I said, “I’d like the truth, Claire.”
“I haven’t lied to you.”
“You told me you thought that young man was trying to sell your aunt some stock, or something.”
“I was afraid he might have been.”
“And that you were afraid he might be planning to marry her and cut himself a piece of cake.”
“I was.”
“But you didn’t part with two hundred dollars to find out about him just for that.”
She didn’t say anything.
I said, “Let’s quit beating around the bush, Claire.”
“You’re the one who’s beating around the bush, making all sorts of wild guesses, trying to find out something that happened, torturing your imagination…”
I said, “Look here, Claire, let’s be frank with each other. You perhaps have a chance to inherit some money from your aunt. I don’t think it’s as big a chance as you’ve been leading us to believe, and I doubt very much if there’s as much money there as you told Bertha Cool there was.”
“So what? That’s my business.”
“It’s your business up to a point,” I said. “But when you came into the office, you started talking about having a man shadowed so you could find out who he was. He was a man who was calling on your aunt. You gave quite a story about why it was you wanted him shadowed. It’s a story that doesn’t hang together. Then Bertha made you a figure of two hundred dollars. For a girl in your position that was a lot of money. You didn’t try to bargain, you didn’t try to haggle. You put it right out on the line.
“Now then, it turns out you haven’t as much money in your bank account as you thought you had. There was a five hundred-dollar cheque which you felt certain was deposited on Saturday. That must have been before you went to see Bertha Cool because Bertha Cool rushed your cheque down to the bank before closing hours. Our bank telephoned your bank, and your bank advised that the cheque was good, that it had sufficient funds to deposit at that time.
“The position your bank now takes is that it had taken a cheque for collection and had temporarily credited your account, but that when it found out the cheque was no good it had debited your account with an amount of five hundred dollars, which made your two-hundred-dollar cheque no good.”
“My Lord,” she said, “you keep going over it and going over it. Suppose all that’s true, then what?”
I said, “The inference is pretty obvious. The cheque which you thought was good as gold, but which you now realise you can’t collect, wasn’t just an ordinary cheque. It wasn’t just an ordinary business transaction. If you had thought a five hundred-dollar cheque which you had deposited in your account was perfectly good, and then I came to you this morning and told you that it wasn’t good, you would, under ordinary circumstances, insist that you were going to take steps to collect the five hundred dollars and that then you’d make our two-hundred-dollar cheque good. The reason you’re not doing that is because you know that for some reason it has suddenly become hopeless to try and collect that five-hundred dollar cheque.”
“All right, what if that is the case? Lots of times people take cheques and find they’re no good, that they’ve been bilked.”
“You weren’t bilked,” I said. “You took a cheque that was really good as gold, and the reason that it isn’t good now is not because there weren’t any funds to cover it. It’s because the bank has found out that the person who issued that cheque is dead.”
She was raising her coffee cup to her lips as I spoke. Now she lowered it back to the saucer and looked at me wordlessly.
I said, “In other words, the cheque for five hundred dollars was a cheque Minerva Carlton gave you. Minerva Carlton met you that Saturday morning before you went to the agency. Minerva Carlton told you she wanted to find out about this man who was calling on your Aunt Amelia. Minerva Carlton told you she was giving you a cheque for five hundred dollars which you could apply on expenses, that you were to go to our office, give a great story about why you wanted to find out who this man was and all about him, and she gave you that cheque so you’d have money enough to pay expenses.
“Mrs. Carlton knew that she couldn’t go to our office and tell any story that would hang together and wouldn’t arouse suspicion. She knew that you could. The probabilities are that your aunt doesn’t ever intend to give you a cent and you don’t ever expect to get a cent from her. But you fixed up that story so it would sound plausible and would start us working on the case. The two-hundred-dollar cheque that you gave us didn’t mean a damn thing to you because you were going to pass the expenses on to Minerva. Now then, suppose you tell me the rest of it.”
She said scornfully, “You certainly do have a wild imagination, don’t you?”
I said, “You’d better tell me the story; otherwise, I’m going to pass my information on to the police.”
“And what can the police do?” Claire Bushnell asked scornfully.
I said, “The police can serve a subpoena on your bank. They’ll find out all about that five-hundred-dollar cheque, who gave it to you, and then they’ll subpoena you as a witness before the Grand Jury.”
She played with the handle of her coffee cup, her eyes downcast.
I said, “I haven’t got all day to wait.”
She sighed, said. “Give me a cigarette, Donald.”
I gave her a cigarette and held a light to it. She took in a deep pull, blew out the smoke, studied the end of the cigarette thoughtfully as though trying to find some way out of the predicament, then said, “Okay, Donald, you win.”
“Tell me about it.”
She said, “Minerva and I were pretty close friends. We used to play around a lot together, went out on dates. We understood each other perfectly and used to have a lot of fun. Minerva didn’t care too much about the men, but we used to get a lot of kick out of going out and seeing what would develop. We both of us liked adventure.”
“That was while she lived here and was working for Dover Fulton?”
“That’s right. She was his secretary.”
“And then what?”
“And then Minerva went to Colorado. She had some rich relatives there. She met Stanwick Carlton. She thought she could land him. Minerva didn’t care particularly about him as far as falling in love was concerned, but Minerva knew he was a good matrimonial match. She set her cap for him and landed him.”
“And then what?”
She said, “Minerva got tired of being a drab respectable housewife — she was smart enough to know that her days of playing around were all over, but she did like to have someone with whom she could discuss the old days. She used to come and visit me and we’d sit and talk until the small hours, reminiscing and recalling adventures we’d had.
“Then Minerva had a vacation and decided she’d spend it with me at the beach. She wanted to come down to sea level because the altitude in Colorado was getting on her nerves. She came down and visited me and we went to the beach together.”
“And started playing around?”
“Don’t be as dumb as that,” she said. “We did a little flirting, but that was all. Minerva was married. She had everything, social position, money, a good home, servants, everything in the world she needed. I don’t think she was too terribly happy. Minerva liked laughter and action and white lights and she liked to have people make over her. And she liked a lot of variety, but she realized she had to settle down sooner or later. She’d settled down and that was that.”
“But people made passes at you?”
“When?”
“Down there at the beach.”
“You mean at me?”
“No, at both of you.”
“Of course, they did. I never knew a man who didn’t make a pass at me sooner or later.”