Looking up at him without expression, she said in a toneless voice, “You’re a big man, Mr. Calhoun.”
He stared down at her, not even thinking. He wasn’t used to having scantily clad women push themselves so close to him on first meeting, and wasn’t sure how to take her. Then he decided she probably wasn’t used to having strange men walk into her house, take one look at her, and grab her and kiss her. Probably, despite her seeming provocativeness, she’d scream for her maid.
Or perhaps, suspecting his mission, she was deliberately trying to put him at a disadvantage.
He said, “Two-ten in my bare skin,” backed away, and took a deck chair similar to hers. Gracefully Mrs. Powers sank back onto her own.
“You’re a private detective, Mr. Calhoun?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And you wanted to see me about some accident?”
“The one night before last. Involving a green Buick convertible with license 9I-3836, a parked Dodge belonging to a man named James Talmadge, a parked Ford belonging to a man named Henry Taft, and a pedestrian named John Lischer, who’s currently at Emergency Hospital in fair condition. A hit-and-run accident.”
She was silent. Then she merely said, “I see.”
“I happened to be sitting in my car only a few yards away when the accident took place,” Calhoun said. “I was the only person in the block who was outdoors at the time, aside from John Lischer, and I’m sure I was the only witness. I got a good look at both the driver of the Buick and the passenger. Good enough to recognize both. You were the driver and Harry Cushman was the passenger.”
Again she said, “I see.” Then, after studying him without expression, a faint flicker of recognition appeared in her eyes. “You were seated at the end of the bar at the Haufbrau. You looked at me as I went by.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I’m flattered that you noticed me. Lots of men must look at you.”
Ignoring the compliment, she asked, “What do you want?”
“Have you reported the accident?”
When she looked thoughtful, he said, “I can easily check at headquarters. I haven’t yet because I don’t want to be questioned.”
“I see. No, I haven’t reported it.”
“What does your husband do, Mrs. Powers?”
A momentary frown marred the smoothness of her brow, but it was gone almost instantly. “He’s president of Haver National Bank.”
“Then you haven’t told your husband about the accident, either.” He made it a statement instead of a question.
She regarded him thoughtfully. “Why do you assume that?”
“Because I don’t think the president of Haver National Bank would let an accident his wife was involved in go unreported for thirty-six hours. Particularly where no one was seriously hurt. You undoubtedly have liability insurance, and the worst you could expect if you turned yourself in voluntarily would be a fine and temporary suspension of your driver’s license. He’d know the charge against you would be much more serious if the police had to track you down than if you turned yourself in voluntarily, even at this late date.”
Her face remained deadpan. “It’s only a misdemeanor even if I’m caught. No one was killed.”
Calhoun said dryly, “You’ve been listening to Cushman. Sure, it’s only a misdemeanor. But one they usually put people in jail for. You eager to spend thirty to ninety days in jail?”
She shook her head. In a toneless voice she asked, “So?”
“So I think the reason you didn’t stop, and the reason you don’t intend to report the accident, isn’t that you lost your head. You don’t impress me as the panicky type. I think the reason you didn’t stop is that you can’t afford to let your husband find out you were out with Harry Cushman at two thirty in the morning.”
When she said nothing at all, Calhoun asked, “Have you tried to have your car fixed?”
She shook her head again.
“Where is it?”
“In the garage out back.”
“How come your husband hasn’t noticed the damage?”
“It’s all on the right side,” she said tonelessly. “A smashed front fender, bent bumper, and dented door. Nothing was knocked loose. We have a three-car garage, and my stall is the far right one. I parked it close to the wall so no one could walk on that side of it. The station wagon’s between my car and my husband’s Packard, so there isn’t much likelihood of his noticing the damage.”
“You say nothing was knocked loose? Was your headlight broken?”
“No. I don’t believe I left any clues at the scene of the crime.”
Calhoun leaned back and put the tips of his fingers together. In a conversational tone he said, “You must have left some green paint on the two cars you hit. By now the police have alerted every repair garage within a fifty-mile radius to watch for a green car. Have you thought of that?”
“Yes.”
“How you plan to get around it?”
“I haven’t yet solved the problem.”
“Would you be interested in some advice?”
“What advice?” she asked.
Calhoun said, “Hire a private detective to get you out of your jam.”
For a long time she looked at him, her expression completely blank. When she spoke, there was the slightest touch of mockery in her voice.
“I was frightened when Alice said you wanted to see me about an auto accident, Mr. Calhoun. But almost from the moment you walked through the door, I’ve known you didn’t come to investigate me on behalf of that old man or either of the two car owners. I’m a pretty good judge of character. Out of the four people involved, how did you happen to pick me as your potential client?”
“I doubted that any of the others could stand my fee.”
Her face grew thoughtful. “I see. What kind of service do you offer?”
“I offer to arrange a quiet payment of damages to the owners of the other two cars, so you won’t have to worry about eventual suits if they ever find out who sideswiped them. With a bonus tossed in to keep them from telling the cops there’s been a contact. And to make the same kind of arrangement with John Lischer. I warn you that part will cost plenty, because on top of whatever damages I can get him to agree to, he’ll have to be paid to keep it from the cops that there’s been a settlement. I’ll also take care of having your car repaired safely.”
