Murder Up My Sleeve

4

An hour after Levering left, Cynthia Renton brought Terry the noon edition of the newspaper containing the account of Mandra’s murder.

“Hello, Owl,” she called as soon as Yat T’oy had opened the door. “We’re due for a council of war. What’s this about my handkerchief?”

Without waiting for an answer, she came breezing into the room and inquired, “How about a drink?”

Terry nodded to Yat T’oy.

Cynthia swung about to face the Chinese and said with a grin, “You savvy Tom Collins?”

Yat T’oy did her the honor of matching her grin.

“Heap savvy,” he said.

“A little more soda for me,” Terry ordered.

“Drinking plain soda, Owl?”

“Oh, I use enough Scotch to give it flavor. This is an unexpected pleasure.”

“Liar,” she told him. “You’ve been staying right here in this apartment because you expected me, haven’t you?”

“Well,” he admitted, “I thought it barely possible you might show up.”

“Because of the handkerchief?” she asked.

“That and other things.”

“What other things?”

His eyes met hers steadily. “A portrait,” he said. “A portrait of a dead man.”

Her lips, delicate and expressive, turned up just the right amount to register a casual smile, but there was worry in the depths of her hazel eyes. Abruptly, she ceased smiling, and perched herself on the corner of a table, swinging one foot in little nervous circles.

“Oh, hell,” she said, “I’m not going to keep stalling with you. I’m scared. You’ll find it out sooner or later, so I might as well admit it now.”

“That,” he told her, “is better.”

Her features showed a faint resemblance to her sister’s, but the nose was turned up more than Alma’s and her hair was spun copper. She seemed as full of potential motion as a humming bird.

“Come on,” Terry urged her, “get over in the chair and sit down. Somehow, I always think of you as being on the move. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you when you weren’t in a hurry.”

“You sound just like the speed cop on the Bay Shore Route,” she said. But she moved over into the chair opposite Terry, crossed her knees, glanced down at her stockings, said, “Not too much, I hope... Well, just to be on the safe side...” And she pulled her skirt down another inch. “How’s this?” she asked. “You see, I’ve got to learn to hit the pose just right: innocent maiden — shocked at tragedy — seeking information from one-time lawyer... No, I like you better when I call you Owl. Since you’ve been dabbling about in this Chinese stuff you’re like a tree full of owls.

“Don’t stare at me like that, Terry Clane! Honestly, I’m all cut up over this business, and you make me feel as though you were looking right through my mask of flippancy into what’s going on inside. I don’t like it, and yet, somehow, at a time like this I do like it. I’m depending on it.”

“Why the mask, then?”

“I’m darned if I know. It’s just because there’s a part of me that’s too much me to be dragged out for everyone to see. So I began by throwing up a screen of wisecracks; and now it’s got to be a habit. Go on, Owl, be a nice boy and tell me about the handkerchief.”

“The district attorney,” he told her, “showed me a handkerchief. It was embroidered with an ‘R’. It had a rather distinctive perfume. It was very similar to the perfume you use. If I’d known where I could have reached you, I’d have warned you not to come here, but Alma wouldn’t answer the telephone at Vera Matthews’ place and no one seemed to know where you were. I’ve ditched shadows once to-day and made it seem accidental. Twice in a row would be tempting fate.”

“Fate being the minions of the law?” she asked.

“As represented by a very cold and suspicious district attorney,” he told her. “What do you know of the murder, Cynthia?”

“It’s a long story, Owl... Why would you have warned me not to come here?”

“Because,” he told her, “George Levering was here a little while ago, and when he left a detective drove away with him. I’m mentioning it because I want you to know what to expect. And, by the way, Cynthia, did you suggest that Levering should come here to see if he couldn’t make me believe I’d been with Alma until three-thirty?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to keep Alma out of it.”

“Why Alma?”

“Oh, I don’t know, except that I didn’t want her to become involved.”

“Any particular reason?”

“No,” she said definitely; “Alma’s out of it. I thought an alibi might help her but she doesn’t need one.”

