The Lady in the Lake #4 by Raymond Chandler

Author:Raymond Chandler [Chandler, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Marlowe, Los Angeles (Calif.), Private Investigators, Detective and Mystery Stories, Philip (Fictitious character) - Fiction, Los Angeles (Calif.) - Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Philip (Fictitious character), Political, Hard-Boiled, Fiction, Mystery Fiction, Los Angeles, Crime, California, Private Investigators - California - Los Angeles - Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780394758251
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 1988-02-15T04:33:05+00:00

all. I have something to show you."

I got the little perfumed rag that had been

under Layery's pillow out of my pocket and

leaned over to drop it on the desk in front of

her.

19

She looked at the handkerchief, looked at me,

picked up a pencil and pushed the little piece of

linen around with the eraser end.

"What's on it?" she asked. "Flyspray?"

"Some kind of sandalwood, I thought."

"A cheap synthetic. Repulsive is a mild word

for it. And why did you want me to look at this

handkerchief, Mr. Marlowe?" She leaned back

again and stared at me with level cool eyes.

"I found it in Chris Lavery's house, under the

pillow on his bed. It has initials on it."

She unfolded the handkerchief without

touching it by using the rubber tip of the pencil.

Her face got a little grim and taut.

"It has two letters embroidered on it," she

said in a cold angry voice. "They happen to be

the same letters as my initials. Is that what you

mean?"

"Right," I said. "He probably knows half a

dozen women with the same initials."

"So you're going to be nasty after all," she

said quietly.

"Is it your handkerchief-or isn't it?"

She hesitated. She reached out to the desk

and very quietly got herself another cigarette

and lit it with a match. She shook the match

slowly, watching the small flame creep along the

wood.

"Yes, it's mine," she said. "I must have

dropped it there. It's a long time ago. And I

assure you I didn't put it under a pillow on his

bed. Is that what you wanted to know?"

I didn't say anything, and she added: "He

must have lent it to some woman who-who

would like this kind of perfume."

"I get a mental picture of the woman," I said.

"And she doesn't quite go with Lavery."

Her upper lip curled a little. It was a long

upper lip. I liked long upper lips.

"I think," she said, "you ought to do a little work on your mental picture of Chris Lavery.

Any touch of refinement you may have noticed

is purely coincidental."

"That's not a nice thing to say about a dead

man," I said.

For a moment she just sat there and looked at

me as if I hadn't said anything and she was

waiting for me to say something. Then a slow

shudder started at her throat and passed over

her whole body. Her hands clenched and the

cigarette bent into a crook. She looked down at

it and threw it into the ashtray with a quick jerk

of her arm.

"He was shot in his shower," I said. "And it

looks as if it was done by some woman who

spent the night there. He had just been shaving.

The woman left a gun on the stairs and this

handkerchief on the bed."

She moved very slightly in her chair. Her

eyes were perfectly empty now. Her face was

as cold as a carving.

"And did you expect me to be able to give

you information about that?" she asked me

bitterly.

"Look, Miss Fromsett, I'd like to be smooth

and distant and subtle about all this too. I'd like

to play this sort of game just once the way

somebody like you would like it to be played.

But nobody will let me-not the clients, nor the

cops, nor the people I play against.

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