Vincent stared down again at the end page of the form, with its four blank lines to be filled in by us.
“He’ll never do it,” he said, half to himself.
“He will, if we do. You and Haley and myself. He’ll have to. What else can he do, hold out against the three of us? No, he’ll go along.”
I reached over and took the stapled contract from him, got out my fountain pen, signed my own name, mutely passed the form back to him, waiting.
“Just like that?” he asked himself.
“Sign it, or don’t sign it. It’s up to you. The other copies are in my office, we can sign them later.”
He got out his pen, unscrewed the cap, gave a little, meaningless smile, and signed.
The phone rang, and he answered it. He cupped the mouthpiece with his hand, at the same time extending the piece.
“It’s Jay,” he told me. “He wants to know whether I’ve heard from you. You’d better talk to him.”
I shook my head, and told him:
“You and Jay had this idea about last night, to begin with. Now you’ll have to settle it between yourselves.”
“For God’s sake, what’ll I tell him? I can’t just say we happened to be mistaken.”
I stressed again his own responsibility.
“It’s your decision, Vince. But you might tell him where I was last night, and who I was with, if he wants to check for himself.”
I knew that neither of them would go behind the statement, once presented to them weightily enough, as the larger truth that it literally was.
“Who did you say those people were?”
“F. W. Griscom and his wife. They’re registered at the Commonwealth, but they rent a home in Englewood.”
I heard Vincent speak into the phone, with assurance and relief.
“Listen, Jay, Stan’s here, and we can forget it. About last night. He wasn’t there, didn’t even know about it. He was with some people named Griscom, they were stopping at the Commonwealth, but they live in Englewood and he went out there with them straight from the hotel.” There was a pause as a voice talked faintly in the receiver, and I knew this would be Jay’s inquiry about Talcott. Then Vincent spoke again. “No, listen, Jay, we were wrong about Talcott, too.” His tone, uncertain for a moment, gained in urgency and became a little too abrupt, too loud. “I know that’s what we thought, but it just wasn’t so. I’ve checked it all around and I’m convinced we simply talked ourselves into the whole thing.
We were a little too excited, that’s all.” He listened for a moment, then there followed a brief interchange about a projected trip of Jay’s to Atlantic City. He put down the phone, then, and his face showed tiny beads of perspiration. He looked at me for a space, eyes suddenly drawn, trying to imagine himself presenting a maze of arguments and explanations to Jay. It was the first moment he had taken, for a second thought. “Jay’s going down there for a couple of days, substituting for Newell Gibbs,” he remarked, absently.
Then his eyes went down to the contract, still there on his desk. Had he chosen, he could have torn it up, and ended the matter there. I said:
“Just show the contract to Haley. After that, maybe Jay will make a scene, but he’ll go along.” Vincent hesitated, thinking it over. I prompted him, gently. “When he sees how the rest of us feel, he’ll do the sensible thing.”
After another pause, Vincent asked, “Why don’t we both talk it over with Haley?”
“He’ll take it better, from you. He already knows Jay and I are always at sixes and sevens. But now you’ve decided you’ll have to oppose him, on this new account.” I knew Haley, and when he saw those figures, he wouldn’t need much further argument. “When he sees that, Haley will come in, too.”
Vincent stood up. I believe it was the first time in the whole history of this agency he had ever taken a real step on his own initiative.
“I don’t suppose there would be any point,” he began, and stopped, brooding.
“Point in what?”
“Well, mentioning last night. Talcott, I mean.”
“I don’t see why that need be brought up,” I said. “It was a moral issue we simply had to face for ourselves, and we did it. Now we can forget it.”
He nodded, as though he understood, which he certainly did not, at least very little of it, and then he went out with the contract. I followed him, slowly, to my own office.
Something had been plucked from the very heart of last night’s near-disaster. A minor triumph had been plucked from it. But doing so, the act of reshaping the harsh circumstances, that was a thing more gratifying than the small achievement itself.
Chapter V
Fenner Griscom
I didn’t mind it, much to listening to Stanley. Sometimes I even enjoyed it. Anyway, it paid.
Charley enjoyed it, too, especially today. He was just beginning to crawl out of the deep freeze, after that bad score he thought he’d made in the park. He didn’t understand it, but he did know a miracle had happened to him. Instead of being on the run, as usual, or sweating out some shaky alibi he knew would never hold, he was almost a public hero. It wasn’t even necessary to make a fix. He and Stanley were the fix.