Yat T’oy opened the door, shuffled in with clinking ice and beaded glasses. Cynthia tasted her drink, smiled at the Chinese and said, “You heap savvy Tom Collins, Yat T’oy.”

It wasn’t until the grinning servant had left the room that the light died from her eyes.

“Tell me, Terry,” she asked, “do you think I can take it?”

“It depends,” he told her, “on how much you have to take. Can I help?”

“Yes, of course. That’s why I came. Will you?”

“My ears,” he told her, “are at your service.”

She frowned. “That’s one of those Oriental things that sound swell until you stop to analyze them,” she remarked. “Putting your ears at my service is very polite and very Chinesey, but it isn’t like saying ‘yes’.”

Terry laughed outright. “After all,” he said, “you must make allowances for environment. In Chinese there is no word for ‘yes’. Therefore, one expresses its equivalent by various means.”

“Terry, is that true? Isn’t there any word for ‘yes’ in Chinese?”

“Not in the general sense that we use it. That is, not in Cantonese dialect. They use ‘Hai or Hai loh,’ meaning ‘it is’. But Chinese etiquette generally forbids a short form of affirmative. The so-called Mandarin language has... However, you didn’t come here to listen to a dissertation on the Chinese language. Tell me, what’s on your mind?”

She surveyed him thoughtfully for several seconds and then said:

“Terry, I’m about to unburden myself of a serious utterance. I trust it won’t besmirch my reputation for perpetual flippancy.”

“Go ahead,” he invited.

“What you’ve just told me,” she said, “accounts for a lot of the change in you since you’ve been in China. You’re baffling, and darned if I don’t believe it’s all due to the fact you’ve forgotten how to say ‘yes’!”

“Yes?” he asked mockingly.

“Yes,” she said emphatically.

“And you came all the way up here to talk with me about this?” he inquired with exaggerated courtesy.

Her eyes clouded. “I came up here to talk with you about the murder.”

“Sparring around, stalling for time isn’t going to help any, Cynthia,” he said kindly.

She spread out the newspaper. “I don’t know how much of the evidence is being held back, but this gives a fairly complete account of the crime. Shall I read it?”

“No. Give me a summary. Never mind the newspaper embroidery, and try to forget that you’re you and I’m me. Be coldly efficient.”

“Do you want me to be entirely impersonal?” she asked.

“Yes, while you’re giving me the facts.”

She sighed docilely, raised her thumb and forefinger to her right temple, twisted her hand and made a clicking noise with her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

“Turning off the personality,” she explained, in answer to his inquiring eyes... “Don’t look at me like that, Owl. Must you see my mind entirely naked?”

“It’s the facts that I want unadorned,” he explained. “It always helps to have them that way.”

“Very well, Owl, prepare your ears, as the Chinese would probably say. It’s too bad your stomach isn’t big enough so you could sit cross-legged and hold it on your lap... No, no, Owl, don’t be sore. I’m just fighting a preliminary with myself... All right, here we go into the main event.”

“Bong! That’s the gong.”

She sighed, started speaking in a flat, mechanical monotone.

“Mandra,” she said, “had a gorgeous flat in an apartment building which he owned on the fringe of Chinatown. If you’re interested in a floor plan, there’s a sketch in the newspaper.

“The main thing is that this flat was really a combination of two big apartments and was arranged so he could have absolute privacy. Sam White, a one-time Negro heavy-weight, was Mandra’s bodyguard. There was a Japanese cook, a K. Tanigosha. Tanigosha went to bed early. Sam White never went to bed until after Mandra told him to.

“The three rooms where Mandra slept and did his work were separated from the rest of the flat by a locked door. Sam White guarded that locked door. No one could see Mandra except by passing Sam White.

“There was an exit door equipped with a lock which experts claim was practically burglar-proof. Mandra is supposed to have held the only key to that lock. He never admitted visitors through the exit door. But he could come and go as he pleased.”

Terry, watching her closely, said, “Why all the emphasis on the layout of the apartment, Cynthia?”

