“Wait a minute. Wasn’t it Mallory?”
“That’s it, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Mallory. The wife’s name was Monica, I believe.”
She had waited for her husband in his outer office at the Detroit plant, Dalworth remembered, flipping through a magazine for the scheduled ten-minute interview which had stretched out to almost an hour. Dalworth had been introduced to Monica Mallory at the end of this session. He had liked that couple, admired their handsome buoyant manner, the husband’s intelligent, scientific imagination and his wife’s warm and understanding support.
Young Mallory’s plans, which involved a new concept of solar physics, had not been ready for laboratory research. Brilliant as they were, the plans still required experimentation and finalizing at the drafting board, Dalworth had decided, but he agreed to meet with the young scientist in six months for a progress report on his work...
He had proposed a grant or subsidy but to his surprise (and silent gratification), Daniel Mallory had refused it. The young couple was quite willing to continue on their own for the next half year of research. And Dalworth, although he suspected the Mallorys might be on financially thin ice (they had a young child, after all), had reluctantly allowed them their way in the matter. In fact, their independence and idealism had struck a surprisingly pleasant note with Dalworth, reminding him as it did of his own early enthusiasm, the fierce pride in performance which he had shared with his young bride, Anna. They, like the Mallorys, it was apparent, had only an academic compassion for handouts, advance payments, and the self-indulgence of credit cards, preferring in actuality to put their full energies into their work and then let the world judge its worth. And yet, and yet, Dalworth thought, drumming his fingers nervously, he wished he’d been allowed to make some payments to the Mallorys, if only for the child...
That was what was bothering him so deeply, marring his concentration, Dalworth realized, his memories of those vibrant people starting home so confidently on that fatal Flight 61 to this very town of Philadelphia and their little daughter. He recalled Monica Mallory saying something about the child — that she liked seashells, was it? — and that she was with a sitter and they would see her in the morning...
“About the DuPont meeting, sir, I suggest that we—”
“I’d like you to postpone that meeting, Stanley. Tell them that something came up and we’ll get back to them. Assure them we’re still interested.”
Holcomb nodded without expression and made a notation in his small leather engagement book. “I’ll take care of that, Mr. Dalworth.”
Dalworth resumed pacing, rubbing a forefinger over the jutting bone in his nose, remembering with a faint smile the name of the fighter who had done it to him — Mace Torrio — and the sudden humiliation, worse than the pain, of landing flat on his green satin trunks, of staring at Anna, rigid in her ringside seat, eyes wide and startled, hardly knowing whether to laugh or burst into tears. He needed Anna now, he had always needed her, and the five years since her death had been a desolate stretch of time which he had tried to conquer with the only therapy he trusted, a furiously escalated work program that had pushed his business interests into dozens of new markets halfway around the world.
“Stanley, I’d like you to find out where that Mallory child is right now. If it’s at all possible, I’d like to see and talk with her.”
“Yes, sir. When would you want me to set up that meeting?”
Dalworth watched a squirrel stowing a walnut in a small burl of a sycamore tree. “Let’s make it as soon as possible, Stanley. This afternoon, if you can.”
“I’ll get right on it, sir.”
Chapter Five
Judge Emory Williams’ clerk, Adam Greene, a portly, middle-aged black man with gray curls circling his bald head, picked up the ringing phone.
“Courtroom J-11. Judge Williams.” Court was in recess until the following morning, and the empty benches and faded brown-wood jury box gleamed softly in the thin afternoon light. “Yes, sir. But she’s in a meeting now in Judge Williams’ chambers. I can take a message and—”
Adam Greene heard a door opening and glanced past the judge’s bench to the chambers. Miss Scobey waved a goodbye to the judge and strode in her energetic fashion down the center aisle toward Adam Greene’s desk.
He smiled at her and held out the phone. “Call for you, Miss Elizabeth.”
“Thank you, Adam.” Placing her bulging briefcase on the desk, she took the phone and said, “Yes, this is Miss Scobey,”
After listening for a moment, she frowned and said, “Well, I don’t see any reason why not. But I’ll have to check with the foster home first. They usually have a schedule, you know. Nap time, play in the park, that sort of thing... Where can I reach you?”
Miss Scobey wrote down the telephone number of the Barclay Hotel on a notepad that Adam Green pushed toward her. Nodding her thanks, she said into the phone, “All right, I’ll call you back, Mr. Holcomb.”
Later that afternoon, closer to dusk than daylight, Mrs. Farr answered the ring of her doorbell. A tall man in a tweed topcoat stood on the porch. The faint light drifting down through the trees touched the reddish glints in his graying hair.
“Mrs. Farr? My name is Dalworth, Andrew Dalworth.”
“Yes, yes. Miss Scobey called.”
“It’s very good of you to let me come by on such short notice.”
At the curb in front of her home, Mrs. Farr saw a long black limousine with a uniformed chauffeur standing beside it. In the back of the car she saw the profile of another man, a younger man, with a mustache and rimless glasses.
“Come right in,” Mrs. Farr said, opening the door wider and wiping her hands on her apron. “Just make yourself comfortable and I’ll go get Jessica.”
Dalworth sat down on a straight-backed chair, unbuttoned his topcoat and placed his hat on his knee. The room was warm and comfortable with shining wooden floorboards bordering the edges of a rose-patterned carpet. White china pots of Boston ferns stood on the wide windowsills.
A light step sounded on the stairs. Dalworth turned and saw a small child looking around the bannister at him. For a second or so, neither of them spoke. Then the little girl came slowly into the room and said unexpectedly, “Do you have any dogs where you live?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Don’t you like dogs?”
“Oh, yes. I’m very fond of dogs. I do have some, in fact, Collies and Shepherds on a farm in Kentucky. My wife loved dogs but since she—” Dalworth cleared his throat, wondering why he felt so oddly nervous with this grave child. “By the way, my name is Dalworth. Andrew Dalworth,” he said.
“Do you have any horses?” Jessica asked him.
“Yes, there are a few hunters still on the horse farm and I’m developing some racing stock in California.”
“Your wife is dead, isn’t she?”
Dalworth nodded slowly, again struck with the confusing feeling that the conversation had somehow got out of his control. He was baffled with himself, uncomfortable with this strange helplessness, but he had enough humor to smile at the situation — a man at home with heads of state and captains of industry, shy in the presence of a four-year-old child.
Then he asked. “Do you have friends your own age to play with here?”
She came closer to him and said, “There’s a boy in the corner house. His name is Thomas and he has a pet frog.”
“Well, that’s nice. What does he feed his frog?”
Jessica shook her head. “I better not tell you, Mr. Dalworth. You might not like it.”