Чарльз Кенни - This Is Murder

“Look here,” she said, “did you mean anything personal by that?”

His eyes showed his surprise. “Why, no, of course not.”

“Very well,” she said.

He was staring at her curiously now. She was quite evidently badly shaken.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

He stared at her speculatively.

“Will you see clients to-day?”

“No. I’m going to try and avoid everyone. There’ll be a lot of newspaper reporters. There’ll probably be some detectives.”

“The detectives will come here?”

“Yes, of course.”

She dropped into a chair and said, “Pardon me, Mr. Moraine, but I feel faint.”

“Water?” he asked, jumping to his feet.

She shook her head.

He opened a drawer in his desk.

“Brandy?”

She hesitated a moment, then nodded.

“I think I’ll have one, myself,” he told her, handing her a glass and pouring one for himself. “It may relax me so I can get to sleep. I’ll lie down on the couch here and doze a bit. If I get sleepy, you keep out the reporters and detectives.”

“What shall I tell them?”

“Tell them anything. Tell them I’ve gone to Timbuktu; tell them I ran away with another man’s wife; tell them I’ve skipped out with funds belonging to a bank; tell them anything. It’s no crime to he under circumstances like these. I want privacy, sleep, and a chance to think.”

“I hope,” she said, “you won’t think I’m too personal, but I gathered you were all finished with the affair.”

“I am,” he told her, slowly, “and I’m not. There’s something about this that interests me.”

“How did it happen you were arrested?”

“I took the money out to the kidnapers. The federal men had been tipped off to the kidnapping. They were waiting to grab us all when we came ashore. I don’t think they really wanted me. I think they just wanted to throw a scare into me and establish a precedent that it was poor business to pay ransom money without communicating with the federal authorities.”

“But they did arrest you?”

“Oh, yes, they took me down there and Phil got me out. There’s no question about that.”

“How about the woman — the dentist’s wife?”

“Mrs. Hartwell, you mean? Oh, she’s sitting pretty. They’re dressing her up for the sob sections of the newspapers.”

“From what I read in the paper her story wasn’t very clear.”

“She’s hysterical,” he said.

“Are the federal men going to try and break down her story?” she said.

He looked at her in surprise.

“Why should they?” he asked.

She started to say something, then checked herself.

Moraine, watching her, said encouragingly, “Go ahead. What was it you wanted to say?”

“Nothing,” she told him. “After all, it’s none of my business. The Grantland woman has been calling again. And that Johnson contract requires your attention. The Pelton Paper Products wants you to work out a slogan and...”

“Wait a minute,” he interrupted, good-naturedly. “It isn’t that important. We were talking about something else.”

“I was commenting upon something which didn’t concern me,” she remarked. “That is, I was about to.”

“Whenever I try to get personal with you,” he observed, “you take refuge in a secretarial efficiency.”

“Well, isn’t that the way you want it?” she asked.

“No,” he said frankly, “it isn’t.”

“It’s the way it should be.”

He shook his head, staring at her in steady appraisal.

“No,” he said, “it isn’t. You know all about me. I know very little about you. You know how I feel toward the Grantland woman. You know what Tm going to do with the Johnson contract, and you could probably work out a slogan for the Pelton Paper Products Company that’s just about the same type and probably just as good as the one I’d work out. Yet I don’t know a single thing about you. You came to me without references. I had ten applicants for secretary. You made the highest mark in the intelligence examination which I gave. You also did the fastest shorthand, the neatest typing, but when I asked you about references, you stalled. I knew you were stalling. But I don’t pay much attention to references. I’m willing to take human nature as I find it, so I told you we’d waive the references.”

Her eyes stared steadily into his.

“So you could throw it up to me afterwards?” she asked.

“No,” he said, “but, since you want to know, I’ll tell you. You have something in your past. You’re frightened by this kidnapping business. Perhaps you’ve had some contact with kidnapers. Perhaps you think you know the people who are in on the job.”

She got to her feet with dignity.

“I like this position,” she announced. “It’s just the type of work that I care for. As long as you’re doing advertising work. But when you start dabbling around in kidnapping cases on the side, I think it’s time for me to quit.”

“You’re resigning?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Because I’m mixed up in a kidnapping case?”

“Partly.”

“Just what’s the reason? I fail to see the connection.”

“ I’m interested in the business,” she said. “You’re certainly not going to be able to put in much time on business if you’re dabbling around in these things.”

“Go on and come clean,” he said, laughing. “You’re not fooling anyone.”

“I don’t have to fool anyone,” she said, her eyes blazing. “You have no right to make any such insinuations.”

“Oh, yes you do,” he told her. “Remember, I’m something of a psychologist. I noticed the concern in your face and in your manner when I told you that officers were going to be hanging around here to-day. At about that time, you decided you were going to quit. I also noticed that when I mentioned something about friends with social position turning a cold shoulder to one who is unfortunate, I hit pretty close to a bull’s-eye. Now, then, Miss Natalie Rice, suppose you come clean and tell me how much of your reason for quitting is because officers are going to be hanging around the place.”

Her face was dead white, the eyes large, dazed, and helpless. Slowly she sat down in a chair.

“Not going to cry?” he asked.

“No,” she said; “I don’t cry.”

“Good girl. Little more brandy?”

“No, thank you. One’s enough.”

“How near right am I?” he inquired kindly.

She managed a smile.

“About ninety-eight per cent, perhaps ninety-nine per cent.”

He offered her a cigarette. She took it, leaned forward for his match, then settled back with a sigh.

Moraine lit a cigarette and regarded her with steady, patient, unprejudiced appraisal.

“Ever hear of Alton G. Rice?” she asked.

He knitted his forehead.

“Yes. But I can’t remember in what connection. Wasn’t he in politics, or mixed up in some...”

“Embezzlement,” she finished.

“Exactly,” he announced. “City Treasurer, or something, wasn’t he?”

“That’s right.”

“Go on,” he invited.

“He is my father,” she said simply.

Moraine’s voice showed sympathy. “Isn’t he... that is...”

“Yes. He’s in jail.”

Moraine nodded.

“His term,” she said, “has about finished.”

Moraine, smoking, waited, watching her with eyes that had trained themselves to miss no faintest flicker of facial expression.

“When he was sentenced,” Natalie Rice went on, “there was a very decided belief on the part of the district attorney’s office that he was withholding over fifty thousand dollars in cash that had been secreted somewhere. They offered to make his sentence lighter if he’d turn in that money. He told them that he couldn’t, that he didn’t know where it was.”