Lay Her Among The Lilies

them and collects. You don’t have to be a qualified man to do that.”

My hand strayed back to her knee again.

“Do you think you could be a clever, smart girl and find out if Maureen is in the

sanatorium?” I asked, and began a complicated manoeuvre.

She slapped my hand, hard this time.

“There you go again—Maureen.”

I rubbed the back of my hand.

“You have quite a slap there.”

She giggled.

“When you have my looks you learn to slap hard.”

Then the front-door bell rang: one long, shrill peal.

“Don’t answer it,” I said. “I’m now ready not to talk about Maureen.”

“Don’t be silly.” She swung her long legs off the divan. It’s the grocerman.”

“What’s he got I haven’t? “

“I’ll show you when I come back. I can’t starve just to please you.”

She went out of the room and closed the door. I took the opportunity to freshen my drink,

and then lay down on the divan. What she had told me had been very interesting. The

uncared-for garden, the crap-shooting chinamen, the whittling chauffeur, the smoking butler

all added up to the obvious truth that Maureen wasn’t living at Crestways. Then where was

she? Was she at the sanatorium? Was she sweating out a drug jag? Nurse Flemming would

know. Dr. Jonathan Salzer would know, too. Probably Benny Dwan and Eudora had known.

Perhaps Glynn & Coppley knew, or if they didn’t they might wish to know. I began to see a

way to put this business on a financial footing. My mind shifted to Brandon. If I had Glynn &

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Coppley behind me, I didn’t think Brandon would dare start anything. Glynn & Coppley were

the best, the most expensive, the top-drawer lawyers in California. They had branch offices in

San Francisco, Hollywood, New York and London. They were not the kind of people who’d

allow themselves to be nudged by a shyster copper like Brandon. If they wanted to they had

enough influence to dust him right out of office.

I closed my eyes and thought how nice it would be to be rid of Brandon and have a good,

honest Captain of Police like Mifflin in charge at Headquarters. How much easier it would be

for me to get co-operation instead of threats of dark alley beatings.

Then it occurred to me that Nurse Gurney had been away longer than it was necessary to

collect a few groceries, and I sat up, frowning. I couldn’t hear her talking. I couldn’t hear

anything. I set my drink down and stood up. Crossing the room I opened the door and looked

into the lobby. The front door was ajar, but there was no one to see. I peeped into the passage.

The door of the opposite apartment looked blankly at me and I returned to the lobby. Maybe

she was in the johnny, I thought, and went back into the sitting-room. I sat and waited, getting

more and more fidgety, then after five minutes I finished my drink and went to the door

again.

Somewhere in the apartment a refrigerator gave a whirring grunt and made me jump halfway

out of my skin. I raised my voice and called, “Hey!” but no one answered. Moving

quietly, I opened the door opposite the living-room and looked around what was obviously

her bedroom. She wasn’t there. I even looked under the bed. I went into the bathroom and the

kitchen and a tiny room that was probably the guest-room. She wasn’t in any of these rooms.

I went back to the living-room, but she wasn’t there either. It was beginning to dawn on me

she wasn’t in the apartment, so I went to the front door, along the passage until I arrived at

the main corridor. I looked to right and left. Stony-faced doors looked back at me. Nothing

moved, nothing happened; just two lines of doors, a mile of shabby drugget, two or three

grimy windows to let in the light, but no Nurse Gurney.

V

I stared blankly out of the window of the small living-room at the roof of the Buick parked

below.

Without shoes or stockings she couldn’t have gone far, I told myself, unless … and my

mind skipped to Eudora Drew, seeing a picture of her as she lay across the bed with the scarf

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biting into her throat.

For some moments I stood undecided. There seemed nothing much I could do. I had

nothing to work on. The front-door bell rings. She says it’s the grocerman. She goes into the

lobby. She vanishes. No cry; no bloodstains; no nothing.

But I had to do something, so I went to the front door and opened it and looked at the door

of the opposite apartment. It didn’t tell me anything. I stepped into the passage and dug my

thumb into the bell-push. Almost immediately the door opened as if the woman who faced

me had been waiting for my ring.

She was short and plump, with white hair, a round, soft-skinned face, remarkable for the

bright, vague, forget-me-not blue eyes and nothing else. At a guess, she was about fifty, and

when she smiled she showed big, dead-looking white teeth that couldn’t have been her own.

She was wearing a fawn-coloured coat and skirt that must have cost a lot of money, but fitted

her nowhere. In her small, fat, white hand she held a paper sack.

“Good morning,” she said, and flashed the big teeth at me.