“No,” Glendenning repeated. “Don’t say it. Changing the mind is cleanly and therefore hygienic. My departed uncle had a room that he used for no other purpose.”
Camille, seated in a hand-painted chair, looked out at the moon and at the river, then at the Chinese lamps, at the draped and grand piano, at the portieres, on which silver dragons roamed, and finally at this superior young man, who was also seated.
Between her chair and his, there was a space, which mentally she surveyed. It amounted, she judged, to about thirty-six inches. But in those inches there were miles, thousands of them. If he had been talking from a kloof of inner Africa, he could not have been farther away.
None the less, he represented to her that curious thing which is called a link. He connected her with the past, with the old man whom she had loved, with his son, whom she had liked. And, moreover, he and she now had—at any rate, he claimed that they had—interests in common; interests, that is, in the final disposition of the decedent’s estate, concerning which he had long since retained a fat shyster named Tatum, to whom he negligently referred as his counsel.
“You don’t, perhaps, care for me yet—” he was saying.
“And that,” Camille wickedly cut in, “is such an advantage. I could have no disillusions.”
“On the other hand,” Glendenning, smoothing his white tie, continued, “you know that I do care for you.”
Camille laughed.
“You are so persuasive! Poor Mike wasn’t in it with you.”
“Why poor? He has only to show up to step into a fortune,” retorted Glendenning, who earnestly hoped that Mike would do nothing of the kind; for, if he omitted to, then, after the legal delays, that fortune he, as next of kin, would inherit.
Camille looked down at a floor pillow at her feet, kicked it aside, stood up, and made a pass with her hands.
“I can’t account for it, and the fact that I can’t torments me. It seems as if it were my fault. When he said he was going away, I should have made him say where. Instead of which, I asked him to write. He never has. Yet he must be somewhere.”
Glendenning nodded.
“In the fourth dimension.”
Camille turned on him.
“I’ll thank you not to jest on a subject that to Mr. Vulper was an article of faith!”
With entire ease, Glendenning tacked.
“Excuse me. I meant in the grave, for there he is, unless”—“he is in prison,” he was about to add, but instead he said—“unless he went blind.” Again Camille turned on him.
“I must be blind, too. I don’t see what you are driving at.”
“Then I’ll tell you. The death of the author of a book of commentaries on the sutras of—of some jellyfish of a Hindu spook; the death of an occultist who had devoted twenty years of his life to a manuscript which departed when he did; the death of a recluse who for no obvious reason inherited half of your father’s estate—the death of an individual so unusual does not take place without comment. For forty-eight hours afterward, the papers dripped with his name, with the missing money, the missing manuscript, the missing heir. Mike must have read of it, unless, as I say, he went blind. Even so, unless in going blind he went deaf, there must have been others to tell him. But all that is preposterous. There is a fortune awaiting him. Why doesn’t he come and claim it?”
Camille yawned and sat down.
“I wish you would tell me.”
Glendenning pulled at his cuff.
“Perhaps I can. But you know that, in spite of Mike’s very unfortunate appearance, you had rather a tender feeling for him.”
Impatiently the girl took it up.
“What of it? And anyway I had no more intention of marrying him than I have of marrying you.”
Glendenning gulped, swallowed, and corrected it.
“No more immediate intention, you mean. But now will that tender heart of yours prevent you from considering certain facts?”
“Dear me,” thought Camille, “I wish he would go!”
But she said:
“Well, what are they?”
Glendenning raised a hand, the fingers extended.
“I’ll show you. On the night my uncle died, Mike said goodbye to you, went upstairs, sent Archibald for a taxi, and left the house. That is a fact, is it not?”
Camille nodded.
“Previously Dix had been with my uncle, who then was in his usual health. Dix was called away. Mike had hardly gone when Dix returned and found my uncle dead. There you have another fact. And here is one more—in the will that my uncle intended to execute, Mike was cut off.”
“And so were you.”
“No matter about that. To go back to Dix. My uncle sent for him to witness this will, and while they were discussing it, he showed him his manuscript and a pot of money.”
“But—”
“Then Dix was called away. When he returned, my uncle was dead and the money and the manuscript had vanished. You admit that, don’t you?”
“Yes, the manuscript was certainly missing, and Dix said some money was, also. But, like Mike, they may turn up yet.”
“Together?”
“How do you mean?”
“The three of them—the money, the manuscript, and Mike. There’s no other way out of it. They all departed at the same moment. If they did not, long since Mike would have returned. Now he can’t return. He’s afraid to.”
Impatiently Camille shrugged a shoulder.
“I don’t know whether to be angry or amused.”
“At what?”
“Why, you’re insinuating that he killed his father.”
“No, Camille, nothing of the kind. I’m merely submitting certain facts and asking you and myself what they amount to.”
“And I’ll tell you—rubbish!”
“Well, let’s look at it this way. On the night my uncle died, I was with you in the drawing
