Marion,' he said.
Gant looked at the telephone.
'No,' Kingship said emptily. 'She's had her phone disconnected. She's giving up her apartment, staying with me until the wedding.' His voice faltered. 'After the honeymoon they're moving into an apartment I'm furnishing for them... Sutton Terrace... Marion didn't want to accept it at first, but he convinced her. He's been so good with her... made the two of us get along so much better...' They looked at each other for a moment; Gant's eyes steady and challenging, Kingship's apprehensive.
Kingship stood up.
'Do you know where she is?' Gant asked.
'At her place... packing things.' He put on his jacket. 'He must have told her about Stoddard...'
When they came out of the office Miss Richardson looked up from a magazine.
'That's all for today, Miss Richardson. If you'll just clear my desk.'
She frowned with frustrated curiosity. 'Yes, Mr. Kingship. Merry Christmas.'
'Merry Christmas, Miss Richardson.'
They walked down a long corridor, on the walls of which were black and white photographs, matted and mounted between plates of glass held together by copper brackets at top and bottom. They were photographs of underground and open-pit mines, smelters, refineries, furnaces, rolling mills, and artistic close-ups of tubing and copper wire.
Waiting for the elevator Kingship said, 'I'm sure he told her.'
'Gordon Gant?' Marion said, exploring the name, when they had shaken hands. 'Don't I know that name?' She backed into the room, smiling, one hand finding Kingship's and drawing him with her, the other rising to the collar of her blouse and fingering the golden pearl-starred brooch.
'Blue River.' Kingship's voice was wooden as when he had performed the introduction, and his eyes were not quite on Marion's. 'I think I told you about him.'
'Oh, yes. You knew Ellen, wasn't that it?'
'That's right,' Gant said. He shifted his hand farther down the spine of the book at his side, to a spot where the leatherette wasn't damp, wishing he hadn't been so damned eager when Kingship had asked him to come up; the Times photo of Marion had offered no hint in its dotted grays of the lucency of her eyes, the radiance of her cheeks, the halo of I'm-getting-married-Saturday that glowed all over her.
She gestured at the room despairingly. 'I'm afraid mere isn't even a place to sit down.' She moved towards a chair on which some shoe boxes were piled.
'Don't bother,' Kingship said. 'We just stopped by. Only for a minute, A lot of work waiting for me at the office.'
'You haven't forgotten tonight, have you?' Mar- ion asked. 'You can expect us at seven or so. She's arriving at five, and I guess she'll want to stop at her hotel first.' She turned to Gant. 'My prospective mother-in-law,' she said significantly.
Oh Lord, Gant thought, I'm supposed to say 'You're getting married?'-'Yes, Saturday.'-'Congratulations, good luck, best wishes!' He smiled wanly and didn't say anything. Nobody said anything.
'To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?' Marion inquired, a curtsey in her voice.
Gant looked at Kingship, waiting for him to speak.
Marion looked at both of them. 'Anything special?'
After a moment, Gant said, 'I knew Dorothy, too. Very slightly.'
'Oh,' Marion said. She looked down at her hands.
'She was in one of my classes. I go to Stoddard.' He paused. 'I don't think Bud was ever in any of my classes though.'
She looked up. 'Bud?'
'Bud Corliss. Your...'
She shook her head, smiling. 'Bud was never at Stoddard,' she corrected him.
'He was, Miss Kingship.'
'No,' she insisted amusedly, 'he went to Caldwell.'
'He went to Stoddard, then to Caldwell.'
Marion smiled quizzically at Kingship, as though expecting him to offer some explanation for the obstinacy of the caller he had brought.
'He was at Stoddard, Marion,' Kingship said heavily. 'Show her the book.'
Gant opened the yearbook and handed it to Marion, pointing to the picture.
'Well for goodness' sake,' she said. 'I have to apologize. I never knew...' She glanced at the cover of the book. 'Nineteen-fifty.'
'He's in the forty-nine yearbook too,' Gant said. 'He went to Stoddard for two years and then transferred to Caldwell.'
'For goodness' sake,' she said. 'Isn't that funny? Maybe he knew Dorothy.' She sounded pleased, as though this were yet another bond between her and her fiancй. Her eyes slipped back to his picture.
'He never mentioned it to you at all?' Gant asked, despite Kingship's prohibitive headshakings.
'Why, no, he never said a...'
Slowly she looked up from the book, becoming aware for the first time of the strain and discomfort of the two men. 'What's the matter?' she asked curiously.
'Nothing,' Kingship said. He glanced at Gant, seeking corroboration.
'Then why are the two of you standing there as if...' She looked at the book again, and then at her father. There was a tightening movement in her throat. 'Is this why you came up here, to tell me this?' she asked.
'We... we only wondered if you knew, that's all.'
'Why?' she asked.
'We just wondered, that's all.'
Her eyes cut to Gant. 'Why?'
'Why should Bud conceal it,' Gant asked, 'unless-'
'Kingship said, 'Gant!'
Conceal it?' Marion said. 'What kind of a word is that? He didn't conceal it; we never talk about school much, because of Ellen; it just didn't come up.'
'Why should the girl he's marrying not know he spent two years at Stoddard,' Gant rephrased implacably, 'unless he was involved with Dorothy?'
'Involved? With Dorothy?' Her eyes, wide with incredulity, probed into Gant's, and then swung slowly, narrowing, to Kingship. 'What is this?'
Kingship's face flickered with small uneasy movements, as though dust were blowing at it.
'How much are you paying him?' Marion asked coldly.
'Paying him?'
'For snooping!' she flared. 'For digging up dirt! For inventing dirt!'
'He came to me of his own accord, Marion!'
'Oh, yes, he just happened to pop up!'
Gant said, 'I saw the article in The Times.'
Marion glared at her father. 'You swore you wouldn't do this,' she said bitterly. 'Swore! It would never enter your mind to ask questions to investigate, treat him like a criminal. Oh no, not much!'
'I haven't been asking questions,' Kingship protested.
Marion turned her back. 'I thought you changed,' she said. 'I really did. I thought you liked Bud. I thought you liked me. But you can't...'
'Marion...'
'No, not if you're doing this. The apartment, the job... and all along this has been going on.'
'Nothing is going on, Marion. I swear....'
'Nothing? I'll tell you exactly what's going on.' She faced him again. 'You think I don't know you? He was 'involved' with Dorothy-is he supposed to be the one who got her in trouble?-and he was 'involved' with Ellen, and now he's 'involved' with me -all for the money, all for your precious money. That's what's going on-in your mind!' She thrust the yearbook into his hands.
