Dark Tunnel by Ross Macdonald

Author:Ross Macdonald [Macdonald, Ross]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-9052-1
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-11-30T15:54:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

I WALKED DOWN THE main street towards the Porpoise, which was a block from the hotel. Ruth Esch had an alibi all right, but I had to make sure that it was perfect before I could put her in the locked cupboard at the back of my mind and forget her for good. The blue porpoise sign over the entrance was lit, but the restaurant was closed for the night. I walked back to my car, feeling almost glad that I couldn’t lay myself open to another jolt. A dream that you’ve slept with for six years has remarkable staying power.

The only live things on the main street were the neon signs, shining like cold fire on the three o’clock pavements. But there was a White Tower lit up across from where my car was parked, and I crossed the street and went in. My solar plexus was still numb where the word dike had hit me, and I ordered coffee.

The attendant filled my cup and made change without waking, moving as if his starched coat was holding him up.

I sat at the shining enameled counter, slowly burning my throat with coffee and thinking with a chilly three o’clock brain. Ruth was clear, of murder at any rate. But the Schneiders’ alibi was at least as good. Maybe I was all wrong and maybe Alec had been all wrong. Maybe Haggerty and Galloway and Helen were right about suicide. Maybe I should go home and go to bed.

No. Moran the motorcycle officer could have been bribed to protect the Schneiders. I could go and see him in the morning. I decided to hold on to the rock.

As for Ruth, why should I take to heart what a seedy hotel dick said? He wasn’t my psychoanalyst. On the other hand, how could I know that his information on her movements was reliable? He could have made it up to earn ten dollars. Or he could have been bribed. He was bribable. I didn’t know what to think.

I took Ruth’s letter out of my inside pocket, but I hadn’t the heart to read it again. I sat and looked at the envelope and saw the word ‘taillour.’ What had Alec meant by it? Was it an accident that ‘taillour’ meant ‘tailor,’ which meant ‘Schneider’? He was a philologist, and it wasn’t very likely that it was an accident. Some of his puns used to run into more than two languages.

I sat and stared at the counter and the words went round in my head until I was a little crazy. Three mad tailors ran round in my head, one talking Old French, one talking Middle English, one talking German. The Middle English tailor, who had a black beard like Schneider’s, stood still and said into a dangling telephone receiver, “Middle English Dictionary office.” I saw the black blood on his face.

I started. I must have dozed with my eyes open, half-hypnotized by the gleaming white counter. The three tailors were gone: my subconscious was finished with them: I had got the idea.

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