Читать книгу The Scandal - Murder Mysteries Boxed Set - Mary Roberts Rinehart - Страница 4

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There was nothing to indicate anything unusual that Tuesday morning in the life of Wade Forsythe II, ex-lieutenant of Marines in the late if not the last war and now member of the bar. There was no poetry in his soul, no particular love in his heart. There was, on the contrary, a look of concentrated hatred in his good-looking face as he sat down at his desk and glared at the red-bound book which was the Revenue Act of 1951.

His secretary, Miss Potter, accustomed to the Ides of March, was unperturbed.

"Take that mail out of my sight," Forsythe more or less snarled. "And see that I have a free morning. Do you know what date this is?"

Miss Potter indicated she did, and picked up the wire basket of correspondence.

"You understand, Potter. Nobody sees me. I'm out of town. I'm sick in bed. I broke my leg. And tell Stella, in case you have to powder your nose."

Miss Potter told Stella. That is, she said she hoped she would come through the next ten days without a heart attack or possibly mayhem on the person. And for heaven's sake why didn't the Government stagger its returns? This giving the whole country jitters one day in the year was an outrage.

"And if I'm out, don't let anybody in the office," she warned. "Not unless you want your nose bit off."

Which makes the more unusual what followed.

Forsythe was studying something concerning a collapsible corporation, which need not interest us here—or ever—when he heard someone rapping rather desperately on the door leading to the hall. He was about to ring furiously for Miss Potter when it ceased to be necessary. The door opened and a young woman projected herself into the room.

For a moment she said nothing. She stood listening intently with her back to him. Then she turned and came toward him. She was breathing hard.

"I'm sorry," she gasped. "I thought this was the reception room."

"The sign on the door says 'Private,'" he told her coldly. "If you have an appointment—"

She shook her head, and as though her legs would not hold her she sat down suddenly. Forsythe thought she was about to faint, but she rallied. She tried to smile.

"Just let me get my breath," she said. "I—I suppose I hurried, rather."

She was still pale, however, and he saw she was trembling. Something had frightened her, and frightened her badly. And since he was, outside of tax cases, a rather amiable young man, he got up hastily.

"Wait a minute," he said. "I'll get something to fix you up. Just sit still."

He disappeared into the small lavatory off the office and came back with a bottle and two glasses. Into one he poured a fair shot of brandy and held it out to her.

"Down with it," he ordered peremptorily. "Then the water. You'll be all right."

She choked a little, but obeyed him, and after a moment or two her color began to come back. Her voice, too, was stronger.

"Do you mind locking that door?" she asked. "The one where I came in?"

"Of course not. It's supposed to be left locked. These night cleaning women—"

She watched him as he fastened the door, and then went around to sit behind his desk. She perplexed him. She was rather lovely, he thought dispassionately, in spite of her evident terror. In spite, too, of her shabbiness, the worn gloves and handbag, and the inexpensive suit. It was quite clear also that she did not have taxes on her mind.

"Now," he said, as her color came back, "what's it all about? The police aren't after you, are they?"

"The police?" She looked surprised. "Why the police?"

He smiled.

"Well, when a young woman bolts through a door marked 'Private' and then tries to faint, I wonder a little. That's all."

"Just because I came through the wrong door!" she said indignantly. "Actually I came to see you professionally, Mr. Forsythe. I—I have a problem. You see, I want to draw up a will."

It was the last thing he expected, although he was rapidly revising his opinion of her. Shabby or not, she was a lady. Her voice was cultured, her diction impeccable, and had she not been too thin she might have been beautiful. Nevertheless, the idea of a will made him smile again.

"You look pretty healthy," he said. "Pretty young, too. Why a will?"

"I can't tell you," she said flatly. "And I'm not so young. I'm twenty-seven. Everybody should make a will. You're a lawyer. You know that."

He eyed her dubiously.

"It depends. Sometimes a will is a nuisance. Of course, if there's considerable property at stake—"

"There is, and it's mine, Mr. Forsythe."

"What sort of property?"

"Money. Quite a lot of it." And seeing his puzzled face, she went on. "The trouble is, it's not deposited in my own name. I've used my pen name. Now I don't know what to do."

He smiled.

"That's not indispensable. Certainly, it's hardly frightening. Who were you escaping when you ducked in here?"

"My husband," she said defiantly. "If you think that's funny, it just isn't. I thought I had lost him, but I hadn't. He wasn't far behind me as I got into the elevator."

She meant it. He saw that. Moreover, she had commenced to tremble again. She clenched her hands together to steady them.

"Maybe you'd better explain," he said mildly. "You've written something under a pseudonym, and it has made you some money. Where does your husband come in? Does he want the cash, or what?"

"He doesn't know about it, or at least he didn't until a few days ago. Now I don't know. He's suspicious. Perhaps someone in our apartment building heard me typing and mentioned it to him. Or he may have followed me to Central Park."

He looked slightly puzzled.

"Central Park? What about it?"

She did not answer him directly.

