“Two package,” he said. “Two sousand dollar total. Yess.”
“Double check.”
Bradford Weller smiled. He was feeling good again. He had been challenged to stop and he had asserted himself. He felt invincible. The blonde girl had one leg across the corner of his desk and she was very close to him. Even closer than the physical contact, he told himself, there was a mental bond. She had shown her faith in him. She had not protested his right to do as he wished with his own money; even though she must have wanted that money for herself. It was the ultimate test of human love.
The senator was feeling better than he ever had. When Tim Weller rose and went out of the room without a word, the senator smiled. The symbol of his enslavement to relatives and responsibility was going up in smoke. The relatives, themselves, were walking out on the show. He almost wished that his sister Emily could be here.
He had a chill feeling along his spine at the thought of her being here and his heart hammered hard against his ribs. He had to drive even the thought from his mind if he were to enjoy his triumph. She was so completely the ruler of this house and the dominator of all men that he might not even be able to command the allegiance of Cooper and of Hito if she were here.
“She won’t be able to do a thing,” he reflected.
That was a thought that pleased him and he held to it. He would be out of the reach of her wrath when she learned what had happened and she would be helpless to undo what he had done. The idea of Emily being helpless was the most pleasant thought of all.
There were only a few packages more and he watched them hit the flames and catch fire with a feeling of unholy glee. Hito staggered a little from the effects of the heat as he rose to his feet. Greg Cooper made a couple of marks with his pencil.
“One hundred and fifty-four thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five dollars,” he said mechanically.
The senator rubbed his hands. “That’s fine,” he said.
“Fine if you think so.”
Greg Cooper hurled the pencil into the fire and stalked out of the room. The senator called to him and he did not turn around. The door slammed behind him and Hito looked to the senator for instructions.
Bradford Weller looked at the fire. “Scatter the ashes well, Hito,” he said. “People have been known to obtain treasury redemptions on burned currency.”
He took an envelope from his pocket. “Your pay, Deshler,” he said. “I doubled the regular rate to take care of the overtime.”
“Thank you, sir. You won’t need me any more?”
“There’s nothing left to guard.”
“Good night, sir.”
Mike Deshler walked out like a punch drunk fighter. Bradford Weller grinned after him. Mike Deshler would open that envelope and find twenty dollars — and Mike Deshler would remember that he had seen nearly a hundred and sixty thousand dollars go up in smoke. Mike Deshler would probably get drunk.
Mildred Harney swung her leg down from the edge of the desk. She gripped the lapels of the senator’s dinner coat and raised her face to his.
“I think you’re wonderful,” she said. “That was the bravest thing that I have ever seen anyone do.”
He put his arm around her and, oblivious to the presence of Hito in the room, he kissed her hard on the mouth. He held her then at arm’s length.
“And you don’t mind if I am practically broke?”
“Not a bit. You have ability. I believe in you.”
He patted her shoulders. “You are a wonderful girl.”
She kissed him, then, swiftly — and, wheeling, ran from the room. He looked after her and he could feel the rush of his own blood. She was his. He would take her with him when he left. He would take her to New York. After that? There was excitement in his brain but he had held winning cards before in his lifetime. He would collect the winnings of the hand that he held before he started to worry about the next hand. That would be his life from now on.
He had made no definite promises to the girl and a girl so obviously crazy about him might not insist upon marriage.
He watched Hito as the Japanese completed his dispersement of the ashes, then he took a decanter from his desk and poured himself a brandy.
“A big night, Hito?” he said.
“Yess, Sar.”
The Japanese waited. Bradford Weller waved one thin hand. “That will be all, Hito.”
“Yess, Sar.”
The door closed and Bradford Weller was alone. He finished his brandy, looked around the room triumphantly and realized suddenly that he was tired. It had been a strain and he had acquitted himself well under circumstances far from easy.
“I’ll go to bed,” he said.
He went out into a hall that was silent and deserted. Mildred, he supposed, had retired. His eyes gleamed at the thought of her. The others! Well, there was little to keep them up. He found amusement in the thought of Cooper. He had scored on Cooper more heavily even than he had hoped.
Cooper had been shocked and surprised into complete helplessness. He hadn’t even had one of his customary wisecracks. To cap it all, Cooper was in bad with Vivian for not doing something heroic. The senator chuckled. “It’s no time for her to be acting uppity and independent,” he said. “She hasn’t got a dime.”
He was feeling like a minor god again. He had stretched out his hand and he had scrambled lives around with it. Every person in that room would date time from this night. He had changed the course of every life with the possible exception of Deshler’s. Even little Hito would find things different. He would probably have to hunt another job when Emily came back and found her meal ticket gone.
“They made me, eh? Well, let them make themselves.”
He was in his room with the door closed and he was very tired. His head ached a little and he was glad to remove the wig. He climbed slowly out of his evening clothes. He had never been able to abide a valet but there were times when he wished that he had one. He lacked even the energy for a shower. He filled a glass of water, put his teeth into it and got into his pajamas. He turned out the light, then, and threw himself gratefully upon the bed.
Staring up into the darkness, he imagined that he could see the leaping flames again; flames that danced on stacks of currency — a danse macabre for the hopes of those who had planned to inherit. Freedom had come to him from those flames — and he was not through yet. He had another surprise in store. He chuckled.
He did not hear the door open. A figure glided across the room and he was not aware of the intruder until he sensed a presence by his bed. He blinked to clear the vision of the flames from his eyes and he saw the flash of the knife coming down...
Chapter VI
Noises in the Night
Greg Cooper slammed the door of the senator’s study behind him with mingled emotions. He was angry because he had just witnessed the clumsy playing of an inept game — and because he had been placed in a position where he did not have a card to play himself nor an opportunity to explain to Vivian Dawson.
“The poor kid!”
He looked into the parlor and into the small study with a vague hope that he might find her waiting for him. She wasn’t in either place and he took the stairs with long strides.
Vivian Dawson’s room was to the left from the head of the stairs. Mildred Harney’s room adjoined it and was connected to it by the bathroom which they shared. Cooper knocked on Vivian’s door and waited. There was no answer and he knocked again.
“Vi!” he called. “Vi!”
He heard her stir as though she had risen from a chair or from the bed, but she did not come near the door. He tried again.
“Vi,” he called. “Listen! I’ve got to talk to you.”