III
R. F. Axford received me in an office-like room in his Russian Hill residence: a big blond man, whose forty-eight or -nine years had not blurred the outlines of an athlete’s body. A big, full-blooded man with the manner of one whose self-confidence is complete and not altogether unjustified.
“What’s our Burke been up to now?” he asked amusedly when I told him who I was. His voice was a pleasant vibrant bass.
I didn’t give him all the details.
“He was engaged to marry a Jeanne Delano, who went East about three weeks ago and then suddenly disappeared. He knows very little about her; thinks something has happened to her; and wants her found.”
“Again?” His shrewd blue eyes twinkled. “And to a Jeanne this time! She’s the fifth within a year, to my knowledge, and no doubt I missed one or two who were current while I was in Hawaii. But where do I come in?”
“I asked him for responsible endorsement. I think he’s all right, but he isn’t, in the strictest sense, a responsible person. He referred me to you.”
“You’re right about his not being, in the strictest sense, a responsible person.” The big man screwed up his eyes and mouth in thought for a moment. Then: “Do you think that something has really happened to the girl? Or is Burke imagining things?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was a dream at first. But in a couple of her letters there are hints that something was wrong.”
“You might go ahead and find her then,” Axford said. “I don’t suppose any harm will come from letting him have his Jeanne back. It will at least give him something to think about for a while.”
“I have your word for it then, Mr. Axford, that there will be no scandal or anything of the sort connected with the affair?”
“Assuredly! Burke is all right, you know. It’s simply that he is spoiled. He has been in rather delicate health all his life; and then he has an income that suffices to keep him modestly, with a little over to bring out books of verse and buy doo-daws for his rooms. He takes himself a little too solemnly—is too much the poet—but he’s sound at bottom.”
“I’ll go ahead with it, then,” I said, getting up. “By the way, the girl has an account at the Golden Gate Trust Company, and I’d like to find out as much about it as possible, especially where her money came from. Clement, the cashier, is a model of caution when it comes to giving out information about depositors. If you could put in a word for me it would make my way smoother.”
“Be glad to.”
He wrote a couple of lines across the back of a card and gave it to me; and, promising to call on him if I needed further assistance, I left.