“Not so bad. Nothing that couldn’t be adjusted.” Yawning, I glanced at my wristwatch. It said eleven- fourteen. I glanced at the wall clock, a double-take habit I have been trying to get rid of for years, and it said the same.
“I wish Perrit would call,” I remarked. “If we can toss him a few useful items we may get out of this alive. I admit the news that Beulah is engaged is nothing colossal, but at least it’s fresh.”
“We have something for him better than that,” Wolfe declared.
I sent him a sharp glance because his tone had a smirk in it. “Oh? We have?”
“Yes indeed.”
“Something happened while I was out?”
“No. While you were here. In your presence. Evidently you missed it.”
Like that he was unbearable. When he took that attitude I never tried to pry it out of him because (a) I didn’t want to feed his vanity, and (b) I knew he had decided to keep it to himself. So I considered the conversation closed, turned to my desk, elevated the typewriter, and began banging out some routine letters.
I was on the fifth one when the doorbell rang. Wolfe shut the drawer of the cabinet, arose, and started for the only chair he really loved, the one behind his desk.
“Call her Angelina,” I told him as I crossed to the hall. “It’ll upset her.”
VII
Violet Angelina Sally sat in the red leather chair with one knee arranged over the other. Wolfe’s gaze, under half-closed lids, was directed straight at her, and she was meeting it. They had been that way for fully half a minute. Neither of them had spoken a word.
“Like it?” Violet asked with a high-pitched laugh.
“I was trying to decide,” Wolfe muttered, “whether to let you keep the twenty-four thousand, five hundred dollars you have got from Mr. Perrit or get that from you too. At least most of it.”
Violet let out a word. Ordinarily I try to report conversations without editing but we’ll let that one go. Wolfe made a face. He never cares for coarse talk, but he can stand it better from men than from women. Judging from that word, Violet talked coarser than she looked. Of an entirely different design than Beulah, with a nice long flow to her body and a face whose only objectionable characteristics were acquired, she could easily have been made an attractive number by a couple of months on the farm, with fresh eggs and milk and going to bed early. But it was obvious that she hadn’t been on the farm.
“I do not intend,” Wolfe said testily, no longer muttering, “to prolong this. Here’s the situation. You are getting money-having already got the sum I mentioned-from Mr. Perrit by threatening to disclose the existence of his daughter. That, of course, is blackmail-”
“If you think silence gives consent,” Violet put in, “you’re crazy.” Her voice was softer and better handled than might have been expected from her opening word.
“I’ll get along without the consent for the sake of the silence,” Wolfe said dryly. “As I say, that’s blackmail, but I’m not concerned with the legal or criminal aspects. Your position is a little peculiar, which is often the case with blackmailers. Should Mr. Perrit call your hand and should you make the disclosure, you lose your current job and source of income. Also, since he would surely retaliate, the smallest misfortune you might expect would be a jail term in Utah. So, obviously, you are convinced that he won’t call your hand. I agree that it’s highly unlikely. He came to me today to get help. The job is to make you stop demanding money. I took the job.”
“I came down here,” Violet said, “because my father told me to. I simply can’t believe my ears! You say my father told you those lies? Holy Jesus, Dazy Perrit telling anyone I’m not his daughter! Now you think I believe that?”
“I think you find it difficult to believe it, Miss Murphy. Naturally. Because you calculated that Mr. Perrit, desperately anxious to keep his daughter’s identity secret, would under no circumstances tell anyone that you are a counterfeit. But you misjudged his character. You didn’t know, or didn’t stop to consider, that his strongest feeling, stronger even than his feeling for his daughter, is his vanity. Indeed, his feeling for his daughter may be only one aspect of his vanity, but that’s beside the point. He cannot, and will not, tolerate anyone’s ascendancy over him. He can’t stand it to have you diddle him.”
Wolfe shifted to get more comfortable. “But he made the same mistake you did. He misjudged a man’s character. Mine. You have demanded fifty thousand dollars from him. Henceforth, Miss Murphy, whenever you get money from Mr. Perrit, above the hundred dollars a week he allows you, you will give me ninety per cent of it-that’s nine-tenths, ninety dollars from each hundred-within twenty-four hours from the moment you get it, or the Salt Lake City authorities will come and get you.”
Violet stared at him. She took a breath, stared some more, and gulped. “But you-” She stopped and stared some more. Then she broke out, “You goddam fool, you can’t do that to Dazy! He don’t have to let you alone like he does me! All I have to do is tell him-”
She cut it off and started staring again. Suddenly the stare changed, her whole face changed. “Aw, for the love of Christ,” she said contemptuously. “You think I’m that dumb? Dazy thinks I’m that dumb? I give it to you and you hand it to him and he gets off cheap, wouldn’t that be sweet. And he thought I would fall for that?”
She uncrossed her knees and leaned forward. “Listen,” she said earnestly. “I’ve got what it takes, see? You think it don’t take guts to face up to Dazy Perrit and make him fork it over? Wait till I show you.” She began unfastening her dress. “I was at the theater tonight, but you notice I’m wearing sleeves and I’ll show you why.”
She had the fastenings loose and was wriggling it down from her shoulders. Down it came, revealing pink doings, and revealing also a bare arm which she extended. “What do you think of that?” she demanded. It was quite an exhibit. The black and purple blotches began a few inches below the elbow and continued up to the shoulder curve. Curious as to what he had done it with, I got up and stepped over for a close-up, and she obligingly kept her arm up for me. I couldn’t tell; it might have been fingers or fists, or he might have used something.
