What`s Better Than Money

give her a lot of pleasure to come straight from hospital to our place. How about it?’

For a moment I couldn’t believe my ears, then I started to my feet and grabbed his hand.

‘It’s a wonderful idea! I can’t thank you enough! Of course, I’ll accept! But here’s what I would like to do. I’ll give you a cheque right now for ten thousand dollars and as soon as I get these operations and doctor’s bills out of my hair, I’ll pay you the balance. It’s a sale!’

And that’s how it was arranged.

I didn’t tell Sarita. I wanted to see her expression when the ambulance pulled up outside Terrell’s cottage.

Helen Mathison helped me to take our personal things to the cottage. We had six clear days to prepare the place before Sarita left the sanatorium. I was working long hours at the office, spending my nights at the cottage, but in spite of being so preoccupied, every now and then, I would think of Vasari and wonder. Every morning I scanned the newspapers to make sure he hadn’t been found, but there seemed to be no interest now in the murder. During the past days there had been no mention of it in the papers.

Finally the day came when Sarita was to leave the sanatorium. I took the afternoon off. Helen drove me out there and left me. I was to ride back with Sarita in the ambulance.

They brought her out in a stretcher. The nurse who was going to stay with us came with her.

Sarita smiled excitedly at me as they slid the stretcher into the ambulance. The nurse and driver sat in front, and I got in with her.

‘Well, this is it!’ I said as the ambulance moved off, and I took her hand. ‘You’re going to be fine from now on, my darling. You don’t know how I’ve been looking forward to taking you home.’

‘I’ll soon be up and around, Jeff,’ she said, squeezing my hand. ‘I’ll make you happy again.’ She looked out of the window. ‘How good it is to see the streets again and the people.’ Then after a while, she said, ‘But, Jeff, where are we going? This isn’t the way home. Has he lost his way?’’

‘This is the way home, Sarita,’ I said. ‘Our new home. Can’t you guess?’

I had my reward then. The expression in her eyes as the ambulance began to climb Simeon’s Hill was something to see.

All my past days of tension, fear and worry were wiped out as she said in unsteady voice, ‘Oh, Jeff, darling! It can’t be true!’

The next few days were the happiest of my life. I had a lot of paper work to do so I didn’t go to the office. I worked at home, keeping in touch with Ted Watson and Clara on the telephone.

We made up a bed in the lounge for Sarita so she could be with me. She read or knitted while I worked, and every so often I would push aside my work and we would talk.

She was gaining strength every day, and on her fourth day home, Dr. Zimmerman who had come out to see her, said she could get into a wheel chair.

‘She has made tremendous progress, Mr. Halliday,’ he said as I walked with him to his car. ‘I thought once she was home she would pick up, but not as fast as this. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few months, she won’t be walking.’

The next day the wheel chair arrived, and the nurse and I put Sarita into it.

‘Now there’ll be no holding me,’ Sarita said. ‘We must celebrate. Let’s ask Jack and the Mathisons to lunch. Let’s have a thanksgiving lunch.’

So we threw a party.

There was turkey and champagne, and after lunch, when the nurse had insisted that Sarita should go back to bed for a rest and after the Mathisons had gone, Jack and I sat outside on the terrace, overlooking the river, where in the distance we could see the men working on the bridge while we finished our cigars.

We were both feeling relaxed and good. We talked of this and that, then as Jack got lazily to his feet, he said, ‘So they finally caught the Santa Barba killer. I was beginning to think they would never get to him.’

I felt as if a mailed fist had slammed a punch under my heart. For a moment or so I couldn’t even speak, then I said, ‘What was that?’

He was stretching and yawning in the hot sunshine, and he said indifferently, ‘You know: the guy who killed the woman in the bungalow. They cornered him in a New York night club. There was a gun battle and he got hurt. They say he won’t live. I picked it up on the car radio as I came out here.’

Somehow I kept my face expressionless. Somehow I kept my voice steady.

‘Is that a fact?’ I said. It didn’t sound like me speaking. ‘Well, that’s his bad luck. I guess I’ll get back to the grindstone. It’s been swell having you, Jack.’

‘Thanks for the lunch.’ He put his hand on my arm. ‘And just for the record, Jeff: I’m terribly glad Sarita pulled through. She’s a wonderful girl, and you’re a damn lucky guy.’

I watched him drive down the hill in his black and white Thunderbird.

A damn lucky guy!

‘I was shaking, and there was sweat on my face.

So they had finally caught Vasari!

There was a gun fight, and he got hurt. They say he won’t live.

That would be lucky too – too lucky.

I had to know the details.

I told the nurse I was going down town. She said Sarita was sleeping, and she would stay around.

I drove fast to the nearest news stand. I bought a paper, but there was no news of Vasari’s arrest. I might have known I would have to wait for the final night edition.

I drove over to the office. My mind was aflame with panic.

Would he die? If he didn’t die he would go for trial for a murder I knew he hadn’t committed. I couldn’t let him go to the gas chamber.

There was work waiting for me in the office but I found it almost impossible to concentrate. I had an interview with a contractor, and my mind wandered so badly I saw he was looking at me, puzzled. I apologised.

‘My wife’s just out of hospital,’ I said. ‘We’ve been celebrating. I guess I’ve had too much champagne.’

Later, Ted Watson came in from the bridge site. He was carrying an evening paper which he dropped on the desk. I was still working with the contractor. The sight of that paper blew my concentration sky high.

We were getting out figures, and I began to make so many mistakes, the contractor said sharply,

‘Look, Mr. Halliday, let’s call this off. That champagne certainly must have been dynamite. Suppose I call around tomorrow?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, but I have a hell of a head. Yes, let’s make it tomorrow…’

As soon as he had gone, I leaned over and grabbed the paper.

‘May I borrow this, Ted?’

‘Sure, Mr. Halliday, help yourself.’

On the front page was a photograph of Vasari and a pretty dark girl who didn’t look more than eighteen years of age. He had his arm around her and was smiling at her.

The caption under the photograph read: Jinx Mandon marries torch singer on the day of his capture.

The account of Vasari’s capture was scrappy.

While celebrating his marriage with Pauline Terry, a night club singer, at the Hole in the Corner Club, Vasari had been recognised by a detective who happened to be in the club at the time. When the detective had approached the table where Vasari and his wife were dining, Vasari had pulled a gun. The detective had shot him before he had had a chance of firing. Dangerously wounded, Vasari had been rushed to hospital. Doctors were now fighting to save his life.

That was all, but it was enough. I couldn’t do any more work. I told Weston I was going home, but I didn’t go directly home. I went to a nearby bar and drank two double Scotches.

The doctors were now fighting to save his life.