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“Oh, that,” Forbes said, his face clearing. “That turned out to be nothing. She made a mistake.”

“How much money was involved? I was told eight hundred.”

“That’s right. Dad loaned me some money the year before to cover a payment I had to make because of an accident. A hit-and-run thing, except I didn’t know I hit anybody. I didn’t have eight hundred. I’d only been going with Ruth a few months. She thought, on the basis of the Jaguar, the job, my rich family, she thought all I had to do was reach for the money clip and peel off hundred-dollar bills until she told me to stop. She knows better now. It turned out nobody considered me much of a credit risk. I was beginning to think I’d have to ask for offers on the Jag. I wanted to leave Dad out of this one if possible. Jose told him. Dad yelled a bit, but finally he said he’d take care of it. Then Ruthie came up with the good news-false alarm.”

Shayne drank some cognac and followed it with a sip of ice water. “That was the winter crisis. Now how about the spring one?”

Forbes sighed. “I knew you’d pick it up. That was worse. That was so bad it still gives me the shivers. This time it was ten thousand.”

“For another abortion?”

“Mike, you have the wrong idea about Ruthie. I’m not sore, just explaining. She had a letter from dumb me taking full credit for the baby. She could have made me marry her or come through with a big settlement. Mother was sick at the time, and there was a family theory that the news would be bad for her. Good God, I want to marry Ruthie. She’s the one who won’t marry me. No, this ten-thousand deal was something else, an old bane of mine. Stud poker.”

Shayne’s manner was offhand, but his grip on the cognac glass tightened. “That’s a lot of dough to drop in a poker game.”

“I’m aware of the fact,” Forbes said sadly. “It went on all night and all the next day. Talk about soul sessions. At one point I was fourteen thousand ahead.”

“Who was the big winner?”

“A fellow from New York, Lou Johnson. There’s something I want to explain, Mike. Someday I’d like to do a novel about these people, these friends of Ruthie’s. It’s material nobody else has used. They’re”-he made a rippling gesture with one hand-“I don’t know, floaters. They go where the wind takes them. They’re talented enough to do anything they want to, except that they don’t want to do anything. I really think I can catch the style. I admit I was drunk when I lost that money. But once I got involved in that high-stake poker game, I wanted to go all the way-for the book, you see? And of course, Mother was in the back of my mind all the time. If I dropped a few thousand, I knew she’d make it good, she always had. Well, she died a week later.”

He closed his eyes. “I’m posing again. I don’t suppose I’ll ever write that book.”

“Send me a copy if you do,” Shayne said dryly. “What business is Lou Johnson in?”

“Oh, he has something to do with raising money for the theater. He’s affable enough, and at the same time he’s a little scary, somehow.”

“There wouldn’t be any point in losing to him otherwise,” Shayne observed.

“You may be right. I wish I didn’t have to be such a fool.”

“If your mother had lived, would she have covered you to the extent of ten grand?”

“No. They would have settled for less. They agreed to come down fifty percent as it was.”

“Who agreed?”

“Johnson sent two friends to see me. One of them held me while the other hit me. Then they switched. I don’t stand pain well. I faced that fact about myself long ago. They told me they’d be back a week later for the five thousand.”

“Who did you ask for it?”

“Walter first. I knew he had it. I wanted to give him a lien on my share of Mother’s estate. He turned me down. I’m sure it was Dad’s doing. Then Dad turned me down, in no uncertain terms. I invented a reason to go out to the Coast. I stayed away a few weeks. I’d probably still be out there, but I found out that Johnson had been arrested in New York on some kind of narcotics charge. I decided to come back and I’m glad I did. Those two characters never came near me again.”

Shayne saw Candida hesitating in the doorway. He signaled to her. She stood irresolutely for another moment, then made up her mind and came over.

“I was under the impression we said goodnight a couple of hours ago, Mike.”

“I waited around to see if you really stayed home,” he said. “You know Forbes Hallam.”

“No, I don’t,” she said evenly. “Candida Morse. How do you do?”

Forbes had risen. “The Hal Begley Miss Morse? I don’t know what I expected. Something different.”

Shayne waved to a waiter. “She tells me she’s in it for the excitement, not the money. What are you drinking, Candida?”

“Nothing, thank you. I shouldn’t even have come in here, but curiosity got the better of me. I suppose you’re talking about our one big subject.”

“What else?”

They sat down. Shayne ordered a new round of drinks. “Forbes has been telling me how he was maneuvered into needing five thousand bucks in a hurry last April. We’re moving on to the next question. Who did the maneuvering?”

Candida looked at him levelly, then turned to the waiter. “I think I’ll have a Scotch and soda.”

Forbes protested, “Nobody planned it, Mike. I get in my own jams, from sheer natural stupidity.”

“Not this time,” Shayne said. “You were playing against a stacked deck. The timing was too good. Candida, do you know a New York gambler named Lou Johnson?”

“I don’t know any New York gamblers.”

“How early in the year did you get the United States contract?”

She felt for cigarettes, considering her answer while she took one out and Shayne lighted it for her.

“I don’t want to make your job any easier, Mike. Maybe you can provoke me into saying something, but I hope to be able to keep my mouth shut.”

“My guess would be early or mid-March,” Shayne said. “After you listened to my end of that Washington call from Forbes’s father, why did you head straight for the St. Albans and wait an hour or so for Ruth to show up? I think you probably wanted to give her money to get out of town.”

Forbes exclaimed, “Miss Morse, you and Ruthie know each other?”

Candida gathered her loose belongings and stuffed them in her bag. “This was a mistake, I see. I won’t wait for the Scotch. Goodnight, all.”

“No, stick around,” Shayne advised her. “There’s even a faint chance that you’re being taken here-a very faint chance. When did your mother die, Forbes?”

“April second.”

“The poker game was a week earlier. Candida was already sounding out Walter Langhorne on the subject of changing jobs. A blackmail operation was underway against Jose Despard. Which of these three gambits actually produced the T-239 folder I still don’t know. When did the two collectors come to see you, Forbes? I’d say about the twentieth. Suddenly, on April twenty-third, you no longer needed five G’s. You can’t really think anything as elaborate as this would be called off just because one of the principals was picked up in New York on another matter. There had to be a payoff. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

Forbes nodded slowly. “I think I know what happened, Mike. I’ve tried not to think about it. I think my father quietly bought up those IOU’s. After that abortion thing, he made one of his announcements. From that moment on, I had to get out of trouble on my own two feet. But he knew what would happen if I didn’t pay that five thousand. I was in for a really bad beating, and something like that can easily get out of hand. He wanted to make me realize that life isn’t easy. He didn’t want me killed.”

The waiter brought their drinks and Shayne asked for a phone.

“You don’t want to comment on this yet, Candida?”

She drank without replying.

When the phone was plugged in, he dialed the long-distance combination and asked for Washington information.

Forbes sat forward. “Dad won’t like being asked about it, I can tell you that.”