Goldengirl

The senior citizen clipping his hedge two doors down was more forthcoming: ‘Would this be the CIA? Say no more, mister. I can keep my mouth shut. What do you want to know? Sure, I remember the Serafin people. Three of them, there was. A couple and their daughter. Used to drive a Buick. A professor, I heard. Not the college up the road, but the Human Science place, a couple of miles east, off Chester Avenue. I believe he threw up the job back in seventy-seven, or thereabouts. He was some years short of retirement then, I guess. Say, would that be significant? Yeah, he was five years my junior, I’m positive, and I got to sixty-five just eighteen months back. You thought I was younger? It’s the outdoor life, mister. Keeps me in shape. What else interests you?’

‘The daughter?’ prompted Dryden.

‘Didn’t see much of her. She didn’t hang about the street with the other kids, or I’d have talked to her for sure. I relate to kids. With me, the generation gap is nonexistent. But that kid never left the house except in the Buick. I never got what you’d call a face-to-face with her. Not sure I’d care to, candidly. She didn’t rate as a looker. Had some height on her, though. She was inches up on both of them, and she couldn’t have been much over fourteen. Is this helpful?’

‘Sure,’ said Dryden. ‘Did you get to speak to the parents?’

‘A few words now and then. Time of day, generally. Nothing to interest you guys. Hold on, now. I’m forgetting. Serafin had some kind of accent. Till now I never thought much about it. Funny how you just accept these things. Well, the Serafins liked to keep their distance, and people around here respect each other. When I heard the wife took off with some intern from the City Hospital, I kept it to myself, like it was no business of mine. You could see them each lunchtime holding hands on a bench in the Cunningham Memorial Garden.’ His eyes bulged. ‘Say, you don’t suppose he was the contact?’

‘Not a chance,’ said Dryden. ‘Thanks, anyway.’

‘My pleasure.’ His informant grinned conspiratorially. ‘I knew you was CIA when you parked on the next block. Saw you drive past the first time.’

The campus of the California Institute of Human Science must have been symmetrically faultless when the main four-story block and tower were completed in 1915. A eucalyptus-lined drive exactly bisected five acres of lawn to end at the broad steps and fluted pillars of the portico, itself positioned at the very center of the red brick façade. At some point afterward, the symmetrical concept had been abandoned. A series of extensions in bricks an expert could probably date from their various shades of pink had extended the west wing toward the gate, while the economic strictures of the seventies had reduced further expansion to a colony of gray prefabs on the east lawn.

‘I’d like to see the Professor of Anthropometry, if that’s possible.’

The porter looked Dryden up and down. ‘Professor Walsh, sir? You have an appointment?’

‘I don’t,’ admitted Dryden. ‘But I’ve driven up from Los Angeles.’

The expression hardened under the peaked cap. ‘You some kind of rep?’

‘I’m not selling anything, if that’s what you mean. The name is Martindale, and I’m from England. Perhaps you’ll be so kind as to convey that message to the Professor.’

The porter gave him a doubtful look, and dialed a number on the intercom. ‘Patsy? Listen, some guy here from England wants to see the Prof. Name’s Martingale.’

‘Dale,’ said Dryden. ‘Martindale.’ Having gone to the trouble of looking up the name of the English publisher of Professor Walsh’s book on radiographic measurements, he wasn’t going to have it mispronounced.

The porter repeated it correctly. ‘Yeah, I know, sweetheart, but see if it rings any chimes with the Prof, will you? This guy seems to think it should.’ He put his hand over the mouthpiece and told Dryden, ‘Professor Walsh just finished lecturing. There’s this heap of letters to sign. I tell you straight, Mr. Martingale— What’s that? Yeah. Patsy? Well, that beats everything!’ He put the phone down. ‘Take the elevator to floor three, Mr. Martingale. Professor Walsh’s secretary will meet you there.’

Patsy got the name right. A small, efficient-looking blonde, she weaved a route confidently through a mass of students converging on the lift, and led Dryden along a corridor lined with bulletin boards. Through an office, presumably her own, to a room unlike any Dryden was prepared for. No filing cabinets, timetable, group photos on the wall. Not a skeleton in sight. It had a thick bottle-green carpet and biscuit-coloured hessian wallpaper, three steel-framed chairs with white leather upholstery, and an occasional table with a tall Venetian glass containing white roses. A woman was adjusting the angle of the blinds at the window. Martindale’s name seemed to have made an impact.