The Scandal - Murder Mysteries Boxed Set. Mary Roberts Rinehart

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      "I think you're lying, sister."

      "I wouldn't bother," she said contemptuously. "Go and hunt you wife somewhere else. This is a law office and if you want trouble we have quite a few husky young members of the bar around on this floor to give it to you."

      "I've handled young punks before this. I don't scare easy."

      In spite of this, however, a moment or two later the outer door slammed and Collier started back along the hall. At the door marked "Private" he stopped and tried the knob, then finding the door locked and hearing no sounds within he went on. Neither the girl nor Forsythe spoke until they heard the elevator stop to pick him up.

      "I guess that's that," Forsythe said. "I don't like the idea of your going home to him, Mrs. Collier."

      "I'll be all right," she told him. "I don't think he's sure yet, and until he is—I only hope I haven't got you into trouble. May I stay a few minutes, if I'm not disturbing you?"

      He glanced at his desk. In front of him was his morning's work, still barely started. He shoved it aside.

      "Stay as long as you like," he said. "Just try to relax. Want another brandy?"

      "I'm all right, thanks."

      "You know," he said conversationally, "your boy's name—William Blake. I knew a Bill Blake at college. And I have an idea I've seen you somewhere before. You look vaguely familiar."

      It was the right note. She even managed a faint smile.

      "I didn't think you could possibly remember," she said. "It's years ago. I went to a prom at Yale, when you were going to law school. You'd played football, of course, and I almost died with excitement when you asked me to dance. I always thought Bill asked you to."

      He remembered her then. Queer, too, with all the girls he had danced with that night, and innumerable nights since; a scared, very young girl with amazingly long eyelashes and in a badly fitted white dress, with her brother desperately working on the stag line for men to dance with her.

      "Of course," he said amusedly. "Bill Blake's little sister, Anne! Do you know, you still have the eyelashes!"

      "It was my first real party," she said rather shyly. "And my dress was too long. I kept stumbling on it. But that's one reason I'm here. I knew you and Bill were friends."

      "So we were. He was a grand guy. I'm afraid I've lost touch with him since then." He said it tentatively. It was as dangerous these days to ask about men as it was to inquire about a husband or a wife, and he was not astonished when he saw tears in her eyes. She opened the bag and got out a handkerchief.

      "I'm sorry," she said. "You see, he was killed in the war. If only I had him—"

      Unexpectedly she dropped her head on the desk, her shoulders shaking with repressed sobs. He got up and put an arm over her thin shoulders.

      "Don't cry, Anne," he said. "Let me be Bill, and see what I can do. There are plenty of ways of fixing this thing up." And one of them, he thought, was to throw the fear of God into Wilfred Collier. "Why did you marry him, Anne?"

      She did not lift her head.

      "Why does any girl marry any man? Maybe it was the uniform. I don't know. Bill brought him to see me before they went overseas. I was working as a secretary then, and I suppose I was lonely. He wrote me all through the war, and—well, that's all. We were married as soon as he came back."

      She got up then, and once more he repeated his suggestion about the aunt in Connecticut. She shook her head, however.

      "I can't go anywhere until I've straightened things out and made the will," she said. "After that I'll feel free to take young Billy and go wherever I want."

      "Can you come back tomorrow morning?"

      "I can try," she said. "I'm sorry if I've involved you in anything, Wade. You don't mind if I call you that, do you? Bill always did. But you heard Fred. He's in an ugly mood. He'll try to make trouble. I know him."

      At the door he was surprised when she stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly.

      "For being wonderful to Bill's sister," she said and was out the door and out of sight before he had recovered. Of course the elevator had gone when he reached it. He took the next one down, only to see her being put in a rather battered Ford, with a man holding tight to her elbow. It did not require another look for him to recognize the big hulking figure of Fred Collier.

      So the fat was in the fire, he thought apprehensively. Evidently Collier either knew or suspected what she had been doing, and Forsythe had a feeling that no time ought to be lost. The very thought of Collier's inheriting his wife's hard-earned money was revolting. But it was not only that. It would be easy, he realized, knowing the man, to get her out of the way by faking some sort of accident.

      It was out of his hands, of course, at least until and if she came back the next day. He should not have let her go, he thought worriedly. And he had even, he remembered, forgotten to ask the name of her agent.

      He picked up the red-bound book on his desk and absently read a paragraph where it opened. It read: "Redemption of stock to pay death taxes. The provisions of this subsection—"

      He flung the book across the room and rang for Miss Potter. She came in with her notebook, a substantial woman in her forties, looking prepared for anything, from ugly citizens like Fred Collier to the dull routine of taking dictation. He waved the notebook aside, however.

      "Know anything about the radio business, Miss Potter?" he asked.

      For once she looked astonished.

      "Radio?" she said. "I've got a set, if that's what you mean."

      "The business," he said shortly. "The scripts, if that's what they call them. How do they get them? Who writes them?"

      "I'm sure I don't know. One of the elevator men here keeps trying. I don't think he's sold any."

      "Well, find out as soon as you can. Get a list of the agents who handle that sort of stuff. The town must be full of them."

      Miss Potter took it in her stride.

      "Anything you particularly want to know?"

      He hesitated.

      "I'd like to know who handles a serial called Monica's Marriage," he said. "By a writer named Jessica Blake. But be tactful, Miss Potter. You've heard it and liked the stuff. Maybe you're scouting for a sponsor, but be sure you keep me out of it."

      Miss Potter refused to look surprised. Very little surprised her, but she was not unaware that a small white handkerchief was on the floor in front of the desk, and to her experienced eyes it was definitely moist. So maybe that tough guy's wife had been here after all! If so, no wonder she wept.

      Her face, of course, recorded none of this. She said she would do her best, and retired with her usual placidity. In the rest room later, however, she found Stella, powdering and lipsticking for the lunch hour, and queried her.

      "Ever hear of a radio program called Monica's Marriage, Stella?" she asked.

      "Mother СКАЧАТЬ