Robert Adams - A Man Called Milo Morai

She had no way of knowing, of course, that immediately she could be heard walking down the second-floor hallway, Maggie pushed herself up out of her chair and made for the telephone in its nook under the stairs.

When at last Irunn came back down to the parlor, walked across to the chessplayers and said sweetly, “Milo, love, please come upstairs. We need to talk, don’t you think?”

At the words, a sound that could have passed for a bestial growl or snarl came from Rosaleen O’Farrell, but Maggie O’Shea laid a hand on the cook’s tensed arm, then turned off the radio set and came up out of the chair once more.

“I agree, Miss Thorsdottar, there is talking to do, but it all will be done here, where as many witnesses as there are at home tonight can hear and remember. There have been more than enough lies and prevarications from, you concerning Mr. Milo Moray and what he was supposed to have done or not done. I, who have known you and worked with you and lived with you for years, would never have thought you capable of such terrible wickedness had the evidence not been placed in my hands. Now, tonight, I will have the full and unvarnished truth out of you. if truth can ever come out of the mouth of a lying harlot such as you. I also have summoned your priest, Father Rüstung, and the deputy administrator of the hospital, Dr. Guiscarde, along with a policeman friend of Mrs. O’Farrell’s, so that all of them can hear the truth and know the immensity of you* crimes against this poor man.”

As Maggie had spoken, Irunn had turned first red, then white, her face seemingly drained of blood. She never spoke a word, but immediately Maggie had ceased to speak, the woman spun about and dashed up the stairs and down the hallway. A minute or so later, everyone heard her hurried descent of the rear stairs and a rattling and banging at the door at the foot of those same stairs, a few shrieked curses in both English and Norwegian, then a rapid reascent of those same rear stairs.

Rosaleen showed a set of worn yellow teeth in a grin. “It was thinkin’, I was, that she might try to skedaddle when faced down she was, Mrs. O’Shea. Beware, now the front she’ll be tryin’.”

With her still-packed bag in hand, a purse in the other and a bundle of uniforms and dresses under one arm, Irunn came pouring down the stairs like a spring freshet in flood, to not halt or even slow until she abruptly became aware that Maggie O’Shea’s not inconsiderable hulk loomed between her and the door that led to freedom.

“Get … get out of my way!” she gasped, fear and anger plain on her face and in her voice. “You got no right … no right at all not to let me out.”

“If any of us needed any further proof of Milo’s innocence in this sorry matter, you’ve just supplied it, you brazen hussy. You’re not going out this door until I say so!” snapped Maggie.

“The hell I’m not!” Irunn screamed, dropping her travel case and armful of clothes to swing a powerful roundhouse right at Maggie’s head.

But Maggie O’Shea was ready. She caught Irunn’s telegraphed buffet easily on her left forearm even as she sank a paralyzing punch into the younger woman’s solar plexus. A ready follow-up was not necessary. Irunn staggered back across the foyer, wide-eyed, gasping for breath, clutching with both her big hands at the point of impact, until her heels struck the first step of the staircase and she lost her balance and landed hard on her rump on the lower landing.

Between the two of them, Maggie and Rosaleen got the woman up and into a chair in the parlor to await the priest, the doctor and the policeman. As soon as she could breathe almost normally and talk again, Maggie and Pat and the cook began to throw hard questions at her, intuitively recognizing the lies she attempted and continuing their relentless probings until they got the truth out of her.

The three were merciless. When once they had what they took to be the truth or near to it, they drilled her, asking the same questions over and over in slightly differing forms. By the time Dr. Gerald Guiscarde arrived to be ushered into the parlor, Irunn was in tears, sobbing, all the defiance and fight drained out of her.

Coldly, efficiently, Maggie took her through the whole of the sordid story for the benefit of the physician, ending by asking, “Doctor, is this the kind of woman that we want nursing at the hospital?”

“Good Lord, no!” was his immediate reply. “It’s … it was diabolical … almost unbelievable. And all of this misery and trouble and sorrow simply so that she could get her greedy hands on Milo’s couple of thousand dollars? And knowing Milo as Sam—Dr. Osterreich—and I have come to know him, he would probably have given, or at least made her a long-term loan of the money, had she been truthful with him at the start.

“No, the hospital wants no part of a woman like this … and I doubt that the Board of Examiners of Nurses will look with any degree of favor upon this evidence, either. Let her go back to Wisconsin or somewhere else—anywhere else, and nurse there if she can. She’s a disgrace to a fine and noble profession.”

A police lieutenant and a sergeant were next to arrive. They were greeted warmly by Rosaleen, had whiskey pressed upon them by Pat O’Shea, and Maggie put Irunn through her paces once more for their benefit. Then Rosaleen brought out trays of cupcakes and little chess pies.

By the time the priest and his effeminate subordinate drove up to park their ornate Daimler beside the doctor’s Mercedes-Benz and the plain black city-owned Ford, leaving their chauffeur outside to keep warm any way that he could, Irunn was well drilled and resigned to the utter ruination of her nefarious schemes, her professional career, her life. She went through the recitation of her multiple misdeeds with but little prompting from Maggie. Irunn did not once raise her gaze from her lap and the hands clasped there.

Looking even grimmer than Milo remembered him, Father Rustung spoke not one word until the tale was completely told, then he said, “And you told all of these lies to me and to others, you defiled your chastity and forged a letter simply in order to gain for your family a sum of money owned by Mr. Moray, Irunn Thorsdottar?”

In tones of dull apathy, she answered, “Papa has said so often that if only he had a thousand or two dollars he could do so much with the farm and the barns and the herd and have a bequest of real value to leave to my dear brother, Sven. And besides,” she went on, a degree of animation returning to her voice and manner, “Milo had no need of the money—it was just lying useless in his lockbox under his bed. The Jews were paying him more each week than even I, a graduate nurse, make in a week.”

With a curt nod, the priest said, “Yes, my child, another instance of the fierce love of family that is but a hallmark of the Aryan race and folk. I, of all here assembled, can fully understand why you did what you did, the lies and the … the far more heinous sins, the mortal sin of fornication, even. But mere understanding and even a degree of sympathy does not in any way justify your transgressions. The penance I shall lay upon you will be heavy, child, awesomely heavy, and as hard or harder to bear than what the hospital and secular authorities will likely do … although I shall strive to afford you as much protection from them as my office permits, of course, when once I am certain that you truly repent your sins.

“It were probably better that you depart with me, this night, for after all of this, I doubt that you would be happy or even welcome for any longer under this roof. I will take you to the home of a good German family for the night, and tomorrow you can first make a true confession, receive penance and absolution, then I will do what I can to help you out of these difficulties.”