I simply sat there.
She started choosing her words, and I knew she was being careful, trying to say exactly what she wanted to say. “My aunt is now fifty-two. During the past few years, I am afraid she has become inordinately vain. She is a very young-looking woman for her age, but she carries it to extremes and is getting positively silly. She has developed a passion for asking people to guess her age — well, you know how that is. Nothing seems to be too absurd for her. As I say, she’s fifty-two. If a person guesses her as forty-five, Aunt Amelia gets just a little bit frosty. If it’s forty, she’ll smile. But if they put her down around thirty-seven, Auntie will simper and beam and really warm up and say, ‘Darling, you never would guess it, but I’m actually forty-one’.”
“Her hair?” I asked.
“Henna.”
“Disposition?”
“Coy.”
I said, “In other words, you’re afraid this man who’s calling on her may have honourable intentions.”
She met my eyes for a long moment and then said, “Exactly.”
“How are you and your aunt? Friendly?”
She said, “Let’s not misunderstand each other, Mr. Lam. Suppose you were fifty-two and wanted people to think you looked thirty-five, and you had a young niece hanging around who was — well, how old do you think I am?”
I looked her over carefully and with a long, steady appraisal. “Thirty-eight,” I said.
Her eyes flashed hot anger; then she threw back her head and broke out laughing.
“I’m twenty-four.”
“Well,” I told her, “after the lecture you’d given me on…”
“My God!” she said. “Do I really look past thirty?”
“No,” I told her. “I figured you about seventeen, but, since you’d explained the psychology of the thing, I thought…”
“Oh, nuts!” she interrupted.
I sat there and waited.
“Well, anyway,” she said after a moment, “you can figure how it is with Aunt Amelia. She is friendly enough so she likes to have me there when no men are around. Particularly since this man has been calling on her, Auntie has let it become apparent that she’d just as soon have me phone before I come. In other words, be sure that I don’t come when the gentleman with the dark hair and the beautiful profile is there.”
“Have you ever been there when he’s there?”
“Once,” she said, “and Auntie got rid of me so fast that it wasn’t even funny.”
“Your aunt introduce you?”
“Don’t be silly!”
“Then you never met him?”
“No.”
“Think he’d know you if he saw you again?”
“Yes.”
“He only saw you for a few minutes?”
“A few seconds.”
“Just that once?”
“Yes.”
“But he looked you over?”
“His eyes burnt holes in my clothes.”
“He’s that way?”
“I think so. His eyes are.”
“Any idea what he’s after — with your aunt?”
“I think he’s selling her something.”
“You told Bertha Cool you were afraid he was selling her stock.”
“You seem to have the right answer,” she said.
“You wouldn’t mind if he nicked her for a little money on a stock transaction?”
She said, “Mr. Lam, if that man could be given an opportunity to swindle Aunt Amelia out of twenty or thirty thousand dollars, I… I’d almost tell him all I knew about Auntie’s psychology so he could go ahead. What I’m afraid of is that’s what he started to do and now I’m afraid he’s trying to sell her merchandise that’s going to cost her more and will be a lot less valuable to her.”
“You mean he’s trying to sell himself?”
“Yes.”
“Would your aunt re-marry?”
“I think so, under proper circumstances. She’s — well, she’s carried this business of being flattered to a point where it’s making her sort of — well, I hate to say it, but—”
“You don’t have to say it,” I said.
“What have you found out?” she asked. “What happened yesterday?”
“I picked up this man and shadowed him.”
“Who is he? Where does he live?”
“His name is Thomas Durham, and he was staying in the Westchester Arms Hotel. He checked out late yesterday night.”
“Checked out!”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a fine detective!” she flared.
I said, “Wait a minute. The instructions that I had were to shadow this man and find out who he was — that was all. You didn’t want a twenty-four-hour shadowing job, and you didn’t pay for one.”
“Well, I wanted to find out something about him.”
“You’re going to,” I told her. “I’m working on it.”
“Why did he check out?”
“I don’t know, I intend to find out. In order to find out, I’ve got to get a little more information.”
“Well, go get it.”
“I want to get some here.”
“What about?”
“Let’s start with you. You’ve been married.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the marriage?”
“It went on the rocks.”
“Who was the man?”
“A Mr. Bushnell,” she said. “A James Bushnell. Mrs. Bushnell’s little boy, Jimmie, you know.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “Jimmie — good old Jimmie! Well, well, well! And what was wrong with Jimmie?”
“A little bit of everything.”
“How long have you been on your own?”
“A year.”
“Alimony?”
“Go fly a kite.”
“I was just asking.”
“I was just answering.”
“Are you dependent on your aunt financially?”
“No.”
“Any other relatives?”
“No.”
“In other words, you’re the sole heir?”
“If she should die, I presume I would be, but, of course, she has the right to do anything she wants to with her property.”
I said, “You’re not being very helpful.”
“I’m answering questions.”
“You’re not volunteering anything.”
“I hired you to get me information.”
“Your attitude towards your aunt seems a little detached.”
She said with feeling, “I’d like to be closer to her. She’s my only relative. At times she misses me. Then she gets these boy-struck ideas. But so far she’s always drawn the line at matrimony. She’s been afraid someone would get her money. She’s tight as a new shoe. When she’s lonely she loves me and wants me to come stay with her. A few weeks ago she had an auto accident. Since then she’s had attacks of sciatica. She thinks they were caused by injuries received in the accident. She makes a great to-do over it, rests on an air cushion in a wheel-chair and all that.”
“And the insurance company?”
“Thinks the accident was her fault.”
“And she’s a little man-crazy?”
“That’s putting it mildly!”
“Too bad,” I said. “She might get over it with a little financial pruning.”
“She might... I can’t see what she’s trying to get. I simply can’t understand her-yes I can, too. I understand and I sympathize, but I can’t…”
“Condone?” I asked.
“Who am I to condone?” she asked.
“Well, suppose you quit trying to justify yourself to yourself, and start telling me the facts.”
“My parents died when I was three. They perished together in a shipwreck. Aunt Amelia took me to bring up. I can’t even remember my parents. I can remember Aunt Amelia, all of her virtues, which are many, and all of her faults.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Aunt Amelia was a very, very beautiful woman,” she went on. “She married Uncle Dave out of pity, and she was disillusioned. She didn’t believe in divorce. She learned after a few years that the man to whom she was married had an incurable ailment. She desperately, passionately, tried to keep herself young so that when Uncle Davie died she could — well, keep as much of her youth as possible. She wanted to begin all over again.”