“Because I think it’s important,” she said. “Last night Mandra went into his private suite at about eleven o’clock. The newspaper mentions that ‘a young woman, whose identity is known to the authorities’, had an appointment with Mandra at eleven-thirty. Sam White says he didn’t see this young woman leave.

“At a quarter past two,” she went on, “a woman with the high collar of a fur coat turned up round her neck so it concealed most of her face, asked Sam White to tell Mandra that a friend of Juanita’s wished to see him on important business. According to the newspaper, Sam White saw this woman’s eyes and says she’s Chinese, and young. He could tell she was an Oriental from her eyes, and her voice sounded more Chinese than Japanese.

“There’s a telephone White uses in announcing visitors. He rang Mandra and told him about the girl. Mandra said to send her in. She stayed until two forty-five. That’s White’s story.”

“White saw her leave?” Terry asked.

“Yes.”

“And during the time she was in there, where was this woman who had entered at eleven-thirty?”

“That’s one of the things the newspaper says is ‘unexplained’,” she told him, staring at him steadily.

Watching her eyes, he said slowly, “You’re telling me now what the newspaper has to say?”

“Yes, because the newspaper sets forth all the evidence the authorities have.”

“Could Mandra have let this other girl out through the exit door?” Clane asked.

“He could if he’d wanted to,” she said, “but the newspaper emphasizes the fact that Mandra never, under any circumstances, used that door for such a purpose. And you must remember that Mandra had three rooms in this inner apartment.”

“Now let’s get this straight,” Clane said, his eyes fixing her with unwinking scrutiny, “This Chinese girl gave no name?”

“No.”

“But said she was a friend of Juanita’s?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s Juanita?”

“That’s just it. No one knows.”

“How about Sam White, the bodyguard? Does he know?”

“No, he says he doesn’t.”

“Go on,” Terry said, “tell me the rest of it.”

Cynthia consulted the newspaper.

“Doing that to refresh your recollection,” Terry asked, “or to hide your facial expression?”

She laughed nervously and said, “Both. Don’t interrupt me, Owl, let me do it my own way.”

“All right, go on.”

“At ten minutes to three a tenant in the building went out to get a cup of coffee. He distinctly remembers that this door from Mandra’s private rooms to the corridor was closed when he passed it. He came back at five minutes past three. At that time, the door was not only unlocked but partially open. The tenant had never seen this door open. Naturally curious, he looked through, into the room, and saw someone slumped forward over a table. He decided the man was either dead or drunk, and telephoned the police. A radio car arrived shortly afterwards. The body was that of Mandra. He was dead. Sam White, the Negro bodyguard, was still waiting outside the other door to Mandra’s rooms.”

“White had a key to that door?” Terry asked.

“Yes, he had one key and Mandra had one.”

“Who opened the door when the Chinese girl left?”

“The Chinese girl did. It had a spring lock which could be opened from the inside. She opened it and White heard her say, ‘Good night, Mr. Mandra.’ Then she pulled the door shut behind her and White showed her out.”

“That was at two forty-five?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” Terry said, “if the tenant’s statement is correct, Mandra must have been alive and opened that corridor door after she left.”

“Yes,” Cynthia said dubiously, “if the witness is correct in saying it was locked when he went out. But the door might have been unlocked, you know, and a current of air could have swung it open afterwards. And, of course, it wouldn’t have been impossible for this Chinese girl to have called good night to a dead man.”

“We still haven’t accounted for the young woman who entered the apartment at eleven-thirty.”

“At two o’clock,” Cynthia continued, “an artist who lived in the building met a young woman coming down the stairs to the street. This woman was carrying an oil painting in such a way that it concealed everything except her feet and ankles. Apparently the paint on the canvas was still wet, because she was carrying it holding it by the edges, with the painted part held out straight in front of her. It was a large canvas. The woman found it awkward to handle, so this artist who was coming up the stairs flattened himself against the side of the staircase to leave her plenty of room.

“Because he was an artist, he noticed the canvas, particularly. He saw that it was an excellent portrait of Jacob Mandra. As he describes it, the back of the head merged into a dark background, while the face caught the highlights. The eyes dominated the portrait.”

