The Little Sister (25 page)

“Very naturally, amigo.”

I looked her over for cracks, but there weren’t any yet.

“So far so good. But we’ve got to give this lad credit for a few brains. Why did he let them hold him in jail for ten days? Answer One, to make himself an alibi. Answer Two, because he knew that sooner or later this question of him being Moyer was going to get aired, so why not give them the time and get it over with? That way any time a racket boy gets blown down around here they’re not going to keep pulling Steelgrave in and trying to hang the rap on him.”

“You like that idea, amigo?”

“Yes. Look at it this way. Why would he have lunch in a public place the very day he was out of the cooler to knock Stein off? And if he did, why would young Quest happen around to snap that picture? Stein hadn’t been killed, so the picture wasn’t evidence of anything. I like people to be lucky, but that’s too lucky. Again, even if Steelgrave didn’t know his picture had been taken, he knew who Quest was. Must have. Quest had been tapping his sister for eating money since he lost his job, maybe before. Steelgrave had a key to her apartment. He must have known something about this brother of hers. Which simply adds up to the result, that that night of all nights Steelgrave would not have shot Stein—even if he had planned to.”

“It is now for me to ask you who did,” she said politely.

“Somebody who knew Stein and could get close to him. Somebody who already knew that photo had been taken, knew who Steelgrave was, knew that Mavis Weld was on the edge of becoming a big star, knew that her association with Steelgrave was dangerous, but would be a thousand times more dangerous if Steelgrave could be framed for the murder of Stein. Knew Quest, because he had been to Mavis Weld’s apartment, and had met him there and given him the works, and he was a boy that could be knocked clean out of his mind by that sort of treatment. Knew that those bone-handled .32’s were registered to Steelgrave, although he had only bought them to give to a couple of girls, and if he carried a gun himself, it would be one that was not registered and could not be traced to him. Knew—”

“Stop!” Her voice was a sharp stab of sound, but neither frightened nor even angry. “You will stop at once, please! I will not tolerate this another minute. You will now go!”

I stood up. She leaned back and a pulse beat in her throat. She was exquisite, she was dark, she was deadly. And nothing would ever touch her, not even the law.

“Why did you kill Quest?” I asked her.

She stood up and came close to me, smiling again.

“For two reasons, amigo. He was more than a little crazy and in the end he would have killed me. And the other reason is that none of this—absolutely none of it—was for money. It was for love.”

I started to laugh in her face. I didn’t. She was dead serious. It was out of this world.

“No matter how many lovers a woman may have,” she said softly, “there is always one she cannot bear to lose to another woman. Steelgrave was the one.”

I just stared into her lovely dark eyes. “I believe you,” I said at last.

“Kiss me, amigo.”

“Good God!”

“I must have men, amigo. But the man I loved is dead. I killed him. That man I would not share.”

“You waited a long time.”

“I can be patient—as long as there is hope.”

“Oh, nuts.”

She smiled a free, beautiful and perfectly natural smile. “And you cannot do a damn thing about all this, darling, unless you destroy Mavis Weld utterly and finally.”

“Last night she proved she was willing to destroy her self.”

“If she was not acting.” She looked at me sharply and laughed. “That hurt, did it not? You are in love with her.”

I said slowly, “That would be kind of silly. I could sit in the dark with her and hold hands, but for how long? In a little while she will drift off into a haze of glamour and expensive clothes and froth and unreality and muted sex. She won’t be a real person any more. Just a voice from a sound track, a face on a screen. I’d want more than that.”

I moved towards the door without putting my back to her. I didn’t really expect a slug. I thought she liked better having me the way I was—and not being able to do a damn thing about any of it.

I looked back as I opened the door. Slim, dark and lovely and smiling. Reeking with sex. Utterly beyond the moral laws of this or any world I could imagine.

She was one for the book all right. I went out quietly. Very softly her voice came to me as I closed the door.

“Querido—I have liked you very much. It is too bad.”

I shut the door.

35

As the elevator opened at the lobby a man stood there waiting for it. He was tall and thin and his hat was pulled low over his eyes. It was a warm day but he wore a thin topcoat with the collar up. He kept his chin low.

“Dr. Lagardie,” I said softly.

He glanced at me with no trace of recognition. He moved into the elevator. It started up.

I went across to the desk and banged the bell. The large fat soft man came out and stood with a pained smile on his loose mouth. His eyes were not quite so bright.

“Give me the phone.”

He reached down and put it on the desk. I dialed Madison 7911. The voice said: “Police.” This was the Emergency Board.

“Chateau Bercy Apartments, Franklin and Girard in Hollywood. A man named Dr. Vincent Lagardie wanted for questioning by homicide, Lieutenants French and Beifus, has just gone up to Apartment 412. This is Philip Marlowe, a private detective.”

“Franklin and Girard. Wait there please. Are you armed?”

“Yes.”

“Hold him if he tries to leave.”

I hung up and wiped my mouth off. The fat softy was leaning against the counter, white around the eyes.

They came fast—but not fast enough. Perhaps I ought to have stopped him. Perhaps I had a hunch what he would do, and deliberately let him do it. Sometimes when I’m low I try to reason it out. But it gets too complicated. The whole damn case was that way. There was never a point where I could do the natural obvious thing without stopping to rack my head dizzy with figuring how it would affect somebody I owed something to.

When they cracked the door he was sitting on the couch holding her pressed against his heart. His eyes were blind and there was bloody foam on his lips. He had bitten through his tongue.

Under her left breast and tight against the flame-colored shirt lay the silver handle of a knife I had seen before. The handle was in the shape of a naked woman. The eyes of Miss Dolores Gonzales were half open and on her lips there was the dim ghost of a provocative smile.

“The Hippocrates smile,” the ambulance intern said, and sighed. “On her it looks good.”

He glanced across at Dr. Lagardie who saw nothing and heard nothing, if you could judge by his face.

“I guess somebody lost a dream,” the intern said. He bent over and closed her eyes.

About the Author

RAYMOND CHANDLER was born in Chicago, Illinois, on July 23, 1888, but spent most of his boyhood and youth in England, where he attended Dulwich College and later worked as a free-lance journalist for The Westminster Gazette and The Spectator. During World War I, he served in France with the First Division of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, transferring later to the Royal Flying Corps (R.A.F.). In 1919 he returned to the United States, settling in California, where he eventually became director of a number of independent oil companies. The Depression put an end to his business career, and in 1933, at the age of forty-five, he turned to writing, publishing his first stories in Black Mask. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. Never a prolific writer, he published only one collection of stories and seven novels in his lifetime. In the last year of his life he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. He died in La Jolla, California, on March 26, 1959.