“It was perfectly plain,” she was saying animatedly. “It had a belt of the same material, and then a row of buttons down to about here.”
She was purposely addressing herself to Mother Hazzard, to the exclusion of the two men members of the family. Well, the topic in itself was excuse enough for that.
“For heaven’s sake, why didn’t you take it?”
“I couldn’t do that,” she said reluctantly. She stopped a moment, then added: “Not right — then and there.”
They must have thought the expression on her face was wistful disappointment. It wasn’t. It was self-disgust. How defenseless those who love you are against you, she thought bitterly.
Father Hazzard cut into the conversation. “Why didn’t you just charge it up and have it sent?”
She let her eyes drop. “I wouldn’t have wanted to do that.”
“Nonsense—” He stopped suddenly. Almost as though someone had trodden briefly on his foot under the table.
“I think I hear Hugh crying,” she said, and flung down her napkin and ran out to the stairs to listen.
But in the act of listening upwards, she couldn’t avoid overhearing Mother Hazzard’s guarded voice.
“Donald Hazzard, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Do you men have to be told everything? Haven’t you got a grain of tact in your heads?”
In the morning Father Hazzard lingered on at the breakfast table, instead of leaving early with Bill. He sat quietly reading his newspaper while she finished her coffee. There was just a touch of secretive self-satisfaction in his attitude, she thought.
He rose when she did. “Get your hat and coat, Pat. I want you to come with me in the car. This young lady and I have business downtown,” he announced to Mother Hazzard. The latter tried, not altogether successfully, to look blankly bewildered.
“But what about the baby’s feeding?” Patrice protested.
“You’ll be back in time for that. I’m just borrowing you.”
She got in the car next to him a moment later and they started off.
“Did poor Bill have to walk to the office this morning?” she asked.
“Poor Bill indeed!” he scoffed. “Do him good, the big lug. If I had those long legs of his, I’d walk every morning.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Now just never you mind. No questions. Just wait’ll we get there, and you’ll see.”
They stopped in front of the bank. He motioned her out and led her inside with him.
They went toward a door marked “Manager, Private.” A pleasant-faced, slightly stout male wearing horn-rimmed spectacles was waiting to greet them.
“Come in and meet my old friend Harve Wheelock,” Father Hazzard said to her.
They seated themselves in comfortable leather chairs in the private office, and the two men lit cigars.
“Harve, I’ve got a new customer for you. This is my boy Hugh’s wife.” He off-handedly palmed an oblong of light-blue paper onto the desk, left it there facedown.
“Sign here, honey,” the manager said to her, reversing his pen.
Forger, she thought scathingly. She handed the form back, her eyes downcast. The strip of light-blue was clipped to it and it was sent out. A midget black book came back in its stead.
“Here you are, honey.” The manager tendered it to her across his desk.
She opened it and looked at it, unnoticed, while the two men concluded their friendly chatting. At the top it said “Mrs. Hugh Hazzard.” And there was just one entry, under today’s date.
Five thousand dollars.
Chapter Eight
His arm was draped negligently atop the car door, elbow out. The door fell open. He made way for her by shifting leisurely over on the seat, without offering to rise. His indolent ignoring of manners was more insulting than any overt rudeness would have been.
“I’m sorry I had to call. I thought you’d forgotten about our talk. It’s been more than a week now.”
“Forgotten?” she said. “I wish it were that easy.”
“I see you’ve become a depositor of the Standard Trust since our last meeting.”
She shot him an involuntary look of shock, without answering.
“Five thousand dollars.”
She drew a quick breath.
“If you get around enough in the right circles you find out interesting things.” He smiled. “Well?”
“I haven’t any money with me. I haven’t used the account yet. I’ll have to cash a check in the morning and—”
“They give a checkbook with each account, don’t they? And you have that with you, most likely—”
She gave him a look of unfeigned surprise.
“I have a fountain pen right here in my pocket. I’ll turn on the dashboard lights a minute. Let’s get it over and done with. The quickest way’s the best. I’ll tell you what to write. To Stephen Georgesson. Not to Cash or Bearer. Five hundred.”
“Five hundred?” she repeated.
“That’s academic,” he replied.
She didn’t understand what he meant, and was incautious to let him go on past that point without stopping him.
“That’s all. And then your signature. The date, if you want.”
She stopped short. “I can’t do this.”
“I’m sorry, you’ll have to. I don’t want it any other way. I won’t accept cash.”
“But this passes through the bank with both our names on it, mine as payer, yours as payee.”
“There’s such a flood of checks passing through the bank every month, it’s not even likely to be noticed. It could be a debt of Hugh’s, you know, that you’re settling up for him.”
“Why are you so anxious to have a check?” she asked irresolutely.
A crooked smile looped one corner of his mouth. “Why should you object, if I don’t? It’s to your advantage, isn’t it? I’m playing right into your hands. It comes back into your possession after it clears the bank. After that you’re holding tangible evidence of this — of blackmail — against me if you should ever care to prosecute, which is something you haven’t got so far. Remember, up to this point, it’s just your word against mine. I can deny this whole thing happened. Once this check goes through, you have proof.”
He said, a little more tartly than he’d yet spoken to her, “Shall we get through? You’re anxious to get back. And I’m anxious to pull out of here.”
She handed him the completed check and pen.
He was smiling again now. He waited until she’d stepped out and he’d turned on the ignition. He said above the low throb of the motor, “Your thinking isn’t very clear, nor very quick, is it? This check is evidence against me, that you’re holding, if it clears the bank and returns to you. But if it doesn’t — if it’s kept out, and never comes up for payment at all — then it’s evidence against you, that I’m holding.”
The car glided off and left her standing behind looking after it with shattered consternation.
It seemed months, years of agony before their next meeting. Actually it was only three weeks.
She all but ran toward the car along the night-shaded street, as if fearful it might suddenly glide into motion and escape her. She clung to the top of the door with both hands when she’d reached it, as if for support.
“I can’t stand this! What are you trying to do to me?”
He was smugly facetious. His brows went up. “Do? I haven’t done anything to you. I haven’t seen you in the last three weeks.”
“The check wasn’t debited.”
“Oh, you’ve had your bank statement. That’s right, yesterday was the first of the month I imagine you’ve had a bad twenty-four hours. I must have overlooked it—”