“And this was at two o’clock?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” Terry said slowly, “if this was the young woman who had entered Mandra’s apartment at eleven-thirty, Mandra must have violated his custom and let her out through that corridor door — or else the bodyguard must have been asleep. It’s not impossible, you know, for a Negro bodyguard to doze off for forty winks.”

She put down the paper to stare at him steadily.

“That’s all the evidence the police have,” she said slowly. “White swears he was sitting where no one could have left the room without his knowing it.”

“So far,” he reminded her, “we’ve been talking about the newspaper account of the crime.”

She raised her eyes to his. “And I knew that was coming,” she said.

“Having anticipated the question,” he told her, “you have perhaps anticipated the answer?”

She nodded and said, “If you mean trying to think up some lie that’ll hold water, I have.”

“And what’s the best one you’ve been able to think up, Cynthia?”

“Not a one, Owl. I’m afraid I’ll have to stick to the truth.”

“Which is...?”

She sucked in her breath, as though about to start a long speech, then slowly exhaled, shook her head, grinned and said, “No good, Owl, you’d better ask questions.”

“You knew Mandra?”

“Yes.”

“And Alma knew him?”

“No.”

He raised his eyebrows in silent interrogation, and she shook her head defiantly and said, “She really didn’t know him.”

“The portrait?” he asked. “Wasn’t she the one who painted that?”

“No, I was.”

“You were?”

She nodded. “I’d been working on it for some time. Last night I went to his place about eleven-thirty. The portrait was finished, save for a few finishing touches. Sam White let me in. I left an hour before Mandra was killed. I’m the woman the artist saw carrying the portrait down the stairs.”

“Do the police know you were there?”

“Certainly,” she said. “They’ve been looking for me all day, and I’ve been hiding because I was scared. They had to know about me, you see. Sam White knows me and knows what I was doing. And then there’s the matter of the handkerchief.”

“Yours?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you leave it?”

“I guess so.”

“Go on,” he invited. “Suppose you begin at the beginning and tell me the whole story. Tell me what hold Mandra had on you.”

“He fascinated me.”

“What hold did he have on you?”

“What makes you think he had a hold?”

“I feel certain he must have.”

“It happened a month ago. I was driving while I was tight — not drunk, but I’d been drinking. I hit a man. It wasn’t my fault. I can drive just as well after half a dozen cocktails as I can when I’m cold sober, but try and tell that to a judge or a jury.

“Get me straight, Owl, I didn’t pull a hit-and-run act — not where it would count — but there was a car not over a hundred yards behind me, and another one coming towards me. This man was wearing dark clothes. Honestly, Owl, I don’t know where he came from. That man just sprang up out of nowhere and stood in front of me, dazzled by my headlights.

“I wasn’t going very fast, but I was moving along at the usual rate of speed. You know, it’s one of those places where there’s a legal speed of about fifteen miles an hour, and no one ever pays any attention to it. I suppose I was hitting twenty-five or thirty. The car behind me was traveling at about the same clip, and the one that was coming towards me was coming pretty fast. It was foggy and the streets were wet. I could have put on my brakes, but I don’t think I could have stopped in time. Honestly, Owl, he was right in front of me. How he got there I don’t know. The car that was coming towards me didn’t leave me very much room to maneuver, but I swung the wheel to the left as far as I dared, and then flipped it back to the right so I could skid the hind end around him. I thought I was going to miss him, but, all of a sudden, I felt that peculiar quivering jar which comes when you’ve struck something animate, even if it’s just a chicken or a rabbit.”

She became silent for a moment, and her eyes showed how unpleasant was the picture her memory conjured up.

“You ran for it?” Terry asked, in a voice which was utterly devoid of expression.