“My partners are all the better for it,” Stanley told us, quietly, in still another variation of the sermon for today. “I think they have been cleansed and purified by their attempted crime. They are grateful for this narrow escape they have had. They will be all the steadier for the experience, in the future.”
Of all people, it was Stanley, himself, who enjoyed listening to Stanley the most. Hearing it again I wondered, as I had before, whether it made a little more sense to him than it did to me. I decided it did, he meant and understood every word of it. Although a few years ago, when Stanley and I had a public relations arrangement, this same kind of reasoning almost got him measured for a strait jacket, and eventually did break up a good money-making combination. The difference between then and now might be due to the difference between that type of business and this, or it might be just a change in fads and fashions, and although Stanley had been ahead of the times before, he was pretty much standard style for today.
It didn’t make a bit of difference to me, in any case. His recipe was working. Belle, Charley, and myself were drawing a thousand a month, each, from the very first agency Stanley had taken the trouble to reorganize, Generous Heart. Charley, in fact, was the treasurer of it. And Stanley had a lot of plans for more agencies.
“Let me get this straight, Stan,” I asked him, before he took off into the stratosphere once more. “You’ve got all of the partners in your own firm lined up behind you. Right?”
“They now realize they have been drifting around rather aimlessly, and they’re anxious to do the right thing.”
I looked at Belle, curled up in a chair near the window of our suite in the hotel, and she gently shook her head. It was a quick glance, and I impatiently turned back to Stanley. It was all right to be careful with Stanley, but he had dropped a remark or two that didn’t altogether fit with this clear, clean, safe picture of the situation he stressed, and stressed a little too often.
“Do they all know the score on this Generous Heart deal?”
“They all understand, or will understand, it is the biggest thing the company has ever taken on.” He said this stiffly and again, as I thought, a little uncertainly. “We are officially and legally behind their drive. None of the partners raised any objections to it. They welcomed it.”
I thought it over. He was omitting something, or someone. It would be better to find out now about where we could expect trouble, and break it up before, not after it took shape.
I tried to imagine what Stanley’s partners must be like. For years, they’d had a multi-million dollar package right there, in front of them, but they hadn’t even thought of simply taking it. Maybe they were stupid, maybe they had a sentimental attachment to the business, or it might be they were charged with too much idealism. If they were anything like Stanley, t
hat must be it. Or possibly they were cautious operators, and just afraid, timid about making a wrong move.
Yet when Stanley made his very first play they all went right along. Without any pressure, except for an automobile accident so clumsy it couldn’t have happened to anyone on earth except those two. That, plus the fact that once it happened, he’d turned what might have been a bad break into a good one, and roped them with it. Although none of them knew it, not even Stanley. It gave me still another reminder that a visionary like Stanley could be a hopelessly poor judge of a simple, practical situation, such as the one we now had. He had too much faith in pure psychology. One plain, unmistakable, businesslike act carried more weight than a whole circus of inspired hocus-pocus.
We had already had one touch of action, the only reason we were now ready for business. But that had been a fluke, I still didn’t trust it. I asked:
“Do they all know the score on that accident in the park?”
Stanley’s face tightened, probably in rage, fright, and wounded pride. It was as though I’d accidentally stepped on the roof of the best sand palace ever built on this whole beach. For a second, it looked as though he considered crying. But he’d already tried that with me. Once. And now he remembered it hadn’t worked.
I smiled. Belle showed me a smile, too, charged with at least a dozen different remonstrations. Charley merely looked on, a little puzzled, not getting any of it. But I hadn’t said anything out of the way. Besides, I was Stanley’s alibi, something he’d forgotten about. Personally, I didn’t need one. I never did. I have more faith in sound personal relationships, based on how much does each party have on the other? And the more dangerous each one is, the better the friendship.
“They all understand they nearly made a serious mistake about that tragic affair,” he said. “They’re as sorry about it as I am, and as we all should be. It’s a closed matter, unless Ravoc actually takes the trouble to look you up and check on my whereabouts last night.”
I tried to sift the grain or two of facts from the nonsense, and then I asked him, trying to think out loud:
“Ravoc? Why should he be curious, and not the others?”
Stanley’s reaction was quick and strong.