“Why can’t you just do the last part?” she asked. “If no one ever discovers it was my car, why should we risk contacting the other people?”
“I’m thinking of your interests,” Calhoun said. “Once there’s a settlement, even a secret one, none of the other parties will press charges in the event the police ever catch up with you. Because I’ll get quitclaim agreements from all of them. Then if you do get caught, the probability is the cops won’t press charges on their own. And even if they do, proof that you made cash settlements with all the injured parties will be an extenuating circumstance. I doubt that any judge would give you more than a token fine and suspend your driver’s license. But without settling, you’re in for a jail sentence if you’re ever caught.”
“I see.” Her brow puckered in a slight frown. “And you say you can get my car repaired safely?”
“Safely,” he assured her.
“How? I wouldn’t care to have some shady repairman work on it. All he’d have to do is check the license plates like you did, and he’d be all set for a little blackmail.”
“I said safely. Does your husband ever go out of town?”
“He flies to New York this coming Monday. A bankers’ convention. He’ll be gone a full week.”
“What time does he leave?”
“Sometime in the afternoon. I don’t remember the exact flight time. I’ll be driving him to the airport.”
“Fine,” Calhoun said. “You’ll be home by dark, then?”
“Oh, yes. Long before that.”
He said, “As soon as it’s dark Monday night, I’ll pick up the car and
drive it to Rochester. I’ll switch plates and take it to a garage where I can get fast service. By the time your husband gets back from New York, your car will be back in your garage as good as new. Meantime, between now and Monday, I’ll arrange settlements with John Lischer and the other two car owners.”
She thought it over. Finally she said, “What is your fee?”
“Five thousand dollars,” Calhoun said.
She didn’t even blink. “I see. You’re a rather expensive man, Mr. Calhoun.”
He shrugged.
“And if I refuse to engage you?”
He said, “I have my duty as a citizen.”
“How would you explain to the police keeping silent thirty-six hours?”
“I’d phone and ask why they haven’t acknowledged my letter,” he said blandly. “I was quite drunk that night. Too drunk for it to occur to me I ought to tell the police at the scene I had seen your license number. But the very next morning I wrote them a letter. Letters can get lost in the mail.”
She nodded slightly. “I guess you’re in a pretty good bargaining position, Mr. Calhoun. But I have one more question. Suppose this John Lischer insists on as much as a five-thousand-dollar settlement? With your fee, that would run the amount up to ten thousand. Plus perhaps five hundred apiece for the other two car owners. Where do you suggest I get that much money?”
Calhoun looked at her in surprise. “With this home and with three cars in the garage, I assume you’re not exactly a pauper.”
“No,” she admitted. “My husband is quite wealthy. And I can have all the money I want for any purpose I want just by asking. The only catch is I have to tell what it’s for. I haven’t a cent of my own except a checking account that currently contains about five hundred dollars. I could get the money by telling my husband what it’s for, but if I did that, I wouldn’t need your services. I’m not afraid of the police. The sole reason I’m willing to engage you is to prevent my husband from finding out I wasn’t home in bed at the time of the accident.”
“Think up some other excuse. A charity donation, for instance.”
She shook her head. “My husband handles all our charity donations. There simply isn’t any excuse I could give him. If I told him I wanted a ten-thousand-dollar yacht, he’d tell me to order it and have the company bill him. He wouldn’t give me the money for it. I’ve never in my life asked him for more than a couple of hundred dollars in cash.”
Calhoun said, “Then hit your boy friend. Harry Cushman’s got a couple of odd million lying around, last I heard, and nothing to spend it on except nightclubbing and alimony.”
She looked thoughtful. “Yes, I suppose that would work. Harry wouldn’t want publicity any more than I would. Shall I ask him for a check?” “Cash,” Calhoun said.
“I’ll phone him as soon as you leave. Suppose you come back about this same time tomorrow?”
“Fine,” Calhoun said. It sounded like a dismissal, so he got to his feet.
She gave him an impersonal nod of good-by. She was leaning forward and reaching behind her back to untie the square knot when he walked out of the room.
3
After the private detective had departed, Helena Powers struggled for some time with the square knot he had tied in her scarf. It was too tightly drawn for her to get loose.
Giving up, she rose from the deck chair and pressed a button set in the wall. When the maid appeared, she said, “Bring me a phone, will you please, Alice?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said.
She went away and returned with a plug-in phone extension. She inserted the plug into a wall outlet, then set the phone on an end table and looked inquiringly at her mistress.
“Thank you,” Helena said. “That’s all.”
When the maid had disappeared, Helena sat on the deck chair and dialed a number. A male voice answered.
“Harry?” she said. “I have to see you right away. Can you come at once?”
“There?” he asked. “It’s nearly two thirty. Your husband will be home in an hour.”
“You’ll be gone again before that. Have the taxi drop you on the back street and come in by the sun porch. I’ll be there.”
