"Stuffy, at first, wouldn't believe me either. I convinced him by reminding him of things—well, an imposter couldn't have know."
"I see. And so?"
"Fred has been conscious several times tonight, detective, a Lieutenant Somebody, has been with him all the time."
Blood rushed into her face, despite her self-control, and now, for the first time, you saw a faint reddish mark at the corner of her left eye. There was another near the chin.
"Fred," she said, "refuses to name the person who attacked him. Or, rather, he says he doesn't know and swears to it. You see now? He's protecting somebody? Which of course means..."
Slowly she turned round. She looked first at Crystal, then at Jean, and finally at Bob.
Through the quiet studio, from behind that partition of a curtain wall, the telephone began to ring stridently.
16
Irene Stanley sprang up.
"That's Stuffy," she said. "He promised to ring me every hour, whether they had any news or not. Excuse me."
She disappeared through an opening in the curtains, while Cy studied three faces whose eyes followed her.
"She's wonderful," Jean breathed. "I'd always idealized her; I'd thought of her as being just like that. But I couldn't think it was true."
"Jean, are you crazy?" Bob asked in a fierce whisper. He was frightened through his whole gangling height. He seized Jean's wrist. "Didn't you get what she meant?"
"Meant?"
"She meant it was one of us who attacked Dad!"
All voices were lowered, because they could hear every word spoken by the woman behind the curtain. Crystal, in her sleek satin coat worn over a gold evening gown, approached Cy with veiled, shining eyes.
"Jean's right, you know," Crystal said. "She is rather fine. But I think she's a little mad. Cy!"
"Well?" asked Cy, who had taken from his inside pocket a pencil and an old begrimed letter.
"Do you believe the other thing she said?"
"She said a lot of things. Which do you mean?"
"That men value women simply for their physical attractiveness?"
"Lord, Crystal, I don't know!" he groaned. She herself made his judgment worse each time she was near him. "Probably it's true. Yes."
"Damn you," Crystal said softly.
"But I'll tell you this, my pet, if you think age matters. You're twenty-four. Your mother must be about forty-three. But if you both walked into a ballroom at this minute, there isn't a man who would look at you."
Crystal started to say, "Damn you," hesitated, and herself increased the nerve tension with tears.
"What are you doing," she asked fiercely, "with the back of that letter?"
Cy glanced over at H.M., who was now sitting and glaring at a stogy. Though it was no business of his as a reporter, he had sketched out a headline and a hanger, with quick notes below.
"You see Foxy Grandpa over there?" he asked.
"Wh-what about him?"
"I'm certain now I know the line he's working on: not only to solve the case, but to put everybody in the right place. There's one blank space in the middle: that damned swimming-pool puzzle. The rest I've got If we can anticipate things with a newspaper story..
"Thank you, Stuffy," rose a voice behind the curtain. "You will keep me informed, won't you?"
They heard the phone replaced on its cradle. Elizabeth Manning, now plainly Elizabeth Manning and not Irene Stanley, came out into the studio.
"He's just the same," she said. "No better, no worse." H.M. rose to his feet
"Now, ma'am, about these 'plans' you and Fred made..."
"Sir Henry, for God's sake!"
"You care a lot about your husband," H.M. told her. "Do you care anything about his reputation?"
"Reputation?"
"Lord love a duck, don't you know he's supposed to have robbed the Foundation and done a bunk with a hundred thousand dollars?"
"Oh, that's absurd!"
"So? You said you read the afternoon and evening papers. Didn't you catch any rumour of it?"
"No!" She reflected, with a shocked kind of look, her hand pressed to her forehead. "They said—or I gathered—Fred had disappeared because of a bet or something of that kind. Wait! There was one obscure little item..."
"Pretty obscure," said H.M. "The District Attorney's office won't let out a peep until they're sure. If somebody played a lost-in-the-shuffle trick with news, you can thank this feller here." He beckoned to Cy. "I say, we've been a bit informal about introductions. Me, I'm always proper."
The woman smiled vaguely. "Mr.—?"
"Mr. Norton," supplied Crystal, taking Cys arm. "Mr. Norton is my guest."
The tone of her soft voice made the meaning very clear. Her mother regarded her (those eyes that were so much alike!) and took a deep breath.
"I've followed you career," she said, "at a distance. Your last husband was some Balkan dignitary named Count Yummy-Yummy, or words like that. Did you love him?"
"No," replied Crystal. "But I don't use his title, you notice."
Cy, who hated this kind of talk, was enabled to slip the back of the letter into H.M.'s hand. H.M., with a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, at first tried to shoo him away. Then he glanced at what was written. Then he read it.
Cy watched him. Over H.M.'s face have gone many expressions, most of them baneful. But Cy saw, very briefly, what he hoped to see. It was the look of an urchin, entranced beyond glee, just lighting a large firecracker under the chair of the school principal.
"Is that the proper line, H.M.? May I release it to the press with your backing?"
"Son," the great man replied gravely, "you release it" He handed back the paper. "Not from the phone here, curse you! They'll all hear it! Outside!"
And Cy, with brief apologies, maneuvered his way out.
His footsteps echoed as he hurried along the broad corridor with the red-and-white walls. Cy's principles were New England or plain British: a decent reserve outside, the Old Adam always lurking inside.
At the end of the corridor, near the iron stairs, he found a telephone booth. At first he thought of rejecting the Echo, his old paper and a morning paper, and to hell with 'em! But old loyalties, though they swear and kick, do not die. He dialled the Echo's number, got through to the city desk, and spoke for several minutes.
"Now look," retorted a cold voice, "I didn't get you fired, Cy! That?s not my department. I'm all for you!"
"I know that, Zack. I know it!"
"So if this story is alcohol talking from a bar, and that's what it sounds like..."
Cy risked a chance with sixty-forty in his favour.
"If you want confirmation, Zack, get the District Attorney's Office. Then get Headquarters. You could even try White Plains."
And he hung up. Having now done his duty (somewhat), Cy rang the A.P., the U.P., and also several newspapers where he had a friend. Then he hurried back to the studio. When he opened the door, the first words he heard were those infuriating words, swimming-pool mystery.
Furthermore, the emotional temperature here had gone up to danger point.
Elizabeth Manning, seated on the edge of the sofa, had lowered her head and was plucking at the edges of the cushions. H.M., having thrown away his stogy, had drawn his chair close to her. Crystal, Jean, and Bob stood near them with white faces.
"Now look here, my wen—I mean, ma'am," said H.M., as though he were handling high explosives. "Have you got it through your head they do think he stole a hundred thousand?"
"Yes."
"And that they'll put you through the hoops because they think you're mixed up in it, unless I head 'em off?" "Yes."
"So are you willing to let me ask questions, short and sweet, and you'll answer 'em the same way?"