Эллери Куин - The Devil To Pay

So she said again, bitterly: “Your secret, whatever it is, is safe with me. Will you get out?”

Walter plucked violently at his collar, as if he found its grip intolerable. Then he wrenched the door open, stumbled across the living-room, and zigzagged out of the apartment, leaving his hat behind.

Val picked the hat up from the living-room floor and threw it after him into the corridor.

That was that.

“Pink, I’m starved,” she called out, going into the kitchen. “What’s on the menu?” But then her eyes narrowed and she said: “Pink, what is that?”

Pink was guiltily hiding something in his trouser pocket.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. And he got up from the chair in the breakfast nook and made for the gas range, where several pots and pans were bubbling. “Is crackpot gone?”

“Pink, what are you hiding?” Val went over to him and pulled him around. “Show me that.”

“It’s nothing I tell you!” said Pink, but his tone carried no conviction.

Val thrust her hand into his pocket. He tried to dodge, but she was too quick for him. Her hand emerged with a flat, small, hard-covered pamphlet.

“Why, it’s a bankbook,” she said. “Oh, Pink, I’m dreadfully sorry—” But then she stopped and little schools of goose-pimples rose to the surface of her flesh.

The name on the bankbook was Rhys Jardin.

“Pop deposited Walter’s money,” she began, and stopped again. “But this is a different bank, Pink. The Pacific Coastal. Spaeth’s bank.”

“Don’t bother your head with it, squirt,” muttered Pink; he began to stir beans with a ladle as if his life depended on their not sticking to the pan. “Don’t look inside.”

Val looked inside. There was one deposit listed, no withdrawals. But the size of the deposit made her eyes widen. It was impossible. It must be a mistake. But there were the figures.

$5,000,000.00.

She seized Pink’s arm. “Where did you get this? Pink, tell me the truth!”

“It was this morning,” said Pink, avoiding her eyes, “in the gym over at San Susie . I was packing the golf-bags. I found it hidden under a box of tees in a pocket of that old morocco bag of Rhys’s.”

“Oh,” said Val, and she sat down in the breakfast nook and shaded her eyes with her hand. “Pink,” she went on in a muffled voice, “you mustn’t... well, don’t say anything about this. It will look as if... as if what those people said about pop not really being broke is true.”

Pink stirred with absorption. “I didn’t know what the hell to do, Val. There was a chance some nosey, thievin’ express-man might find it. I had to take that stuff Rhys gave away over to the Museum, so... well, I just put it in my pocket.”

“Thanks, Pink,” said Val from stiff lips. And neither said another word as the gas hissed and Pink stirred and Val sat at the table and looked at the bankbook.

The front door banged. Rhys called out: “Val?”

Neither made a sound.

Rhys came into the kitchen smoking a cigar and shaking his wet hat. “It’s raining again. Pink, that smells wonderful.” He stopped, struck by the silence.

The yellow-covered bank book lay on the maple table in full view. He glanced at it, frowned, and then studied the two stony faces.

“Is it Walter?” he asked in a puzzled way. “Wouldn’t he talk?”

“No,” said Val.

Rhys sat down in his soggy coat, puffing at the cigar. “Don’t go off half-cocked, puss. I watched him. He’s concealing something, it’s true, but I have the feeling it isn’t what you think. Walter’s always been close-mouthed — after all, he never had the benefits of a normal upbringing — he’ll always depend on himself, keep things to himself. I’ve studied him, and I’m sure he’s incapable of viciousness. I couldn’t be wrong in him, darling—”

“I wonder,” said Val tonelessly, “if I could be wrong in you. ”

“Val.” He examined her with surprise. “Pink, what’s the matter? Something’s happened.”

“Don’t you know?” muttered Pink.

“I know,” he said a trifle sharply, “that you’re both being childishly mysterious.”

Val pushed the bankbook an inch toward her father with the very tip of one fingernail.

He did not pick it up at once. He continued to look at Val and Pink. As he looked, a curious pallor spread under the brown of his flat cheeks.

He took the bankbook slowly, stared at his name on the cover, opened the book, stared at the figures, stared at the date, the cashier’s initials...

“What is this?” he asked in a flat voice. “Well, don’t look at me like sticks! Pink, you know something about this. Where did it come from?”

“It’s none of my business,” shrugged Pink.

“I said where did it come from?”

Pink flung the ladle down. “Damn it, what do you want from me, Rhys? Don’t put on an act for my benefit! It’s a bankbook with a five-million-dollar deposit, and I found it this morning in your morocco golf-bag!”

Rhys rose, holding the bankbook in one hand and the fuming cigar in the other, and began to walk up and down the narrow kitchen. The brown wrinkles on his forehead deepened with each step. The paleness was gone now; the brownness had an angry red tinge.

“I never thought,” said Pink bitterly, “you’d be that kind of a heel, Rhys.”

Rhys stopped pacing.

“I can’t help being angry,” he said quietly, “although I don’t blame either of you. It looks damned bad. But I’m not going to deny this more than once.” Pink paled. “I know nothing about this deposit. I’ve never had an account at Spaeth’s bank. This five million dollars isn’t mine. Do you understand, both of you?”

Val felt a great shame. She was so tired she could have cried for sheer exhaustion. As for Pink, his pallor, too, vanished in a blush that reached to the roots of his red hair; and he leaned against the gas range biting his fingernails.

Rhys opened the book and glanced again at the stamped date of deposit. “Pink, where was I last Wednesday?” he asked in the same quiet tone.

Pink mumbled: “We ran the yacht down to Long Beach to see that guy who decided not to buy.”

“We left at six in the morning and didn’t get back to town until after dark — isn’t that so?”

“Yeah.”

Rhys tossed the bankbook on the table. “Look at the date of that deposit. It was made last Wednesday.”

Pink snatched the book. He said nothing at all. But the blush turned burning scarlet. He kept looking at the date as if he could not believe his eyes. Or perhaps because it was the only way he could cover his embarrassment.

“Pop,” said Val, resting her head on her arms, “I’m sorry.” There was a long silence.

“It could only have been Spaeth,” said Rhys at last. “He visited me in the gym this morning, as I told Glücke. He must have slipped it into the golf-bag when my back was turned.”

“But why, for the love of Mike?” cried Pink. “My God, who gives away five million bucks? I had to think—”

“I see it now.” Rhys flung his cigar into the drip-pan. “I’ve never told you before, but when things began to go wrong with Ohippi I came to my senses and had a confidential accountant and investigator look into things.”

“I had to think—” said Pink again, miserably.

Rhys began to pace again, nibbling at his lips. “I found that friend Solly, who up to a certain point had been perfectly coached by Ruhig, had gone on his own in one connection — and slipped very badly. He issued a prospectus for the further sale of stock in which he falsified the cash position of the companies. He had to make the stocks look sound, and he did — with false figures.”