by Emma Lathen
“Lawyer?” asked John, fascinated.
Lucy lowered her voice. “Apparently, John, Wall Street lawyers are notorious for being tempted to convert. Usually at lunchtime. Father Martin said that all the churches get them.”
While John was digesting this, Lucy continued. “But he said that he was soon convinced that Baxter had a soul in need of help. He said,” She quoted with a telling look at Miss Corsa, “He said he grew convinced that a monk’s habit was more suitable garb for Alec Baxter than a business suit.”
This time there was no doubt. Miss Corsa, probably the spiritual leader of her parish, may have shared the mansion with Father Martin but they were in another room altogether.
Lucy ha leaned back, waiting for agreeable sensation of dispelling ignorance.
John tried to oblige, “Yes, the police have confirmed Baxter’s at the monastery.” Since this was an anticlimax, he cast back in his memory, “Baxter was originally an Episcopalian wasn’t he?”
“Yes. His father was an Episcopalian minister,” added Lucy.
John persevered. “I don’t suppose Baxter mentioned Patterson?” he asked hastily, simply to give pleasure.
“Not once,” said Lucy promptly. “I asked of course. He said he has never even heard of Patterson. He said he’s too busy to read the papers.”
“All those lawyers,” murmured Thatcher.
But George was not deflected. “Fine, fine.” he said absently. “Now I have an idea, Miss Corsa. Will you call Tolliver’s department? Ask him to circularize our correspondent banks about any $50,000 bearer bonds that have been cashed or pledged as collateral in the past week.” Turning to John he said, “It occurs to me that possibly alteration may be involved…”
“George!”
George, John saw with admiration, did not try to counterfeit incomprehension. Reasonably, he pointed out that since Baxter was now a Brother in Silence and had left the world, including Patterson and missing bonds behind him, he had ceased to be of interest. And so too had Father Martin. He remembered to thank Miss Corsa for her efforts and said he only regretted that they had come to nothing.
Lucy spoke for both women. Looking bitterly at her husband, she said, “It’s moments like this I have to remind myself that, under expensive tailoring, George you too have a soul worth saving.”
“Now Lucy,” said her much-tried husband, “Stop that!”
If disappointment following upon disappointment was the lot of one Dartmouth alum, two others were experiencing more positive rebuffs. John Hughes sat on his living room sofa glaring at Dunlop and Marsden. In the wing chair, Mrs. Hughes was upright, ready to fly to the defense of her young, summon the police, or scream, as necessary.
I don’t know why you’ve come,” she said indignantly. “John is certainly not going to attend Dartmouth. No power on earth …”
A trying week had eroded Marsden’s smoothness. “We understand that,” he said with a snap. “As I told Mr. Hughes …”
Mrs. Hughes turned tearful eyes on her son. “I don’t know why your father isn’t here.”
Ignoring her, young Hughes confronted his inquisitors with a mixture of hostility and defensiveness. “Look, I’ve told the police everything. Sure, I was with Sprague all afternoon. But after he cut out, I don’t know what he was up to.”
Before Marsden could retort, Dunlop said hastily, “We are not asking about Sprague, John. We want to talk about that last day at the Club. About Patterson…”
“Argh.” It was an exaggerated show of patience worn thin. “Listen, I’m fed to the gills with this nonsense. What was in the folders. What color were they. What kind of labels did they have. Who cares?”
Mrs. Hughes was reactivated. “John, I will not tolerate bad language.”
Dunlop looked at Marsden. Drawn and pale though he was, his eyes glittered with purpose. But Dunlop was by no means sure what that purpose was. Nor was he sure when they left the Hughes house. But he was a good deal more tired. Moreover, he had serious troubles of his own. “Look Neil,” he said abruptly as they left the Long Island Railroad and emerged on 34th Street, “I don’t know what good this tracking down the kids is doing. What’s the point of hammering them about what Patterson had on the table? If we don’t remember, what do you expect to get out of them?
