“Whatever you say,” he said. “For your sake, I’ll restrict myself to essentials. Just enough to convince you once again that I’m not running a bluff.”
“Thank you so much. I’m grateful for your consideration.”
“Sarcasm? You seemed disturbed enough on the telephone, Mrs. Fenimore—so much so that I took none of the usual secondary precautions—no messages left in case of my death, you see. Well, no matter. To get on with our business, you were born in this city thirty years ago.”
“Please. Twenty-eight.”
“Very well. I allow you the two years. What’s more important, you had the good luck to be born the only daughter of Reuben Webster, which made you heir to several million of dollars.”
“That’s public knowledge. If you know anything significant, you had better get to it.”
“Sorry. I promised to restrict myself to essentials, I know, but you must admit that the millions are essential. If it weren’t for them, I’d scarcely have gone to so much time and effort to develop my proposition. All right, then. You were the only daughter of Reuben Webster, and at the age of twenty by my account, eighteen by yours, you disappeared. Not many people knew that. Very few. It was feared at first that you had been abducted, but of course you hadn’t. You had merely run away. You wrote your father once from St. Louis to assure him you were all right. You wrote him once more, quite a while later, from Los Angeles. That was all. If you will pardon me for saying it, I have learned that you had, as a girl, what is commonly known as a queer streak. A proclivity, let’s say, for the unconventional. The sensational. Even, unfortunately, the illegal. The thing that saved you, so far as your father was concerned, was that he had the same proclivity. Therefore, he was inclined to forgive you. He wanted you to come home, but he did not insist, and when he died four years ago, he left you his fortune without any strings, just as if you had been a good, obedient girl instead of what you were.”
“You’re being quite a bore. I haven’t yet heard a word that is worth the smallest fraction of fifty thousand dollars.”
“You want me to go on? I’d much prefer not having to become any more personal than I’ve already been compelled to be.”
“And I’d much prefer not having to hand you fifty thousand dollars.”
“I see your point.” He distorted his lips to show that the taste of what he was going to say was already sour in his mouth. “Well, your father devised an explanation for your absence. He said you were in Switzerland, I believe, but that’s irrelevant to the matter in hand. You were actually, of course, elsewhere. Los Angeles and points south, to be precise. Much of the time in Mexico City. I suppose, actually, that it would take a corps of psychiatrists to explain this period in your life. Let’s just say that you were living with your queer streak. Satisfying a rather perverted need for questionable thrills. Many things were involved. Narcotics for a while. A number of men, naturally. You were known to everyone as Maria Melendez. Your appearance and a fluency in Spanish made it quite easy for you to pass as a cultured Mexican woman. Have I said enough?”
“Not quite.”
“You’re very hard to convince, Mrs. Fenimore. I admire your spirit, and I truly regret the necessity for taking my present position in this.”
“It’s possible that you’ll regret it even more before you’re finished. I understand, however, that one must pay his brandy bill. Go on, please.”
“One more point should be sufficient. Among the men Maria Melendez knew was one named Brannigan. He had a private lodge in the mountains. He died there one night. Shot to death. There was some evidence of a woman’s having been there at the time. The police worked on that angle but never came up with anything conclusive. I knew Brannigan. Many people even thought we were friends, but that was something of an exaggeration. Believe me, I did not grieve for him then, and I don’t regret his death now. Vengeance, I mean, is no consideration. Anyhow, I had access to certain information that the police did not have, and I know that there was, in fact, a woman at the lodge, and I know who she was. Her name was Maria Melendez.”
“Can you prove this?”
“I’m sure I can. However, I’m equally sure that I’ll not be called upon to do so. Maria Melendez is dead. Mrs. Fenimore, I think, does not want her resurrected.”
“True. Maria Melendez is dead. Without benefit of psychiatry. Did you ever see her? Do you know what she looked like?”
His brows arched in the faintest expression of surprise. “Allowing for the possibility of a little dye and certain tricks of dress and makeup, I rather fancy that she looked like you, Mrs. Fenimore. However, I never saw her, actually.”
“You don’t, then, actually know what she looks like now.”
“Oh, yes. Certainly. Would you like me to describe her? It will be a pleasure after the regrettable things I’ve been forced to say about her.” His eyes made a leisurely inventory of the woman opposite him. “She is quite tall and slender. Beautiful body. Incredibly lovely face. Very dark brown hair which she wisely pulls back simply into a bun. Impeccable taste in clothes. Truly a ravishing woman.”
“How charming of you to say so.”
“I prefer being charming when I’m allowed. It makes one’s relationships so much more amicable. Are you prepared to deal with me now?”
“Yes,” she said, “I’m prepared to deal with you.”
And then a small series of events happened in very rapid sequence. The brittle crystal in her hand dropped
