'You like this place?' Cordovez asked when he had licked his fingers and dried them on the napkin.
'Very much/' Jeff said. 'The food was delicious. 3 *
Cordovez accepted a cigarette and gave forth with a contented sigh. He glanced about the room and then, as though once more conscious of the problem which still had to be faced, his expression grew serious.
'What would you like to do now?'
Reluctantly Jeff brought his thoughts into focus. He wanted most to have a talk with Dan Spencer, but he was afraid to go to the newspaper office, and he knew that since the Bulletin was a morning paper, it would be some time before Spencer was off duty. Meanwhile—
'I'd like to talk to Mrs. Grayson again if you think we can manage it.'
'We can try. The house is not far from here,** Cordovez said, but later, as the car rolled slowly up the winding street in second gear, he offered some words of caution.
'I will not stop now/' he said as they approached the low and rambling house and saw the light in the windows. 'I wish to make sure no one is watching.'
ONE MINUTE PAST EIGHT
He pressed the clutch pedal and their momentum carried them past the driveway and now Cordovez had his head out the window and his nose in the air, as though he was trying to find some scent of danger. He drove on another block and turned round. He passed the house again with his lights out and pulled a hundred feet beyond the crest of the hill.
'You will not need me inside?'
'No.'
'I think it is safe, but it is also better that I wait here. If you hear the horn three times you will know there is some difficulty. In that event it might be best for you to leave by the back entrance—if you can,'
Jeff got out and closed the door quietly. He said there wasn't going to be any trouble and that all Julio had to do was sit and take a little snooze.
14
DUDLEY FISKE opened the door in response to Jeff's ring. When he recognized his caller his eyes blinked uncertainly behind the glasses and he stood in the opening,
one hand still on the knob.
'Oh, hello, Lane,' he said without enthusiasm. 'Aren't
you taking a bit of a chance coming here?' 'Why?' Jeff said. 'Are you thinking of turning me in?' 'It's not that. It's just that I understood the police were
looking for you. They've been here before and I wouldn't
be surprised if they came back.'
ONE MINUTE PAST EIGHT
Td like to talk to Mrs. Grayson,' Jeff said. 'It shouldn't take too long.'
Again Fiske seemed undecided, but now a woman's voice called to him from some inner room and this apparently decided him. He moved aside. Jeff waited until he had closed the door and then waited for Fiske to lead the way.
''After you/' he said, 'if you don't mind.*'
If Diana Grayson was suffering emotionally over the loss of her husband, she gave no outward sign of the tragedy. Her gray hair shone softly in the lamplight and her blue dress with its tight bodice and flaring skirt seemed more suitable for an afternoon party at the Tamanaco. She had a cigarette in one hand, a brandy snifter in the other, and when she saw Jeff she waved at the tray on the coffee table with its bottle and glasses. A similar glass, still partly full, stood to one side.
'Come in, Mr. Lane,' she said. 'Will you have a brandy?'
'Thanks, no,* 5 Jeff said, uncertain now just how to proceed and finally settling for the conventional way. He started to say he was sorry to break in like this at such a time, but she cut him off before he could finish.
'It's quite all right/' she said. 'I stopped being hypocritical about most things some time ago. You must know from what was said this morning how I felt about your stepbrother. What happened this afternoon shocked me. I'm sure it would shock anyone. No one wanted to live more than Arnold, and I do feel sorry for him, but I can't pretend that I feel something that he killed a long time ago. I simply no longer have that capacity. There was something about him that was evil and in the end it destroyed him.'
Remembering Luis Miranda's phrase about the evil man,
Jeff glanced at Dudley Fiske, who had been standing to one side and now shifted his weight.
'I think he wants to talk to you, Di,' he said and reached down to pick up his glass. 'Til run along to my rooms until you've finished.'
'I'd rather you stayed/' Jeff said, moving slightly to block the man's progress.
Fiske stopped and it occurred to Jeff that this was not the same man he had seen that morning. This man had no easy smile, his gaze was steady and unfriendly as it measured Jeff. His voice was challenging rather than apologetic.
'Why?' he demanded,
'Because I wouldn't want you to duck out and call the police***
Fiske put his glass down and squared his shoulders. For a second or two they stood that way, glances locked, Jeff the taller and more vital-looking of the two, Fiske the heavier but more poorly conditioned. Then, as though to prove that the change Jeff had noticed was to be a permanent thing, he said, his voice quietly ominous:
'Do you think you can stop me?'
'I can try.'
'Without a club?'
'Club?' Jeff peered at him.
'That's what was used on Arnold, so the police say. A club or a cane,'
'Oh, stop it!'
Diana Grayson put her glass down with a bang and her voice was clipped and impatient.
'Sit down, Dudley,' she said. 'Please.' She waited until Fiske obeyed her and then she looked at Jeff, one dark brow arched, *1 don't blame you for being concerned,' she said, 'but I think you misjudge Dudley. He's not after vengeance, you know, and neither am I What happened, happened. It's over and done with and so far as I am con-
ONE MINUTE PAST EIGHT
cerned the only genuine feeling I have at the moment is one of relief.'
Jeff believed her. The odds had finally caught up with Arnold Grayson and there was no one to mourn his passing; it was as simple as that. What this woman had said did not shock him because he knew his stepbrother too well. But her 'frankness, though not entirely unexpected, made him reconsider his tactics, and when his glance again touched the brandy bottle, he changed his mind about the drink. He poured an ounce or so into the glass, swished it around as he took a chair near the end of the divan. He did not give it the connoisseur's routine but finished it in two small swallows.
'Miranda had a different way of putting it,' he said.
'Miranda?'' Both brows arched this time and her surprise seemed genuine. 'Luis? You have seen him?'
'Late this afternoon/' Jeff said. 'I can't remember his exact words, but what he meant was that things were a lot simpler for him with Arnold out of the way. Tell me,** he said, 'did you know he planned to ?y to New York tomorrow night and take Muriel Miranda with him?'
'Who planned?'
'Your husband.'
For a long moment then she sat immobile, her face still. She was sitting with her knees crossed and arms folded lightly across her bosom and while Jeff waited she let her hands come down. Her head turned slightly so she could see Fiske. What happened to her eyes in that instant Jeff could not guess but when she again gave him her attention her voice was composed.
'I don't believe it.'
Jeff produced the tickets and tossed them on the divan. He watched her inspect first one and then the other before she pushed them away from her.
'You didn't know about this?' he persisted.
