'Only you.'
'Not even Ellen?'
'Only you. I swear it.'
He kissed her again.
Her hands freed his and rose to find his cheeks.
From The New York Times; Monday, December 24, 1951: MARION J. KINGSHIP TO BE WED SATURDAY Miss Marion Joyce Kingship, daughter of Mr. Leo Kingship of Manhattan and the late Phyllis Hatcher, will be married to Mr. Burton Corliss, son of Mrs. Joseph Corliss of Menasset, Mass., and the late Mr. Corliss, on the afternoon of Saturday, December 29, in the home of her father.
Miss Kingship was graduated from the Spence School in New York and is an alumna of Columbia University. Until last week she was with the advertising agency of Camden and Galbraith. The prospective bridegroom, who served with the Army during the second World War and attended Caldwell College in Caldwell, Wis., has recently joined the domestic sales division of the Kingship Copper Corporation.
Seated at her desk, Miss Richardson stretched out her right hand in a gesture she considered quite graceful and squinted at the gold bracelet that constricted the plumpness of her wrist. It was definitely too young looking for her mother, she decided. She would get something else for mother and keep the bracelet for herself.
Beyond her hand the background suddenly turned blue. With white pin-stripes. She looked up, starting to smile, but stopped when she saw that it was the pest again.
'Hello,' he said cheerfully.
Miss Richardson opened a drawer and busily ruffled the edges of some blank typing paper. 'Mr. Kingship is still at lunch,' she said frigidly.
'Dear lady, he was at lunch at twelve o'clock. It is now three o'clock. What is he, a rhinoceros?'
'If you wish to make an appointment for later in the week...'
'I would like an audience with His Eminence this afternoon.'
Miss Richardson closed the drawer grimly. 'Tomorrow is Christmas,' she said. 'Mr. Kingship is interrupting a four day weekend by coming in today. He wouldn't do that unless he were very busy. He gave me strict orders not to disturb him on any account. On no account whatsover.'
'Then he isn't at lunch.'
'He gave me strict orders...'
The man sighed. Slinging his folded coat over one shoulder, he drew a slip of paper from the rack next to Miss Richardson's telephone. 'May I?' he asked, already having taken the paper. Placing it on a large blue book which he held in the crook of his arm, he removed Miss Richardson's pen from its onyx holder and began to write.
'Well I never!' said Miss Richardson. 'Honestly!' she said.
Finished writing, the man replaced the pen and blew on the paper. He folded it carefully into quarters and handed it to Miss Richardson. 'Give him this,' he said. 'Slip it under the door, if need be.'
Miss Richardson glared at him. Then she calmly unfolded the paper and read it Uncomfortably, she looked up. 'Dorothy and Ellen-?'
His face was expressionless.
She hoisted herself from the chair. 'He told me not to disturb him on any account,' she repeated softly, as though seeking guidance in the incantation. 'What's your name?'
'Just give him that, please, like the angel you are.'
'Now look...'
He was doing just that; looking at her quite seriously, despite the lightness of his voice. Miss Richardson frowned, glanced again at the paper, and refolded it. She moved to a heavily paneled door. 'All right,' she said darkly, 'but you'll see. He gave me strict orders.' Gingerly she tapped on the door. Opening it, she slipped in with the paper held appeasingly before her.
She reappeared a minute later with a betrayed expression on her face. 'Go ahead,' she said sharply, holding the door open.
The man breezed past her, his coat over his shoulder, the book under his arm. 'Keep smiling,' he whispered.
At the faint sound of the door closing, Leo Kingship looked up from the slip of paper in his hand. He was standing behind his desk in his shirtsleeves, his jacket draped on the back of the chair behind him. His eyeglasses were pushed up on his pink forehead. Sunlight, sliced by a Venetian blind, striped his stocky figure. He squinted anxiously at the man approaching him across the paneled and carpeted room.
'Oh,' he said, when the man came close enough to block the sunlight, enabling Kingship to recognize his face. 'You.' He looked down at the slip of paper and crumpled it, his expression of anxiety turning to relief and then to annoyance.
'Hello, Mr. Kingship,' the man said, offering his hand.
Kingship took it halfheartedly. 'No wonder you wouldn't give your name to Miss Richardson.'
Smiling, the man dropped into the visitor's chair. He settled his coat and the book in his lap.
'But I'm afraid I've forgotten it,' Kingship said. 'Grant?' he ventured.
'Gant.' The long legs crossed comfortably. 'Gordon Gant.'
Kingship remained standing. 'I'm extremely busy, Mr. Gant,' he said firmly, indicating the paper-strewn desk. 'So if this 'information about Dorothy and Ellen''-he held up the crumpled slip of paper -'consists of the same theories' you were expounding back in Blue River...'
'Partially,' Gant said. 'Well, I'm sorry. I don't want to listen.'
'I gathered that I wasn't number one on your Hit Parade.'
'You mean I didn't like you? That isn't so. Not at all. I realized your motives were of the best; you had taken a liking to Ellen; you showed a-a youthful enthusiasm... But it was misdirected, misdirected in a way that was extremely painful to me. Barging into my hotel room so soon after Ellen's death... bringing up the past at such a moment...' He looked at Gant appealingly. 'Do you think I wouldn't have liked to believe that Dorothy didn't take her own life?'
'She didn't.'
'The note,' he said wearily, 'the note...'
'A couple of ambiguously worded sentences that could have referred to a dozen things beside suicide. Or that she could have been tricked into writing.' Gant leaned forward. 'Dorothy went to the Municipal Building to get married. Ellen's theory was right; the fact that she was killed proves it'
'It does no such thing,' Kingship snapped. 'There was no connection. You heard the police-'
'A housebreaker!'
'Why not? Why not a housebreaker?'
'Because I don't believe in coincidences. Not that kind.'
'A sign of immaturity, Mr. Gant.'
After a moment Gant said flatly, 'It was the same person both times.'
Kingship braced his hands tiredly on the desk, looking down at the papers there. 'Why do you have to revive all this?' he sighed. 'Intruding in other people's business. How do you think I feel...?' He pushed his eyeglasses down into place and fingered the pages of a ledger. 'Would you please go now.'
Gant made no move to rise. 'I'm home on vacation,' he said. 'Home is White Plains. I didn't spend an hour on the New York Central just to rehash what was already said last March.'
'What then?' Kingship looked warily at the long-jawed face.
'There was an article in the morning's Times... the society page.'
'My daughter?'
Gant nodded. He took a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket. 'What do you know about Bud Corliss?' he asked.
Kingship eyed him in silence. 'Know about him?' he said slowly. 'He's going to be my son-in-law. What do you mean, know about him?'
'Do you know that he and Ellen were going together?'
'Of course.' Kingship straightened up. 'What are you driving at?'
'It's a long story,' Gant said. The blue eyes were sharp and steady under the thick blond brows. He gestured towards Kingship's chair. 'And my delivery is bound to suffer if you stand towering over me.'
