Richard Deming - This Game of Murder

The matron remained in the doorway, out of earshot, but where she could watch everything going on. Seating him self across from Marshall, Betty reached out to give his hand a squeeze.

“Old faithful,” she said. “I don’t know how I’d hold up without you. How’s Bud?”

“Fine, according to Audrey.” He studied her face. “You’re still losing weight.”

“It isn’t just despondency,” she said dryly. “The food here isn’t exactly from the Ritz.”

“Maybe you’ll be out in a week,” he said. “Maybe the grand jury won’t return a true bill.”

She gave him a pale smile. “I’ve already stopped hoping that. Henry has no hope of it, and he should know. He says that after the indictment the trial probably won’t be set for months, so I’ll be here for a long time even in the unlikely event that I’m finally acquitted.”

“Don’t talk like that,” he said roughly. “You’ll be acquitted. You’re innocent.”

“Only five people in the world aside from me seem to think so,” she said, still smiling. “Aunt Audrey and Uncle George, Bud, Henry Quillan and you.”

“You can add Mom and Dad to the list. Lydia, too.”

“Lydia’s on my side?” she said with raised brows. “Of her own accord or because of you?”

“Mainly, I suppose, because she has faith in my judgment,” he admitted.

“I suppose you still see a lot of her,” she said wryly.

“Not at the moment.” Then he added with honesty, “I’ve been avoiding her because I don’t want the visiting newsmen to get any ideas about us and splash her name in papers all over the country.”

She gave him a quizzical look. “You’re a remarkably honest person, Kirk.”

“I try to be. I won’t be here tomorrow, incidentally.”

“Oh?”

“I’m flying to Philadelphia. Dad wants me to look into Bruce’s background.

She looked surprised. “Whatever for?”

“We run a newspaper. Everything you and Gail Thomas ever did has been reported in other papers. Dad wants a scoop on Bruce. Don’t worry. We won’t print anything sensational. We wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, any more than you already have been.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she said, but he noticed a suddenly withdrawn look in her eyes.

“You could make it easier for me by giving me a brief biographical rundown,” he said.

“All right,” she said, smiling again. “He graduated from Cornell Law School when he was twenty-four and had been a law clerk in Philadelphia for a year when we met. His parents both died about the time he graduated, so I never knew them. Now you shouldn’t have to go to Philadelphia.”

“I can hardly spread that to two columns,” he said. “Who were his parents?”

“His father’s name was Harlan and his mother’s Martha. He was a contractor of some kind.”

“Well, that gives me something to start on. What was the name of the law firm where he was a clerk?”

“I’ve forgotten,” she said, and he got the odd impression that she was lying. She reached across to press his hand again. “Is it so important to do a story on Bruce, Kirk? Or if it is, can’t you get all you need from me and Henry Quillan? We were the two who knew him best.”

“During the past eleven years, yes. But you don’t seem to know a devil of a lot about him before that. Didn’t he ever talk about himself?”

She shook her head. “That’s one bad habit he lacked. I was never quite sure whether it was modesty or secretiveness.”

“Nobody’s that modest,” he said. “The average man probably eventually tells his wife everything he’s done since birth — that he’s not ashamed of. I have a hunch I’m going to find a story in Philadelphia.”

Her hand squeezed his. “Don’t go, Kirk. Please.”

“Why not?” he asked in surprise.

Pulling her hand back, she put it in her lap. “I look forward to your visits so.”

That was a cover-up, he knew by her manner. There was something in Philadelphia she dreaded he would learn. It didn’t deter him any, because he had no intention of using anything he found if he thought it would hurt her in any way.

He said, “I’ve already had one argument with Dad today. If I refused to go to Philadelphia I would probably get there without even taking a plane. He would throw me all the way.”

She gave him a resigned smile. “That was selfish of me. I don’t want to interfere with your work. I’ll see you when you get back.”

The matron announced, “Visiting time is up, folks.”

Back in town Marshall dropped in on Henry Quillan to find out what he knew about Bruce Case’s background before the man came to Runyon City. He wasn’t greatly surprised to learn that the lawyer knew practically nothing about his former law partner’s antecedents.

“I suppose you know that old Arthur Runyon bought him a junior partnership here after he married his daughter,” Quillan said. “Naturally I made some investigation before agreeing to the deal, but it covered only his academic record and his work for his former employer. He was in the upper third of his class at Cornell. Wesson, Wesson and Masters of Philadelphia, the law firm he worked for there, gave him a pretty good recommendation, particularly commending him for his brief work. As it turned out, he wasn’t as conscientious a worker once he got himself set in a law partnership as he had been as a mere clerk. With a wealthy wife, he didn’t need the money, of course, so he did just about what he had to. He was an able enough lawyer when he put his mind to it, but that was only sporadically.”

“It doesn’t sound as though he was a great asset to the firm,” Marshall said.

“Oh, I have no kicks. There wasn’t so much work that it left me snowed under. And, of course, our division of profits was based on the cases we each handled. There’s really some advantage to having a junior partner willing to take all the routine cases and leave the interesting ones to you. Besides, Betty’s father paid enough for his share of the firm so that I would have been ahead if Bruce had never showed up at the office at all.”

By the time Marshall left the law office, his opinion of Bruce Case had been solidified. The man obviously had been a fortune hunter, and the minute he’d acquired a rich wife, he had relaxed in his new-found luxury and had devoted only enough time to making a living to keep up the appearance of being gainfully employed.

Marshall arrived in Philadelphia on Friday morning. He had no trouble finding the law firm of Wesson, Wesson and Masters, which was situated in an old but ultra-respectable office building downtown. He had a little difficulty getting in to see a member of the firm, though.

There was a surprisingly youthful and pretty receptionist. She greeted him quite cordially, but when she discovered he was a reporter instead of a potential client, her cordiality evaporated. She was firmly certain that no member of the firm would care to be interviewed by a reporter.

Marshall explained that he had just flown five hundred miles to see some member of the firm and that, furthermore, he was not just a reporter, but a personal acquaintance of a former employee of Wesson, Wesson and Masters. His business concerned that former employee, he said, and he suggested she relay his message on to higher authority.

A trifle reluctantly she explained to someone over an intercom system that an out-of-town reporter named Mr. Kirk Marshall was there concerning some former employee of the law firm. She seemed a little surprised when a voice from the speaker said, “Send him in.”

“Mr. Wesson will see you,” she said, and rose to escort Marshall to one of two closed doors to private offices.