“Because that’s the kind of an arrogant, crude, cynical, vulgar clod he is, that’s all.” He got himself under control, but he’d already said almost enough, probably more than he could have said if he’d actually tried. Then there was a bright boy, after all, in that otherwise harmless outfit. It might be, we would have to take care of Ravoc in some other way than Stanley’s. It was clear Stanley himself wasn’t sure he was able to handle him. “I don’t think he will do any checking,” Stanley added, more calmly. “It’s just that he might.”
“What did he say, when you laid it on the line about last night?”
Stanley’s reply was a little slow in coming.
“I didn’t speak to him, personally. It wasn’t necessary. Vincent Beechwood explained it to him, by phone, that he’d been mistaken, at the very least.”
Charley Talcott gave a robust laugh.
“Some mistake,” he said. “You hear that, Fenner? You satisfied now?”
I didn’t say anything, and Stanley turned his head slightly to stare at Charley, stretched full length on the lounge. The look was that of a surgeon, wondering whether there might be room somewhere in that broad, florid face and forehead for still another hole, and where it would hurt the most to operate. Charley’s laughter crumbled as though it had really been a loose filling, and he’d accidentally swallowed it.
“It was an honest mistake,” Stanley told him. “We can be charitable, and call it that But his real mistake was in following me. I can forgive that, but I don’t forget it. When I see him again, I’ll expect a full explanation and an apology.”
This all added up to something big and final, to Charley, and even Belle gave the impression of being sold. But to me, it was just some more of the same hot air. Except for one added detail, again concerning Ravoc. I asked:
“Then you haven’t seen or spoken to him, at all, about this new contract with Generous Heart?”
Stanley bore me with patience.
“No. He’s gone out to a town where we’re running a drive, in Jersey, straightening out some trouble one of his men got us into. It’s an immorality problem, too long to go into, but it’s a typical end result of Ravoc’s whole philosophy of drift, dawdle, and deteriorate.”
Maybe. But Stanley was afraid of him.
“Then how did you get him to sign up with our agency?”
Somewhere in Stanley’s deep, blank, steady gaze another, this time a different nerve, an infinitesimal tentacle, recoiled and shivered and then closed. But he spoke with a voice that was flat and serene.
“He hasn’t actually signed, as yet.” He waited for me to make an issue of it, but although I thought plenty, I merely waited, too. “He hasn’t even seen it, and doesn’t know of its existence.” He paused again, but I still did not interrupt him. Reluctantly, then, he explained, “But of course, it’s already in force. And he’ll sign.”
My wife, who can be either subtle or blunt, often both at the same time, batted the long lashes of her violet eyes in spellbound admiration and suspense.
“He already knows he was wrong about Charley,” she said. “But won’t he be surprised when he learns the same man is also the treasurer of Generous Heart?”
Stanley gave Belle the modest, boyish, winning smile he issued only to connoisseurs of Stanley Thornhill’s finer performances.
“Maybe. But he’ll get used to it.” He looked at me, hoping I’d be open in my doubt about this, and evidently sure of himself. But I disappointed him. He had another rabbit in that hat of his, or thought he had. Let him bring it out of his own accord. “This is the chief reason for this conference, Fenner. There’s a job you’ll have to do tomorrow. You and Belle. It’s a routine investigation. But it has to be done in a hurry, and with the right touch. Did you ever hear of Inner Light?”
I couldn’t quite place it, at first, and then I did.
“One of your regular accounts, isn’t it? That’s where your friends were, the same time we were in here persuading Crimmins and Quintard to elect Charley their new treasurer. What is it?”
“It’s a fine organization to give aid to the blemished and disfigured. It’s a little old-fashioned, and they’re not realizing a fraction of their possibilities. It works chiefly with women. A splendid thing, as far as it goes, but a lot more could be done with it.” His voice trailed away, following another thought, then he recalled himself and turned to Belle. “Did you ever hear of Francoine Studios?”
Belle was more than surprised, she was almost shocked.
“Did you ever hear of Tiffany’s?”
“That big?”
“Not that big, but they go together, like the bride’s bouquet and a wedding. Why?”
