldn't expect to find in the purse of any modern woman who used cigarettes and cosmetics, or if there was, it was well enough camouflaged that I could afford to let myself be fooled by it. The small, lady-type wallet held a California driver's license and various other cards issued to (Mrs.) Isobel Caroline Marner, 1286 Seaview Drive, San Francisco. I remembered that the letter from the lawyers had also originated in San Francisco.
"My passport is in my suitcase, at the hotel," she said. "I'll show it to you when we get back, if you like."
"Why a passport to come to Hawaii, a state of the U.S.A.?" I asked suspiciously.
She took back her purse, smiling. "I told you. We went to France to investigate Winnie's death; naturally I had a passport. And I didn't know where you might lead me from here so I brought it along." She hesitated. "Now you might let me look in your wallet, just to make us even."
I said, "It wouldn't do you any good. You know my name. Your lawyers seem to've tracked down as much address as I've got. What else do you want, a card saying Secret Agent?"
She laughed. "I guess I'm being naпve. But I only have your word for it."
"That's right."
"You could be just about anybody," she persisted. "Anybody with a gun."
"That's right."
"You're not being much help, Matt."
"That's right," I said. "Let's order some lunch. I'm hungry."
After we'd given our orders and the waitress had departed, Isobel stubbed out her cigarette and looked at me. "May I ask just one question?"
"Go ahead."
"Assuming you're telling the truth, and you are an undercover operative of some kind for the U.S. Government, was Winnie one, too?"
I said, "I can't answer that. If she was, it would come under the heading of classified information, wouldn't it?"
"You've told me what you are. If you're telling the truth. Isn't that classified, too?"
"You kind of tricked it out of me, catching me with a gun out," I said. "I had to give you a reasonable explanation, to avoid damaging publicity. We're allowed to use the truth judiciously in such cases; we're not one of the outfits that make a holy fetish of security, thank God. But that doesn't mean I can lay the whole operation open to you, just to satisfy your girlish curiosity."
"It's a little more than girlish curiosity." Isobel's voice was sharp. "I mean, if she was an agent, too, and you were working together, and she got killed in the line of duty, then maybe-"
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe you weren't really married. Maybe you were just pretending to be. Maybe it was just, what do you call it in your work, a cover? And in that case-"
She was a smart woman. I grinned at her across the table. "In that case, you and your Kenneth would be home free, wouldn't you? No marriage, no inheritance for me. Shucks, and I was just starting to feel so rich, too!"
Isobel didn't smile. "Unfortunately for us, it isn't quite that simple. Whether or not you were married to her, there's still the will; she was legally entitled to leave her money to any man she chose, husband or no…"
This was all taking us pretty far from what had brought me to Hawaii, but of course I couldn't say so. To act uninterested would have been suspicious. It would have indicated that I had more important things on my mind than half a million dollars.
"Wait a minute!" I said. "What will are we talking about now? From a letter I got and from what you've told me, I gather that the old man, Philip Grant Marner or whatever his name was, willed his estate to his kids Kenneth and Winifred. Is that right?"
"Yes, of course. And Winnie left her share to you, in a document mailed from France about a week before she died. Didn't you know?"
I thought of a small girl with silver-blonde hair who'd never talked much about herself. My voice sounded odd and far away when I spoke: "No, I didn't know. I didn't even know the kid had money. She never told me."
"Of course you'd say that."
I looked up, and drew a long breath, and managed a grin. "Sure. I'm a born liar. You can't trust a word I say."
Isobel said grimly, "And you can get that sentimental look off your face. Maybe Winnie was fond of you and maybe she wasn't-I wouldn't know about that-but she didn't pass her inheritance on to you because of your sex appeal. She did it to spite me and to protect the older brother she idolized."
"Protect him?" I said. "By keeping him from getting her share of the dough if she died? That's protection?"
"Yes. Because she knew he was almost broke, and she thought I would leave him if he could no longer support me properly. And in her opinion, my leaving Kenneth would be the biggest break of his life. She hated me, and she had the theory, I'm sure, that without me to drag him down, he'd manage to make a man of himself somehow." Isobel shrugged. "Well, that was one girl's opinion. We always did disagree about what was good for Kenneth, Winnie and I. I managed to win that battle; that's why she went away and took a government job." Isobel smiled. "She never let us know what kind of job it was, except that it involved a lot of traveling. But I can guess, can't I? Just as I can guess that you weren't really married."
There was a little break while the waitress served our lunches; then I said, "If there's a will, what difference does our matrimonial status make?"
"Wills can be broken, darling. What did they call this fish?"
"Mahimahi. Something local," I said. "Is it any good?"
"Fabulous. Look, they've got almonds in the sauce! And if we did decide to try to break Winnie's last will and testament, charging duress or incompetence or something, we'd probably have a better chance if you'd been just casual lovers rather than man and wife." She regarded me coolly across the table. "And, of course, if you're not what you claim to be, and if you did murder Winnie after all… Well, as I said, that's what I was hoping to prove when I came out here."
"And now?" I asked.
She smiled slowly. "Now I'll have to use another approach, darling. Because, to be perfectly honest, after meeting you and talking with you, I don't really think you killed her. And I don't really think her will can be broken. So there's only one thing left for me to do, isn't there? All I can do is throw myself on your mercy, my dear brother-in-law, and hope that somehow I can make you feel generous toward me. Well, to
ward Kenneth and me."
There was a little silence. "Half a million is a lot of generosity," I said at last, watching her closely. It didn't seem like real money we were discussing, the kind you could pay bills with or use in the Coke machine.
"Oh, I don't expect you to renounce it all," she said calmly. "But you're obviously not a man who thinks too much about money; it doesn't mean a great deal to you. Apparently you've got a good salary and your tastes aren't too expensive. You could be generous and pass up, say, half the legacy and never notice it. And it would mean a great deal… a very great deal to us. To me." She looked down and found a cigarette and did her nervous fast-draw trick with the lighter once more. Without looking up, she said, "You said something about about finding a use for me, Matt."
"In bed or out," I agreed. "I did say something like that, didn't I?"
She blew smoke toward the nearest palm tree. "In bed is easy," she said, quite unruffled. "If that's all you want, let's get back to the hotel. For a quarter of a million, darling, I'd sleep with the devil himself."
"Thanks," I said. "There's nothing like making a man feel wanted for himself alone, I always say. What else would you do for approximately two hundred and fifty grand?"
"Just about anything," she said steadily. "Just name it and tell me how. I don't have much experience with your kind of melodrama, but I'm bright and willing to learn." She was silent briefly, and went on, "I know I'm revealing myself as a dreadfully mercenary person, but don't rub my nose in it any harder than you have to, Matt. I do have a certain amount of pride."
"Sorry," I said, and meant it. "As a matter of fact, I think I can find a use for you outside the obvious one.
How much risk are you willing to run for a quarter of a million?"
She said any amount. They always say that, the ones who've never been shot at in their lives.
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