Hotels that aspire to look cozy and homelike generally succeed about as dismally as chain-bakeries fool anyone by calling their lumps of pumped-up dough Grandma Higgins' homemade bread; but insofar as any hotel can perhaps be made to look homelike, someone had almost succeeded with the Thunder Bay Inn. The place was actually attractive. Even with all the milling tourists there was an atmosphere of uncontrived hominess and cheer about it, especially about the lobby, that defied analysis.
Perhaps it was the handsome stone fireplace or the superb heads of three white-tailed deer over it (Barney would undoubtedly have shot those), or the colorful and yet restful drapes at the large picture windows overlooking the blue expanse of lake, or the attractively paneled walls of unfinished red cedar that glowed and shone like burnished copper, or the carefully selected prints and photographsâand even a few interesting water colorsâall of which depicted scenes indigenous to the Peninsula rather than the usual tourist art showing fairy dream castles in Wales. Whatever the reason the room possessed undeniable charm. Would the enigmatic Mary Pilant have had a hand in all this, I wondered.
The lobby was crowded with people, including Maida, who was sitting by the fireplace oblivious to the clatter and turmoil around her, her nose buried in one of her inevitable mystery thrillers. Mystery thriller indeed, I thought. Here she was, working on a case that had more real mystery about it than a dozen contrived thrillers, a case as bristling with mystery as a porcupine with quillsâand she sat reading a damned mystery thriller. I thought of my old hermit Danny McGinnis incredulously glued to his story about his fellow hermit.
True, in our case there was little mystery about what had actually taken placeâthat was becoming all too brutally apparent. But these facts, however melodramatic, skimmed but the surface, were in themselves merely the tip of the iceberg at sea; it was the “inner facts,” the heart of the case itself, that teemed with the stuff of real mystery, the deepening tangle of dark impulses and mixed motives of real men and women.
I glanced about. There was a milling group of vacantly staring people wandering aimlessly up and down, most of whom appeared to be carrying boxes of cleansing tissue. But where was all the Army
brass? What had happened to the Army? I went over to the lobby desk.
The bespectacled clerk appeared to be playing a losing game of solitaire with a pack of registration cards. His rapt concentration plainly brooked no interruption. “Ah, cheating!” I thought, as he finally dealt a card from the bottom. After an indecent interval he sighed and reshuffled the deck and looked up. “Yes?” he inquired, with that fine mixture of condescension, boredom and inner pain that seems to be the trademark of hotel clerks the world over.
“What happened to the Army?” I said. “I don't see any glittering brass. Has there been a new war?”
“The Army has retreated,” he answered solemnly. “They cleared out yesterday, bag and baggage, thank goodness.” He rolled his eyes up, obviously a sorely put-upon man. “Nobody knows the troubles I've had,” he seemed to be saying.
“Was the retreat according to plan or because of the shooting ofâof Dangerous Dan McGrew?” I said. “I thought the Army was supposed to stay here on maneuvers or something through September.”
“The Army has not officially informed me of its reasons for departure,” he replied with enviable sarcasm. “All I know is that they have mercifully departed.”
“By the way,” I asked casually, “were you on duty the night Barney was shot?”
He glanced sharply at me. “What's that to you?” he said coolly.
“I'm Lieutenant Manion's lawyer,” I said. “Paul Biegler from Chippewa.”
“Oh,” he said, shrugging. “I thought you might be another of those prying tourists.”
“Smile when you say that, pardner,” I said, wincing. “But were you on duty?”
“Yes, I was âon nights' last week.”
“Ah, a break at last,” I thought as I pressed rapidly on. “Do you remember when Barney came in? How he was dressed? His general appearance?”
He nodded his head. “I certainly do,” he said emphatically. “Barney came running in the front entrance at just aboutâ”
At this juncture a large soft blimp of a woman bustled herself squarely between us and pelted the clerk with a flurry of questions. “Yes, madam, we will serve lunch until one-thirty,” he explained patiently. “No, madam, we do not pack lunches for the road. No, madam, the check-out hour is four not five. Yes, madam, downstairs is
the place where the âpoor defenseless man' was shot.” The clerk turned wearily back to me. “You see how it is?” he murmured. “They're driving me
simply
insane.”
“You were just saying ⦠.” I began. At that moment a waitress hurried up to the desk, all but running, and spoke earnestly to the clerk. “Miss Pilant wants to see you in the dining roomâ
immediately!”
she said.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said, innocently trotting away to have his gag applied. So Mary Pilant wanted to play it that way, did she? I turned ruefully, bitterly, upon the still-waiting lady tourist.
“Excuse me for intruding,” I said coldly, thinking of how satisfying it would be to hoist her a nice slow kick in the blubber. I stalked away.
So the Army had taken a powder, had it?âgone away, retreated before the superior fire power of Lieutenant Manion? We were certainly getting all the breaks. I had arrived a day late and now couldn't find out what if anything the Army knew. And now even Mary Pilant was getting in my hair. And how was this sudden flight of the Army going to affect our chances for getting one of their damned psychiatrists?
As I stood there morosely Parnell came charging into the lobby, wheezing and puffing like an old wood-burning locomotive, his broad face perspiring and red as a beet. I felt alarmed for him until I saw the look of wild triumph in his eye; the old boy must have come up with something, all right; he looked as proud and pleased as an old dog with a new bone. He brushed blindly past me and joined Maida at the fireplace, flopping down in a chair like a winded whale, but not quite so overcome, I noted, that he forgot to display the tattersall vest for the bedazzled tourists.