“Shana Hepworth, Ravoc’s girl friend, was with the other two in that following car. She manages Francoine Studios. She, also, had attended that dinner for the disfigured.” Stanley left that line of thought hanging right where it was, seemingly in mid-air, for a long pause. His eyes stared without color, heat, or purpose at a blank space somewhere across the room, then suddenly returned first to Belle, then myself. “Why did she, an authority, in fact an artist in beauty and glamor and grace, find it necessary to attend such a grotesque affair?”
Charley Talcott, with his hands clasped beneath the back of his reclining head, and with his head pointed at the ceiling, gave a loud, chortling reply.
“Ravoc had to attend for business reasons, probably, so she went along to kill some time.”
No one answered this. No one really heard him.
“What is the true relationship between Francoine Studios, dedicated to perfection, and this agency devoted to the help of women who have been mutilated, disfigured, and scarred?” Stanley tossed out these questions like a virtuoso throwing knives. I leaned forward in my chair, beginnin
g to see the connection he had in mind. There might even be a hot connection, in fact. “Is Inner Light the agency to which Francoine Studios sends those patrons who have been injured, undergoing extreme treatments? Or is it just one particular case this Mrs. Hep-worth, who is not divorced, must at all costs keep under observation? Or does she support this charity as an act of conscience, for the damage she knows her career has wrought in the lives of so many?”
Just for that moment I could have sworn he did have something on this woman, whoever she was, something big and solid enough to persuade Ravoc, otherwise we’d use it, and maybe we ought to use it anyway. Or even give her the benefit of her own treatment, the full course, whatever it was.
Belle, herself, was impressed. She weighed and tested Stanley’s package in long silence, before a reaction set in.
“What treatment are you talking about? The kind you’re talking about, there isn’t any. I ought to know. I’ve had them all.”
Stanley smiled, undisturbed.
“Perhaps you’ve been lucky. You’ve certainly been lucky, Belle, that you never needed the dangerous regimens sometimes used.” Belle showed this was a point she’d overlooked, and was not quite sure about. “That is what you and Fenner must do tomorrow. Find some former patron of Francoine Studios who has filed an injury suit against them, perhaps recovered, or made a settlement. There is always somebody. If there isn’t, then there is always somebody who would like to. And when you’ve got that person, she can also become a client of Inner Light. Or the true situation might very well be the other way around. A patient of the agency has been, at one time or another, a customer of Francoine Studios.”
“Do you actually have something?” I asked, sharply. “Or are you just guessing and hoping for the best?”
“It does sound fantastic, Stanley,” said Belle.
“The manager of Francoine Studios was present at this dinner for Inner Light,” he told us, in a voice soft and emphatic, like the edge of a razor. “That is not guesswork. And you’re right, it is fantastic that she was there at all. Why was she there? Why? If necessary, Belle, you might put that very question to the lady herself. You are a newspaper reporter, let’s say, and you want an interview. In the course of it, you mention you are curious as to her interest in this macabre agency, and why Mr. Ravoc took her to that dinner at the Commonwealth. Didn’t she think that odd? And wasn’t it shortly after that same dinner that she and Mr. Ravoc had the misfortune to witness a tragic accident in Central Park? But neither of them had found it possible to help the police in clearing up the case, which was also odd, because there were three of them who had witnessed the fatality.” Stanley stared thoughtfully at Belle, who seemed rigid with fascination. Then he smiled. “And after all, how well does she know Mr. Ravoc? Just what is her connection with his business contact with Inner Light, an agency for mutilated females? But I don’t have to tell you your business, Belle. You see how simple it is. Unfortunately for her, Mrs. Hepworth has a guilty conscience to begin with. Doubly guilty, at least, in her relationship with Ravoc, and then in her complicity in their silence, and where so much of the moral fiber is undermined, it is likely still more of it will be found tainted. That is what you will find, in her connection with Inner Light. You will find that fateful case she is attempting to conceal. In fact, Belle, you might tell her as much. She will report all of this right back to Ravoc, in her guilty panic, and he will take any step that seems necessary to protect them both. The least he can do, as a first step, will be to go along with us in a campaign for the Generous Heart.” He thought about it for a moment, then added, with a slight nod, “And then I think we will reorganize Inner Light. Taken out of the mothballs of custom and dead tradition, that agency can be a tremendous force. It is already heavily endowed. You would bring it the new outlook it needs, Belle, as one of the directors. Perhaps Shana Hepworth, if we can appeal to some spark of probity still there.”
The Generous Heart Page 7
