"You're not much of a gusher, are you, Mr. Marlowe?
But he wants to find him, doesn't he?"
I stared at her politely through a pause.
"Yes and no," I said.
"That's hardly an answer.
Do you think you can find him?"
"I didn't say I was going to try.
Why not try the Missing Persons Bureau? They have the organization.
It's not a one-man job."
"Oh, Dad wouldn't hear of the police being brought into it." She looked at me smoothly across her glass again, emptied it, and rang a bell.
A maid came into the room by a side door.
She was a middle-aged woman with a long yellow gentle face, a long nose, no chin, large wet eyes.
She looked like a nice old horse that had been turned out to pasture after long service.
Mrs. Regan waved the empty glass at her and she mixed another drink and handed it to her and left the room, without a word, without a glance in my direction.
When the door shut Mrs. Regan said: "Well, how will you go about it then?"
"How and when did he skip out?"
"Didn't Dad tell you?"
I grinned at her with my head on one side.
She flushed. Her hot black eyes looked mad.
"I don't see what there is to be cagey about," she snapped. "And I don't like your manners."
"I'm not crazy about yours," I said. I didn't ask to see you.
You sent for me.
I don't mind your ritzing me or drinking your lunch out of a Scotch bottle.
I don't mind your showing me your legs.
They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance.
I don't mind if you don't like my manners.
They're pretty bad.
I grieve over them during the long winter evenings.
But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me."
She slammed her glass down so hard that it slopped over on an ivory cushion.
She swung her legs to the floor and stood up with her eyes sparking fire and her nostrils wide.
Her mouth was open and her bright teeth glared at me.
Her knuckles were white.
"People don't talk like that to me," she said thickly.
I sat there and grinned at her.
Very slowly she closed her mouth and looked down at the spilled liquor.
She sat down on the edge of the chaise-longue and cupped her chin in one hand.
"My God, you big dark handsome brute!
I ought to throw a Buick at you."
I snicked a match on my thumbnail and for once it lit.
I puffed smoke into the air and waited.
"I loathe masterful men," she said. "I simply loathe them."
"Just what is it you're afraid of, Mrs. Regan?"
Her eyes whitened. Then they darkened until they seemed to be all pupil. Her nostrils looked pinched.
"That wasn't what he wanted with you at all," she said in a strained voice that still had shreds of anger clinging to me. "About Rusty. Was it?"
"Better ask him."
She flared up again. "Get out! Damn you, get out!"
I stood up.
"Sit down!" she snapped.
I sat down. I flicked a finger at my palm and waited.