As I threaded my way glumly through the milling crowd to join Parnell and Maida I found my way blocked by the same lady tourist who had just interrupted the clerk and me. She was intently studying a large road map affixed to the wall, leaning over and thoughtfully scratching her fanny. The target was magnificent and I stood itchily weighing the possibilities for making a successful drop kick ⦠. She was hoydenishly clad in Bermuda shorts large enough to sail the
Kon-Tiki
. She wore a bandana top and a girlish head scarf and on the incredibly tiny feet of her lumpy piano legs she wore some sort of gay open-toed sandals. She was, I saw, of the common or sun-worshiper variety of tourist, looking as though she had been but recently dipped, and held, in a boiling lobster pot. As Mencken once said,
she was the sort of female that made a man want to burn every bed in the world.
“Merciful God,” I thought, studying this prize specimen of
homo tourosis
.
“How do you like my new hair-do, Boss?” Maida chirped amiably as I joined them.
“Fine,” I conceded, “if looking like a curly blonde Zulu is an effective disguise for the undercover work you're doing. But the jackpot question is: are the results worth all the sacrifice? Who are you trying to look like, Mata Hari on a drunk?”
She appealed to Parnell. “See, Parn, see,” she pouted. “Now you can see why I'm so starved for a kind word.”
I stole a look at the still-scratching lady tourist. “On second thought, Maida,” I said, “you look positively ravishing. Pardon my outburstâI've just been through a harrowing experience. Let's go eat and I'll tell you.”
As we entered the dining room a young woman came forward to meet us. I caught my breath. It was Mary Pilant. She was much lovelier in person than her photograph, small and poised, with wide intelligent dark eyes.
“Three?” she inquired politely.
“Please,” I said. “And please, tooâfar away from the tourists.”
“Perhaps you would prefer to dine on the veranda,” she suggested. “We keep a few overflow tables set up out there. And there you will not only escape the tourists”âshe paused and smiled slightlyâ“but be alone to talk.”
“Thank you,” I said, smiling back. “That's very thoughtful of you. By all means take us to the veranda.”
As she led the way through the multitude of noisily feeding tourists I watched her with the kind of avid and rueful admiration that balding middle-aged males bestow upon hopelessly unattainable young loveliness. I noted the poise and slender grace of her walk, the trim modeling of her legs and ankles, the small ears and small well-shaped head with the tendrils of dark hair curling up from the nape of her neck, the sort of pent and brooding intelligence of her face. Yes, poise and grace and intelligence was the verdict for Mary Pilant.
And how, I wondered, how had a character like Barney Quill ever ⦠? Why, he was even older than I. I sighed and recalled Justice Holmes's classic comment to Justice Brandeis. The two had been out for a Washington stroll. A pert little stenographer had overtaken and gone tripping past them, her bouncing little hams and
partridge breasts all contributing their part. “Ah, Louis, Louis,” the great Holmes had sighed, shaking his leonine head regretfully. “Ah, to be seventy again ⦠.” Right now I would have gladly settled for forty.
“Here we are,” Mary Pilant said, pausing at a tastefully laid table which commanded a breathless view of the lake.
“Thank you, young lady,” I said. “What a lovely outlook. I see I must come here more often.”
“By all means, Mr. Biegler,” she said, smiling. “We have many points of interest in our little town.”
“So I've observed,” I said. “I've already been investigating some of them, as you may have heard. But I'm sure there are many moreâthat is if my view should not be too much obstructed.”
She held my eyes for an instant as I watched her faintly mocking smile. It was like a game of chess. “I'll send you a waitress in a minute,” she said, turning away.
“Who's that?” Maida said as soon as she had left. “Who is that adorable creature? And what kind of verbal sparring were you two up to? It sounded like Esperanto to me.”
“That's Mary Pilant,” I said. “She used to be Barney Quill's hostess. I'll get to the sparring part later.”
Parnell had grown rather quiet. “Lovely, lovely,” he muttered, turning and gazing pensively out over the lake.
Maida's eyes had widened with wonder and envy. “So
that's
the woman in the case,” she murmured. “IâI guess I had half expected a two-headed female monster, some sort of scheming witch.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “Tell me,” I went on, “tell me what you learned about her? There's something here that doesn't add up.”
Â
Maida had learned plenty. She had to wait over half an hour for her turn at the beauty parlor. The place was crowded with beauty-starved females, both tourists and locals, besides the half-dozen-odd employees. “The place was like a steambath.” And all of them were buzzing about the shooting of Barney Quill; it was just about all they had talked about.
“What was the burden of their chatter, Maida?” I said. “We can cover the details later.”
“Well,” Maida began, “according to some stories this Mary person was supposed to have been Barney's mistressâalthough there seems to be considerable doubt on that score.”
Parnell spoke up. “When any group of females clacking in a beauty parlor in any degree ever spares one of their sisters,” he observed dryly, “they have created, I should say, a tremendous doubt on that score.”
I glanced quickly at Parnell. Had he fallen for Mary? If so, that would make two of us ⦠. “Who is she, Maida, where is she from?” I went on.
“It seems that she came to Thunder Bay several summers ago with a group of vacationing schoolteachers,” Maida continued. “She must be a livin' doll, because Barney fell for her like a ton of bricksâso the word goesâand made her boss lady of the place and of all the college-girl waitressesâat twice her schoolteacher pay. When her own gang of schoolteachers went back to their brats she remained behind as Barney's hostess, just like that.”
“Well, I can't much blame him,” Parnell said thoughtfully. He sighed heavily and again his gaze wandered out over the glittering lake. “Sheâshe reminds me of someone I once knew,” he said slowly, “âover a million years ago ⦠.”
I again glanced quickly at Parnell. Was he referring to his own lost Nora? If so perhaps I could now understand and view his checkered career in a new light.
“But if Barney cared so much for Mary Pilant,” I said, “how come he did this terrible thing to Laura Manion? What's the story on that?”