The Zebra-Striped Hearse Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t want interruptions,” I said, looking back toward the beach house.
    “You don’t have to be afraid of Burke. I didn’t tell him who you are. I don’t like to upset him when he’s working.”
    She sounded very much like a young wife, or almost-wife. I made a comment on this. It seemed to please her.
    “I love him. It’s no secret. You can write it down in your little black book and make a full report of it to Father. I love Burke, and I’m going to marry him.”
    “When?”
    “Very soon now.” She hid her secret behind a hushed mysterious look. Perhaps she wasn’t sure she had a secret to hide. “I wouldn’t dream of telling you when or where. Father would call out the National Guard, at least.”
    “Are you getting married to please yourself or spite your father?”
    She looked at me uncomprehendingly. I had no doubt it was a relevant question, but she didn’t seem to have an answer to it.
    “Let’s forget about Father,” I said.
    “How can I? There’s nothing he wouldn’t do to stop us. He said so himself.”
    “I’m not here to stop your marriage, Miss Blackwell.”
    “Then what are you trying to do?”
    “Find out what I can about your friend’s background.”
    “So Father can use it against him.”
    “That’s assuming there’s something that can be used.”
    “Isn’t that your assumption?”
    “No. I made it clear to Colonel Blackwell that I wouldn’t go along with a smear attempt, or provide the material for any kind of moral blackmail. I want to make it clear to you.”
    “And I’m supposed to believe you?”
    “Why not? I have nothing against your friend, or against you. If you’d co-operate—”
    “Oh, very likely.” She looked at me as though I’d made an obscene suggestion. “You’re a brash man, aren’t you?”
    “I’m trying to make the best of a bad job. If you’d co-operate we might be able to get it over with in a hurry. It’s not the kind of a job I like.”
    “You didn’t have to take it. I suppose you took it because you needed the money.” There was a note of patronage in her voice, the moral superiority of the rich who never have to do anything for money. “How much money is Father paying you?”
    “A hundred a day.”
    “I’ll give you five hundred, five days’ pay, if you’ll simply go away and forget about us.”
    She took out her red wallet and brandished it.
    “I couldn’t do that, Miss Blackwell. Besides, it wouldn’t doyou any good. He’d go and hire himself another detective. And if you think I’m trouble, you should take a look at some of my colleagues.”
    She leaned on the white guard rail and studied me in silence. Behind her the summer tide had begun to turn. The rising surge slid up the beach, and sanderlings skimmed along its wavering edges. She said to an invisible confidant located somewhere between me and the birds: “Can the man be honest?”
    “I can and am. I can, therefore I am.”
    No smile. She never smiled. “I still don’t know what I’m going to do about you. You realize this situation is impossible.”
    “It doesn’t have to be. Don’t you have any interest in your fiancé’s background?”
    “I know all I need to know.”
    “And what is that?”
    “He’s a sweet man, and a brilliant one, and he’s had a very rough time. Now that he’s painting again, there’s no limit to what he can accomplish. I want to help him develop his potential.”
    “Where did he study painting?”
    “I’ve never asked him.”
    “How long have you known him?”
    “Long enough.”
    “How long?”
    “Three or four weeks.”
    “And that’s long enough to make up your mind to marry him?”
    “I have a right to marry whom I please. I’m not a child, and neither is Burke.”
    “I realize
he
isn’t.”
    “I’m twenty-four,” she said defensively. “I’m going to be twenty-five in December.”
    “At which time you come into money.”
    “Father’s briefed you very thoroughly, hasn’t he? But thereare