Marsden muttered something under his breath and without apology grabbed Dunlop’s arm and steered him into a bar they were passing. “Look,” he said tautly after they had ordered. “Don’t you realize that we’ve got to get to the bottom of this thing, fast? There’s already been one murder because someone saw something. We’ve got to find out if anyone else saw anything.”
Dunlop inspected him. Then with care he said, “I’m keeping my nose clean.”
Marsden looked up so quickly that he spilled his drink. “What precisely does that mean?” he asked with a venomous edge.
Dunlop looked at him steadily. “Exactly what I said. I’m signing off. No more errands for Ralph. No more interviews with you. The best thing for me to do is get as far from Patterson, Sprague, and the whole mess as I can.”
For a moment they were silent. Then, with curious emptiness, Marsden said, “I’m sorry Jim. But you can’t. You’re in this up to your neck, just like the rest of us. And we’ve got to clear it up before it gets worse. Much worse. No you can’t quit now. I’ll line up that Fursano kid. When I track him down I’m going to talk to him. And Jim you be there. For your own sake.”
He was staring into his second drink. Was Marsden pleading or threatening, or some of both? Without another word, Dunlop tossed a bill on the table and left. He was reluctant to remain longer with Marsden. But he was also reluctant to return home. He could remember when going home was the high point of his day. Now he dragged, stopping for unnecessary cigarettes and almost stopping for another drink.
Marsden had been right about one thing, Dunlop thought. He was in it up to his neck.
Lou was in the kitchen. She did not emerge when she heard him. “I’m home,” he called out unnecessarily. Only domestic sounds replied. Dunlop tossed down the carton of cigarettes and proceeded into the tiny living room. He was staring at the bar, a bottle of gin and scotch, when Lou appeared. “I was thinking about having a drink,” he said.
She looked at him as if he were a stranger. She said, “Ralph called.”
Elaborately he kept his attention on the bottles. “I guess I will. Have one with me Lou. Will do us both good.”
Lou said, “Ralph said that a friend of his in a Boston Bank called and thinks Patterson’s bond was cashed in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Just before Homecoming Weekend.”
Without reply, Dunlop poured two healthy drinks.
“Jim?”
“Drink up honey.” he said with a suddenly unconvincing grin.
She ignored this. “Ralph wants you to go up to Portsmouth to check this out.”
“Me? All by myself? Without tagging along behind Ralph or Marsden?” Dunlop said mockingly. “Great. My first promotion.”
“He can’t make it himself,” she said, averting his eyes.
With a show of indifference, Jim toasted her. “Drink up. Well I’m not going. I’m through running around. To heck with them all. If Patterson’s bond got cashed in Portsmouth, somebody else can go up and do the dirty work. Not Jim Dunlop. I’ve had it.”
She turned quickly, but not quickly enough to conceal tears.
Alone in his tiny once warm living room, he looked at her drink. First he was growing up. Now he was floating back in time to the little boy alone and afraid of the dark, afraid. Out there somewhere terrible things were happening. Suddenly he put down his drink.
Out there, somewhere, a noose was tightening.
Chapter 22
Visiting Lecturers
By now the Committee had ceased to exist for all practical purposes. The disappearance of Patterson with Mrs. Curtis’s $50,000 bond had left the Committee struggling to maintain a semblance of normality. But the Sprague murder, the obvious
highest interest of the police, and the endless destructive publicity featuring one actionable heading, What do these three know?, had exploded all such pretension.
The president’s office glibly rattled off specifics of the chaos obtaining at Dartmouth admissions in three separate calls. “So we’ve decided,” said the voice nervously, “that our New York interviews will be handled by one of our deans. Of course we are grateful,” they went on.
Marsden and Dunlop were apathetic. Only Ralph retorted that this looked like a lack of faith.
“No, no, Ralph,” a voice protested from Dartmouth. “Be reasonable Ralph. Things are such a mess.” There was no disputing that. But even without a formal reason for being, the Committee found itself still united, this time by growing tension, by anxiety, and even outright fear.
