I made my mistake then. I stopped her. “Wait, Kay. Take it slow. I’m not so sure you realize just what goes on here. The Harte bank account would go blue in the face and collapse under the strain without that weekly check to relieve the pressure. Somehow I don’t seem to have done any long-range financial planning for this sort of an emergency. And you’re used to eating regularly—”
I wasn’t exaggerating. I have always been a lousy accountant, and the mysterious way in which my income has always managed to melt before ever seeing the inside of a bank has always amazed me. Remembering several unopened letters lately received from the bank, I rather suspected that the checking account was overdrawn. And the balance showing in what the bank jokingly referred to as my savings account would collapse without even a dull thud if it was faced with the prospect of serving for two. I was afraid that Kay, whose gilt-edged upbringing and whose offhand jettisoning of the Wolff fortune indicated a lack of perspective as to financial matters, might be in for a rude jolt about ten minutes after the justice of the peace had given us his blessing.
I was sure that she hadn’t the remotest conception of the vast interstellar distances that separated the standard of living she had always known from the one she would suddenly have to get used to. I knew that the least I could do was give her fair warning in advance.
Emotions are the damnedest things. Kay was suffering an attack of them now, and my explanations didn’t even get under way.
“Bank account,” she said, turning. Then she slammed the car door. “You’re alike, both of you! You can’t think of anything but money. As if that were all that—”
“But Kay,” I started. “Some of us must. You never have because—”
I didn’t finish. She was gone, running up the steps toward the house. I realized then that Dudley Wolff was, after all, her father, and that defying him as she had just done had been for her a distinctly upsetting emotional experience. Then, when I suddenly seemed to back water and let her down, she folded. I didn’t blame her much.
I turned toward Wolff and found him grinning at me in a complacent, well-that-settles-your-hash manner that made me boil up and over. He had all the tact of a hippopotamus.
The Harte family temper let loose with a few fireworks of its own then. Caution went overboard and the applecart tipped completely over.
“You,” I said flatly, “are a tinhorn Mussolini. How Kay has managed to stick it around here as long as this, I don’t know. She’d be happier on relief. I will marry her now — in spite of hell, high water, and you! Excuse me!”
I took the steps after Kay three at a time.
“Harte!” Wolff roared. “If you go through that door I’ll have you arrested for breaking and entering!”
I didn’t bother to answer.
As I went in I heard him call to the chauffeur who still waited in the car. “Leonard! Get him! Use gloves if possible. But don’t take any back talk. Get him out of here!”
He meant it too. I suspected that Leonard had been hired largely on account of the muscular shoulders that bulged beneath his uniform and the slightly cauliflower ear that indicated a belligerent past. He weighed twenty pounds more than I did and had a longer reach. I had no desire to tangle with him.
There was, as it turned out, no need to. Phillips blocked my way just inside and informed me politely but firmly that Miss Kathryn had retired to her room leaving distinct orders that she was not to be disturbed by anyone. She had, he added, particularly mentioned me. That tore it.
Leonard strode in through the doorway, an ominous look of anticipation on his capable face. Wolff, at his heels, breathed flame. I knew when I was licked. Without Kay’s moral support there was nothing I could do but retreat as gracefully as possible. Even if I could somehow manage to outmaneuver Leonard, the other hired reinforcements Wolff could call up outnumbered me six to one. If I put up a battle I’d only find myself leaving in a station wagon — one that had the words Police Department lettered on its side.
I tried to match Wolff’s scowl with one of my own and failed. He had had much more practice.
“Okay,” I growled. “But I’ll be back.”
I went out and slammed the door behind me hard. It was a solid affair of heavy oak and it made a quite satisfactory bang. But that wasn’t enough to iron out the wrinkles in my disposition. I slammed the door of my car too, and jabbed my foot furiously against the starter. The car, goaded into too abrupt action, growled; its exhaust roared like Dudley Wolff at his worst and it jerked forward. The gears clashed angrily as I shifted into high.
I still haven’t the remotest notion how I missed colliding head on with one or another of the line of Lombardy poplars that bordered the winding drive long before I reached the gatehouse. I must have a guardian angel.
If I do, she didn’t follow through. Perhaps it was when I passed the police car on an upgrade at seventy per that she decided it was more than she could handle. The banshee howl of the siren that rose instantly behind me was enough to scare her off in itself.
I swore feelingly and pulled over. The officer boarded me, spitting fire in a way that indicated the technique was not exclusive with Dudley Wolff. My disturbed emotional state had apparently shunted too much adrenaline over into the blood stream because I spit some fire right back at him. He promptly deduced that my attitude did not contain nearly enough respect for the majesty of the law. This decision resulted a few moments later in reckless driving and disorderly conduct charges, and a heart-to-heart talk with the desk sergeant at the near-by Mamaroneck police station. I had gained control again by then and tried to exert a belated soothing influence.
He didn’t soothe easily. It took all my diplomatic skill to induce him to keep the amount of the bond down to the twenty-five I had on me. As for the summons to appear in court Monday morning, that was a subject he flatly refused to discuss under any circumstances, the present ones in particular.
I realize now that the gift of clairvoyance might have helped. If some occult sixth sense, or perhaps a crystal ball in good working order, had shown me what was happening back in the Wolff mansion, I might have successfully distracted official attention from myself. I could have given the sergeant a report that would have curled his hair — and mine too.
But I wasn’t psychic. I didn’t find out until nearly two weeks later that, as I argued with the police, one of the persons I had left behind in the Wolff house was busily making the first moves in a cleverly calculated, and completely unique, design for murder.
Chapter Two:
The Man Who Hated Death
When the police, Merlini, and myself did investigate we eventually obtained the evidence of certain witnesses which enabled us to reconstruct in detail the astonishing series of events that took place just after I left the Wolff house.
We discovered that, as the door slammed, Dudley Wolff had turned to the chauffeur and said, “All right, Leonard. That’s all.”
Leonard nodded and went out. The butler took Wolff’s coat and hat.
“Doctor Haggard and Mr. Galt are waiting for you,” he reported. “In the library.”
Wolff scowled. “Oh? Haggard too?”
Phillips nodded. “Yes. He phoned half an hour ago to say that he wanted to see you urgently. When I told him that you were expected shortly, he came over at once. Shouldn’t I have done that, sir?”
Wolff grunted. “Ummmpf. That’s quite all right, Phillips. Tell Mrs. Wolff I’m here.”
“Yes, sir. Have you dined?”
Wolff nodded. He strode toward the tall library doors that opened on the left. He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “And Phillips,” he added. “When Mr. Harte phones, Kathryn is out, indisposed, or whatever seems to be necessary. If he should return, he is not to be admitted on any account. If you have trouble, get Leonard. That’s a standing order. Understand?”