by Helen Wells
Grey made a trip to the village hardware store and next time Cherry looked up, to her surprise, he was up there shingling the roof. He waved his hammer at her. Cherry had her arms full of cleaning utensils and could not wave back.
“Hi!” she called. “You’re terrific! Roof surgery?”
“Just repairs,” he called back. “Send Spud up to help me, hey? He offered.”
Spud was Gwen’s eighteen-year-old cousin from Westchester. He and his equally rotund sister, Tottie, ate constantly while they worked—gorging themselves on peanuts, candy bars, potato chips, chunks of sausage Bertha had brought—ignoring warnings from the Spencer Club about the very real health dangers of being fat. They did accomplish a great deal, though. It was Tottie’s, not Spud’s idea, for him to go to the local barbershop and come back clipped to the scalp. “Cool for summer.”
A picnic lunch attracted two, then three, small boys and one small dog, all of whom seemed able to smell refreshments at a considerable distance. Bob Peters, the father of one boy, came to collect him and the pup, but stayed all afternoon working with Grey and the other young men in the barn.
“That’s a comfortable, big barn,” Grey reported. “Once the barn’s cleaned up and repaired a bit, I wouldn’t mind moving in there. Bachelor quarters.”
The Spencer Club members looked at one another. Cherry murmured, “Why couldn’t the barn be the boys’ dormitory? Girls’ quarters in the house. If we have overnight guests—”
“We’ll need a chaperone, anyway.”
“Of course.”
“I think I know just the person,” Cherry said. “Mrs. Faunce.”
They got sidetracked by other chores. Suddenly it was late, the sun was setting, and assorted guests and helpers went home. Grey Russell was on call that night and Sunday for Dr. Fairall and Dr. Lamb and left with the others. The Spencer Club were hardly able to stay awake. Mrs. Peters, their nearest neighbor, insisted on feeding them supper. Shortly after nine o’clock, the four staggered back to their cottage, where the electricity, gas, and water were now turned on, and went to sleep.
Sunday brought sunshiny weather, a different set of visitors and neighbors, and more progress. A very shy young man who liked Josie—he had been her patient at the small hospital—arrived with his even shyer best friend. The Silent Ones, Gwen called them; otherwise, Ray and Danny. They proved to be willing marvels at cementing and carpentry repairs. Spud and Tottie returned, bringing two husky, hungry boys and swimsuits.
And later two more cars full of would-be helpers arrived. Bertha made dozens of sandwiches but their provisions ran out. Cherry had to drive to the village grocery store for more cold cuts and bread.
Their small army of helpers left the girls free to scrub and polish and plan some decorating. Bertha had been saying all day that they really should not be working on a Sunday; Sunday should be a day of religious observance and rest. However, besides the general cleanup, they urgently wanted to get ready at least two bedrooms and a crib. For Leslie and little H.J., with Mrs. Faunce as helper, were coming as soon as the Spencer Club said Ready!
The young couple had eagerly accepted the invitation when Cherry extended it on behalf of the Spencer Club last Friday.
“This is the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time,” Henry J. had said to Cherry.
He looked tired from driving a taxi all night, and taking care of his wife and infant son during the day, at hours when old Mrs. Faunce needed relief. Cherry thought they all needed the relief of a rest in the country, the young ballerina the most. As Henry J. said, “She hasn’t really picked up, has she, Cherry?”
“No, she hasn’t.” Cherry looked thoughtfully at Leslie. Even sitting in a chair, languid and hollow-eyed, and bone-thin, was an effort for her. “Leslie, wouldn’t you rather go back to bed?” Cherry suggested.
“I’m tired of lying down,” Leslie protested. “I’m ashamed of being useless. Look at the place! Do you think we’ll ever get settled? And my poor plants—” She nodded toward the several pots of greenery. “Well, at least the baby is properly cared for.”
“It’s a good thing he can stand my cooking,” his young father said. “I can’t cook very well, Cherry. Not even the baby’s cereal. Mrs. Faunce can cook, but after she’s done nursing and housekeeping for us, we can’t ask her to cook, too.”
The young couple said that if it were not for the custard, broth, and other light foods that Mrs. Wick had been bringing nearly every day, Leslie would have been poorly nourished.
