Free The Galton Case by Ross MacDonald

different personality. Like other performers, he had a public face and a private one. Each of them was slightly phony, but the private face suited him better.
    “You met the wife, did you?”
    “Certainly. She was sitting on the front porch when I got there, nursing the baby. She had lovely white breasts, and she didn’t in the least mind exposing them. It made quite a picture, there on the bluff above the sea. I tried to get a poem out of her, but it didn’t come off. I never really got to know her.”
    “What sort of a girl was she?”
    “Very attractive, I’d say, in the visual sense. She didn’t have too much to say for herself. As a matter of fact, she massacred the English language. I suppose she had the fascination of ignorance for Brown. I’ve seen other young writers and artists fall for girls like that. I’ve been guilty of it myself, when I was in my pre-Freudian period.” He added wryly: “That means before I got analyzed.”
    “Do you remember her name?”
    “Mrs. Brown’s name?” He shook his head. “Sorry. In the poem I botched I called her Stella Maris, star of the sea. But that doesn’t help you, does it?”
    “Can you tell me when you were there? It must have been toward the end of the year 1936.”
    “Yes. It was around Christmas, just before Christmas—I took along some bauble for the child. Young Brown was very pleased that I did.” Bolling pulled at his chin, lengthening his face. “It’s queer I never heard from him after that.”
    “Did you ever try to get in touch with him?”
    “No, I didn’t. He may have felt I’d brushed him off. Perhaps I did, without intending to. The woods were full of young writers; it was hard to keep track of them all. I was doing valid work in those days, and a lot of them came to me. Frankly, I’ve hardly thought of Brown from that day to this. Is he still living on the coast?”
    “I don’t know. What was he doing in Luna Bay, did he tell you?”
    “He was trying to write a novel. He didn’t seem to have a job, and I can’t imagine what they were living on. They couldn’t have been completely destitute, either. They had a nurse to look after the mother and child.”
    “A nurse?”
    “I suppose she was what you’d call a practical nurse. One of those young women who take charge,” he added vaguely.
    “Do you recall anything about her?”
    “She had remarkable eyes, I remember. Sharp black eyes which kept watching me. I don’t think she approved of the literary life.”
    “Did you talk to her at all?”
    “I may have. I have a distinct impression of her, that she was the only sensible person in the house. Brown and his wife seemed to be living in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “They were out of touch with the ordinary run of life. Idon’t mean that as a criticism. I’ve been out of touch enough in my own life, God knows. I still am.” He gave me his clown grin. “You can’t make a Hamlet without breaking egos. But let’s not talk about me.”
    “Getting back to the nurse, do you think you can remember her name?”
    “I know perfectly well I can’t.”
    “Would you recognize it if I said it?”
    “That I doubt. But try me.”
    “Marian Culligan,” I said. “C-u-l-l-i-g-a-n.”
    “It rings no bell with me. Sorry.”
    Bolling finished his drink and looked around the bar as if he expected something to happen. I guessed that most of the things that can happen to a man had already happened to him. He changed expressions like rubber masks, but between the masks I could see dismay in his face.
    “We might as well have another drink,” he said. “This one will be on me. I’m loaded. I just made a hundred smackers at the Ear.” Even his commercialism sounded phony.
    While I lit a fire under the bartender, Bolling studied the photographs I’d left on the table:
    “That’s John all right. A nice boy, and perhaps a talented one, but out of this world. All the way out of this world. Where did he get the