The Simons Detective Agency was located in a small, one-story office on Vine Street, and Mr. Simons turned out to be a friendly little man with bushy black hair. He listened attentively as Bert stated the problem, and refrained from asking embarrassing questions. Then he tilted back in his chair and said he saw no particular difficulty. He got jobs of this sort all the time, and on most of them was able to show results. However, since time seemed to be of the essence, there would be certain expenses, and he would have to ask for an advance. “I’d have to have two fifty before I can start at all. First, to get the young man’s picture and other information I’ll need, I’ll have to put an operative to work, and he’ll cost me ten dollars a day. Then I’ll have to offer a reward, and—”
“Reward?”
Mildred suddenly had visions of a horrible picture tacked up in post offices. “Oh, don’t worry, Mrs. Pierce.” Mr. Simons seemed to divine her fear. “This is all strictly confidential, and nobody’ll know anything. Just the same, we work through our connections, and they’re not in business for their health. I’d say, on this, a $50 reward should be ample. Then there’s the printing of our fliers, and the pay of a girl to address a couple thousand envelopes and...”
Bert suggested that half the advance should be paid now, the other half when the boy was found, but Mr. Simons shook his head. “This is all money I’ll have to pay out before I can start at all. Mind, I haven’t said anything yet about my services. Of course, other places may do it cheaper, and you’re perfectly welcome to go where you please. But, as I always say, the cheaper the slower in this business — and, the riskier.”
Mildred wrote the check. On the way home, both of them applauded themselves handsomely for what they had done, and agreed it should be between themselves, with nothing said to Wally or Veda until they had something to “lay on the line,” as Bert put it. So for several days Mildred was ducking into phone booths and talking in guarded tones to Mr. Simons. Then one afternoon he told her to come in. She picked up Bert, and together they drove to the little frame office. Mr. Simons was all smiles. “We had a little luck. Of course it wasn’t really luck. In this business, you can’t be too thorough. We found out that when he left town, the young man was driving one of his stepfather’s cars, and just because I was about to put that information on the flier, now we’ve got something. Here’s the itemized bill, and if you’ll just let me have the check while the girl is typing out the address for you...”
Mildred wrote a check for $125, mainly for “services.” Mr. Simons put a card in her hand, with an address on it. “That’s a dude ranch near Winslow, Ariz. The young man is using his right name, and I don’t think you’ll have any trouble locating him.”
Driving back, they stared at one of Mr. Simons’s fliers, bearing the weak, handsome face of the boy they had chosen for a son-in-law. Then, nervously, they discussed what was to be done, and came to the conclusion, in Bert’s phrase, that they had to “go through with it.” When Mildred dropped him off, they agreed that the time had come to get action out of Wally, and rather grimly Mildred drove home. Going to the kitchen, she sent Letty on another protracted errand. Then, when the girl had gone, she hurried into the den and called Wally. Shrilly, she told what she had done, and read him the address furnished by Mr. Simons. He said hey wait a minute, till he got a pencil. Then he made her repeat the address slowly, and then said: “Swell. Say, that’s a help. It’s a good thing to have, just in case.”
“What do you mean, in case?”
“In case they get tough.”
“Aren’t you calling the sheriffs office?”
“No use going off half-cocked. We’ve got them right where we want them, and as I said before, our play is to make them come to us. Just let it ride, and—”
“Wally, I want that boy arrested.”
“Mildred, why don’t you let me—”
Mildred slammed up the receiver and jumped up, her eyes blazing, her hat slightly askew. When she turned to dash out, Veda was at the door. At once she launched into a denunciation of Wally. “That man’s not even trying to do anything. I’ve told him where that boy is. I had a detective find out — and still he does nothing. Well that’s the last he’ll hear from me! I’m going over to the sheriff’s office myself!”
Quivering with her high, virtuous resolve, Mildred charged for the door. She collided with Veda, who seemed to have moved to block her path. Then her wrist was caught in a grip like steel, and slowly, mercilessly, she was forced back, until she plunged down on the sofa. “You’ll do nothing of the kind.”
“Let go of me! What are you pushing me for? What do you mean I’ll do nothing of the kind?”
“If you go to the sheriffs office, they’ll bring young Mr. Forrester back. And if they bring him back, he’ll want to marry me, and that doesn’t happen to suit me. It may interest you to know that he’s been back. He sneaked into town, twice, and a beautiful time I had of it, getting him to be a nice boy and stay where Mamma put him. He’s quite crazy about me. I saw to that. But as for matrimony, I beg to be excused. I’d much rather have the money.”
Mildred took off her hat, and stared at the cold, beautiful creature who had sat down opposite her, and who was now yawning as though the whole subject were a bit of a bore. The events of the last few days began ticking themselves off in her mind, particularly the strange relationship that had sprung up, between Veda and Wally. The squint appeared, and her face grew hard. “Now I know what that woman meant by blackmail. You’re just trying to shake her down, shake the whole family down, for money. You’re not pregnant, at all.”
“Mother, at this stage it’s a matter of opinion, and in my opinion, I am.”
Veda’s eyes glinted as she spoke, and Mildred wanted to back down, to avoid one of those scenes from which she always emerged beaten, humiliated, and hurt. But something was swelling within her, something that began in the sick jealously of a few nights before, something that felt as though it might presently choke her. Her voice shook as she spoke. “How could you do such a thing? If you had loved the boy, I wouldn’t have a word to say. So long as I thought you had loved him, I didn’t have a word to say, not one word to blame you. To love is a woman’s right, and when you do, I hope you give everything you have, brimming over. But just to pretend you loved him to lead him on, to get money out of him — how could you do it?”
“Merely following in my mother’s footsteps.”
“What did you say?”
“Oh, stop being so tiresome. There’s the date of your wedding, and there’s the date of my birth. Figure it out for yourself. The only difference is that you were a little younger at that time than I am now — a month or two anyway. I suppose it runs in families.”
“Why do you think I married your father?”
“I rather imagine he married you. If you mean why you got yourself knocked up, I suppose you did it for the same reason I did — for the money.”
“What money?”
“Mother, in another minute I’ll be getting annoyed. Of course he has no money now, but at the time he was quite rich, and I’m sure you knew it. When the money was gone you kicked him out. And when you divorced him, and he was so down and out that the Biederhof had to keep him, you quite generously stripped him of the only thing he had left, meaning this lovely, incomparable, palatial hovel that we live in.”