The Black-Eyed Blonde: A Philip Marlowe Novel by Benjamin Black Page A

faint after-smell of cigars and fine old brandy. I could see Wilberforce Canning and his fellow patricians gathered here in the evening after dinner, discussing the lamentable decline in public morality and planning good works. In my imagination, they wore frock coats, knee breeches, and powdered wigs. I get fanciful sometimes; I can’t help it.
    “Sit down, Mr. Marlowe,” Hanson said. “Care for some tea? I usually have a cup at this time of the morning.”
    “Sure,” I said, “tea is fine.”
    “Indian or China?”
    “Indian, I guess.”
    “Darjeeling all right?”
    At that point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if some fruity type in white shorts and a blazer had come bounding through the door, inquiring with a lisp if anyone was for tennis. “Darjeeling is just dandy,” I said.
    He pressed a bell push beside the fireplace—really, just like on the stage—while I lowered myself into one of the armchairs. It was so deep my knees nearly gave me an uppercut. Hanson lit a cigarette with a silver lighter and then positioned himself with an elbow on the mantelpiece and his ankles crossed and looked down at me, way below him. His expression, somewhat pained but forbearing, was that of a dutiful father compelled to have a serious talk with a wayward son. “Mr. Marlowe, did someone hire you to come here?” he asked.
    “Someone like who?”
    He seemed to wince; it was probably my grammar. Before he could reply, a door opened and an ancient party in a striped vest insinuated himself into the room. He looked so bloodless it was hard to believe he was alive. He was short and stocky and had gray cheeks and gray lips, and a bald gray pate over which a few long strands of oily gray hair were carefully plastered. “You rang, sir?” he said in a quavering voice; his British accent was the real thing. The Cahuilla Club was turning out to be some place, an Indian museum with a dash of Merrie Olde England thrown in.
    “A pot of tea, Bartlett,” Hanson said loudly, the old fellow being deaf, evidently. “The usual.” He turned to me. “Cream? Sugar? Or would you prefer lemon?”
    “Just the tea will be fine,” I said.
    Bartlett nodded, swallowed, gave me a watery glance, and shuffled out.
    “What were we saying?” Hanson asked.
    “You wanted to know if someone hired me to come and talk to you. I asked who you thought such a someone might be.”
    “Yes,” he said, “that’s right.” He tapped the tip of his cigarette on the rim of a glass ashtray beside his elbow on the mantelpiece. “What I meant was that I can’t think who would be interested enough in the case of Mr. Peterson and his sad end to go to the trouble of hiring a private investigator to open it all up again. Especially since, as I say, the police have already been through the whole thing with a fine-tooth comb.”
    I chuckled. I can do a good chuckle, when I try. “Combs the cops use tend to be gap-toothed, and clogged up with stuff you wouldn’t want to investigate too closely.”
    “All the same, I can’t think why you’re here.”
    “Well, you see, Mr. Hanson,” I said, shifting around in the depths of the chair in an effort to maneuver myself into something like a dignified position, “violent death always leaves loose ends. It’s a thing I’ve noticed.”
    He was watching me again out of that lizard-like stillness. “What kind of loose ends?”
    “You mean in Mr. Peterson’s case? Like I say, there are aspects of his death that raise certain questions.”
    “And I asked, what kind of questions?”
    There’s nothing like quiet relentlessness; the noisy kind never works as well.
    “Well, for instance, the question of Mr. Peterson’s identity.”
    “His identity.” It wasn’t a question. His voice had become as soft as a breeze over a battlefield after a particularly bloody engagement. “What question about his identity could there be? I saw him there on the road that night. There was no mistaking who it was. Plus, his