“Irene Wick has been awfully nice to us,” Leslie said. “She comes up several times every day—I mean, you’ve come every day, Cherry, and you did show Henry how to prepare the baby’s bottle and cook cereal—”
“I burned the cereal,” Henry J. muttered.
“That’s because you tried to memorize parts of Macbeth while you were cooking,” Leslie said.
Henry J. crouched and made a horrible, wrinkled face, fingers grasping the air. “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,” he croaked—quoting one of Macbeth’s three witches.
Leslie ignored him. “You know, Cherry, I’m embarrassed at Mrs. Wick’s doing so much for us. She cooks, she babysits if necessary, and she insisted on brushing my hair.”
“Insist!” Henry J. grunted. “She’s practically managing our lives. Why, every time I look around, along comes Mrs. Irene Wick.” He ran his hand angrily over his fair wavy hair. “Heck, I wish she weren’t so helpful.”
Henry J. stretched, then dropped to the floor and sprawled out flat on his back, with his hands under his head. “I ache,” he said. “That driver’s seat in the taxi is too little for me, or I’m too big for it.” Lying on the floor’s hard, firm surface gave his sore muscles more relief than would a soft bed or chair.
“Cherry,” Leslie asked, “what are you thinking about so hard? Is anything wrong?”
“No, it’s nothing.” She did not know what to think of Mrs. Wick’s great interest in the Youngs. “How’s your bearded friend, Elijah?” Cherry asked.
“Oh, fine. He wants a taxi driver’s job, too,” Henry J. said.
“Well, maybe,” Cherry said cautiously, “you could get him your job in case you—Did Dr. Russell have a chance to speak to you about the Stage Door?”
“About my possibly working there? … Yes, he did,” Henry J. said. “The Doc is one grand guy! He’s talked to his friends at the Stage Door about me, and I’m waiting to be called for an audition.”
“Henry’s rehearsing his original dramatic act in which he plays all four characters,” Leslie said, giggling.
“I hope you can carry a tray of dishes,” Cherry said with a smile. She rose to go. “Good luck! We’re getting the country place ready quickly. Before you know it, Leslie, you’ll be out there.” Henry J. would come out on his days off from his job, whatever that turned out to be.
That was why the Spencer Club and their friends had made a concerted effort the past weekend. They accomplished their goal. Not finished, by any means—not decorated—not ready for the big party their helpers deserved—but ready enough for Leslie, little H.J., and Mrs. Faunce. Just as soon as Henry J. could borrow Elijah’s station wagon, he would take his little band out there to the ocean and green country.
When Mrs. Wick heard about the forthcoming country visit, she seemed pleased for her young friends. Cherry wondered about her.
Sometimes Irene Wick’s kindness wore thin. She frequently lost patience with Dr. Fairall’s poorer patients—never with the rich ones, Cherry noticed. Mrs. Wick still kept their young lab technician under her thumb, saving her smiles for Dr. Fairall. “She’s indispensable,” he said. She had started to serve him lunch at his desk occasionally. It was a convenience to the busy man.
Cherry half expected Irene Wick to hint for a weekend invitation to the country house, but she was mistaken. The reserved Mrs. Wick kept her life outside the office private, which of course was well-advised and dignified. Not that she was secretive—she chatted with staff
and sometimes patients about visiting her friends over the weekend, or flying up to Boston to see a very dear old friend. She was a widow, she said, and had no family nearer than California. It seemed to Cherry that Mrs. Wick contradicted herself, or changed details, when she repeated accounts of her weekends—as if she were lying, and did not remember her lies in detail.
“What do you know about Irene Wick?” Cherry asked Grey in confidence, at work in his office that week. “Where did she work before?”
Grey shrugged. “I don’t know anything about her. Bill Fairall does—he must, because he hired her. And he relies on her without question.”
“That sounds as if you have some question?”
“Well, not exactly, but—if I were in charge here, I’d supervise a little more. Not that I could afford the time, goodness knows. But I should. Or you should, for us, Cherry. We doctors are all so crazy busy, everything but doctoring gets neglected.”
