Her eyes and mouth released the smile, growing serious. She studied my face. “I’ve always believed it, Steve. I know the bargain my folks forced on you. It was cruel, unfair. Somehow we’ll have to repay them every penny.”
I pulled a chair close and sat down before her, reaching for her hands. “Lucy told me you were up and around, but she made it seem as if—”
“Lucy has been here?”
“Last night.”
Bryanne laughed. “The dirty little plotter. I suppose she had a deal in mind. She told me she was driving down to the beach for a week. She probably guessed I was tracing you and managed to keep up with my progress so that she knew where you were about as quickly as I did.”
Her glance curved up to lock with mine, her eyes deepened. “Steve, before things can be as they should, you’ll have to forgive yourself.”
“I can do that.”
“You’ll have to forgive the folks as well,” she pleaded. “Try to understand them, Steve. From the beginning they’ve been fighting for something they thought belonged to them. They’ve been so sure that our wartime infatuation, as they called it, would blow over, but that before it did, it would cost a terrible price.”
“Do they still feel the same way?”
“Yes, but they are not so sure now. They forced us apart. They’re aware of my feelings. They also know that you seemed to be deliberately trying to destroy yourself. They’ll still fight, but their punches will lose their sting. Forgive them, Steve, and give them an opportunity to stop fighting without losing face.”
I thought of Lucy sitting in a room in the Bradley Hotel, claws unsheathed. I wasn’t sure Lucy would interpret forgiveness as such. To her it would be calling her bluff. There was a big chance she would never follow the bluff through. Doing so would involve the Quavely name, indirectly, through the husband of a Quavely, in murder. But she might feel that the Quavely name was already involved. Forgiveness certainly entailed complications.
“You always admired a fighter, Steve,” Bryanne said quietly. “They’re fighters. You’ve seen only their worst side. They do have a good side. I know you’ll never be close to them in your feelings, and I realize how much I am asking of: you. But don’t let them be an invisible barrier between you and me, Steve.”
“I’ll do the best I can,” I promised.
She almost cried. Her lips held a tremulous smile.
“There are several things you must be told,” I said.
As quietly as I could I gave her the whole story, including Lucy’s threat.
“Leave Lucy to me,” she said, when I’d finished. “I’ll register at the Lang Park Hotel and get in touch with her. Steve, I’ll be waiting. I can’t tell you how badly I feel because of this dreadful thing happening to Papa Joe. But don’t worry about Lucy, darling.”
I kissed her when the taxi came in answer to my phone call, and as I watched her go away I remembered what she had said. She would be waiting.
Chapter VII
Early in the afternoon, Vera came downstairs to take lunch up to Harold. While she was busy in the kitchen with Ellen, I went upstairs. Harold was standing at the front window looking at Hagan’s stake-out across the street.
Harold was pale and tired. From the droop of his lower lip I guessed him to be in a sullen, petulant mood.
He asked what arrangements I’d made about the funeral. After I told him, I veered our talk abruptly.
“I want to hear about McGinty.”
“What about him?”
“Everything.”
“It was personal,” he said curtly.
I wouldn’t allow him to anger me. “Not too personal for you to hope that I covered traces of what happened in the vacant cottage.”
He studied my face. “You’re not going to drag that out before Hagan?”
“I’ve got to do something. I’m Hagan’s boy so far. I’ve got a feeling that he’d have me in jail already if Wilfred hadn’t disappeared to cast a small measure of uncertainty in the police mind.”
Harold breathed deeply. “You can’t prove anything to Hagan about McGinty. You’d only be hurting yourself.”
“Not if McGinty and Papa Joe’s death are tied together.”
“They’re not.”
He didn’t intend to talk; that much was clear, reflected in the hard light in his eyes, the set of his mouth. He still believed McGinty was dead, that I had spirited his body away. He believed I was too much involved to drag the McGinty angle before Hagan.
“I wish I could convince you of the truth, Harold,” I said soberly. “And that truth is that McGinty will return.”
Fear flared in his eyes. “Will you stop being so irrational?” he cried. “Stop torturing me with impossibilities!”
I gave him a moment to calm down. “Then for such a large favor as you think I did for you,” I said, “you should be prepared to do a small one for me.”
“What is it?” he asked sullenly.
“Find Wilfred.”
“Hagan will find him. Wilfred killed Papa Joe. That’s obvious. When Wilfred is found Hagan will wring the truth out of him and this whole dirty thing will be over.” His words carried all the conviction his wishful thinking could summon.
“All the more reason for finding Wilfred,” I said.
“What makes you think I could find him?”
“Because I think Ellen knows where he is. You’re the one person who might get it out of her. He hasn’t run far, and he has let Ellen know where he is. This morning I found her fixing a plate of food, and it was not for herself. Not for me. She didn’t bring it up here, did she?”
“No.”
“Then who else but Wilfred? She wanted the food ready when she found the chance to slip it out to him.”
“It’s a slim premise.”
“I know, but it’s the only one I can think of. Will you talk to her?”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
I turned to leave the room. A small lump pressed against the sole of my shoe as I started to open the door. I moved my foot, reached down, and picked up a small leaden pellet that lay between the edge of the carpet and the wall. As I walked downstairs that pellet gave me ideas and the ideas brought excitement stirring inside me.
I was feeling equal to facing Hagan when he returned an hour later.
He took possession of the parlor and had Conroy summon us one by one. I walked into his presence at about three-thirty.
He was placid, even friendly, during the half-hour I spent with him. He did his best to turn the question session into a chatty period. I repeated the answers I had given him that morning. He made no mention of the arrival of a woman in a taxi. I hoped that meant he believed Bryanne to be one of the sympathetic callers who’d besieged the house during the morning.
Hagan made the pointed suggestion that none of us should entertain the thought of leaving town, no matter how urgent the business, until Papa Joe’s death was cleared up. When I left him I had the distinct feeling that he had struck a dead end. I was still his man, but the hole was still a trifle square for the peg. He was playing out rope, waiting for a break, for someone to hang himself.
In the afternoon paper, the murder hit the front page. The heading was heavy and black, but the story was barren of real details.
Vera and Harold came downstairs and we formed a restless trio in the parlor until Harold excused himself. I caught his glance. He was going to see Ellen.
I kept Vera occupied with small talk. She was not at all reluctant to tell me about herself. She came from a small town in Michigan, she told me. After finishing college, she’d gone to New York with an eye on the publishing business. Nothing unusual. A girl of her beauty might have led a more exciting life.