"I don't suppose you listen to the radio much," she said. "I've had an afternoon program running almost ever since the war. You know, a soap opera about a family. The sponsors call it Monica's Marriage, and they pay well, especially if the stuff is popular. I began it after my husband came home from France. Only I didn't use his name. I didn't tell him about it at all."

She looked at him still rather defiantly.

"Why not? You weren't ashamed of it, were you?"

"I suppose it's all right. I'm dreadfully tired of it, of course."

"And your husband?" he insisted.

"I wanted him to be a man, if you know what I mean; to get work and settle down. If he knew I was earning, it would be bad for him. Even as things were he didn't try to get anything to do for a long time. He drank a lot, and I think he gambled. But we got along. I have an aunt in Connecticut, and he thought she was keeping us. I was having a baby too. He didn't want it."

He felt a certain admiration for her, for her determination to make something of a worthless husband. And something else was tugging at his mind, a feeling of familiarity, as though sometime in his life he had known her.

"He works now, I suppose?"

"He sells secondhand cars. We live on what he makes, but sometimes I wonder—" She did not finish that. "I don't blame him entirely," she said. "You were in the war yourself. It changed a lot of men. And after my baby came I wanted to keep the money for him."

"Where is it? Where do you keep it?"

"In a bank downtown. My agent takes her ten per cent, and after that she deposits the rest to my account under my other name. I call myself Jessica Blake."

"And suppose your husband finds the bank's deposit receipts?"

"They're in my agent's files. It's the Gotham Trust Company."

He sat back, thinking hard. He knew little or nothing about radio programs, but he thought they paid very well. Great Scott, he thought, after seven years this girl might have a considerable fortune. His eyes fell on the book on the desk in front of him.

"What about taxes?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said vaguely. "I suppose my agent pays them."

"If she doesn't, God help her," he warned her. "Someday the Government will catch up with you, and all hell will break loose." And when she made no comment: "You say you want it to go to your son?"

"In trust. He's only six now. And I've sent him to my aunt. It seemed better, the way things are."

Things must be pretty bad, he thought, to make her do that. He felt uneasy. There might be real trouble in the making. The husband was evidently a bad egg. Suppose he learned about the money and decided to do away with her. It would be easy, a push under a bus or taxi or beneath a subway train. But of course that was ridiculous. He was building something out of nothing, and since she seemed determined to move the Jessica Blake account to her own name, he told her that she and the agent—and himself, if she wanted him—could do it easily whenever she cared to do so. It was a simple matter of identification.

"Which reminds me," he said. "You haven't yet told me your name. I may want to call you, you know."

She looked frightened again.

"Please don't," she said. "I'll call you. But I want a simple will. As little as possible to my husband, although I expect he would have to have a third. The rest is to go to Billy, my boy."

"Billy who? What's his full name?"

"William Blake Collier. I think you knew my husband in France. He's Wilfred Collier, if you remember him."

Forsythe felt a cold chill down his spine. Fred Collier had been a sergeant in his company when he first joined it as a green young lieutenant. And Fred had been the typical sergeant of fiction, hard, unscrupulous, and even murderous when drinking. He had a wild inclination to tell this girl not to go back to her husband. If he ever learned that she had been holding out on him—

"I remember him, yes, Mrs. Collier. He's no man to fool with. If you're worried, how about going to this aunt in Connecticut? He might not bother you there."

She was not listening. A man was walking along the hall outside, and evidently she recognized the heavy footsteps. She did not move, but all her color was gone again, and the fingers gripping the bag were white with tension. A moment later they heard a man's voice raised in the outer office.

"I want to see Forsythe," he said arrogantly. "And if my wife's with him I want to see her too."

"Your wife's not here," Miss Potter snapped. "There's no woman here except the two of us. And Mr. Forsythe is out."

"I think you're lying, sister."

"I wouldn't bother," she said contemptuously. "Go and hunt you wife somewhere else. This is a law office and if you want trouble we have quite a few husky young members of the bar around on this floor to give it to you."

"I've handled young punks before this. I don't scare easy."

In spite of this, however, a moment or two later the outer door slammed and Collier started back along the hall. At the door marked "Private" he stopped and tried the knob, then finding the door locked and hearing no sounds within he went on. Neither the girl nor Forsythe spoke until they heard the elevator stop to pick him up.

"I guess that's that," Forsythe said. "I don't like the idea of your going home to him, Mrs. Collier."

"I'll be all right," she told him. "I don't think he's sure yet, and until he is—I only hope I haven't got you into trouble. May I stay a few minutes, if I'm not disturbing you?"

He glanced at his desk. In front of him was his morning's work, still barely started. He shoved it aside.

"Stay as long as you like," he said. "Just try to relax. Want another brandy?"

"I'm all right, thanks."

"You know," he said conversationally, "your boy's name—William Blake. I knew a Bill Blake at college. And I have an idea I've seen you somewhere before. You look vaguely familiar."

It was the right note. She even managed a faint smile.

