Black money by Ross MacDonald

Her movements seemed shaky and her eyes a little dull, as if she had already traveled too far and too fast.

    Perhaps it was the brilliant light shining down on her face, but its skin appeared grayish and grainy. She had the sort of beauty - shape of head, slant of cheekbone and chin, curve of mouth - that made these other things irrelevant.

    She held herself on the concrete stoop with a kind of forlorn elegance. Peter went to her and tried to put his arm around her. She disengaged herself.

    "I told you not to come here."

    "That was you screaming, wasn't it? Did he hurt you?"

    "Don't be silly. I saw a rat."

    She turned her lusterless eyes on me. "Who are you?"

    "My name is Archer. Is Mr. Martel home?"

    "Not to you, I'm afraid."

    "Tell him I'm here, anyway. All I want is a chance to talk to him."

    She said to Peter: "Please go. Take your friend with you. You have no right to interfere with us."

    She managed to produce a little spurt of anger: "Go away now or I'll never speak to you again."

    His large face contorted itself in the light, as if it could transform its homeliness by sheer expression. "I wouldn't care, Ginny, as long as you were safe."

    "I'm perfectly safe with my husband," she said, and waited demurely for his surprise.

    "You married him?"

    "We were married on Saturday and I've never been happier in my life," she said without any visible sign of happiness.

    "You can get it annulled."

    "You don't seem to understand, I love my husband."

    Her voice was soft but there was a sting in the words which made him wince. "Francis is everything I've ever dreamed of in a man. You can't change that, and please stop trying."

    "Thank you, ma Cherie."

    It was Martel, with his full accent on. No doubt he had been listening for an entrance cue. He appeared in the hallway behind Ginny and took hold of her upper arm. His hand against her light gray sleeve looked almost as dark as a mourning band.

    Peter began to bite his mouth. I moved closer to him. Whether he was a French aristocrat or a cheap crook or a muddy mixture of the two, Ginny's husband would be a dangerous man to hit.

    "Congratulations on your marriage," I said without much irony.

    He bowed, touching his chest. "Merci beaucoup."

    "Where were you married?"

    "In the chambers of a judge, by the judge himself. That makes it legal, I believe."

    "I meant what place."

    "The place doesn't matter. Life has its private occasions, you know, and I confess to a passion for privacy. Which my dear wife shares."

    He smiled down into her face. His smile had changed when he looked up at me. It was wide and mocking. "Didn't we meet at the swimming pool today?"

    "We did."

    "This man was here before," Ginny said, "when the fellow tried to take your picture. I saw him in the fellow's car."

    Martel stepped around his wife and came toward me. I wondered if his little gun was going to come into play. I also wondered what dark liquid had left a partial heel-print on the concrete stoop. More of it glistened on the heel of Martel's right shoe.

    "Just who are you, m'sieur? And what gives you the right to ask questions?"

    I told him my name. "I'm a detective, and I'm hired to ask them."

    "Hired by this one here?"

    He gave Peter a black look of contempt.

    "That's right," Peter said. "And we're going to keep after you until we know what you want."

    "But I have what I want."

    He turned to Ginny with his arm stretched out. It was just a little like a scene from opera, more light than grand. Next minute the merry villagers would troop in for the nuptial dance.

    I said to fend them off. "One question that interests me at the moment - is that blood on your heel?"

    He looked down at his feet, then quickly back to me. "I expect it is blood."

    Ginny's curled fingers had gone to her mouth, both hands, as if another peacock cry was surging up in her throat. Martel said quietly and smoothly: "My wife was alarmed by a rat, as she told you."

    He had been listening. "I killed