The Wycherly Woman by Ross MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

singled out in them?”
    “I don’t believe she was. No, she wasn’t. She wouldn’t even have known about them if she hadn’t happened to go to the mailbox that morning. I’m sure they had nothing to do with her disappearance.”
    “I’m not so sure. Were the letters locally mailed?”
    “Yes, they were postmarked in Meadow Farms. That was one of the—well, alarming things about them. They were written by someone we knew—perhaps someone we saw every day. There was this vein of personal malice in them, which is why the Sheriff thought they came from an ex-employee.”
    “Do you have any thoughts on his identity?”
    “Not a one.”
    “Who are your enemies?”
    “I don’t believe I have any.”
    He offered me his dismayed smile, which tried hard to be likable and wasn’t. I gave up hoping for much realism from him. He was a weak sad man in a bind, ready to bandage his ego with any rag of vanity he could muster.
    “Who was the man referred to in the letters?”
    His hand flexed slowly on the tablecloth, like a beached starfish. “I have no idea. He wasn’t named. He was probably sheer invention, anyway. Catherine and I had our differences, but—” He let the sentence expire, as if his heart wasn’t in it.
    “How were the letters signed?”
    “ ‘A Friend of the Family,’ with an interrogation mark ahead of it.”
    “That’s Spanish punctuation.”
    “So my sister Helen pointed out.”
    “Were they handwritten?”
    “No, all typewritten, including the signature. This Mackey fellow said he could probably trace the typewriter if I wanted to spend a lot of time and money. His time, my money. But the letters stopped coming, and I hated to have him poking around in our private affairs, so I took him off the case.”
    “I’d like very much to see those letters. Where are they?”
    “I got them back from Mackey and destroyed them. You can understand my feelings.”
    He was ready to explain them to me, but I didn’t want to understand his feelings. I could end up baby-sitting withWycherly instead of doing the job he’d hired me for. I stood up.
    “Where are you going?”
    “San Francisco, naturally.”
    “What are you going to do in San Francisco?”
    “I’ll find out when I arrive.” I looked at my watch: it was nearly two. “I should be able to get there before dark. One other thing, Mr. Wycherly. In the light of what you’ve told me about those letters, do you want to reconsider about giving me your ex-wife’s address?”
    “I don’t have it,” he snapped. “In any case, I don’t want you talking to her under any circumstances. Give me your word on that.”
    I gave him my word, with a mental reservation.
    In the doorway I passed the waiter carrying a tray of French pastries. Wycherly looked at the tray with greedy, grief-stricken eyes.
    I stopped in town at Imported Motors and got the license number of Phoebe’s car before I headed north. GL3741.

chapter
5
    T HE SHIP ROSE like a chalk cliff over the dock. Gulls circled above it, flashing in the late afternoon sunlight. I climbed the forward gangway unchallenged. The main deck was practically deserted.
    A man in white coveralls was cleaning the bottom of an empty swimming pool with a long-handled vacuum brush. Most of the officers were ashore, he told me above the whine of his machine. Maybe the purser was still aboard. He directed me to his office.
    It was an artificially lighted cubicle below decks, occupied by a moon-faced bald man wearing a white shirt and blue uniformtrousers. He remembered Mr. Wycherly very well. Mr. Wycherly had occupied one of their best staterooms on the voyage just completed. I told him that I represented Mr. Wycherly.
    “In what capacity?”
    “I’m a private detective.”
    He gave me a heavily insured look. “I’m sure Mr. Wycherly was satisfied with his accommodations. He shook my hand and thanked me before he left us yesterday.”
    “There’s no beef about the ship,” I said. “It has to do