"I didn't think you could possibly remember," she said. "It's years ago. I went to a prom at Yale, when you were going to law school. You'd played football, of course, and I almost died with excitement when you asked me to dance. I always thought Bill asked you to."

He remembered her then. Queer, too, with all the girls he had danced with that night, and innumerable nights since; a scared, very young girl with amazingly long eyelashes and in a badly fitted white dress, with her brother desperately working on the stag line for men to dance with her.

"Of course," he said amusedly. "Bill Blake's little sister, Anne! Do you know, you still have the eyelashes!"

"It was my first real party," she said rather shyly. "And my dress was too long. I kept stumbling on it. But that's one reason I'm here. I knew you and Bill were friends."

"So we were. He was a grand guy. I'm afraid I've lost touch with him since then." He said it tentatively. It was as dangerous these days to ask about men as it was to inquire about a husband or a wife, and he was not astonished when he saw tears in her eyes. She opened the bag and got out a handkerchief.

"I'm sorry," she said. "You see, he was killed in the war. If only I had him—"

Unexpectedly she dropped her head on the desk, her shoulders shaking with repressed sobs. He got up and put an arm over her thin shoulders.

"Don't cry, Anne," he said. "Let me be Bill, and see what I can do. There are plenty of ways of fixing this thing up." And one of them, he thought, was to throw the fear of God into Wilfred Collier. "Why did you marry him, Anne?"

She did not lift her head.

"Why does any girl marry any man? Maybe it was the uniform. I don't know. Bill brought him to see me before they went overseas. I was working as a secretary then, and I suppose I was lonely. He wrote me all through the war, and—well, that's all. We were married as soon as he came back."

She got up then, and once more he repeated his suggestion about the aunt in Connecticut. She shook her head, however.

"I can't go anywhere until I've straightened things out and made the will," she said. "After that I'll feel free to take young Billy and go wherever I want."

"Can you come back tomorrow morning?"

"I can try," she said. "I'm sorry if I've involved you in anything, Wade. You don't mind if I call you that, do you? Bill always did. But you heard Fred. He's in an ugly mood. He'll try to make trouble. I know him."

At the door he was surprised when she stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly.

"For being wonderful to Bill's sister," she said and was out the door and out of sight before he had recovered. Of course the elevator had gone when he reached it. He took the next one down, only to see her being put in a rather battered Ford, with a man holding tight to her elbow. It did not require another look for him to recognize the big hulking figure of Fred Collier.

So the fat was in the fire, he thought apprehensively. Evidently Collier either knew or suspected what she had been doing, and Forsythe had a feeling that no time ought to be lost. The very thought of Collier's inheriting his wife's hard-earned money was revolting. But it was not only that. It would be easy, he realized, knowing the man, to get her out of the way by faking some sort of accident.

It was out of his hands, of course, at least until and if she came back the next day. He should not have let her go, he thought worriedly. And he had even, he remembered, forgotten to ask the name of her agent.

He picked up the red-bound book on his desk and absently read a paragraph where it opened. It read: "Redemption of stock to pay death taxes. The provisions of this subsection—"

He flung the book across the room and rang for Miss Potter. She came in with her notebook, a substantial woman in her forties, looking prepared for anything, from ugly citizens like Fred Collier to the dull routine of taking dictation. He waved the notebook aside, however.

"Know anything about the radio business, Miss Potter?" he asked.

For once she looked astonished.

"Radio?" she said. "I've got a set, if that's what you mean."

"The business," he said shortly. "The scripts, if that's what they call them. How do they get them? Who writes them?"

"I'm sure I don't know. One of the elevator men here keeps trying. I don't think he's sold any."

"Well, find out as soon as you can. Get a list of the agents who handle that sort of stuff. The town must be full of them."

Miss Potter took it in her stride.

"Anything you particularly want to know?"

He hesitated.

"I'd like to know who handles a serial called Monica's Marriage," he said. "By a writer named Jessica Blake. But be tactful, Miss Potter. You've heard it and liked the stuff. Maybe you're scouting for a sponsor, but be sure you keep me out of it."

Miss Potter refused to look surprised. Very little surprised her, but she was not unaware that a small white handkerchief was on the floor in front of the desk, and to her experienced eyes it was definitely moist. So maybe that tough guy's wife had been here after all! If so, no wonder she wept.

Her face, of course, recorded none of this. She said she would do her best, and retired with her usual placidity. In the rest room later, however, she found Stella, powdering and lipsticking for the lunch hour, and queried her.

"Ever hear of a radio program called Monica's Marriage, Stella?" she asked.

"Mother lives by it. Hears it every day. What about it?"

"Know who sponsors it?"

"Listen," Stella said, working with an eyebrow brush, "I wouldn't be caught dead listening to that truck. What's your interest in it?"

"Nothing much," said Miss Potter, preparing to leave. "Have an idea the boss may be going into radio. That's all, and I say God bless him. Anything but taxes."

And left Stella staring after her.