“We’ve got to find Patterson.” At one time or another each of them had muttered this to himself. And each in his own way and for his own reasons tried to do just that. If each man wanted to act independently, he wanted to also know what the others were doing. It was an alliance born of necessity.
Ralph, with stolid realism, appointed himself the information clearing house, passing on developments, and trying to impose order. He listened to Marsden’s plans to interview the remaining boys, for example. If his only answer was a noncommittal shrug, he at least went on to block attempted interference by Kitchener.
“But Ralph, this is upsetting the applicants. Mrs. Hughes called me to complain,” lamented Kitchener.
“They are none of them applicants anymore,” Ralph reminded him. Leave Marsden alone. If he comes up with anything, he’s promised to let me know, first thing.”
Ralph had his troubles with Dunlop. But he ultimately dragooned him into a Saturday trip to Portsmouth in order to check out the $50,000 bond that emerged there.
“After all,” he had said. “I’m the one who’s been doing the running around until now. I got on to Baxter’s place. I prodded the banks on the bonds.”
“Yes, Ralph. I admit you have done most of the work.”
Ralph said, “I can’t get away myself tomorrow. But I’ve got things set up so that someone in the collateral loan division will be available.”
“All right, all right, Dunlop said wearily, like a man worn down by persistent cajolery. He was ashamed to admit, even to himself, that he was going to Portsmouth because the alternative was a Saturday lone with his wife.
For himself, Ralph had reserved the problem of Sally. He had traveled the length of the subway system to an obscure Brooklyn shop called “Consett’s Coins & Stamps” in order to interview her brother-in-law. He had been soundly snubbed by her broker; he had contacted every conceivable source of information about her movements and intentions.
Therefore two things happened at approximately the same time on Monday morning. Dunlop, freshly returned from New Hampshire since Sunday alone with Lou had seemed no more attractive than Saturday, reported that the Portsmouth bond was the wrong bond.
And Gabe, primed by progress reports from Ralph, was not the least bit surprised to discover that his first visitor of the morning was going to be Sally. Carefully tuning down his ebullience in deference to the circumstances, he went forward to meet her, his expression grave, his voice lowered, and his arm slightly outthrust to usher her to a chair.
“My dear, I’m so glad you’ve come to see us. Marian has told me how brave you’ve been. This mode of address was far more congenial to Sally than his usual cavortings.
“Marian has been very kind.”
Perhaps it would have been better if she had not sounded quite so much like a kindergarten teacher awarding a gold star. Still, it promised to be the first exchange between Gabe and Sally where they were both operating on approximately the same wave-length. Gabe settled behind his desk with the feeling that this might not be as bad as he had expected. “You must tell us if there is anything we can do to help. I know it is hard, my dear, but you must begin to think in terms of long range plans. For the sake of the children.”
Gabe was proud of his last line. He had discovered, like many before him, that it made palatable a practical turn to a conversation which would otherwise have been barbarously premature.
Sally nodded approvingly and said, “I’m pleased that you agree with me. I felt that as long as Elliot’s disappearance was unexplained, the right thing to do was to keep his home going. But now that’s pointless.
Gabe frowned. In his view the disappearance was still unexplained. Did she know something? He doubted it. He had listened to Ralph’s theory of the Patterson conspiracy and had branded it nonsense. It was more likely that Sally, now that her husband’s disappearance was avowedly premeditated and with malice of forethought, required no further explanation.
But Gabe was surprised by her behavior. He would have expected her to treat Elliot’s defection in much the same light that knowing mothers treat little boys running away from home. Elliot would show up, ashamed, tired, and possibly in need of a Band-Aid, but more appreciative than ever of the security and comforts of a good home. Well, maybe Sally was more realistic than he had anticipated. But Gabe didn’t like the way the house in Rye was becoming his home.
“Naturally I can’t make any plans until I know what my resources are,” Sally continued. “I have been going through Elliot’s desk at home. In a general way I was already familiar with its contents.”
