“She’s engaged to my nephew. What does that suggest to you?”
“That they’re going to get married.”
“They are not going to get married!” Emily cried. “She’s a vixen and I have no intention of allowing my money to be spent on the upkeep of vixens. I want the affair stopped, and you’re the man to stop it.”
“I rarely dabble in love affairs. The heart is too incalculable an organ.”
“Nonsense! You love dabbling in everything that doesn’t concern you. Now I’m fond of Ralph, at least as fond as one can be of someone living in the same house. But I know his weakness. He’s got to marry some big strapping girl who’ll keep him toeing the line.”
“And carry on your good work, I suppose?” Prye suggested.
Emily, surprisingly, did not take offense. “Precisely. Ralph has no head at all.”
“If you want the engagement broken why not do something about it yourself? Your staggering list of ailments doesn’t include laryngitis, I note.”
“Leave me out of this. What can you do?”
“Well,” Prye said pensively, “I suppose I could attempt to woo the young lady myself, but I’m afraid I’m off to a bad start. Our interview this morning was hardly amorous.”
“Your interview! What did she say to you?”
“A great deal,” Prye said easily. “None of it repeatable. But the general idea was that I’m of a low order, barely clinging, in fact, to the bottom rung of the social ladder.”
“Exactly what she would say. She hates everyone.”
“Including Tom Little?”
Emily regarded him grimly. “So you know. You must have had a busy time since your arrival.”
Prye smiled modestly. “Information thrusts itself upon me. Why not send your heir and nephew away for a time?”
“He won’t go.”
“I hope you’ve been too wise to threaten him with disinheritance. But I seem to recall that you threaten quite a number of people in that way whether they’re due to inherit or not.”
“Naturally I’ve told him he won’t get any of my money if he marries that creature. He said he didn’t want any of it, that he was going to join the Air Force.” Emily took out a pink lace handkerchief and dabbed at eyes that were completely tearless. “So you’ll just have to see that she gets put in jail, Prye.”
He started. “Good God. Is that all? Do you want to prefer charges against her?”
“No. I won’t have anything to do with it. I have my reasons. She’s been stealing consistently for years now. Her father manages to get her out of it.”
“She can’t be arrested unless she is charged specifically.”
Emily put down her handkerchief and snorted. “Do you mean to tell me that the law won’t protect me against thieves?”
“Not unless you cooperate. If Joan has taken anything from your house—”
“No, no,” Emily said quickly.
Prye rose from his chair and went over to the window. “Nice view you have here, Emily. Why don’t you give up scheming and enjoy it? Girls of eighteen are changeable creatures and even psychiatrists sometimes need a holiday.”
Emily thumped a fist on the arm of her wheelchair.
“Prye, I admire you. I rarely ask favors and I’m not asking one now. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to get rid of that girl permanently. Perhaps you’ll think of something even better than putting her in jail.”
“That shouldn’t be difficult,” Prye said dryly. “Why your sudden aversion to interfering yourself? I’ve always considered you an expert in that line.”
Emily twisted the huge diamond imbedded in her fat finger. “That’s none of your business, Prye.”
“Joan has something on you?” he asked casually.
“Nonsense. My life has been tediously virtuous.” She mused a moment, smiling. “Once I was very like Susan, you know. Always trying to do the right thing and getting in everyone’s hair.”
“I haven’t seen Susan for two years.”
“She’s getting rather horrible. Half worm and half mouse. She’ll be a silly old woman like me some day.”
Emily took a deep breath, and this time Prye knew what to expect.
“Alfonse! Alfonse!”
When Alfonse came into the room she was smiling, and her smile was the key that Prye was seeking. Eight years previously Miss Alfonse had had blonde curls, a slim figure, and a vacuously pretty face. Her name, too, had been changed in the interval. Except for her smile she bore no resemblance to the young girl in Chicago who had been in the dock on a charge of murdering a child under bizarre circumstances.
Prye followed her downstairs, and at the door he said, “You don’t remember me, Miss Alfonse?”
She was going to smile coyly at him but there was something forbidding in his voice, and the smile froze to her face.
“No,” she said uncertainly, “I don’t remember you.”
Chapter Three
“O popoi,” said professor Frost aloud.
Homer put “O popoi” into the mouths of heroes, and although classicists translated it delicately as “My good sir!” Professor Frost believed that it meant something a great deal stronger. Certainly it did when he said it, and whatever its meaning “O popoi” had an explosive, violent sound which was somehow satisfying.
He laid down his pen and glanced at his watch. It was 11:57. In three minutes Susan would appear, with July’s bills, apologetic but firm, and glowing with the light of good deeds done. Since the occasion came only once a month, Professor Frost conceded her the pleasure of pointing out her little economies. Not without misgiving, however. Since he was fifty-five and might reasonably expect to live to seventy, he considered the prospect of one hundred and ninety similar scenes, and sighed.
But at twelve o’clock, duty, incarnate in his daughter Susan, bombed his ivory tower with leaflets.
“Only thirty-nine dollars and twenty-one cents for groceries this month.”
She set the bill in front of him and he gazed at it profoundly and said, “Hm.”
“I’ve cut it four dollars this month.”
At the tone of her voice Professor Frost crossed himself piously and thought, “I sincerely hope, God, that you are not missing this.”
“Joan’s dress was twenty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents.” Righteous wrath with an overtone of pity.
“The meat bill is fourteen dollars and fifty cents. That’s too much.” Stern self-rebuke.
Professor Frost raised his handsome white head to study his paragon. Blessed Susan meek and mild, he composed, soul of fish and brain of child. He was pleased with this effort, and half-ashamed of his pleasure he atoned by saying:
“You manage very well, Susan. I’m always amazed at your head for business.”
In his own ears it sounded ironic but Susan blushed with happiness. When she blushed, her father decided, Susan was almost pretty in a wild-rose fashion. Her hair was brown, thick, and wavy. She had a good nose, straight and small. Thank heaven he’d been able to contribute something to her features, if only a nose! Her eyes were pretty if one discounted their expression, large and brown and long-lashed. She was too thin.
What Susan needed was two quarts of good red blood. Or a pretty dress. Or perhaps some male attention.
Joan’s emphatic footsteps on the stairs broke into his thoughts. She came in without knocking, still wearing her yellow bathing suit and obviously in a high rage.
“It’s customary to knock, I believe,” Professor Frost said mildly. “Susan and I are busy. Did you want anything in particular?”
“If I didn’t I wouldn’t come near you for the rest of my life.” She turned to Susan who at this unfilial address had been congealed bending over the milk bill. “Beat it. This is business.”