"Come in, Mr. Lane," she said. "Will you have a brandy?"
"Thanks, no,* 5 Jeff said, uncertain now just how to proceed and finally settling for the conventional way. He started to say he was sorry to break in like this at such a time, but she cut him off before he could finish.
"It's quite all right/' she said. "I stopped being hypocritical about most things some time ago. You must know from what was said this morning how I felt about your stepbrother. What happened this afternoon shocked me. I'm sure it would shock anyone. No one wanted to live more than Arnold, and I do feel sorry for him, but I can't pretend that I feel something that he killed a long time ago. I simply no longer have that capacity. There was something about him that was evil and in the end it destroyed him."
Remembering Luis Miranda's phrase about the evil man,
Jeff glanced at Dudley Fiske, who had been standing to one side and now shifted his weight.
"I think he wants to talk to you, Di," he said and reached down to pick up his glass. "Til run along to my rooms until you've finished."
"I'd rather you stayed/' Jeff said, moving slightly to block the man's progress.
Fiske stopped and it occurred to Jeff that this was not the same man he had seen that morning. This man had no easy smile, his gaze was steady and unfriendly as it measured Jeff. His voice was challenging rather than apologetic.
"Why?" he demanded,
"Because I wouldn't want you to duck out and call the police***
Fiske put his glass down and squared his shoulders. For a second or two they stood that way, glances locked, Jeff the taller and more vital-looking of the two, Fiske the heavier but more poorly conditioned. Then, as though to prove that the change Jeff had noticed was to be a permanent thing, he said, his voice quietly ominous:
"Do you think you can stop me?"
"I can try."
"Without a club?"
"Club?" Jeff peered at him.
"That's what was used on Arnold, so the police say. A club or a cane,"
"Oh, stop it!"
Diana Grayson put her glass down with a bang and her voice was clipped and impatient.
"Sit down, Dudley," she said. "Please." She waited until Fiske obeyed her and then she looked at Jeff, one dark brow arched, *1 don't blame you for being concerned," she said, "but I think you misjudge Dudley. He's not after vengeance, you know, and neither am I What happened, happened. It's over and done with and so far as I am con-
ONE MINUTE PAST EIGHT
cerned the only genuine feeling I have at the moment is one of relief."
Jeff believed her. The odds had finally caught up with Arnold Grayson and there was no one to mourn his passing; it was as simple as that. What this woman had said did not shock him because he knew his stepbrother too well. But her "frankness, though not entirely unexpected, made him reconsider his tactics, and when his glance again touched the brandy bottle, he changed his mind about the drink. He poured an ounce or so into the glass, swished it around as he took a chair near the end of the divan. He did not give it the connoisseur's routine but finished it in two small swallows.
"Miranda had a different way of putting it," he said.
"Miranda?'' Both brows arched this time and her surprise seemed genuine. "Luis? You have seen him?"
"Late this afternoon/' Jeff said. "I can't remember his exact words, but what he meant was that things were a lot simpler for him with Arnold out of the way. Tell me,** he said, "did you know he planned to £y to New York tomorrow night and take Muriel Miranda with him?"
"Who planned?"
"Your husband."
For a long moment then she sat immobile, her face still. She was sitting with her knees crossed and arms folded lightly across her bosom and while Jeff waited she let her hands come down. Her head turned slightly so she could see Fiske. What happened to her eyes in that instant Jeff could not guess but when she again gave him her attention her voice was composed.
"I don't believe it."
Jeff produced the tickets and tossed them on the divan. He watched her inspect first one and then the other before she pushed them away from her.
"You didn't know about this?" he persisted.
"Naturally not/'
"And if you had?"
"I'm sure I don't know/' she said sullenly. "I could hardly hold him here bodily ."
Fiske stirred in his chair. "What difference does it make, Lane?" he said with some belligerence. "You heard her say she didn't know. Isn't that good enough?"
Jeff ignored him, and continued to the woman: "Miranda says there was no will. He says you will inherit whatever Arnold had. Do you know how much that will be?"
"For one thing, this house," she said. "It's the only thing left in both our names." She paused, head tipping slightly as she considered her answer. I suppose there's some money in his bank account. Two cars, die furniture. I don't know anything about his business affairs."
"Fiske does," Jeff said, "He was the assistant." He regarded the man a silent moment. "When were you in the office last?"
"This morning, not that it's any of your business."
"Then you knew he was cleaning out the place."
"How do you know?" Fiske asked suspiciously. "Where did you get those tickets?"
Touche, Jeff thought, and reminded himself to be more careful with his questions.
He was not ready to admit he had seen Grayson that afternoon, but the fact remained that the office had been cleaned out and Fiske could not help knowing it. He might even have known about the two airplane tickets. That someone was lying seemed obvious, but because it also seemed pointless to pursue that line of reasoning, he ignored the question and said:
"That hundred and twenty thousand in cash would be part of the estate, wouldn't it? Assuming that it is recovered? I mean, there's no reason now why you'd have to turn it over to Carl Webb."
ONE MINUTE PAST EIGHT
Diana made an Impatient throaty sound. "I should say not/" she said. "That was Arnold's little project, not mine."
"You knew he had raised this cash. You knew he intended to pay off so he could go back to the States "
^Well, yes/' she admitted, grudgingly, it seemed.
TBut you had made no plans for returning."
Tm making plans now," she said, not bothering to deny the statement. Tm going to put this house on the market 111 sell the cars and the furniture. I'm going back just as soon as I can and Dudley"~she glanced at Fiske and a suggestion of a smile softened the lines of her mouth—"is going with me."
The same idea had already occurred to Jeff, and having seen these two together before, he could accept the announcement. Twice Diana Grayson had been married and both times happiness had escaped her. Through Grayson's neglect and indifference she had come to know Fiske and to find in him a certain loyalty and devotion she had never experienced before.
There was no way of telling how long this relationship had existed, but the understanding was there, and the change that had come over Fiske, now that this understanding was out in the open, seemed not only obvious but beneficial. With the way cleared for him he had miraculously acquired a confidence and purpose entirely lacking in his performance earlier that afternoon when Arnold Grayson was still alive. Through this woman's acceptance of him he had attained his majority as a man. Now he was ready to do what he had to do to protect his newfound gains.
How long Fiske's desire had lain dormant Jeff did not bother to guess, but he understood now that here was a motive for murder quite beside the hundred and twenty thousand in cash. The money could have been the factor that triggered their actions and brought them both to the
Hotel Tucan the night before. It was an amount which represented more than half of Grayson's estate and it occurred to Jeff that Diana seemed oddly complacent about its loss—if indeed there had been a loss.