“Of course not,” she snapped, “not then. Don’t be silly, Owl. But remember, I hadn’t used the brakes. I’d tried to dodge. I slammed into the curb and that threw me into a skid. Now, get the picture, Owl. There were three cars on the road — mine, the one that was coming towards me, and the one coming behind me. I went forty or fifty yards before I got my car back on the road, under control and stopped. Then I got out and looked back. The car that had been coming behind me had stopped, and someone was picking the man up. The other car, the one that had been coming towards me, evidently hadn’t seen what had happened, and had kept on going. Remember, I’d had two or three cocktails, not enough to make me tight, but enough to give me a breath. And I felt like the Devil, Owl. I was frightened — not the deep solemn scare I have now, but the awful wanting-to-run kind of scare you get when someone jumps out at you unexpectedly in the dark... Oh, you wouldn’t know what I mean. But, anyway, I was frightened.”

“And you ran away?” he asked.

“Now don’t be like that, Owl! I got out of my car and ran back. I wanted to do everything I could to help the man. The car that had stopped behind me was a sedan. A man had been driving it, and he was lifting someone into his car when I came up. I said, ‘Oh, is he badly hurt? I didn’t see him. He jumped out right in front of my headlights.’ And, Owl, that man turned round and started to abuse me. He said I was drunk; that I’d been driving too fast and had been driving all over the street. He said he was going to report me to the police for drunken driving. I was furious, but I was too concerned about whether the man was badly hurt to let myself go and get mad. The man who was handling him said he was a doctor himself and that he was going to go directly to his surgery, which was half a dozen blocks back down the road. He gave me a card with his name and address on it, a Dr. Sedler.”

“Do you still have the card?” Terry asked.

“Not the card, but his name’s in the telephone directory. I looked it up later.”

“Well, go on, what happened?”

“This Dr. Sedler climbed into his car and told me to follow him down to his office; that he was going to have me arrested. He spun the car in the middle of the block and started back.

“Now, remember, Owl, he hadn’t asked for my name. He hadn’t been driving close enough behind me to see the number on my car, and he hadn’t asked to see my driving licence or anything. He was a doctor. He was taking the man back to his office, and was going to see that he had immediate medical attention. And he was one of those fanatics who think just because a woman takes a cocktail she’s a dissolute character. He’d smelled liquor on my breath, and that was enough for him. He’d have sworn I’d been racing down the street like mad and was dead drunk.

“I walked back to my car and looked it over. There wasn’t so much as a dent on it. I didn’t think the man could possibly be seriously hurt, and I didn’t see any reason why I should go back there and be browbeaten and blackmailed. I was fully covered by insurance, and I decided to wait until I saw how badly the man was hurt before I did one single thing. So I got in my car and drove up to my apartment. I realize now, of course, what I should have done. I should have telephoned my own doctor and had him go right out to Dr. Sedler’s place and make an independent examination, and I should have had him put me through a sobriety test. But I was just too rattled. You know, Owl, I was frightened and mad and worried, all at the same time.”

“So what did you do?” he asked.

“I rang up the traffic department and asked them if they had any report of injuries sustained by a man knocked down by a car, and gave them the address where the accident took place. I told them I’d been driving past and thought I’d seen a man knocked down, and of course I gave them a false name and address over the telephone. They looked up their records and said they didn’t have any accident reported from that vicinity. So that I felt certain the man had just been stunned, or more probably drunk. So I decided to keep in touch with the traffic department and if the accident was ever reported, I’d go to see the man.”

“Then what happened?” Terry asked.

“For a day or two nothing happened. And then Mandra telephoned.”

“What did he want?”

“Wanted me to call and see him.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him to go roll his hoop down some other alley. And then he told me he was a bail-bond broker and that I was implicated in a hit-and-run case.”

“What did you do?” he asked.

“Hung on to the telephone receiver until I thought I’d squeeze my finger marks into it. But I managed to laugh into the transmitter and tell him he was crazy.”

“But you went to see him.”

“Yes.”

“Did you pay him money?”

“Not then.”

“Did he ask for any?”

