“Straighten him out?”
“Well, at first he didn’t sell much insurance, but they don’t expect new men to. I remember my boss telling me that Roger had everything it takes to be a success in that line. Likable and quick with figures.”
“But it didn’t work out that way?”
“No. He made calls all the time, but he couldn’t seem to make real sales. Just little ones.”
“As far as you knew, he was working hard?”
“Oh, yes. It seemed that way. I kept waiting for the tide to turn. I was — proud of him, you know.”
Ellison put one foot up on a hassock, leaned on his knee. He smiled at her. “When I get carried away by my own curiosity, Mrs. Talbott, please let me know. He wasn’t doing well, you say. Did he brood about it? Did you quarrel about it? How did he act at home?”
“Losing jobs and being short of money just didn’t seem to make much of a dent on him. He seemed irresponsible, like a child. And whenever we were absolutely broke, he’d manage to borrow ten or twenty. I couldn’t seem to wake him up about money, to give him any ambition. He just didn’t seem to care. He kept saying that everything would turn out all right.”
“How about his disappearances?”
“When he came back and I tried to question him, he’d always get annoyed and irritated, and then turn ugly. He’d tell me it was none of my damn business. I’d tell him he was my husband, and it was my business.”
“How often did he go away?”
“Maybe three times the first year, and then six or seven times the second year. Quite often this last year. Each time I would think he was never coming back. He should have been fired oftener, but he could talk his way out of it for a long time.”
“I’m trying to get a picture of the guy. What he was like. His reaction to things. What did he believe in?”
“Himself, I guess. That everything would come out all right in the end. You couldn’t ever talk really seriously to him. He was always joking. Maybe, if it hadn’t been for his going away, I could have been happy with him, even living the way we did. But once there was lipstick on his shirt. And another time a handkerchief with perfume on it. I couldn’t take that. I couldn’t share him. I was going to leave him.”
“Do you have a picture of him?”
Marian went upstairs and came back down with a picture. Brock Ellison took it. Beth watched him stare at the familiar face, that broad, open-looking face with its blunt features, its merry eyes. A laughing picture that, even during the worst periods of their marriage, had still touched Beth’s heart.
“Nice-looking guy,” Brock said. “Mind if I keep it for a time? Good, I’ll just slip it out of the frame. How about high-school days? What was he like?”
“Popular with everybody. He worked at a soda fountain after school. They voted him most likely to succeed. His marks were good.”
“He never goofed off?”
“Oh, never! He was a worker. That’s why I could never get used to the way he couldn’t hold a job.”
“What was your reaction to Crees’s accusation?”
“Complete disbelief, Mr. Ellison.”
“You’ve had a chance to think it over. What’s your impression now?”
“I’m — a little frightened. Because, when I look back, it seems to fit. But if he was doing something illegal, why couldn’t he have brought home more money?”
“Maybe he would have had to explain where he’d got it, and maybe you would have left him when you found out.”
“I wanted him to go back to school on the GI Bill when we were married. I said I’d work while he finished. He just laughed. Laughed and rumpled my hair and called me a slave driver and told me he’d had all the education he wanted. He said he was sick of anything to do with the Army. He wouldn’t even use his rights when we bought the house. We had to make a bigger down payment and pay five-and-a-half-per-cent interest on the mortgage. He didn’t talk much about it, but he was sort of bitter about the Army. Bitter about six years he had lost.”
“He didn’t get out until 1948? Where was he stationed?”
“In Japan. With the occupation forces.”
“What was his rank?”
“Second lieutenant.”
Ellison walked over to the windows and stood looking out at the rain. “I can’t get the guy straight in my mind. Sounds like a decent citizen, in many respects.” He turned abruptly. “Mrs. Talbott, I heard what J. Kane Thompson had to say. I know that Crees is a good man. Frankly, Mrs. Talbott, I’ve been spending as much time here trying to figure you out, as trying to get a clear picture of your husband. I came here with a strong hunch that you might be making the mistake of trying to conceal the money. On the surface, it looks that way. Now my hunch is getting a little shaky.”
Beth said, with slow anger, “I’m getting terribly tired of—”
He smiled. “You can get as angry at me as you want to. But look at it as though you read it somewhere. A young husband leads a double life and makes over a quarter of a million dollars on the side, and his loyal wife knows absolutely nothing about it. Would you find that easy to believe?”
“No,” she said, after a pause. “I see what you mean. One way I’m very devious. The other way I’m just plain stupid.”
“Stupidity is usually in inverse ratio to someone else’s cleverness, Mrs. Talbott. So let’s assume Roger Talbott was an extremely clever young man.”
“And assume he made the money?”
“Yes. And if he had it, he kept it somewhere. You lived in an apartment?”
Marian said, “While she was in the hospital I packed up their things and put them in storage. I brought some personal things here for Beth. There wasn’t any money in the apartment, Mr. Ellison.”
“Did he have a safe-deposit box?”
“Not that I know of. We had no use for one.”
He sighed. “This looks like work. I’m naturally as energetic as a three-toed sloth. I’ll have to dig into the past of one Roger Talbott. Thanks for being patient. I’ll probably be back with questions.”
They said good-by, and Marian saw him out. Beth, at the window, watched him swing down the walk, belting his raincoat. He slid behind the wheel of a small gray coupe and drove off.
Marian came slowly back into the room. Her expression seemed remote, withdrawn, somehow discontented. It struck Beth that perhaps Brock Ellison’s visit had given Marian an awareness of her narrow horizons. When they were children it was always Marian who yearned for the far wild places and Beth who dreamed of closeness and warmth. It seemed as though fate had tricked them in some wry way, giving Marian a pronounced matronly look, giving her a security that was, perhaps, unwanted. And Beth, who had wanted security, was plunged into a world of investigators, gross sums of money, threats of prison.
“I like him,” Beth said.
Marian gave her a look that was slightly arch. “He does seem competent.”
“And he looks expensive,” Beth said.
“Please don’t start that again, Sis.”
“I can’t help thinking about it. Do you know what he’s costing?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t worry you with it, hon.”
Beth knew it was useless to insist. She knew Ellison was expensive. He had that look. And Marian’s attitude bothered her a little. Almost as though Marian had decided to play a part — that of the generous and loving sister — and was now finding the part a bit difficult to maintain in the face of these new complications. Once again the thought that Marian, in some secret compartment of her mind, was enjoying the disasters that had befallen her sister came to Beth, but she discarded it resolutely.