“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Something’s wrong, but I don’t know what it is,” Miriam Austen said tremulously. “He doesn’t talk to me. You know that. He never has. That’s the way it started and that’s the way it’s always been. But he talks to you. I know he does. I’ve heard you at night—down in the library—”
Her voice broke with strain and Lory, in transposition, could feel the ripping tear that the confession must have cost her mother.
Instantly, they were in each other’s arms, the reserve completely down, the only time it had happened since that night when Lory had come home from Maine—and because that was true, the meaning of the moment was heightened to a crescendo of emotion, too high-pitched to sustain and they parted, slowly. But the parting was only physical.
Words whirled through Lory’s mind, all tested and discarded. It was impossible to deny that her father talked to her. Even a white lie would be a violation of the moment and the barrier would rise again. “I know that he’s been tired lately,” she said cautiously. “There are a lot of little things that are worrying him at the plant, but I don’t think there’s anything serious. I’m sure there isn’t.”
“There must be, Lory. He’s been so—I don’t know what it is, but I can always tell when something is really wrong. And he worked so late last night.”
Lory tried to lighten her voice. “They were figuring a rush estimate—getting in a bid.”
“Maybe that’s all it is,” Miriam Austen said uncertainly, her face showing the inner struggle to regain her poise.
“Honestly, Mother, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”
“Perhaps not. I suppose I’m just being foolish. It’s such a gloomy day.” She turned toward the window.
“It’s put a hex on me, too. I haven’t accomplished a thing.”
Miriam Austen seemed not to have heard. “If anything should ever happen to the company, I don’t know what Grant would do. It’s been his whole life—everything.”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
“I hope not.”
Miriam Austen stood and the barrier rose with her. “Are your clothes ready for tonight? Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No. I asked Anna to press my dress.”
There was only the barest flicker of an expression on Miriam Austen’s face as Lory watched her walk toward the stairs, but she could not suppress the lingering thought that her mother had somehow been hurt. Was it possible that so little a thing as asking the cook to press her dress … no, that didn’t make sense. But so many of the crazy things that went on in people’s minds didn’t make sense … even in her own … most of all in her own.
Conscience-stricken, she hurried after her mother, stopping her at the head of the stairs. “Mother, don’t worry about him. You’ll be going down to the convention in a few days now and you’re sure to have a wonderful time, both of you. You know how much good the convention always does him. It will do you good, too.”
“You haven’t changed your mind?” Miriam Austen asked guardedly.
“Two’s company, three’s a crowd,” she said lightly, without thinking, and hearing herself say it inspired her to go on. “It’s about time you two had a vacation without me underfoot.”
The tight-held line of Miriam Austen’s lips was more of a shock than sudden tears would have been. Lory watched her all the way down the stairs, sensing that she would not glance back. She didn’t.
Three
1
There are those along the Main Line who look upon Will Atherson as a violator of his inheritance, an opinion that is largely accounted for by the building that he had caused to be erected to house the Freeholders Bank & Trust Company of which, by right of primogeniture as well as ability, he was president.
On a street where every door looks as if it might open at any moment to disgorge some bewigged and gaitered contemporary of Old Ben himself, the Freeholders Building is indeed incongruous to the scene. Designed by a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, it was judged by one of the architectural magazines to be an outstanding example of “the best in unfettered contemporary design, free of any taint of traditionalism, radical in concept, daring in execution.” That, in 1940, it most certainly was. The later influx of countless chain shops and supermarkets, all designed in the apparent belief that glass is the only proper building material, has made the Freeholders Building seem less unfettered, daring and radical, but it still raises doubts in certain quarters about Will Atherson.
The more generous Old Philadelphians excuse the building as one of the lapses of which even a gentleman may be guilty—there was a “folly” of one sort or another in most of their families—but the other school of thought holds that a gentleman’s folly must, like an affair with a woman, be carried on in privacy and with discretion. Will Atherson’s folly was unpleasantly public. Although none of his old customers went so far as to stop doing business with the bank, most of them still cringed at the necessity of transacting their financial affairs with no more privacy than a fish in a bowl. That sort of thing was accepted in New York, of course, but this was Philadelphia.
Will Atherson had made no attempt to explain what he had done—he wouldn’t, he was that kind of man—and, fortunately, his indiscretion was limited to the bank building. He was guilty of no other denials of his heritage. He continued to affect the tweedy dress of a Main Liner—or a British country squire, the two being almost indistinguishable—and smoke a stubby briar pipe which, because of his taciturnity, he was seldom forced to remove from his mouth. He still lived at “Starwood,” the old family estate near Devon, occasionally rode with the Hunt, raised dahlias which he exhibited with restrained pride at small local flower shows but never at the big commercialized affairs at Convention Hall, bred hunting spaniels over which he never hunted, and more or less regularly attended the meetings and banquets at which his presence was called for by heredity, tradition, or a good sense of business. In short, there was nothing about Will Atherson or his actions, before or after, that helped even his most ardent supporters to explain away the Freeholders Building.