“Not directly. He said the man had suffered a spinal injury and any moment a warrant might be issued for my arrest; that I’d better have things all fixed up so I could get bail just as soon as I was arrested. Otherwise, he said, I’d be thrown in with a lot of disreputable women. I told him I thought that would be swell, that I thought disreputable women were a lot more interesting than reputable ones. So he changed his tune and started telling me about how awful jails were: cold, clammy cells, inadequate sanitary facilities, filthy washbowls. That was what got me, Owl — the dirty washbowls. The man was clever, I tell you, horribly clever!”

“Did he tell you how he knew you’d been driving the car?”

“Not in so many words. I gathered some of the police officers stood in with him on those cases where there was a chance to make money on bail bonds. He said the police were making a secret investigation. A witness I hadn’t seen had got my licence number. But he’d got one figure wrong. He’d read the last figure as a seven instead of a one. Mandra had done some fast checking on licence numbers and picked me.”

“Did he tell you the case might be fixed up?”

“No, I asked him to try and fix it up, and I told him I wanted to see the man and see that he had the best possible medical attention.”

“Then what?”

“He told me I’d better let him handle that end of it, that I’d better keep in the background until after he’d seen the witnesses. Then he sent for me again. He thought the case could be squared. I’d given him a couple of thousand to get the best doctors money could buy.”

“How about your insurance? Didn’t you make a claim?”

“No. Mandra said that I could collect from the insurance company for what I’d paid out after the criminal responsibility business had been fixed up. He said the victim had no heirs and that if he died I was never to disclose my connexion with the case. While he lived, I was to get the best doctors money could buy for him. Then after the criminal end had been disposed of, I could have my insurance company make a settlement of damages. But if the man should die, the police would go after me for manslaughter — if they could be sure I was the one who had been driving the car. But Mandra was handling that end of it. You know how those things go — officers give bail brokers tips, and the brokers give them money. Oh, Owl, it was such a mess! If I could have helped the man I’d struck by going to jail, I’d have gone in a minute. But, my gosh, it was his fault. He’d jumped right into my car. If it hadn’t been for that fanatical doctor there’d have been nothing to it.”

“Did Mandra give you the name of the man who had been hit?”

“Not then. He did later — a William Shield, who lived on Howard Street.”

“Did you ever see this man Shield?”

“Yes. Mandra took me out to see him. He seemed to be suffering a lot. Mandra took me in as a welfare worker. Shield didn’t know who I was.”

“That was on Howard Street?”

“Yes, it was somewhere in the eighteen-hundred block on the left-hand side of the street.”

“Did you realize this was till a blackmailing scheme?”

“Not then. Last night I suddenly saw the whole thing. I was furious. I threatened to tell the police and have Mandra arrested.”

Terry shook his head slowly. “The police must never know about this,” he said.

“No one knows, except you, Owl.”

“You didn’t let anyone know you were seeing Mandra?”

“Alma knew.”

“You told her about it?”

“Not about the hold Mandra had on me. I just told her he liked some of my paintings and had arranged to sit for a portrait.”

“Go on.”

“Mandra fascinated the painter in me. Honestly, Terry, I couldn’t get over his face — particularly the eyes. I liked to watch him when he was in a darkened room, his face blending into the background, his eyes reflecting the light. I think he knew it. He was a dramatic devil, alive to all those little things. I wanted to paint him.

“I suppose you know about my art education. It’s a family scandal. Some of the Continental instructors were kind enough to say I had more talent than Alma, but I couldn’t stand the routine of training. I never could stand discipline. I painted things that interested me; things that didn’t interest me I didn’t want to paint. As a result, I’ve done half a dozen canvases. They’ve been bizarre things; I think they’ve been compelling — but they’ve been full of technical faults; no one knew it better than I. It’s one of the few things Alma and I really quarreled about. She wanted me to develop technique by a carefully planned course of training. I couldn’t do it. But I wanted to paint Mandra. Something about his face made my fingers itch to get at a paint brush, just as music makes your feet jiggle.”

“And you painted him?”

“Yes.”

“And then left with the canvas?”

“Yes, when I realized the whole automobile accident business had been a plant, I took the canvas and left.”

“Where’s the picture now?” Terry asked.

