“You didn’t feel that you should go to Philip and tell him frankly—”
“Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. Lam, I did. That was why I’d gone to the office. I wanted to make a clean breast to Philip and explain things to him. I wanted to try and break it to him so it wouldn’t hurt him quite so much. But his father told me he understood Philip better than I did, and that the thing for me to do was to disappear under such circumstances that it would appear something very unusual had happened to me. I really think he was thinking as much of himself as of Philip. You see, the announcements of the engagement had all been made and the wedding date was set; and if— Well, you know how it is. You simply have to make some explanation under those circumstances. The Whitewell family was in a peculiar position.”
“In other words, Whitewell didn’t want to go to his friends at the club, and have one of them say, ‘Did your son get married today?’ and have to say, ‘No. After all, we found the woman had another husband living, so we called it off.’ ”
She winced.
I said, “I’m being brutal because I want you to see it from my angle.”
“What is your angle?”
“I don’t know just yet, but I think I know.”
“What?”
“Don’t you see? Philip would have forgiven you. He’d have insisted that it wasn’t your fault, that you go ahead and get a divorce and his marriage with you would merely be postponed.”
“I don’t think Philip could ever have forgiven me for not having told him about my first marriage.”
“I think so.”
“Well, I don’t, and I know him better than you.”
“His father knows him pretty well,” I said, “and his father thought so.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because his father used the opportunity to get you out of the picture, and to have you do something for which Philip never would forgive you. Don’t you see? If you ever came back to Philip and tried to explain to him you’d be sunk. Philip could never forget the suffering he’d experienced when you disappeared under such circumstances that he didn’t know and couldn’t know what had happened to you. He’s been tortured by thoughts that perhaps you’d been abducted and were in some danger. That — I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to start you crying again, but I just want you to understand.”
“But Mr. Whitewell promised he’d tell Philip if it turned out that Philip became too worried about—”
“That,” I said, “is all I wanted to know.”
“What?”
I said, “That means Whitewell took you for a ride.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Don’t you understand? If he’d ever explained it to Philip, he’d necessarily have to tell Philip how he knew, and in order to do that, he’d have to admit to Philip thathe’d been a party to the deception, that he’d talked with you, that he was the one who had kept you from waiting to see Philip and telling him the whole story. Philip would probably have forgiven you — and something could have been worked out. Arthur Whitewell could have had some so-called important New York business deal take Philip back east. The wedding could have been postponed until he returned, and Whitewell could have explained to his friends that it was just a postponement. And during that time, you could have secured your divorce from Jannix. Philip will never forgive his father for handling the situation in this way. And if he knows the real facts now he’ll never forgive you.”
She said, “I can’t understand. Why, I thought you were working for Mr. Whitewell.”
“He employed me.”
“Well?”
“But,” I said, “he employed me to find you, to discover why you’d left, and what had happened to you. That was all I had to do, and I’ve done it.”
She sat looking at me as though she were just recovering from a terrific punch on the jaw.
“But what are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to do anything. You’re the one that’s going to do it.”
“Do what?”
I said, “You’re going to trump the old man’s ace.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“You disappeared,” I said, “under such circumstances that you might have had a sudden attack of amnesia.”
“Yes. That was the way he wanted it to appear.”
“He, of course, suggested you write Helen Framley, so Sidney wouldn’t write Philip?”
“Yes.”
“And gave you a sheet of paper and furnished you with a stamped envelope?”
“Yes.”
“And while you may have thought you were collaborating, the essential scheme of this disappearance of yours was thought up by him?”
“Well — yes, I guess so. He told me I had to save the family’s honor, and that it would be better and more beautiful to have Philip keep on loving me and always cherish the memory of our love, than to be brutally disillusioned and perhaps hate me.”
“All right. You did just what you seemed to do.”
“What?”
“Suffered a loss of memory.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Go right through with it. You suffered a complete loss of memory. You were in the office. You reached for a pencil and — bingo. Your mind went blank. You found yourself out on the street without any idea of who you were or what your name was or how you happened to be there.”
“What good would that do? How would that help?”
“Don’t you see? You’re picked up, suffering from amnesia. You’re taken to a hospital, and the Bertha Cool Detective Agency finds you. You can’t remember who you are. Your mind is a blank, but the good old Cool Detective Agency has tracked you down, and Philip comes to identify you. The minute you look on Philip’s face, the shock of seeing the man you love brings back your reason and—”
“Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop it! I can’t stand it.”
“Why not?”
“You’re tearing my heart to ribbons!”
“You’re goofy,” I told her. “I’m talking sense. Cut out the damn sentimentalism and get down to bedrock.”
“Oh, it’s absolutely impossible! It’s out of the question. I couldn’t deceive Philip that way.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would be — it would be unfair.”
“No, it wouldn’t. You’ve already done the unfair part. This would be just straightening it out. You should see the way Philip looks, the lines of suffering about his mouth, the shadows under his eyes, the hollow cheeks, the—”
“Will you please stop?”
“Not until you promise me to do what I’ve outlined.”
“But I can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, there’s Sidney Jannix. Philip and I couldn’t be married because—”
“Because what?”
“Because I’m a married woman.”
I said, “No, you’re not. You’re a widow.”
“I’m — what?”
“A widow.”
“Then it wasn’t true, that letter from the Framley girl? Sidney isn’t living? He—”
“He was at the time the letter was written. He isn’t now.”
She studied me for a few seconds. “Look here,” she said, “if this is some kind of a racket—”
“It isn’t. I’ve come prepared to prove what I’m saying.”
I took from my pocket the piece I’d cut from the Las Vegas newspaper and handed it to her. “Helen Framley’s boy friend,” I said, “was Sidney Jannix. You’re not married to anyone. You’re a widow.”