The Long Goodbye

by Raymond Chandler

and listening to Khachaturyan working in a tractor factory. He called it a violin concerto.

nothing ever looks emptier than an empty swimming pooL

But he shouldn't have said Slade instead of Wade. He was an intelligent man. He wouldn't forget that easy, and if he did he would just forget.

Far back in the valley I thought I heard a quail. A mourning dove exclaimed against the miseries of life.

On the window sill a bee with tattered wings was crawling along the woodwork, buzzing in a tired remote sort of way, as if she knew it wasn't any use, she was finished, she had flown too many missions and would never get back to the hive again.

I knew it was going to be one of those crazy days. Everyone has them. Days when nobody rolls in, but the loose wheels, the dingoes who park their brains with their gum, the squirrels who can't find their nuts, the mechanics who always have a gear wheel left over.

The house was leaking guests out into the evening air now. Voices were fading, cars were

starting, goodbyes were bouncing around like rubber balls.

It's quite possible that your connection with the Wades may be incidental, accidental, and coincidental.

Paul Marston.

PM initials. Just like Philip Marlowe PM. Mrs Wades mystery lover had initials PM, too.

Ever hear of anybody named Paul Marston?"

Paul Marston was the name Terry Lennox used one time in New York before he came west."

"Now listen careful, Marlowe. You stir up that Lennox case and you're dead.

"I want to know something about the war service of Terry Lennox or Paul Marston, whatever name he used. He was in the Commandos over there.

But you did know Paul Marston and he did serve in that outfit, and he was missing in action in Norway. But it didn't happen in 1940, Mrs. Wade. It happened in 1942

"Then why lie about the dates?" Spencer asked dryly. "Why say the man was lost in 1940 when he was lost in 1942? Why wear a badge that he couldn't have given you and make a point of saying that he did give it to you?"

Why ham it up any more, Spencer? Paul Marston and Terry Lennox were the same man.

It was at the Lorings' I saw him--and her. One afternoon late. You were there, Howard. And Roger was there. I suppose you saw him too."

"Roger killed her," I said, "and you also know that."

Let the lawyers 'work it out. They write the laws for other lawyers to dissect in front of other lawyers called judges so that other judges can say the first judges were wrong and the Supreme Court can say the second lot were wrong.

"I was all set to pull her in for questioning. Wade didn't shoot himself. Too much alcohol in his brain.

That was a dream girl. Some of her was here and now, but a lot of her was there and then.

Eileen Wade had killed Terry's wife in a fit of jealous fury and later when the opportunity was set up she had killed Roger because she was sure he knew.