“That’s a lot of money for someone just to leave in an office safe. Even Hugo. Is it his personal money?”
“He said so, but I have a notion, if the truth were known, that the internal revenue boys might think differently. Chances are, Hugo would never report the theft of it to the police.”
“He wouldn’t need to. He has men of his own to take care of such things.”
“Are you afraid?”
“No, darling. Not for one hundred grand and a bonus. You are much more daring and exciting than I knew, and I can’t imagine how I underestimated you so.”
“In that case, we had better make some plans.”
She had been much more easily persuaded than he had hoped or expected, and they sat on the floor like childish conspirators and made all the arrangements, which were very simple, and her excitement had grown and grown inside her until her eyes were shining with such a bright light that they gave the effect of blindness, and her breath was drawn and released with labor between moist pink lips.
“I’ll get the money early,” he said. “As shortly after eight as possible. The office is locked, but that won’t be any problem. The safe will be a slightly greater problem, but I can manage it all right. It won’t take longer than ten minutes to open it. I’ve always had sensitive fingers. There’s an alarm, of course, but I know where it is and how to shut it off. I will simply take the money and leave the office and walk directly down the back stairs to the alley door. The door is barred on the inside, and that’s where you will have to help me. The only thing you will have to do is wait there to bar the door after me, for if it were discovered unbarred, it might touch off an investigation before we were ready for it.”
“That leaves me on the inside and you on the outside, darling. Where will I meet you later?”
“I don’t think you had better come with me immediately. There is a little town I know about three hundred miles in the direction I want to go. I’ll stop there and take a room in the hotel. You follow tomorrow and take a room, too. You will have to ride a bus, for there’s no train or air service, and we won’t want a second car on our hands. You’d better travel light, but don’t forget your jewels. In the places we are going we may need a little extra money.”
“What is the name of the town?”
He told her the name of the town and the name he would use there instead of his own, and all the plans were simply made and perfectly executed, everything going exactly right, and everything was still going right, according to plan, for the telephone was ringing in his room in the hotel in the small town, and he got up and answered it.
“Hello, darling,” she said. “How’s my bonus boy?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “What room are you in?”
“Never mind. I’ll come to yours. I want to see my base pay, and my bonus together, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind. We’re both in room 306, and we’ll be waiting for you. We both sort of missed you.”
“Darling, I’ll be right there.”
While waiting the last two minutes, which were what she took in coming, he went over to the open bag and took a silver flask from it and a large swallow of scotch from the flask. He did not drink much, hardly ever alone, and he wasn’t nervous or afraid, not needing the drink especially, and he took it simply because he was satisfied and excited and felt like having a drink of scotch to what had been committed and done and would be done hereafter. He capped the flask and dropped it into the bag. There was a knock on the door, and he went over and opened it.
She came in quickly, and he could see at once that the excitement was still burning inside her. Its heat was high in her cheeks and in her eyes.
“Darling,” she said, “here we are, aren’t we?”
“Yes. Here we are, and there it is. In the little bag on the floor.”
“One hundred thousand dollars in that little bag? It seems incredible.”
“It’s in big bills.”
“Do you mind if I just look at it and feel it? Darling, it would be such a comfort and give me such pleasure.”
“Comforted and pleased are how I want to keep you. Help yourself.” He handed her the key to the bag, and she went over and lifted it onto the bed and opened it. The brown paper wrapping had been removed, the large bills loose in packets in the bag, and she stood there for more than a minute, caressing a packet with her fingers, her eyes bright and her breathing deep. Then she turned to face him, and she was for the first time standing frilly on his side of discretion, her own position abandoned somewhere behind her and them.
“Will Hugo find us, darling?”
“He never will.”
“Aren’t you afraid at all?”
“Not at all.”
“Neither am I. I’m only terribly excited.” She sat down on the edge of the bed beside the small bag containing the money. “Darling, please come here.”
He went over and sat down beside her, and they were all there on the bed together, he and she and all the beautiful money that made it possible, and in the meanwhile the hot, white light diminished in the street outside, and it grew dark in the room.
“Darling,” she said, “whatever time is it?”
Looking at his wrist watch, he was surprised to see that he couldn’t read it. He got up and lowered the blinds at the windows and turned on a light beside the bed. “It’s almost eight,” he said. “We’d better leave here about nine. It’s a long way to Miami.”
“Is that where we’re going? To Miami?”
“Miami and points south.”
“I suppose I had better go back to my room and get ready.”
“I suppose. My car is parked in the lot beside the hotel. There’s a door leading out at the foot of the stairs. You won’t have to go through the lobby. I’ll meet you at the car at nine. Can you manage your own bags?”
“I can manage. Darling, I hate to leave you, even until nine. It will seem like forever.”
“Forever is what comes after,” he said.
When she was gone, he lit a cigarette and smoked it. Then he went over to the telephone and put through a long distance call, charges reversed, to a number he had been given. The voice that answered, after a while, was flat and hard, committed to speaking directly and being done with it.
“Is that you, Steve? How’s everything?”
“Everything’s fine, Mr. Archer. Going according to plan.”
“Good. I can go home tomorrow.”
“I want to thank you again for giving me this break.”
“Forget it. You’ve done a job for a price, that’s all. The first time I saw her look at you, I knew you were the one to do it. It would have cost twice as much for a divorce and five times as much to keep her on the side. I hope you’re making it realistic.”
“Don’t worry about that. She thinks it’s for real. She’s giving up something in the long run for a bonus now.”
“Have fun. Don’t think that hundred grand is going to last you and Hannah forever, though. It won’t.”
“Well,” Steve said, “it will probably last as long as we will.”
He hung up and looked at his watch again. Eight exactly. One hour to wait. He took a tiny gold penknife from a pocket and began to pare his fingernails.
Mrs. Dearly’s Special Day
Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, July 1963.
After what had been done last night, it was mostly a day of waiting for something to happen. Waiting, however, can be a great excitement. If one possesses the quality of character to sustain composure, the excitement all inside and growing, waiting can be the most exhilarating experience imaginable.