Standing in his balcony office, looking down through the glass wall at the banking floor, his face was a purposeful enigma. No one who might glance up, either employee or customer, could have known what was on his mind.
Maude Kennard did not glance up. She was at one of the teller’s wickets along the north wall, depositing the day-before receipts of the Hotel Ivanhoe. Even from the high angle of his vantage point, she looked unusually smart and trim this morning, not that he hadn’t always thought her well dressed and perfectly groomed, but she was particularly attractive today. That red cast in her hair was probably not entirely natural—living in the same house with a wife and three daughters had taught him numerous facts of life—yet, he recalled, her hair had been of a reddish sort even back on that day when he had discovered her. That, most definitely, had been a fortunate coincidence. He’d lunched at The Wharf that day and old Judge Torrant had happened to overhear him say that he was looking for a young woman of good family, but with an interest in business, to take over the catering department at the Ivanhoe. Torrant had suggested Maude Kennard. Everett Pierce, of course, hadn’t wanted to hire her. Everett had never been much of a judge of people … conservatives seldom were … but they had their place, men like Pierce. He was a balance wheel and they were a good team, Everett Pierce and Maude Kennard. Between them they had developed the Hotel Ivanhoe into an excellent property.
She still hadn’t glanced up and he stepped out on the balcony and started down the aluminum spiral of the open staircase. Halfway, she saw him and he met her eyes with a temperatureless recognition, allowing his face to be neither warm nor cold. He waited, patiently, liking the way that she was finishing her business with the teller before she turned to talk to him.
Then he asked, “Good day yesterday?”
She smiled. “Not too bad.”
There didn’t seem to be any
thing else to say and he was surprised when she asked, “Did Mr. Pierce call you?”
“About what?”
“Our visit this morning from the F.B.I.—or whoever it was.”
He shook his head.
“It seems they’re checking up on Mr. McCall. Something about his income tax.”
He permitted himself a small smile. “That happens to all of us these days.”
“Oh, I know,” she said lightly. “But, of course, I’ve had all sorts of fun teasing Mr. Pierce about it. I think I have him half believing that you’re liable to come over at any moment and close us down as a disgrace to our fair city—harboring unsavory characters.”
“Is that the kind of ogre you make me out to be?”
“Now don’t you start teasing him, too, Mr. Atherson, or you’ll have the poor man beside himself.”
Her forefinger tapped his hand in mock admonishment and he felt the lingering sensation of her touch. She was quite a woman … irrepressible … yes, definitely irrepressible … and clever. Perhaps a little too clever.
“You must be avoiding me,” she said as if it were a stored grievance. “You haven’t been over for lunch in almost a week—and the last time you swept by me as if I were a jardiniere.”
“That would have been quite impossible,” he said with grave gallantry. “And I’ll be there tomorrow—lunching at The Wharf. I have a guest coming.”
“Who?”
“Old friend of yours.”
“Really?”
“Grant Austen.”
“I’ll roll out the carpet,” she said with a flashed smile, not as if she remembered Austen as anyone worthy of the flattery of her special attention, but as if she were a willing partner in a pleasant conspiracy.
“You always do,” he said in guarded compliment.
Her smile flashed off. “Oh, by the way, Mr. Atherson—speaking of Mr. McCall—I know that he’s a friend of yours. I’ve been wondering how good a friend.”
He hesitated, searching her face for some hint of what she had in her mind. “Why do you ask, Mrs. Kennard?”
“It’s purely a management problem and I don’t want to bother you with it. It’s something that I can handle quite easily myself, but I do want to know whether there was any special background I should have. Is he a close personal friend of yours?”
“What seems to be the trouble, Mrs. Kennard?”
Her laughter was a thin veil. “I’m afraid that Mr. McCall is occasionally under the delusion that he owns the hotel.”
Will Atherson found himself caught off guard, an unusual occurrence and not a pleasant one. He puffed his briar, hoping that he hadn’t betrayed himself by letting his face reflect his shock. He couldn’t be sure. Was this only a fishing expedition? Or did she really know?
“I can see how that might be,” he said slowly. “At the price you’re charging him for his suite it’s quite understandable that he might imagine that he was buying the hotel on the installment plan.”
It was an unaccustomed attempt at lightness and he was pleased to find that it had been worth the effort.
Maude Kennard laughed, her face free of suspicion. “Perhaps that is the reason. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Atherson.”
He watched her as she went out, her slim figure slipping lithely in and out of the revolving glass vanes of the door. Yes, she was clever … but she hadn’t gotten away with it this time. He wasn’t exactly a fool himself.
He ascended the stairs, satisfaction giving way to concern as his thoughts returned to Cash McCall. Maude Kennard wasn’t the only person who had come snooping around for information. Apparently she knew little or nothing about him but there were beginning to be others who did—and the first thing that everyone seemed to discover was that he was in some way tied up with the Freeholders Bank & Trust Company.
