‘Wouldn’t your folks help out?’
Another shrug. ‘I don’t think they’d be too keen. News of my little problem here got back to Annapolis.’
‘I can imagine. Well … Walt also told me he owed you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.’
Her head came up, slowly.
Clive opened his wallet and took out the cheque. ‘So I’m settling his debts.’
She gazed at the slip of paper. ‘You have an unpleasant sense of humour, Commander. That was a joke.’
Clive laid the cheque on the coffee table in front of him. ‘He didn’t think so.’
‘Probably not.’ She continued to look at the cheque. He knew how great the temptation must be. Because he knew how great it was intended to be.
‘It is yours,’ he said. ‘Call it a bequest.’
She got up, poured herself another rum punch. Her hands were trembling.
‘And you deserve it,’ he said. ‘For a whole lot of reasons. For saving Walt’s neck. For sticking it out, here. And for the doubts Walt had about you.’
She frowned. ‘Doubts?’
‘Yes. I imagine they were planted by the police. So tell me, Mrs O’Malley, why didn’t you destroy that thousand dollar cheque?’
She gazed at him. ‘I forgot about it. I had a lot on my mind.’
‘Then let’s try another point. Did you know your husband had a heart condition, before setting up what you knew would be a traumatic meeting between him and Walt, and one which would probably end in a fist fight?’
‘Walt thought that?’
‘From time to time. As I say, probably because that was what the police supposed might have happened.’
‘And you believe them?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not now I’ve met you, I believe you did everything you did in defence of the man you loved. I would only like to be sure whether you loved Walt, or his money.’
She gazed at him for several seconds, then she crossed the room, picked up the cheque, and tore it into four strips. ‘It may interest you to know,’ she said, ‘that I tore the other cheque up as well. Now get out of my house.’
Clive also stood up. ‘I think you deserved that money on another count,’ he said. ‘For being a remarkably beautiful, remarkably brave, remarkably wonderful woman. Mrs O’Malley, I honestly don’t care what happened on the night of 12 February 1944, or what happened before, or since. What I do care is, whether or not you’ll have dinner with me tonight. Show me some place good. I may be coming here to live, permanently.’
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The Passion and the Glory Page 40
