Fielding nodded. “How long will it be in escrow, Jack?”
“Not over four or five days. The title’s all searched. It’s just a question of getting the papers ready, and putting the money up. That syndicate said they’d have the papers down here sometime this afternoon. In the meantime, this little old agreement right here protects us. They obligate themselves to put, the dough in escrow as soon as we put in the papers.”
Fielding said, “Well, I’m on my way. You won’t want me here when you talk with Hazlit on the telephone?”
“Gosh, no, what is there to tell him? He’ll simply ask if we didn’t get a letter, and I’ll tell him no. He’ll perhaps try to run a bluff and say that he happens to know his client dictated and signed one, and intended to mail it. That’s their hard luck. Stearne intended to wait until the last minute just to keep us on the anxious seat — and got murdered before he had a chance to drop it in the mailbox. I suppose old Hazlit’s been breaking his neck, running around and getting a special administrator appointed, and now he thinks he’s going to run some sort of a bluff.”
Fielding put on his hat. “Be seeing you in about half or three-quarters of an hour, Jack.”
“Take care of yourself. Now listen, Ned, don’t start drinking.”
“Of course not.”
Elwell’s eyes grew suddenly hard. “Listen, Ned, I’m not kid-ding on that. There’s too much involved for you to fall off the water wagon and start making careless comments.”
“I never get to a point where I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“That’s what you think. Until we actually have the money on this thing, you don’t do any drinking whatever. You’re on the wagon. Afterwards, we’ll go out and get pie-eyed together — take a drive up to one of the resorts.”
Fielding hesitated, then said, “If you put it that way, Jack.”
“I’m putting it that way. That’s final.”
Fielding gave a little gesture of aquiescence, said, “Okay, big boy,” and walked out of the door of the private office into the corridor.
Elwell stepped to the door which led to the outer office, smiled benignly at Martha Gayman, and said, “Come in, Martha. No, you don’t need to bring your book. I just want to talk with you.”
She entered the office and stood looking at him.
Elwell said, “Sit down, Martha. I want to talk with you.”
He noticed as she walked that she really did have a good figure. She sat down in the chair which Elwell had indicated, a chair reserved for clients. She had pretty legs, Elwell saw. She didn’t cross them, simply sat there with her knees clamped tightly together, the hem of her skirt just at the edge of the kneecap.
“Rather an important business deal has been consummated this afternoon,” Elwell said. “It’s too complicated for me to try to explain it to you. You wouldn’t understand it if I did. It wouldn’t have been possible for the deal to have been made if a certain letter had been in the mail this morning — a letter from a man named Addison Stearne.”
She nodded, the mechanical nod of one who feels that something is expected of her and that a nod in the affirmative will come closest to satisfying the expectations of the other person.
Elwell frowned slightly. “Now, don’t take this as merely routine, Martha,” he said. “Try to follow me closely so you will understand me. Mr. Hazlit is the attorney for Addison Stearne. Addison Stearne is dead. He was murdered sometime Saturday afternoon. It is quite possible that Mr. Stearne intended to mail us a letter sometime on Saturday, but the point is he didn’t mail that letter. That is, there was no such letter in the mail this morning. You opened all the mail, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Mr. Elwell.”
“And if there had been a letter from Addison Stearne, you would have noticed it?”
“Yes, I think I would.”
“Not think,” Elwell said, frowning slightly. “You’re employed here to take care of the office. As part of your duties, you have to open the mail. You read the letters in order to see whether they’re important, how they should be filed, and whether they should go to Ned or to me. That’s right, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“And you would have noticed if there had been any letter from Mr. Addison Stearne this morning?”
Again she nodded.
“That’s all you need to remember,” Elwell said. “Don’t bother that pretty head of yours with anything else, my dear. Just remember those simple facts, and in case Mr. Hazlit or any other lawyer should talk with you, should try to browbeat you, or ask you a lot of questions, don’t let him rattle you. Just tell the simple truth.”
She said, “Yes, Mr. Elwell.”
“You think you can remember that?”
She nodded.
“And remember not to say that you don’t think there was any letter from Mr. Stearne. You remember positively that there was no letter from Mr. Stearne — and you can say that very positively, can’t you, my dear?”
She nodded again.
Elwell reached for the telephone. “That’s all, Martha,” he said. “When you go out, get me Mr. Hazlit on the line.”
She didn’t make any move, however, to rise from the chair; but continued to regard Elwell with that placid expression which he found so irritating, an expression of respectful attention.
“That’s all,” Elwell said again.
She said, “Mr. Elwell, there’s something I want to ask you about?”
He frowned. “I’m rather busy this afternoon, Martha.”
“It’s very important to me.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Do you remember about six weeks ago when Mr. Fielding was working on these Ventura leases? He had to take a mid-night train to Salt Lake City to see a man.”
“Well?”
“He had a lot of correspondence to get out, and he asked me if I’d mind coming up to the office with him that night. We worked until almost eleven o’clock.”
Elwell showed his annoyance. “My dear,” he said, “if you’re trying to ask us for a raise, come out and say so. We try to be fair with you, but business is pretty bad these days, and the government fixes it so that if you do make anything, you are robbed in income taxes. Then there’s the social security tax and...”
“Yes, I understand, Mr. Elwell. I wasn’t going to ask for a raise.”
“Well, what is it then?”
“That night Mr. Fielding was — most attentive. He... he... he made love to me.”
Elwell’s frown became a scowl. “Martha,” he said, “I’m not in the least interested in your private affairs. You’re certainly over... How old are you, Martha?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Well, my God, I can’t act as chaperon to...”
“And he’s been very cool to me lately,” Martha went on. “For a while, after he came back, he was very nice, very attentive, and very considerate, and then lately he seems to have cooled off.”
“Well, I can’t...”
“And I thought you could speak to him, Mr. Elwell, and perhaps do something to make him do... well, the right thing.”
Elwell dropped the telephone and stared at her as though he hadn’t ever seen her before. “The right thing,” he said, surveying the expressionless countenance.
She nodded her head. “Yes,” she said. “The right thing.”
“My God, girl, what do you mean?”
“I thought he was in love with me. I thought he wanted to marry me.”
“Did he say so?”
“Well, not in so many words, but...”