In the beginning, when the stories of Cash McCall’s financial exploits had started getting around the town, Will Atherson had found a certain satisfaction in having the name of the bank linked with Cash McCall. It did no harm, he thought, to let the word spread that someone backed by Freeholders had turned a nice profit. Of late, however, Cash’s deals had become more and more spectacular and the gossip, outdoing truth, had begun to take on a lurid cast. That was not good for the bank. It was bad business, particularly for the Trust Department, to let the impression get abroad that the Freeholders Bank & Trust Company had abandoned the tenets of conservative banking practice.
Lately, even the directors of the bank—who had little actual power but a great deal of nuisance value—had begun to ask questions that pried into the details of Cash McCall’s activities. He had been able to tell them enough to justify the sizable loans that Cash was being given, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity, nor to counteract completely old man Peregrine’s cracked-voice warning that a man that tried to keep secrets from his banker was a man that would bear a lot of watching.
Will Atherson was forced to admit that Cash McCall never told him any more than was patently necessary for the granting of a loan or the handling of some detail of a transaction. What he could not admit—because it was something not fully recognized—was that the very secrecy of Cash’s enterprises was one of the reasons why he found his own association with them so intriguing. Attempting to outguess Cash McCall had become a game that, more effectively than anything else, relieved the stolid monotony to which the banking profession had been largely reduced by the endless restrictions of governmental regulation.
Once, a few months ago, he had felt himself duty bound to tell Cash what was being said about him by men like Peregrine, warning him that there were those who interpreted his secrecy as a cloak for shady dealing. It had been a difficult thing to say, even more difficult to sustain against argument, the more so because he so greatly admired Cash McCall’s integrity and also because Cash had so quickly countered with a statement that completely expressed his own inner feelings. “I have never felt,” Cash had said, “that a man’s soul is any cleaner because he launders it in the public square.”
All thought of Cash McCall was banished from Will Atherson’s mind as he entered his office. His secretary was holding his telephone, her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s General Danvers,” she said.
Major General Andrew C. Danvers, U.S.A.F., Ret., was President of the Andscott Instrument Corporation, and Andscott stock was the principal asset of one of the largest estates administered by the Trust Department of the Freeholders Bank & Trust Company. It was a circumstance that always incited Will Atherson’s regret that war heroes were not retired with large enough pensions so that it was unnecessary for them to become square pegs in the round-holed upper levels of industry. General Danvers, for all his military genius, had made some bad tactical errors in the management of Andscott Instrument, not the least of them an entry into the home receiver television business, an ill-fated venture that was piling up serious losses and badly depressing the value of Andscott stock.
“How are you, General?” Atherson greeted him, his tone flat, hiding the hope that whatever Danvers had on his mind might indicate a turn for the better.
“Fine, sir! And you?” General Danvers boomed back, evidencing a belief that he had picked up from somewhere that a heartily jovial personality was a necessary attribute of the successful corporation president. “Will, I’ve just been briefed on a situation that has me a bit concerned. Like to have your slant on it, old man.”
“Glad to be of any possible help, General.”
“Suffolk Moulding. You’re rather closely connected there, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’d say so.”
“My boys in Purchasing tell me that we’re considering the placing of a new cabinet order with those folks, but that the president—Austen, I believe his name is—”
“That’s right—Grant Austen.”
“Well, my lads seem to feel that Austen is getting a little shaky financially. Naturally we wouldn’t want to foul up our line of supply by extending our relatio
nship where there might be any difficulty of that sort.”
“I don’t believe I’d be too much concerned on that score, General.”
“You wouldn’t? Well, as I get the story, this new cabinet is going to require a little capital investment on Austen’s part—nothing important, couple hundred thousand—and Austen seems reluctant to go ahead. Concerns us, of course. Can’t afford to launch an attack if we don’t have strength in our reserves. But you’d say that there was nothing to be concerned about?”
Atherson hesitated. “I would say this, General—an expansion of that size would, of course, be one of considerably more moment to Suffolk Moulding than to a corporation of your size.”
“Obviously. But he could finance it? Or couldn’t he?”
“I’d see no reason why he couldn’t. Providing, of course, that he felt it desirable to make the move.”
“Of course. Thanks, Will. Just wanted to have your slant. Good to talk to you.”
Will Atherson hung up, his mind transposing suspicions. He had suspected earlier that Grant Austen’s coming to Philadelphia was no more than so many of his other calls had been, simply an excuse to be invited to lunch at The Wharf. Austen had done that more and more frequently of late, actually making something of a nuisance of himself, but it was clear now that there was point and purpose to his coming tomorrow. If Andscott was high-pressuring him into a two hundred thousand dollar expansion, Grant would be in need of some financing.
The banker relighted his pipe. There was a serious question as to whether or not it would be a sound move for Grant Austen to base an expansion upon the present prospects of Andscott Instrument. On the other hand, if he advised Austen against going ahead, it might further deteriorate Andscott’s situation. A new cabinet could mean cost savings and savings were badly needed if Andscott was ever to get its television operation in the black.
He pressed his buzzer. “Bring me the folders on Suffolk Moulding and Andscott Instrument,” he said when his secretary appeared. “And be sure the last operating statements are in them.”
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