That week Cherry observed the medical secretary with particular attention. No more blank envelopes arrived. No salesmen complained. Nothing questionable happened, but Cherry, alerted, now noticed loopholes in office procedures. For example:
Miss Alice Jonas came in three times a week for an injection. The fee was ten dollars each visit. Miss Jonas paid each time in cash. Most of Dr. Lamb’s elderly patients, also most of Dr. Fairall’s less prosperous patients, had no checking accounts, so paid in cash. Cherry estimated about one-third paid in cash.
On Wednesday morning Mr. Xavier, an elderly patient of Dr. Fairall’s, brought in one hundred dollars cash “toward Dr. Fairall’s bill for his visits to me in the hospital.” Cherry saw Irene Wick put it in her uniform pocket, and mark Mr. Xavier’s card “Paid—$100.00,” and the date.
That same Wednesday, early in the afternoon, Cherry overheard Dr. Fairall say to Irene:
“Could you run over to the bank for me before it closes? I need cash—I’ll write out a check for a hundred dollars—”
And Irene Wick, with Mr. Xavier’s hundred dollars in her pocket, plus Miss Jonas’s ten, and very likely some more, said, “Certainly, Doctor. Here’s fifty that’s been paid so far today—” and she handed him that amount from her pocket.
What of the other sixty or more? Had Mrs. Wick kept it? Cherry tried to find out, without arousing the secretary’s suspicions, but got nowhere.
The more Cherry thought about the hundred-dollar incident, the more concerned she became.
Why, every day it would be possible for a dishonest staff member simply to keep certain sums of cash—too small to be missed or even noticed on a daily basis, yet adding up to a considerable sum weekly. To conceal the thefts, the records could be falsified.
Or the records could simply be kept from the doctor’s view! Simply evade inspection!
It was not that the doctors were careless about money; they were so busy that they had to rely on their staff people.
When Dr. Fairall did inquire, usually he asked the medical secretary whether that big bill for his visits to a patient in the hospital over a period of five or six weeks had been paid yet. Such a bill, including his surgeon’s fee, could come to seven hundred dollars. And the dishonest staff member would not, perhaps could not, touch so noticeably large a sum.
But the doctor was not likely to remember all of the patients who visited his office during the week, nor which ones paid cash, say ten dollars three times a week for treatments. “I like to pay each time I come in,” many patients said. These many smaller sums could easily be kept from the three doctors—stolen. Yes, a clever thief would be careful not to tamper with the big accounts—and would insist on handling all the bookkeeping herself.
Was Mrs. Wick doing something like this? Had the fired nurse suspected it, too, and bluntly said so? Cherry recalled the two or three times that the name Zelda Colt had been mentioned in Mrs. Wick’s presence. Each time the medical secretary had stiffened with dislike. Why had she disliked the other nurse so bitterly?
Did anyone else suspect the part-time R.N. Irene Wick? Not likely, her indifference ruled her out. And what about Dottie Nash? But the lab technician admiringly looked up to Mrs. Wick.
A tremendous sum of money flowed into the three doctors’ office in a year! Cherry realized with such big sums, pilfering could go unnoticed. A skillful thief could easily go undetected for two or three years, possibly longer.
Cherry wanted to talk over this situation with someone—with Grey, or the Spencer Club nurses. Just suppose her doubts were far-fetched? The opportunity to steal, plus a few idiosyncracies, did not prove anything against Mrs. Wick.
That week seemed very long to Cherry.
Thursday was the day Henry J. planned to take Leslie, little H.J., and Mrs. Faunce to the Spencer Club’s cottage.
The great day! Friend Elijah had lent his station wagon, the sun shone, and even the baby jabbered with excitement. Cherry ran upstairs just before noon, to give them a duplicate house key Gwen had had made. Henry J. was tap dancing as he carried the baby’s play-pen and toys to the elevator.
“Ah, the house key! Thanks, Cherry,” he said. “Speaking of keys, we gave our apartment key—one of ours—to Mrs. Wick. She offered to come up and water Leslie’s plants while we’re away.”
“She offered. …” So it was Irene Wick’s idea, Cherry thought. Well, what of it? Maybe this middle-aged woman merely needed someone—this young couple and baby—to mother and “do for.”
