“Well...”
“Tell you something,” Claggett said. “Maybe I’m a little cynical, but I’ve never known anyone to pull a cover-up yet unless there was something to cover up.”
“That’s probably true. But this could hardly be called a cover-up, could it?”
“It’s close enough. And the one thing I’ve found that’s usually covered up with doctors is mental illness. It’s my guess,” said Claggett thoughtfully, “that Miss Aloe has had a nervous breakdown or something of the kind. The second one in less than a month. Either that or she’s pretending to. So that leaves us with a couple of questions.”
“Yes?” I said. “I mean, it does?”
“To take the last one first. If she’s pretending, why is she? And, secondly, if she’s actually had a nervous collapse, what brought it on?”
“I just hope she’s all right,” I said. “In any case, I don’t see what her being in the hospital has to do with me.”
“Well, it could be just a coincidence, but the last time she was hospitalized, you had a pretty bad accident.”
“It was a coincidence,” I said, and wondered why I suddenly felt so uncomfortable and uneasy. “I’m positive that she’s leveling with me, Jeff. I knew it when she wasn’t, and I know it now that she is.”
Claggett shrugged and said that was good. He, himself, would never trust his own judgment where someone he loved was concerned. Because you could love someone who was completely no good and untrustworthy.
“But we’ll see,” he said, and stood up. “I have no basis for believing that she’s not on the level with you, but we shouldn’t be long in finding out.”
I walked to the door with him, wondering whether I should tell him about Manny’s impending marriage. But I had promised not to, and I could think of no reason why I should.
We shook hands, and he promised to keep in touch. Then, just as he was leaving, he abruptly pulled me back from the door and moved back into the shadows himself.
I started to ask what was the matter, but he gestured me to silence. So we stood there tensely in silence, waiting. And then there was the sound of footsteps mounting to the porch and crossing to the door.
My view was obscured by Jeff Claggett and the heavy shadows of the porch. But I could see a little, see that a man was standing with his face pressed against the screen to peer inside.
Apparently he also was having a problem in seeing, for he reached down to the door handle, pulled it open, and stepped uncertainly across the threshold.
Claggett grabbed him in a bone-crushing bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides. The man let out a startled gasp.
“W-what’s going on here?”
“You tell me, you son of a bitch!” rasped Claggett. “Let’s see how fast you can talk.”
“It’s all right, Jeff,” I said. “He’s my father-in-law.”
27
Connie’s letters to me had gone unanswered. When she telephoned, Mrs. Olmstead told her I had moved and that she had no idea where I was. And for the last ten days or so, the phone had simply gone unanswered. Luther Bannerman had determined to find out just what was what (to borrow his expression). And he’d driven all the way here from the Midwest to do it.
He was in the dining room now with Kay, stuffing himself with the impromptu meal she had prepared for him at my request, rambling and rumbling on endlessly about my general worthlessness.
“...me an’ daughter just couldn’t support him any longer, so he comes back down here. An’ he sent her a little money, but it was like pulling teeth to get it out of him. And this last month, more than a month, I guess, he didn’t send nothing! No, sir, not one red cent! So I just up and decided— Pass me that coffeepot, wall you, Miss. Yes, and I believe I’ll have some more of them beans an’ potato salad, and a few of them...”
In the kitchen, Jeff Claggett unwrapped the strip of black tape from around the telephone cord and held the two ends apart.
“A real sweet old lady,” he laughed sourly. “Well, that takes care of any calls since she left today, if you had any since then. But I’m damned if I understand how she could head off the others.”
I said it was easy, as easy as it was for her to see that I got no mail that would reveal what she was up to. “She kept the phone out in the kitchen when she was in the house, and when she was away she hid it where it couldn’t be heard.”
“And you never caught on?” Claggett frowned. “She pulls this for almost a month, and you never tipped?”
“Why should I?” I said. “If someone like you called, of course, she’d see that you got through to me. Anyone else would be inclined to take her at her word. She had a little luck, I’ll admit. But it wasn’t all that hard to pull off with someone who gets and makes as few calls as I do.”
“Yeah, well, let’s get on with the rest of it,” Claggett sighed. “I hate to ask, but...?”
“The answer is yes to both questions,” I said. “Mrs. Olmstead mailed the checks I sent to my wife — or rather, she didn’t mail them. And she made my bank deposits for me — or didn’t make them.”
Claggett asked me if I hadn’t gotten deposit slips, and I said no, but the amounts were noted in my bankbook. Claggett said he’d just bet they were, and he’d bet I hadn’t written “For deposit only” on the back of the checks. I said I hadn’t and couldn’t.
“I needed some cash for household expenses,” I explained, “and I’d run out of personal checks. I had some on order, but they never arrived.”
“I wonder why.” Claggett laughed shortly. “Well, I guess there’s no way of knowing how much she’s taken you for offhand or how much, if any, we can recover — when and if we catch up with her. But Mr. Blabbermouth, or Bannerman, shapes up to me like a guy who means to get money out of you right now.”
“I’m sure of it,” I said. “I should have at least a few hundred left in the bank, but it wouldn’t be enough to get him off my back.”
“No,” he said. “With a guy like him there’s never enough. Well—” he drew a glass of water from the sink, drank it down thoughtfully, “want me to handle him for you?”
“Well...” I hesitated. “How are you going to do it?”
“Yes or no, Britt.”
I said yes. He said all right, then. He would do it, and there was to be no interference from me.
We went into the dining room and sat down across from Bannerman. He had stuffed his mouth so full that a slimy trickle streaked down from the corner of it. Claggett told him disgustedly to use his napkin, for God’s sake. My father-in-law did so, but with a pious word of rebuke.
“Good men got good appetites, Mister Detective. Surest sign there is of a clean conscience. Like I was telling the young lady—”
“We heard what you told her,” Claggett said coldly. “The kind of crap I’d expect from a pea-brain loudmouth. No, stick around, Nolton.” He nodded to Kay, who resumed her chair. “I’d like to know what you think of this character.”
“He already knows,” Kay said. “I told him when he tried to give me a feel.”
Bannerman spluttered red-faced that he’d done nothing of the kind. He’d just been tryin’ to show his appreciation for all the trouble she’d gone to for him. But Kay had taken her cue from Claggett — that here was a guy who should have his ears pinned back. And she was more than ready to do the job.
“Are you calling me a liar, buster?” She gave him a pugnacious glare. “Well, are you?”
He said, “N-no, ma’am, ’course not. I was just—”
“Aaah, shut up!” she said.
And Claggett said, “Yes, shut up, Bannerman. You’ve been talking ever since you stepped through the door today, and now it’s time you did some listening. You want to, or do you want trouble?”