'Come in, Dudley,' she said.
Lane turned. When he saw the man who had entered the room he stood up.
'This is Mr. Lane/' she said. 'Dudley Fiske'
Fiske said: 'Hello, Mr. Lane,' and offered a chubby hand. A stocky, round-faced roan with thinning sandy hair and glasses, he had a quiet, pleasant manner, but Jeff's first Impression was that his personality was neutral and that his easy smile came perhaps too easily.
'Sit down, Dudley,** the woman said. 'Mr, Lane was asking about Arnold's plans/' she added as he took a place beside her, 'and I was telling him I was afraid I couldn't help*
'Did you know about the money he took from the West-wind Hotel?' Jeff said, deciding he might as well give the question a try.
He watched the smile go away and the mouth tighten again. 'Not until a few days ago,' she said. 'I wish I had. . . . No/* she said. 'All I knew was that he was in an awful
hurry to get out of the country after we were married. I wondered at the time what made him so nervous and jumpy. . . . How much will his inheritance amount to?'
Jeff said he was not sure. It would depend on the price of the stock. 'Possibly between four and five hundred thousand.'
'Dollars?'
He nodded and said: 'I suppose you knew he sold some property the other day.'
She glanced at Fiske and then away. 'About all he owned,' she said thinly, ''except for this house.'
Jeff hesitated, trying to feel his way along and unable yet to make up his mind about Fiske, who kept watching the woman with an approving smile and something in his eyes that said he was very much sold on what he saw.
'You came down here as Arnold's assistant, Mr. Fiske?' Jeff said.
'That was what I thought,' Fiske said, and smiled again. 'My trouble/' he added with surprising candor, 'was that I had a very bad case of adolescent hero-worship and I was a long time outgrowing it. 1 knew Arnold during his last year in prep school and picked the same college, because he did, though when they kicked him out I stayed put.
'Arnold was everything I wanted to be. Big, good-looking, a fine athlete when he cared to try. He had a handsome allowance and he was willing to share it with someone who could act as his jester and run his errands. At the time I was pretty proud that he chose me because I was in school OB a scholarship and I had to work for my spending money, Arnold even took a girl away from me once—it took no great doing—but even that didn't discourage me. He was a great guy and I was his buddy and in my eyes the evil things he did never seemed vicious. •
*When he wrote me a year and a half ago I was selling printing in New York and not breaking any records, Arnold
drew a fascinating picture about what life was like down here and the amount of money that could be made. He needed an assistant and it was a chance of a lifetime.' He raised one hand a few inches and let it fall.
'Apparently I was still enchanted by some of the things that happened a long time ago, or maybe it was just because I was tired of selling printing. Anyway, I came. He moved me right into a wing of my own here. He wanted me in the house because what good is a whipping boy if he's not available? . . . Yes/' he said, Tm an assistant down in the office. I get a salary. Not as much as it should be, but then I get my room and board with the job.*'
He said other things along the same line, but Jeff heard him only with his ears. His mind had moved to other things and he had an idea that Fiske was telling the truth. He was ashamed of what he had done but not violently so; his bitterness was a passive thing. To Jeff it seemed that essentially this was a nice guy, hard to dislike but with no drive and small ambitions. Such bitterness as he felt had been absorbed with resiliency and he seemed accustomed to shouldering the blame for his failures.
For all this his presence had its effect on Diana Grayson. When she looked at him her brittleness was less apparent and the feminine softness of which she was capable seemed to flourish. Understanding his shortcomings she apparently found in him something that was both comforting and desirable.
'Do you know why Arnold wanted to raise cash, Mrs. Grayson?' Jeff said when Fiske fell silent.
'I'm not sure what you mean.'
Jeff told her about Carl Webb and how Harry Baker had been employed to act as the middleman.
'Did you know Arnold went to the Tucan last night with the cash?' he asked.
'Did he?'
'Don t you know? You followed him, didn't you?'
'I beg your pardon/'
'You and Mr. Fiske drove up to the Tucan right after Arnold got there/' He glanced at Fiske. 'You went around the side of the hotel How long were you there?'
Fiske glanced at the woman as though asking for her assistance and she gave it at once, her voice distant and emphatic.
'I don't know where you got your information/' she said, 'but this much I can tell you. We didn't follow Arnold and we didn't go to the hotel/ 7
'You knew about the money/' Jeff said, persisting. 'Luis Miranda knew about it. Who else might know?'
She shrugged thin shoulders and stood up, her glance bleak and her voice astringent, Tm sorry/' she said. 'Perhaps you'd better ask Arnold. He may be at the office now,**
Jeff rose, aware that the interview was over. He thought he understood a little of the character of these two just as he understood the woman was the stronger. Unhappiness had left scars on her emotions but she had not been broken. That she held her husband in contempt seemed obvious, but to Jeff it also seemed that there remained a calculated desire to make him pay for what he had done to her.
'When Baker's body was found/' he said, 'there wasn't any cash. I'm pretty sure Arnold delivered it, because he was still scared of the Westwind crowd. Whoever has it now will probably stand trial for murder.'
She was looking right at him now, a suggestion of smugness in her smile that was disconcerting. If she was at all worried she did not show it.
Td very much like to get my hands on it/* she said. **By rights most of it should be mine anyway.*'
ONCE AWAY from the avenida Urdaneta, the broad thoroughfare which had been cut straight through the downtown section of the city from west to east, the streets on the north side were narrow and congested and the buildings were tightly spaced and dark with age and decay. Always there was a slope to the streets and all vehicular traffic moved in one-way patterns. That is why Julio Cordovez, who was to continue on to Segurnal in search of additional information, let Jeff out at the corner and pointed to a building a few doors down in the wrong direction.
At this hour of the afternoon the narrow street stood in shadow and to leave room for even a single line of traffic many of the parked cars stood with two wheels on the all too narrow sidewalks. Jeff passed the narrow front of a shop that displayed radios and record-players, an undertaking establishment that featured three open caskets in its plate-glass window., the wider doorway of a garage with a recessed ramp and one gasoline pump and came finally to this entrance, the side of which bore two tarnished brass plates, one of which said: Grayson Enterprises.
Inside there was only darkness and a flight of narrow stairs that led to the second-floor hall. Groping his way along this, Jeff wondered why Grayson should have selected such an address, instead of one of the more modern buildings, until he opened the heavy wooden door and realized that his stepbrother had made himself very comfortable indeed.
For he stood now in a tliree-room suite, one side of which opened on an inner court, hidden from the street, but green with shrubbery. Thick masonry walls provided natural air-conditioning and no sounds filtered in from outside. A rug covered the ancient tiles of the flooring and the two chairs and the sofa were upholstered in light- green leather. A secretary's typewriter desk stood near a tall window and at the moment Arnold Grayson seemed to be bidding his employee a fond and affectionate farewell.
A cardboard carton beside the desk was half full of discarded papers, and the smartly dressed black-haired girl was holding her bag and a wrapped package as she laughingly protested some suggestion in Spanish. Grayson, in shirtsleeves, had both hands on the girl's shoulders, and even as he glanced at Jeff, he kissed first one cheek and then the other. He turned her toward the door, opened it, and then, as she went past, gave her a resounding smack