“Tell Cherry!” Leslie called out to her husband. She and Henry J. both wore dungarees and loose sweaters. “She hasn’t heard, dearest. Cherry, he starts to work Sunday at the Stage Door!”
Henry J.’s face nearly split in a smile. “Doc Grey set up an interview for me, then they saw my act and liked it.”
Cherry said, “Congratulations! Cheers!”
“This job doesn’t mean,” Henry J. added hastily, “that I’ll be an entertainer and waiter forever. I intend to go right on looking for a regular acting job, a role in a play, or whatever. Casting calls and auditions are held all summer, for fall productions.” Henry J. heaved a sigh. “Anyway, for now, the Stage Door job will pay our bills. Yippee! I’m not going to drive that taxicab tonight. Goodbye, taxi.”
“Then why don’t you stay at the cottage until Sunday?” Cherry suggested.
He looked grateful. “Have you some chores out there for me?” Henry J. asked. “Grey told me a lot remains to be done.”
“You just get your family settled, and yourself rested after the night taxi driving,” Cherry said. “Thanks, anyway. Where is the Spencer Club’s glamorous chaperone?”
“In here, in the bedroom—I trust you mean me,” Mrs. Faunce answered. Cherry went in. The beautiful little old lady had tied a lace-trimmed apron over her dress; it made her look very slightly less the duchess than usual. “We’ve been packing for hours, for days, Cherry. I’m sure we’re forgetting something. But what?”
No one could think what. Little H.J. gave cheerful grunts and blew a saliva bubble.
“Well, if you discover you need some last-minute thing sent to you,” Cherry said, “just let Mrs. Wick or me know. There’s a public telephone at the grocery store. The nearest neighbors are the Peters, and they have a phone.”
Leslie suggested that they give Cherry, too, a key to their apartment. “In case Mrs. Wick isn’t in the office,” Leslie added.
“Leslie honey,” said her husband, “you are giving the right reason instead of the true reason. Why not admit you’d rather be in touch with Cherry, because Irene Wick makes such a big production out of helping?”
“I will admit it,” Leslie said calmly, “if you will admit that you’d better learn how to carry a tray of dishes. Dishes sloshing with food, my darling.”
“I will admit nothing except—”
“Children, children!” Mrs. Faunce said, sounding like a fussy little bird. “We’ll never get started for the country if you bicker.”
“Who’s bickering?” Henry J. said. “Leslie is right, having al
l the practical sense in this family.”
“Wait until little H. J. is able to talk, you may have some surprises,” Cherry said, laughing.
Leslie gave Cherry her own key to the apartment. Cherry decided it would be more tactful not to mention this fact to Irene Wick, who seemed to like, or need, to be the one most-needed person around. She resented anyone else’s sharing her responsibilities and privileges. Let Irene think only she had been entrusted with the Youngs’ key.
Leslie wrote down Cherry’s home telephone number. “In case we need to reach you or the Spencer Club before or after office hours. About a fire or tidal wave or any emergency.”
“Melodramatic, isn’t she?” Mrs. Faunce said to Henry J. and led the way to the elevator. Cherry gave Leslie her arm to lean on. Henry J. scooped up the baby, saying, “Come on, fellow. Join the parade!”
And off they went to the country.
CHAPTER VIII
Grounds for Suspicion
“YES, SIR,” GREY SAID TO CHERRY THAT SAME THURSDAY evening, “Henry J. was so tickled about getting a job at the Stage Door that he told me what the J. in his name stands for.”
“Oh, what? Tell me!” Cherry said.
“He swore me to secrecy.” Grey’s calm eyes twinkled. Cherry made faces at him. “Sorry, Cherry, you’re hard to resist.”
She was wearing her pink dress and pink sweater. They had been to see a play performed outdoors in Central Park, this balmy June evening. Now they were in Grey’s car, heading home. Cherry confessed to a worry that had bothered her through three acts:
“Did I or didn’t I turn off the sterilizer in the downstairs supply room? I think I did. But—”
“We’ll go see,” Grey said. “We’re not far from the offices.”
On reaching the quiet moonlit street, and the brownstone house, they were surprised to see lights on the ground floor. Who was in the office so late? It was after eleven o’clock. Grey parked the car, and they got out.
