Ellery sat down and adjusted his
Jo rose swiftly. “I think you men want to be alone. If you’ll excuse me, please?”
Without a word she reseated herself.
The tall young man sank into a chair and without looking at any of them said in a cracked voice: “Because I was a fool.”
Macgowan did not turn from the window. He said hoarsely: “Well?”
Macgowan wheeled like a tired horse, his eyes stony. “And the fact that it’s backwards didn’t occur to you, I suppose,” he said bitterly.
“Backwards,” murmured Miss Temple, putting her hand to her mouth and staring at Donald Kirk still.
Ellery could have sworn he saw horror in Donald’s eyes. Was it assumed? He glanced sharply at Macgowan. But the big man had turned back to the window again, and there was something angry and stubborn in the set of his shoulders.
There was silence as Hubbell stamped across the foyer, darting one unguarded curious glance into the salon as he passed.
Then Kirk said: “I suppose it has to come out,” dully, quite without hope. “And that’s why I said I acted like a fool. I couldn’t have expected?” He buried his face in his hands momentarily, and a wonderful softness came over Miss Temple’s face, as she watched his boyish despair. He looked up, haggard. “Glenn knows something of my condition. It isn’t what you’d think, seeing this establishment, the way we live. This goes for you, too, Jo. Perhaps I should have told you . . . I’m in rather a tight spot financially at the moment, you see.”
Miss Temple said nothing.
But meanwhile?” He shook his shoulders in a curious bodily expression of despair.
Macgowan turned about and said in metallic tones: “I see all that, Donald, but what I still don’t see is why you sold it under cover that way, putting me in the rotten position of seeming to have . . . Why didn’t you come to me, Donald, for God’s sake?”
Macgowan bit his lip. “There was no necessity of?saying that, Donald. I didn’t mean to?”
VBut there is.” Kirk rose and faced them tensely. “For some time, Queen?since I’ve got to clear my conscience and get the record straight?I’ve been touching Glenn for money. Substantial loans, you understand. Father’s no money of his own; he doesn’t know . . . I haven’t wanted to bother him about?well, about the mess I’m in. My own fortune has dwindled to the point where it’s impossible for me to raise any more cash. The bulk of it is tied up in frozen assets. They’re quite the most Arctic assets in the world, I suspect.” He grinned without humor. “So?I’ve been borrowing from Glenn, who’s been more than generous. There’s nothing wrong in that, although I’ve wished a thousand times that I hadn’t been forced to do it. Of course, Glenn has known about my fix all along . . . . But the drain’s terribly severe, Queen?terribly. And suddenly I needed a lot of cash again?for various things.” His eyes were half-closed. “The most valuable stamp in my collection was the Foochow, strangely enough. I felt that I couldn’t offer it to Glenn openly for cash when I already owed him so much, and it was the cash I needed. So I used Varjian to sell it to Glenn under cover, since I really wanted him to have it if I couldn’t. That’s all.”
He sat down very abruptly. Miss Temple was studying him with the strangest, serenest, softest interest.
Macgowan muttered: “I see it now, Don. I’m sorry about?But how about the fact,” he cried, “that the Foochow illustrates one of those damned backwards significances of Queen’s, Donald? Didn’t it occur to you that by making me buy the stamp at this time you were laying me open to all sorts of nasty accusations?”
Donald raised red-rimmed eyes. “Glenn, I give you my word . . . . It never occurred to me. Not for an instant. Oh, lord, Glenn, do you really think I’d have done that deliberately? Maliciously? You can’t think that. Or you, Queen. It wasn’t until you mentioned it that I realized . . . “
He slumped back, exhausted. Macgowan hesitated, his face a study in conflicting emotions, and then went to Kirk and thumped his shoulder and growled: “Forget it, Don. It’s I who’s been the fool. I’ve been a chump throughout. Forget it. You know if there’s anything I can do?”