“We better put that on a few minutes,” he said. “Yust to be on the safe side.”
Herrick sheepishly extended his wrist, and Jansen snapped the open cuff around it. Then he began to deal the cards.
Madeline had watched the proceedings with incredulous eyes. “He’s vicious!” she burst out. “He oughtn’t to be allowed at large, a man like that. He’s a menace. A maniac.”
Jansen turned on her as fiercely as though she were the offender, not the man.
“He’s not a maniac,” he said severely.
“No? Well, what do you call it when he beats women—”
“He’s just unfortunate, that’s all. Well, go to the police, if that’s what you want to do. Go and have him taken in, if it make you feel better.”
She bit her lip. “For personal reasons of my own, which don’t happen to have anything to do with this, I prefer not to. But he won’t get off so easy if he ever tries it again, with somebody else, let me tell you.”
“You’re as much to blame as he is,” he told her. “You didn’t have to come into his room. You know better than that. You’re not a child.”
“Why are you so ready to defend him?”
This time he threw down his entire hand with vehemence. “He saved my son’s life. He covered him with his own body when my son lay there helpless, unable to move, his leg caught in a booby trap. He didn’t stop to ask questions then, did he? He didn’t stop to argue if it was right or if it was wrong, did he? Why should I now? Today, thanks to him, Harald is a successful businessman in San Francisco. He has a lovely wife, three beautiful children, a fine house, a car. All because of this ‘maniac,’ as you call him. I’m a poor man, I work hard, but I have scruples—”
He probably meant to say morals, she surmised.
“I only know one thing. When you owe, you repay. When good is done you, you do good back.”
Herrick had kept his eyes lowered throughout the whole discussion.
“How many drunken husbands come home and beat their wives? How many jealous lovers knock their sweethearts around?”
“That doesn’t make it right, though,” she said defensively, but in a minor key.
“No, that doesn’t make it right. He and I both know that. That’s why we made up this signal between us.”
“And what about the time, the one time too many, when his control slips, he doesn’t signal, he gets away from you? That time will surely come. You know it will. And some girl will pay with her life.”
He didn’t answer that. He just looked down.
“Will you hide him then?” she insisted. “Will you still protect him then?”
“We’ll know what to do, if that time ever comes. We’ve talked about it. We’ve agreed. We’ll handle it — between us two. Yust us two.”
She saw an odd look pass between them, which she couldn’t interpret. Something about it chilled her.
They took up their cards and started playing, but she still lingered there by the door, unable to tear herself away, though they seemed to have become oblivious of her.
“What was that you called him,” she said to Jansen, “when you first came into the room?” The passage of violence that had occurred between Herrick and herself made her self-conscious about addressing him directly.
“His name is Vernon,” the older man said.
“What was his wife’s name, the one that left him?”
“He only had one wife,” Jansen answered. “Marika. She was Polish.”
Madeline went “Hhhhhh” on a long, deflating note of disappointment.
“I don’t blame her,” Herrick said. “She did the right thing. She was only twenty then. It was better to walk out like that, make a clean break, than stay by me and cheat right and left right under my nose.”
He played a card.
“I’m sorry what happened,” he said to Madeline without looking at her. “I apologize.”
“That’s all right,” she murmured almost inaudibly. “I understand how it was.”
He suddenly lifted his head and looked directly over at her. “Good night,” he said timorously.
“Good night,” she answered. “Thanks for your contribution.”
It only occurred to her afterward what an anticlimactic remark that was, coming after what had taken place between them.
Some sort of inner integrity prevented Madeline from discarding the unused contribution folders she still had left. After all, they had been given to her in good faith, no matter what her own purpose had been. She therefore slipped a couple of dollars into each one, wrote the names of fictitious donors on the outsides, and prepared to return them without, if possible, encountering the committeewoman a second time. An encounter that held very little appeal for her.
Her timing was faulty. By one of the flukes which are impossible to guard against, just as she straightened up from sliding the envelopes underneath the door, Mrs. Fairfield appeared at the upper end of the corridor, coming from the elevators, and caught her in the act.
“How are you making out with your legwork?” she greeted Madeline jauntily.
“I just now finished up,” Madeline said.
“Come in a minute and we’ll tally up.”
“I’m afraid I have to run,” Madeline demurred.
“But I have to enter the amount and give you credit.”
“You take the credit yourself, I don’t mind.”
“But we’re not allowed to do that!” Mrs. Fairfield gasped, as horrified as though she’d been asked to participate in an embezzlement.
By this time she had the door open and one persuasive hand under Madeline’s elbow, so Madeline followed her in with a private sigh of frustration, prepared to submit with as good grace as possible to a retelling of her hostess’s past triumphs, in the man-killing and marital fields.
Mrs. Fairfield, seating herself at the desk to do a little lightweight bookkeeping, asked her if she wanted additional contribution forms. Madeline no-thanked her, explained she’d used up all the spare time she had, and a shudder flickered through her as she thought of last night’s incident on St. Joseph Street.
Mrs. Fairfield had more than her fair share of narcissism, as all women have who have once been beautiful. “I’ve just had some new pictures taken,” she said, indicating a sheaf of large oblong folders stacked on the desk. “I suppose you think it’s silly at my age.”
Madeline tractably said what she knew Mrs. Fairfield wanted to hear her say. “You’re not old enough to stop having your picture taken.”
“Friends of mine kept asking me—” Mrs. Fairfield got up and brought two of them over to show Madeline.
“I like this one best,” she said. “But I want your opinion. Which one do you think does me the most justice?”
“This,” said Madeline in a stifled voice. But her eyes weren’t on the subject’s face. They were on the signature in sepia ink that ran diagonally across the lower right-hand corner: “Vick’s Photo Studio.”
“Vick,” she said. “Is that the photographer’s first name or his last name?”
“His first name,” the woman said. “Although that’s an unusual way to spell it, isn’t it? With a K.”
“I had a friend once who spelled it that way,” Madeline said. “I don’t suppose you remember the photographer’s last name.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.” The woman frowned in thought. “But I’m sure I received a receipt, and I’m sure I kept it. Let me see if I can find it.”
And, a few minutes later, Madeline was holding the receipt in her hand. Vick’s Photo Studio, with the street address and phone number. And, at the bottom, the signature: Vick Herrick.
It had all the appointments of a business office, she thought curiously as she stepped in from the hall. There was a small reception room first, with a desk, a girl at the desk, paperwork for her to do on the desk. Even an intercom.