“This is foolishness,” he protested. “Suppose he comes home early? Can’t we wait until tonight?”
“Lawrence and I are going out together tonight,” she said in a patient tone. “It has to be right now. It’s important.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“There was a witness, Harry.”
He was silent for a long time. Then he said, “Be there in fifteen minutes.”
Helena was lying full-length on the deck chair when Harry Cushman stepped in through one of the open French doors. He wore gray slacks and a powder-blue sport shirt open at the neck to expose the upper part of a bronzed chest. With his flat stomach and well-developed arms, he looked extremely fit. He also looked extremely nervous.
Helena glanced up at him, rose, and casually offered her lips for a kiss.
After a hurried peck, he said nervously, “What’s this about a witness?”
“Untie me first,” she requested, turning her back.
“What?” he said. “Why?”
“The knot’s too tight. It’s uncomfortable.”
“Oh.” His fingers fumbled with the knot for some seconds before he managed to get it loose. Then he recrossed the two ends. “This lax enough?”
“Never mind retying it,” she said, pulling the scarf free and carelessly draping it over the phone. “I’m not finished sun bathing.”
She lay back on the deck chair, her firm, sun-tanned breasts exposed to the sunlight.
“My God!” Cushman said. “You can’t lie around like that with me here.”
“Don’t be a prude,” she said. “You’ve seen me totally naked.”
“Not practically in public. Suppose your maid walked in? Or worse yet, your husband?”
“Lawrence never left the bank before three P.M. in his life. And we’d hear Alice coming. The dining-room floor is tile. Sit down and relax.”
“You’re practically outdoors here on the porch,” he insisted. “People can see right in.”
Anxiously he scanned the outdoors through the screens on three sides of the sun porch. Noting how far it was to the street and to the nearest house, he was a little reassured, but not much.
“You can’t see indoors through screens when the sun hits them,” she said calmly. “I often lie out here without a stitch on. Are you going to sit down and listen to me, or waste time fussing about my nudity?”
Seeing he had no hope of winning the argument, Cushman took the only defensive action he could. He crossed to the table containing the phone extension, lifted the scarf, and hovered over her, ready to drop it across her bosom at the slightest sound from the dining room.
“All right,” he said fretfully. “Go ahead, so I can get out of here.”
“A private detective was here just before I phoned you,” she said. “His card’s lying next to the phone.”
Cushman picked up the card and studied it. “Bernard Calhoun. What did he want?”
“He said he was sitting in his car on Court Street only a few yards from the accident. He knows I was driving and you were with me. He knows the names of the injured man and the owners of the two damaged cars. That old man wasn’t seriously hurt, incidentally.”
The last sentence didn’t seem to relieve Harry Cushman any. “Blackmail?” he asked on a high note.
She shook her head. “He offered to help us. To make secret settlements with all the injured parties and to get the car repaired safely.”
Cushman asked suspiciously, “For how much?”
“Five thousand dollars,” she said casually. “Plus whatever arrangements cost.”
“Five thousand dollars!” he squeaked. “It is blackmail!”
She shook her head again. “I doubt that you could call Mr. Calhoun a legitimate businessman, but he is not a blackmailer. He is simply offering a r
ather illegal service for a quite legitimate price. He impressed me as not honest, but probably trustworthy.”
“How can you judge that?” Cushman asked querulously. “You don’t know a thing about him.”
“Simple logic, Harry. If he were merely a blackmailer, he would just have asked for money to keep quiet. He impressed me as the sort of man whose ethics are rather loose but who has to justify what he does to himself. By rendering us a service for pay, he can convince himself he is not taking advantage of our misfortune, but helping us over it.”
“You’re banking on your supposed ability to judge character again,” Cushman accused. “You always think you can pigeonhole people at first meeting.”
“I usually can,” she said serenely.
“Suppose you’re wrong? Suppose he decides to bleed us dry?”
“He won’t,” she assured him. “He’ll perform exactly the service he offered for exactly the fee he stated. I let him believe I considered the fee exorbitant, but actually I think it’s quite reasonable. Without Mr. Calhoun’s help, just how do you suggest we get out of this jam?”
Nervously fingering his small mustache, Cushman paced across the sun porch, thinking deeply. Then, realizing he was carrying the scarf dangerously far from its owner, in the event of a sudden emergency, he returned to hover over the deck chair.
“I can’t get any money from Lawrence, of course,” Helena said without expression. “He’d insist on knowing what it was for. I’m afraid you’ll have to bear the full expense.”
Cushman made an impatient gesture. “The money’s nothing. If it’s sure to stop there. I just don’t want to set myself up for permanent blackmail. Maybe we’d be smarter to turn ourselves in to the police and face the music.”
She said coolly, “You know how Lawrence feels about infidelity, Harry. He’d divorce me without alimony. And name you as corespondent.”
“Even that might be cheaper in the long run,” he muttered. “As my wife you wouldn’t need alimony.”
“I like the status quo,” she said. “You’re a much more satisfactory lover than you would be husband. As long as other men’s wives attract you so much, I prefer to stay another man’s wife.”
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