“Sell him?”
“Uh-huh. What'd you promise to do in the next few days or he fixes it so the check's no good?”
She made an impatient face. “Really, Nick, I think you're a half-wit sometimes with your silly suspicions.”
“I'm studying to be one. Three more lessons and I get my diploma. But remember I warned you yesterday that you'll probably wind up in—”
“Stop it,” she cried. She put a hand over my mouth. “Do you have to keep saying that? You know it terrifies me and—” Her voice became soft and wheedling. “You must know what I'm going through these days, Nick. Can't you be a little kinder?”
“Don't worry about me,” I said. “Worry about the police.” I went back to the telephone and called up Alice Quinn. “This is Nick. Nora said you—”
“Yes. Have you seen Harrison?”
“Not since I left him with you.”
“Well, if you do, you won't say anything about what I said last night, will you? I didn't mean it, really I didn't mean a word of it.”
“I didn't think you did,” I assured her, “and I wouldn't say anything about it anyway. How's he feeling today?”
“He's gone,” she said.
“What?”
“He's gone. He's left me.”
“He's done that before. He'll be back.”
“I know, but I'm afraid this time. He didn't go to his office. I hope he's just drunk somewhere and—but this time I'm afraid. Nick, do you think he's really in hove with that girl?”
“He seems to think he is.”
“Did he tell you he was?”
“That wouldn't mean anything.”
“Do you think it would do any good to have a talk with her?”
“No.”
“Why don't you? Do you think she's in love with him?”
“No.”
“What's the matter with you?” she asked irritably.
“No, I'm not home.”
“What? Oh, you mean you're some place where you can't talk?”
“That's it.”
“Are you—are you at her house?”
“Yes.”
“Is she there?”
“No.”
“Do you think she's with him?”
“I don't know. I don't think so.”
“Will you call me when you can talk, or, better still, will you come up to see me?”
“Sure,” I promised, and we hung up.
Mimi was looking at me with amusement in her blue eyes. “Somebody's taking my brat's affairs seriously?” When I did not answer her, she laughed and asked: “Is Dorry still being the maiden in distress?”
“I suppose so.”
“She will be, too, as long as she can get anybody to believe in it. And you, of all people, to be fooled, you who are afraid to believe that—well—that I, for instance, am ever telling the truth.”
“That's a thought,” I said. The doorbell rang before I could go on.
Mimi let the doctor in—he was a roly-poly elderly man with a stoop and a waddle—and took him in to Gilbert.
I opened the table-drawer again and looked at the bonds, Postal Telegraph & Cable 5s, Sao Paulo City 6Ѕs, American Type Founders 6s, Certain-teed Products 5Ѕs, Upper Austria 6Ѕs, United Drugs 5s, Philippine Railway 4S, Tokio Ehectric Lighting 6s, about sixty thousand dollars at face value, I judged, and—guessing—between a quarter and a third of that at the market.
When the doorbell rang I shut the drawer and let Macaulay in.
He looked tired. He sat down without taking off his overcoat and said: “Well, tell me the worst. What was he up to here?”
“I don't know yet, except that he gave Mimi some bonds and a check.”
“I know that.” He fumbled in his pocket and gave me a letter:
Dear Herbert:
I am today giving Mrs. Mimi Jorgensen the securitieslisted below and a ten thousand dollar check on the Park Ave. Trust dated Jan. 3. Please arrange to havesufficient money there on that date to cover it. I would suggest that you sell some more of the public utilitybonds, but use your own judgment.
I find that I cannot spend any more time in New York at present and probablywill not be able to get back here for several months, but will communicate with you from time to time. I amsorry I will not be able to wait over to see you and Charles tonight.
Yours truly,
Clyde Miller Wynant
Under the sprawling signature was a list of the bonds.
“How'd it come to you?” I asked.
“By messenger. What do you suppose he was paying her for?”
I shook my head. “I tried to find out. She said he was providing for her and his children.'”
“That's likely, as likely as that she'd tell the truth.”
“About these bonds?” I asked. “I thought you had all his property in your hands.”
“I thought so too, but I didn't have these, didn't know he had them.” He put his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. “If all the things I don't know were laid end to end
30
Mimi came in with the doctor, said, “Oh, how do you do,” a little stiffly to Macaulay, and shook hands with him. “This is Doctor Grant, Mr. Macaulay, Mr. Charles.”
“How's the patient?” I asked.
Doctor Grant cleared his throat and said he didn't think there was anything seriously the matter with Gilbert, effects of a beating, slight hemorrhage of course, should rest, though. He cleared his throat again and said he was happy to have met us, and Mimi showed him out.
“What happened to the boy?” Macaulay asked me.
“Wynant sent him on a wild-goose chase over to Julia's apartment and he ran into a tough copper.”
Mimi returned from the door. “Has Mr. Charles told you about the bonds and the check?” she asked.
“I had a note from Mr. Wynant saying he was giving them to you,” Macaulay said.
“Then there will be no—”
“Difficulty? Not that I know of.”
She relaxed a little and her eyes lost some of their coldness. “I didn't see why there should be, but he”— pointing at me—“likes to frighten me.”
