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“Why didn’t you tell me he was back?”

“Were you interested?”

“Yeah, plenty.”

“Well, since you ask me, I didn’t know he was back — when I left you last night. He was there waiting for me when I got in. Today, I haven’t had one minute to talk to you, or anybody.”

“I thought he was due to spend a month up there.”

“So did I.”

“Then what’s he doing back?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. Trying to find out what’s going to happen to him, perhaps. Tomorrow, you may recall, you’ll check the cash, and he knows it. That may account for why he cut his recuperation short.”

“Are you sure he didn’t have a date with you, now he’s feeling better? To be waiting for you after you said goodnight to me?”

“I stayed with the children, if that’s what you mean.”

I don’t know if I believed any of that or not. I think I told you I was nuts about her, and all the money she’d cost me, and all the trouble she’d brought, only seemed to make it worse. The idea that she’d spent a night in the same house with him, and hadn’t said anything to me about it, left me with a prickly feeling all over. Since I’d been going around with her, it was the first time that part of it had come up. He’d been in the hospital, and from there he’d gone right up to the lake, so in a way up to then he hadn’t seemed real. But he seemed real now, all right, and I was still as sore as a bear when we got to my house, and went in. Sam lit the fire, and she sat down, but I didn’t. I kept marching around the room, and she smoked, and watched me.

“All right, this guy’s got to be told.”

“He will be.”

“He’s got to be told everything.”

“Dave, he’ll be told, he’ll be told everything, and a little more even than you know he’s going to be told — when I’m ready to tell him.”

“What’s the matter with now?”

“I’m not equal to it.”

“What’s that — a stall?”

“Will you sit down for a moment?”

“All right, I’m sitting.”

“Here — beside me.”

I moved over beside her, and she took my hand and looked me in the eyes. “Dave, have you forgotten something?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I think you have... I think you’ve forgotten that today we finished what we started to do. That, thanks to you, I don’t have to lie awake every night staring at the ceiling, wondering whether my father is going to be ruined, my children are going to be ruined — to say nothing of myself. That you’ve done something for me that was so dangerous to you I hate to think what would have happened if something had gone wrong. It would have wrecked your career, and it’s such a nice, promising career. But it wasn’t wrong, Dave. It was wonderfully right. It was decenter than any man I know of would have done, would even have thought of doing. And now it’s done. There’s not one card, one comma, one missing penny to show — and I can sleep, Dave. That’s all that matters to me today.”

“O.K. — then you’re leaving him.”

“Of course I am, but—”

“You’re leaving him tonight. You’re coming in here, with your two kids, and if that bothers you, then I’ll move out. We’re going over there now, and—”

“We’re doing nothing of the kind.”

“I’m telling you—”

“And I’m telling you! Do you think I’m going over there now, and starting a quarrel that’s going to last until three o’clock in the morning and maybe until dawn? That’s going to wander all over the earth, from how horribly he says I’ve treated him to who’s going to have the children — the way I feel now? I certainly shall not. When I’m ready, when I know exactly what I’m going to say, when I’ve got the children safely over to my father’s, when it’s all planned and I can do it in one terrible half hour — then I’ll do it. In the meantime, if he’s biting his fingernails, if he’s frightened to death over what’s going to happen to him — that’s perfectly all right with me. A little of that won’t hurt him. When it’s all done, then I go at once to Reno, if you still want me to, and then my life can go on... Don’t you know what I’m trying to tell you, Dave? What you’re worried about just couldn’t happen. Why — he hasn’t even looked at me that way in over a year. Dave, tonight I want to be happy. With you. That’s all.”

I felt ashamed of myself at that, and took her in my arms, and that catch came in my throat again when she sighed, like some child, and relaxed, and closed her eyes.

“Sheila?”

“Yes?”

“We’ll celebrate.”

“All right.”

So we celebrated. She phoned her maid, and said she’d be late, and we went to dinner at a downtown restaurant, and then we drove to a night club on Sunset Boulevard. We didn’t talk about Brent, or the shortage, or anything but ourselves, and what we were going to do with our lives together. We stayed till about one o’clock. I didn’t think of Brent again till we pulled up near her house, and then this same prickly feeling began to come over me. If she noticed anything she didn’t say so. She kissed me good-night, and I started home.

VII

I turned in the drive, put the car away, closed the garage, and walked around to go in the front way. When I started for the door I heard my name called. Somebody got up from a bench under the trees and walked over. It was Helm. “Sorry to be bothering you this hour of night, Mr. Bennett, but I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Well, come in.”

He seemed nervous as I took him inside. I offered him a drink, but he said he didn’t want anything. He sat down and lit a cigarette, and acted like he didn’t know how to begin. Then: “Have you seen Sheila?”

“...Why?”

“I saw you drive off with her.”

“Yes — I had some business with her. We had dinner together. I — just left her a little while ago.”

“Did you see Brent?”

“No. It was late. I didn’t go in.”

“She say anything about him?”

“I guess so. Now and then... What’s this about?”

“Did you see him leave the bank? Today?”

“He left before you did.”

“Did you see him leave the second time?”

“...He only came in once.”

He kept looking at me, smoking and looking at me. He was a young fellow, twenty-four or — five, I would say, and had only been with us a couple of years. Little by little he was losing his nervousness at talking with me.

“...He went in there twice.”

“He came in once. He rapped on the door, Adler let him in, he stood there talking a few minutes, then he went back to get some stuff out of his locker. Then he left. You were there. Except for the extra tellers, nobody had finished up yet. He must have left fifteen minutes before you did.”

“That’s right. Then I left. I finished up, put my cash box away, and left. I went over to the drugstore to get myself a malted milk, and was sitting there drinking it when he went in.”

“He couldn’t have. We were locked, and—”

“He used a key.”

“...When was this?”

“A little after four. Couple of minutes before you all come out with that spider and dumped it in the gutter.”

“So?”

“I didn’t see him come out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I haven’t seen you. I’ve been looking for you.”

“You saw me drive off with Sheila.”

“Yeah, but it hadn’t occurred to me, at the time. That cop, after he caught the spider, came in the drugstore to buy some film for his camera. I helped him put the spider in an ice-cream container, and punch holes in the top, and I wasn’t watching the bank all that time. Later, it just happened to run through my head that I’d seen all the rest of you leave the bank, but I hadn’t seen Brent. I kept telling myself to forget it, that I’d got a case of nerves from being around money too much, but then—”