“YES,” JIMMIE SAID, PACING back and forth before the terrace window, “I kissed her. Furthermore she liked it.”
“But of course she liked it,” Helene said sweetly. “I told you she was in love with you. Furthermore, if you really want to be governor, you’re going to have to kiss her again and again, having started it.”
Jimmie stopped in his tracks. “It wasn’t so hard to do, you know. And it’s a hell of a lot better than smacking babies.”
Helene gave a vigorous stir to the martinis. “Okay, darling. You’re on loan till after elections. I’ll get more work done.”
“Nice,” Jimmie said, tracing his finger about a granite nude. “I haven’t seen this before, have I?”
“You have. I’m going to put it in the garden. It’s weatherable.”
“Very,” Jimmie murmured. “What do you mean, I’m on loan? Stop treating me like something you’ve carved out of stone.”
“Pygmalion-femina.” Helene refilled his glass, then touched hers to it. “Or perhaps it will be best after all if I avail myself of Judge Turner’s fellowship.”
The doorbell sounded at the front of the house. “That will be our young romantics,” Helene said, and went to admit Mrs. Norris and Tully.
Jimmie was enjoying a mood of liquid gold, momentary and transient. And strictly out of Helene’s martini mixer. But, God help him, he thought, why had he ever sought to spoil a beautiful friendship by talk of a marriage neither of them really wanted? Helene at least was no hypocrite. He was mouthing the catechismal lines of Mrs. Norris. The little housekeeper came in wreathed in smiles, and he would have sworn she would be of disapproving mien. Tully was a good influence.
Both she and Tully took their whiskey neat, while the detective summed up for Jimmie his work of the last two days. Jimmie would not take to the notion of hypnotism at all, and Helene sided with him.
“Got a better explanation?” Tully said, somewhat irked. He had not come easily by the notion himself.
“Who hypnotized him then?” said Jimmie. “The character who brought him in to the hotel? Father was not the type to submit himself to nonsense. He liked his whiskey straight, his women submissive, and his money in cash. Excuse my frankness, Mrs. Norris.”
She merely nodded, intent on something at which she was gazing.
Tully switched then to a discussion of Fowler, and while he was talking Jimmie became aware that the housekeeper’s attention was focused on the male nude he had commented on earlier. Now and then, she glanced from it to him, and back to it again. Jimmie realized what was going on in her mind. The piece was sculpted, hands behind the head, knees drawn slightly up, ankles crossed. It was a hell of a position, but Jimmie managed to take it. Tully was reading from notes. Helene saw the situation between Mrs. Norris and her employer, the man she had raised from rompers, and covered her mouth with a glass. Sixty seconds passed; Jimmie was aching. Then Mrs. Norris saw his position.
She gave a little “oh” and began to fan herself vigorously.
“You were saying, Jasper?” Jimmie said, springing loose his limbs. Helene turned her back.
Tully looked up from his notes. “I was saying that if Fowler denied giving your father a thousand dollars, if I were you, I’d get that diary back from him and take a good look at it.”
“I intend to,” Jimmie said. “I called him twice today, and no return call. I was going to ask you to take a hand.”
“Mrs. Norris and I stopped there on our way. He wasn’t in.”
“But the girl in the office thought he might be back at five o’clock, didn’t she?” said Mrs. Norris, having recovered herself.
“She changed her tune later. Remember?”
“Was that to us or was it to that Mr. Python on the phone?” said Mrs. Norris.
Jimmie leaped to his feet. “Wait a minute, wait! Python did you say?” Tully and Mrs. Norris nodded. “Go over that part for me slowly.”
Tully recounted the receptionist’s remarks. “My guess is, he was spittin’ mad, the Python, at our Mr. Fowler.”
“Was he?” Jimmie said, grinding the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. “Where do you think that diary is, Jasp?”
“If it was worth a thousand dollars cash to Fowler on Friday, and another thousand to hide under Saturday, I’d say it’s in a safe someplace.”
“Let’s get a warrant.”
“Well, I was thinking of that. But why not try it the easy way first—finding him and asking him for it? Could be, he’ll show up in his office in the morning. My guess right now is it’s Python he’s ducking, not us.”
“Did you see Python’s column this morning, Jasp?”
“Can’t really say I’ve ever read him.”
Jimmie took the clipping of the column from his pocket and gave it to Tully. “Might as well read it aloud,” he said, and went to the window overlooking the garden.
Tully read the item and whistled softly.
“Do you think that in some way your father was responsible for that, Jimmie?” Helene asked.
Jimmie raised his fists to heaven on the odd chance that the old gentleman had made it. “He’s one of two possibilities, and right now I’d nominate him, sure.”
Mrs. Norris finished her drink and got to her feet. “I’d say one of three, Master James,” she said with stiff formality.
“Three?”
“Aye, yourself is one also.”
There was no denying her Scots righteousness, Jimmie thought. And unlike Madeline Barker, she could not be converted by a kiss. Not by his at least. Jimmie let his eyes appeal to Tully.
Tully merely looked at his pocket watch. “It’s time for us to go out to our dinner, Mrs. Norris.”
Jimmie took them to the door. When they were gone, he returned, massaged his chin with his thumb. “I guess myself is one also,” he said, “for having got myself in so vulnerable a position.”
“A lot of people were vulnerable during the war, Jimmie.”
“While the generals died in bed,” Jimmie said, misquoting a poem of that sentiment.
His eyes met Helene’s for a moment. “Sorry,” he said, “that was crass of me.”
“Some people say martinis are depressants,” Helene said. “Shall I put on the steak?”