Free Sleeping Beauty by Ross MacDonald Page B

Elizabeth?”
    “From my family. Yes, do call me Elizabeth, please.”

chapter
12
    We turned right on Seahorse Lane, which dipped toward the sea, and turned again at Mrs. Lennox’s mailbox. Her name was painted on it in new black lettering: “ SYLVIA LENNOX .” The house at the end of the cypress-haunted lane was single-storied, and sprawled like a stucco labyrinth along the edge of the sea.
    A young man came out across the lighted courtyard to meetus. He was of normal size but he gave the impression of being dwarfed by his surroundings. He walked on his toes like a dancer, ready to move in any direction. His moist brown eyes looked rather eager to please.
    “How are
you
, Mrs. Somerville?”
    “I’m fine,” she said in a tone that denied it, and turned to me. “Mr. Archer, this is Tony Lashman, my mother’s secretary.”
    We shook hands. He told Elizabeth that her mother was waiting in her room to see her, and she excused herself.
    From the window of the front room where Lashman took me, I could look out across the beach and the water and see the lighted oil platform. I couldn’t tell how close the oil had come to shore, but I could sense its odor invading the house.
    The young man sniffed. “Filthy stuff.”
    “How does Mrs. Lennox feel about it?”
    “She’s pretty ambivalent.” He gave me a quick sharp look to see if I understood what he was saying. “After all, she’s been married to an oilman most of her life.”
    “Do you know old Mr. Lennox?”
    “As a matter of fact, I’ve never met him. I’ve only been with Mrs. Lennox since she and her husband agreed to separate.” He ran his fingers through his wavy black hair. “This is very much a temporary thing for me. I’m going back to college in the fall. Or else to photography school. I haven’t decided. I only took this job to help Mrs. Lennox out.”
    “I understand her granddaughter has been staying here.”
    “That’s right, she’s been using the guesthouse.” He turned to face me. “I heard she’s missing.”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m not surprised. She wasn’t too happy here. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I did my best to cheer her up, but it didn’t do too much good.”
    His eyes reflected a facile sympathy, but it soon faded. There seemed to be a restless movement behind them, a constant turning in his head like an occulting light.
    “How did you cheer her up?”
    “We played a lot of tennis—she plays a fairly good game of tennis. And we had some good old heart-to-heart talks, you know? She wants to do something with her life. I’m the same way myself—creative. Laurel and I have quite a lot in common. I went through a marriage that didn’t work out myself.”
    “Her marriage didn’t work out?”
    “I didn’t mean to say that, exactly.” He touched his mouth with his fingers. “Laurel hadn’t really made up her mind about it, but I could tell which way it was likely to go. It’s hard to imagine her married to a druggist.”
    “Why?” I said.
    “You
know, a girl with all that charm and class. And all that money in the background.”
    He made an inclusive gesture toward the contents of the room. The heavy dark furniture, devoid of charm, failed to support him. There was money there, I thought, but it hadn’t been wholly humanized.
    “How much money is there in the background?”
    “Millions and millions.”
    The thought of the money seemed to excite him momentarily. I wondered if money was his unrequited passion. I doubted that Laurel was.
    He became aware that Elizabeth had come into the room. As if the light had altered, embarrassment changed his face and made it almost ugly. But if she had overheard him talking about her family’s money, she gave no sign.
    “My mother would like to see you,” she said to me.
    She led me through another wing of the house, to a closed white door which she opened.
    “Mr. Archer is here, Mother.”
    Sylvia Lennox was a thin elegant woman sitting on a canopied bed. A round