“How wise of you.” Now that the conversation was openly monetary, Gabe allowed himself a small measure of humor. “Nothing like having a good firm groundwork for your plans.”
Sally accepted his tribute unmoved. “And I have come across this item about Elliot’s pension plans.”
“I’m glad you brought that up Sally,” Gabe said heartily. It was his stock phrase when he saw troubled waters ahead. If Game had been afloat in a small craft and the weather forecast predicted a typhoon, the words would have come automatically. “Now, with some of our Target wives, I might have to explain about our pension plan but you have always taken such an intelligent interest in Elliot’s affairs that I’m sure you know the plan is under the control of the pension trustees.”
Sally might not be at the Warren Buffett level but she was far from being a fool. Her lips tightened. “The money in that plan was put in by Elliot,” she ground out.
“Not entirely.”
“Elliot’s right to it has vested.”
Gabe expelled a soft sigh. That one word told him more than Sally realized. He now knew that she had consulted a lawyer, a lawyer who had told her exactly what Target’s lawyer had told him. Sally had no right to Elliot’s share in the plan. Characteristically, she had jettisoned the lawyer and was preparing to bulldoze ahead on her own.
“Exactly.” Gabe beamed. “I can’t tell you how much easier it is when I talk with someone who understands these intricacies. Let me just review the situation briefly.
By now Sally was definitely mulish. “Go ahead.”
“Elliot joined our plan when he first came to Target and made a contribution monthly towards his retirement. That contribution was matched by Target. But for the first 10 years Elliot had no right to Target’s share in the deposits. That is to say, if Elliot had left for other employment, he could have taken only his own share with him. Now, at the end of 10 years, his right vested as you said.”
“That’s right. And it all belongs to Elliot.”
“Oh yes. Elliot could do as he liked with it. Leave it as a pension for old age or withdraw it. Or of course it would be payable to his widow upon death.”
Sally was finding Gabe more intelligent than her lawyer. Her voice was more encouraging: “That’s exactly what I said. But I don’t want to leave it in as an old age fund. I want to take it out now. You just said that could be done after the first 10 years.”
“I said that, under the terms of the plan, Elliot could take the money out. And he is the only one who can.”
“But that’s absurd. I’m Elliot’s wife.”
“I�
�m afraid you have to be a widow to have any rights.”
Sally didn’t believe if for a minute. “Elliot isn’t here. And you know perfectly well that he intended me to have everything. That’s clear from the way he signed everything over to me. I’m sorry to say, but I do feel you are being unreasonable. Surely you must understand that an unusual situation likes this calls for flexibility.”
“I am really sorry my dear, but it is not in my power to make any decisions or exercise any flexibility,” Gabe replied. “The pension document is perfectly clear. The only ones who have the power to pay out that money are trustees of the fund, and they are bound by the terms of the plan.”
“It’s outrageous. I knew you might try to make difficulties about the Target contribution, but to try to keep all the money for yourself is unbelievable.”
“The trustees will be keeping all the money for Elliot.” To his credit, Gabe had not moderated his cordiality by one jot. Sally settled down to go to work on him. Her self-assurance was immense. In her experience, her tactics always worked when she really wanted something. It did not occur to her that she had never asked the PTA or Garden Club for a substantial sum of money.
At the end of 15 minutes she was beginning to realize that she had met her match in this cheery little man. Indeed the outcome of the duel went a long way towards explaining the success of Target.
“No, the only thing I can advise is that you approach the trustees. Although I think I know what they will say. Wait 7 years and then, if Elliot hasn’t appeared, you can have him legally declared dead. After all it is not a question of your immediate needs.”
“Waiting seven years is out of the question,” snapped Sally, she seemed more annoyed by this suggestion than by the outright refusal which had preceded it. “How do I know what will happen in seven years? I have no intention of letting this situation drag on and on. I am certainly not going to be drawn into something not of my making. It wouldn’t be fair to the children and it wouldn’t be fair to me. Whatever Elliot has done, he has done for reasons of his own. He left me out and I intend to stay out.”