Labyrinth (The Nameless Detective) Read Free Page B

carpetless; my heels clicked so loudly that it made me a little self-conscious, the kind of feeling you get when you walk through a church or maybe a museum.
    The young woman gestured to a large bulky sofa. “I’ll tell my mother you’re here,” she said.
    “Thank you.”
    She went away through the arch. I sat on the sofa with my hat on my knees and looked at the room. The Spanish effect seemed overdone, as if the people who lived here were trying too hard to create an atmosphere of old-world gentility. The antique furniture included a refectory table, a pigeonhole desk, several big chairs with flat wood arms and bare wood backs; a massive rococo chandelier hung from the ceiling. On the far side a set of narrow glass doors gave access to a patio that had a mosaic tile floor and a lot of bushes and plants growing out of brown urns. It was all dark and ponderous, a little depressing. There was not much color anywhere; even the old paintings on the walls were somber-hued. About the only modern things in the room were a stereo unit and a typewriter on the desk, and they seemed out of place.
    I sat there for about two minutes. There was no sound anywhere, not even the ticking of a clock. Then I heard steps on the hall tiles, and got on my feet as a large handsome woman in her late forties or early fifties appeared at the arch. She came through it like a stockholder entering a board room: poised, purposeful, self-assured. A tailored green pants suit set off carefully coiffed blonde hair and the same amber eyes as her daughter, just a little darker under long curling lashes. There was a diamond as big as a grape on the ring finger of her left hand.
    No smile from her either. She said, “I’m Laura Nichols,” and offered me her hand, then shook mine in the same businesslike way. Her eyes went over me in frank appraisal, but there was nothing in them or on her face to tell what sort of impression she was getting. She asked me to sit down, and when I did she went over and arranged herself in one of the heavy wooden chairs.
    “Would you care for coffee? Tea?”
    “Thanks, no.”
    She nodded as if she approved of my answer. “Then I’ll get directly to the point,” she said. Her enunciation was careful and precise; I had the feeling that everything she did would be with care and precision. “I’ve asked you here because of my brother, Martin Talbot. He’s had a very unfortunate experience, you see.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yes. Two nights ago, while he was driving back from a Los Angeles business trip, he fell asleep at the wheel of his car near South San Francisco. The car veered into another lane, struck another car and caused it to spin into an overpass abutment. Martin wasn’t hurt, miraculously enough, but one of the two people in the other car was killed.”
    A very unfortunate experience, she’d said. That was some way of putting it.
    Mrs. Nichols went on, “The driver of the second car, a man named Victor Carding, also escaped serious injury; it was his wife who died. Later, in the hospital, my brother insisted on seeing Carding and spoke to him alone for a minute or two. During that time the man called Martin a murderer, threatened his life, and then tried to attack him. Two interns came in and restrained him just in time.”
    “You’re afraid Carding might try to carry out his threat—is that it?”
    “Yes. He’s due to be released from the hospital today.”
    “Have you talked to the police?”
    “Of course. As soon as Martin told me.”
    “And?”
    “They seem to feel there’s nothing to worry about. When they spoke to Carding he told them he couldn’t remember threatening Martin or trying to attack him. He claims not to hold my brother responsible for what happened.”
    “Well, that’s probably the case,” I said. “People do and say things in shock and grief that they don’t really mean.”
    “Perhaps. But we can’t be certain of that. Carding is a construction worker, a common laborer;