“Alma has it. I brought it to her and asked her to touch up the background for me.”

“You didn’t go back to Mandra’s after you left at two o’clock?”

“Certainly not.”

“Mandra was alive when you left?”

“Very much alive.”

Terry indicated the newspaper.

“Who,” he asked, “was the last person to see Mandra alive?”

“No one knows,” she said, moistening her lips.

Terry regarded her thoughtfully. “Where were you when the Chinese girl called?”

She finished the last of her drink.

“Apparently,” she said, speaking very rapidly, “I must have been on my way to Alma’s place. I left with the painting at two o’clock and I must have arrived at Alma’s about two-twenty or two-thirty.”

“And the person who discovered the body at three o’clock found the corridor door unlocked and open?”

“Yes.”

“Whom do you suspect?” Terry asked suddenly. And his eyes seemed to hold hers by some physical force.

“I... er... no one, of course.”

Terry leaned back in his chair. “You have several men friends,” he told her. “For instance, there’s Stubby Nash. Stubby, I believe, resents even the purely platonic friendship which I claim with you. How did he feel about Mandra?”

“He didn’t know anything about Mandra.”

“Are you certain?”

Her stare was defiant. “Yes,” she said. “And don’t kid yourself about your friendship being so platonic. You’ve been studying some goofy stuff about concentration in China. It’s changed you a bit on the surface, but only on the surface. Underneath, you’re just the same old adventurer! Don’t pull that platonic stuff on me!”

He laughed and said, “Tell me some more, Cynthia.”

Her eyes regarded him in slow appraisal. There were smoldering fires in their depths.

“Go on,” she invited, “try to laugh it off. You can’t make it stick. You’re a born adventurer, Terry Clane, and you couldn’t settle down if your life depended on it, and you’re fifty years too young to have a platonic friendship with me.”

Terry didn’t answer her. Taking his cigarette case from his pocket, he extended it to her.

“Don’t you think I should have another drink?” she asked, as she took a cigarette.

He held a match for her, and said, “No, not when you start being primitive, and besides, you’ve got to keep your mind clear.”

“I’m not primitive, only observing. Anyhow, I can think better with two drinks than I can with one.”

He studied her with thoughtful, speculative eyes. “You might feel better for an hour, but, after that hour, you’d wish it had been only one drink.”

“Good Lord, Owl, will it be more than an hour?”

“That depends. My own interview lasted for about fifteen minutes.”

“And you think mine’s going to last longer?”

“It may.”

“Why, I’ve nothing to tell!”

Terry puffed on his cigarette. “Which may,” he remarked, “make the interview take that much longer.”

She laughed nervously, jumped from her chair, walked to a mirror, gave her lips deft attention with lipstick and fingertip.

“Well,” she said, “it’s like a cold shower: I may as well take the plunge. I’m leaving you the paper. You can read about it. Wish me luck, will you?”

He walked with her to the elevator. “Luck,” he said.

She took inventory of him with grave eyes as she was waiting for the cage. “Some day,” she told him, “you’re going to forget this business of being a friend of the family and make a pass at me, and when you do...”

The elevator cage slid to a stop and the door opened. She stepped inside, turned and caught the expression in his eyes.

“Sort of floored you with that one, didn’t I, Owl? Never mind, remember that your Chinese language has no word for ‘yes’. That should be your margin of safety. But don’t...”

The elevator door interposed a sliding barrier between them, shutting the last of her words from his ears.

Terry watched her from the window. The light delivery van was still parked at the curb. A man jumped from it as Cynthia climbed in behind the wheel of her sports car. He walked swiftly to the side of Cynthia’s car and pulled back the lapel of his coat.

She said something to him. The man shook his head. Cynthia tilted up her chin, made some swift comment, and the man laughed outright.

This much Terry could see. And he also saw that, despite the man’s laughter, he seated himself beside Cynthia in the car, and indicated the direction in which she was to drive.

For the space of some ten seconds after the car had purred away from the curb, Terry stood at the window, staring down into the street with unseeing eyes.