Fox took a step into the hall. “How do you do.”
“Oh!” It was a little gasp from her. She moved toward him and stopped again. “Oh!” She came two more short steps. “You... are you Philip Tingley?”
Fox nodded and smiled at her. “This is me at the entrance of my castle.”
“I’m late,” she said inconsequently. She came closer and he got, faintly, her perfume. “I’m always late.” She looked nervously around. “Let’s go inside.”
He stepped aside, entered behind her, and closed the door. As he motioned her to the farther room, her head jerked around at a sound from the kitchen, but he reassured her: “Just my dog. I shut him in there because he jumps on people.” He followed her within. “Let me take your coat. This isn’t the sort of chair you’re used to, but it’ll have to do.”
She glanced around and he saw a shudder of repugnance run over her; and she permitted just enough of her person to touch the shabby soiled upholstery to call it sitting. Then he saw, by the intentness of her eyes as they fastened on him, that there was something about him sufficiently interesting or compelling to make her ignore the surroundings after that first involuntary spasm of fastidious distaste. He sat. She did not, apparently, intend to speak, and the fixity of her gaze made him wary; it seemed likely he was supposed to say something cogent and to some purpose, and therefore it was risky to say anything. But if she was determined merely to sit and stare at him...
He smiled at her and asked pleasantly, “Do I fall short of expectations? I mean, the way you look...”
She stiffened. “Nothing like that is in my mind,” she said coldly. “Understand that. I had no — expectations. I came here only because your impossible conduct, your impossible demands, compelled me to come to appeal to you to have some regard for decency. I expect and desire no filial sentiments from you.”
Chapter 15
Fox permitted himself three seconds for a rapid movement and reorganization of his cerebral forces, covering the operation by wiping his face with his handkerchief.
“Wrestling with the dog made me sweat,” he observed.
The lady in mink had nothing to say to that.
“Naturally,” he went on, “I disagree with your characterization of my conduct and demands.” Smiling pleasantly at her had of course been wrong, and he was meeting her intent regard with a rude stare. “And I certainly have no intention of making any display of filial sentiment, even if I felt any, which I don’t. If you’re going to appeal to me...” He left it hanging.
She continued to gaze at him another moment and then said abruptly, “My brother told me you were a blackguard. A vulgar common swindler. I think he made a mistake.” A frosty smile was on her lips and gone. “A woman can tell those things better than a man. You don’t look — that way. My brother is not very tolerant or understanding, and I think he handled — undoubtedly he was blunt about it.” She tried to smile again. “That’s his manner. He probably insulted you about this — this business you want the money for—”
“Womon,” said Fox aggressively.
She nodded. “Whatever it is. He thinks that’s just a sham and a pretense, that you really want the money for yourself. He doesn’t realize, as I do, that young people are often genuinely unselfish and idealistic. But a million dollars — that’s impossible! He won’t pay it!”
“I think he will,” said Fox menacingly.
“But he won’t!” She extended a gloved hand, and let it fall again. “I admit that I would, if I had it, but I haven’t. I have nothing. I have come here, to this place, to appeal to you! I am dependent on my brother for everything. He has been generous with me, but I am dependent on him, and to expect him to pay any such sum — even half that—”
“He will. He’ll have to.” Fox scowled at her. “You might as well cut it. If all you came for is to try to save him some money, you may as well save your breath. You know damn well he’ll pay it.”
She was silent, gazing at him. Her jaw twitched, and her lips worked, but Fox was saved the bother of swallowing any compunction by the expression of her eyes, for even in fear and real distress there was no softness in them. He had no difficulty to maintain his scowl intact.
“You are a blackguard,” she said in a thin hard tone. “You are willing to ruin me. I bore you, and you would destroy me. Then this is what I want to say. You think my brother will pay what you demand. Maybe he will. I don’t know. But I know he won’t on your terms. He has already given you ten thousand dollars. He won’t give you another cent, this I know, until you give up the papers about — your birth — and until you sign what he wants you to about that, and about your going to meet him that evening. If you do tomorrow what you threatened to do if you don’t get the money, you’ll lose everything and so will I. That’s what I came to tell you, that’s why I was willing to suffer this intolerable humiliation, because apparently you think my brother is bluffing, and he isn’t. I know him.”
“I am not bluffing either — uh — madam.”
“I suppose you’re not.” Deep and bitter resentment was in her eyes and tone. “You’re a man — look at you! I was doomed to be ruined by men. When I was a poor little pretty thing in that factory — that finished me, I thought, with men — but there are more ways than one. You have some of me in you, and my blood is the same as my brother’s. Your father — you haven’t learned from those papers who your father was, have you?”
“No.”
“He was hard, too, in a different way from us. But you’re half him and half me.” She laughed, a terrible little puff of rancor. “So I wouldn’t expect you to bluff. But I have warned my brother and I came here to warn you: unless you fix this, unless you two somehow make terms, all of us will suffer. I’ll be smashed, finished. His pride will get a blow that it will never recover from, hard as he is. You won’t get a dollar, let alone a million. And there’s another thing.”
“Still another?”
“Yes.” Her eyes bored into his. “Tuesday night.”
“What about Tuesday night?”
“Don’t be inane,” she said contemptuously. “I don’t know who killed Arthur Tingley. Do you? Does my brother? I don’t know.”
“Same here,” said Fox gruffly. “That’s no good with me for an inducement to compromise. But you knew we were going to be there, and I’ve been wondering if you didn’t decide to make the gathering complete—”
The gleam of disdain in her eyes met the sentence and stopped it.
“All right.” He shrugged. “Then let us worry about who killed Tingley, if you’re out of it. As for the rest — shall I tell you what I think?”
“I came here in the hope that you would prove to be capable of thought.”
“I am. I hope he is. I’ve been going over it, and I’ve come to the same conclusion you have. If we don’t look out nobody will win and everybody will lose. But he’s a hard man to deal with, you know that. I think if you were with us, if the three of us were together, we would get somewhere. I think the thing to do is for you and me to go to him now and settle it.”
She frowned. “But he—” She seemed to be shrinking. “He would be—”
“You’re afraid of him.” Fox was on his feet. “I don’t blame you, but you are. I’m not. I’ve got him where I want him, and you too. Suit yourself. I’m ready to go.”
She shivered a little.
“Where is he, at home?” Fox asked.