Dearest: I will be gone for a week or ten days. Tell the boys at the shop to carry on. Love, Walter.
He had written her many long, interesting, and devoted letters from Europe during those months last year. It was strange now to see those words again on paper. Dearest and Love. Suddenly she felt terribly lonely and not so much afraid as overwhelmingly sad.
When he returned he was tanned, gay, and extremely passionate. He picked up a red blouse lying on her chaise longue.
“Where the devil did you get this horrible thing?” he asked.
“I made it while you were away. I like to sew when I am alone.”
He examined it closely. “It is very well made. You are clever with your hands. But the material, the pattern! Have I not told you? Never choose anything yourself. It is pure Harlem.”
“I can throw it away.”
“Do so.”
Suddenly he stiffened, walked over to the window and stood there staring out. He is making another move against me, she thought; the knot is tightening. It has something to do with my bad taste. Somehow I will have the bad taste to be murdered, and he will be safe and far away...
The next morning she smiled at Martha Webster. “You do not much need me today?”
“Not if you want to take the day off, darling.”
“Vell, I t’ink I do.”
“Very well. Have a good time.” It had not escaped Martha Webster’s keen ear that emotion usually touched off Magda’s accent and she looked after her speculatively.
Magda walked over to the Fifth Avenue Bank and drew out her account — $4220. She took a cab to the apartment on Sixty-Fourth Street and packed two bags. The doorman found her another cab and helped her in. “La Guardia Field,” she said. The doorman looked at the bill in his hand. He hated like hell to do it, she was a nice lady; but when you’re menially employed, twenty buys more than five, so he made his phone call.
At the American Airlines desk she asked what they had for Chicago. There was room on a flight in less than an hour. “That’s fine,” she said, and the clerk began to make out the ticket.
“Name, please?”
“Magda Brand.”
He stopped writing. “Oh, Mrs. Brand. Your husband called and said it was unnecessary for you to make the flight. I am to call him and he will come for you here.”
She turned dead-white and grasped the counter to keep from falling. “You needn’t call heem. I vill go ’ome.”
The clerk watched her walk falteringly towards the door. Something was cooking with that beautiful dame. When next he was conscious of her, her back was towards him and she was at the United counter. Oh, oh. So that was it. Well, it was none of his business. If he had a wife like that he’d want to keep her too.
“Vot iss your nex’ flight?”
“Where to, Madam?”
“Anyvare. From here. Out of here.”
“There’s a flight loading now for Detroit.”
“Giff me, please.”
“What is the name?”
“Helen Jones.” She fumbled with the money and the ticket.
“Don’t hurry, Miss Jones. I’ll phone them to hold the flight.”
“ ’Sank you,” she said.
As she stumbled down the steps to the lower level, he was there to meet her.
“Hello, darling,” he said. “Let me help you with your bags.” The scream that rose in her throat would not come and, limply, docilely, she followed him out to the street.
In a cab, he looked at her with amused but narrowed eyes. “That was a mistake, my dear. I never threatened you and never will. Threats are sordid. But as long as you commit no overt act — and I consider flight an overt act — you are safe. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Valter.”
He took up her purse. “Four thousand odd. We had better put that in my account. You have no need for it.”
Back in the apartment, she fell on the bed totally exhausted.
She slept for 20 hours, rose, and found herself alone. She bathed and felt herself refreshed and strong again. Martha Webster saw the change.
“Whatever you did yesterday it did you good. You have been looking rather knocked out. Today you’re the old Magda with, I detect, a sort of reckless glint in your left eye.”
Magda laughed. “I am a little reckless and I’m drawing out fifty bucks ahead from the office safe and leaving instead a sealed envelope with my name on it. This is for you alone, Martha darling, in case of death or accident.”
“Ah, ha! Well, don’t be too reckless. I need you, darling, in the business. And love you, too, by the way.” She kissed her. It was the first time Magda had ever known Martha to kiss anyone.
“I vant you to send me on errands today. Errands that will take me to Long Island. Errands vich I do not half to do.”
“I see. Walter did call yesterday and sounded annoyed. Well, I am not the impertinent type and won’t ask you who the man is, but I will admit I am curious.”
“You needn’t be. There is no other man.”
“Too bad. I am very moral myself, but I love to see immorality in others.”
Magda hired a Drive-it-Yourself car, a thing that Walter would not have thought her capable of doing. She drove up the East Side highway and over the Triboro Bridge, then east to the little town of Huntington. There she inquired for the Hunting-ton Yacht Club and parked her car. It was a lovely day but not so lovely as the grizzled steward thought her.
“Good morning,” she said. “Captain Wood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered.
“I am Mrs. Brand. Have you a key for the Lazy Q?”
“Yes, ma’am, I have. You want to board her?”
“Yes, please. I want to see what stores we need.”
“I guess most everything. When these hired crews come up the inland waterway all the way from Miami they strip your galley pretty clean. They was a good crew though. They left her in right smart shape.”
As they rode out in the launch she asked him, “Has Mr. Brand seen her since she got back?”
“No, ma’am. He sent me the inventory and told me to check it so he could pay the men, but I haven’t seen him since year before last.”
“Don’t tell him that I came out, please. I want to surprise him with something.”
“I won’t say a word, Mrs. Brand. Will you be long?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Just toot your horn.”
The boat was larger than she had expected, a great deal of room below. She opened the hatches to let the early June air and sunshine in, took off her hat and coat, and sat down on a berth. So far, everything had gone well. She had not been sure the boat would be here, or if Captain Wood would have a key. She had come on a hunch. For some reason Walter had gone to Cuba, and she was sure it had to do with her. Somewhere on the boat there might be a clue.
Everything was shining. The boat seemed almost like new. But the refrigerator and larder were empty, and there were only heavy-weather clothes, life preservers, lights, tools, and line in the lockers. But where to look for a clue? Wait. Here in the drawer were the papers. Yes. Harbor clearance in and out of Havana, and charts. The Lazy Q had been to Cuba all right, but that was all. No hint of why. Nothing else in the drawers but other charts and implements. A wasted trip — defeat, despair.
But she had had a hunch, and she had it still. An Hungarian hunch. And as she had previously known, without a word having been spoken, that, as he stood looking out of the window, he was plotting her murder, so she now knew that this boat could tell her something.