Can you imagine that? That tremendous sum he was paid, and still he sandbagged me for five hundred dollars. It’s why I couldn’t call you sooner. I had to go to the bank for cash.”
I got out my blank check, the same one I had waved at Lang, and got ready to kick in with my share. But actually I wrote five hundred, the whole bite. When she saw that figure, though, she lifted my hand, the one with the pen in it, and kissed it. “Gramie,” she said, “I love it when you give me money—it makes my heart go bump, that’s the woman of it. But this I can’t take off you. No—it’s on me for being so dumb. For having him here at all. For—”
Suddenly she stiffened, broke off, and then asked me: “Gramie, you talked to this girl—where? Where is she now?”
“At my house. I thought I said.”
“Then, until we know where we’re at, keep her there! Don’t let her go home! Because this is what terrifies me: Dale Morgan is dead—that we know. But it would simplify Burl’s problem, put him in the clear, if this girl were to die, too—accidentally, of course, as Dale Morgan died. It mustn’t happen.”
“Listen, I can’t lock her up.”
“You’ll have to do something, Gramie.”
She stared at me, then went on: “Perhaps Burl has skipped, perhaps not. Perhaps he’s out there somewhere, just biding his time. And if he knows where she is—!”
It was hard for me to believe, to get through my head at all, that she was talking in earnest. I mumbled I’d try to think of something, and then she asked me: “Would you like me to ring Jane Sibert? And call off your luncheon engagement?”
“I can’t. I drew some cash too, her allowance for the next four weeks, that I thought I’d hand her before she leaves, as kind of a going-away surprise—”
“Then, you must go. She’s important to us.”
“What time is it?”
“Twelve-ten. You’d better be running along.”
I kissed her, told her: “I’ll be in touch, I’ll keep you posted. After Jane goes I have to see Sonya, and report to her how I came out. Perhaps she’ll have some idea on how to keep undercover.”
“Is she nice? Or what?”
“She’s damned easy to look at.”
Chapter 5
S O WHY WAS JANE Sibert important, and why did I have to go? Well, she was a widow who lived on a little farm, a place of sixty-seven acres, in back of College Park, and I’ve already told how she took me in, when I was fifteen years old, becoming a sort of foster mother to me, so I wouldn’t have to live with my stepfather. It was a wonderful place for a boy, and I loved it for ten or twelve years, but it was not such a wonderful place for a middle-aged woman, trying to live there alone—after I pulled out, I mean. And yet she was sot, as she called it, and instead of selling her farm, persisted in living on it, as she had in the days of her marriage, when the University of Maryland, whose campus abutted her fields, was the Maryland Agriculture College, and things were simple and friendly and small. So of course the catch was her assessment. Once it was upped to bring it in line with adjoining properties, which were so valuable it took your breath, she’d be eaten alive by taxes. To head that off, to retain her “rural agriculture” status, the place had to be agricultural, meaning she had to farm it.
Not herself knowing a rake from a buzz saw, she found a guy out near Berwyn, who had all the required machinery and was willing to go shares with her, making a crop of hay. Then alfalfa it was, but when all deductions were made, it didn’t bring in much cash. So to kind of equalize, so she could go on living in style, I made her a little allowance—not so little actually, as one hundred dollars a week is a drain on anyone’s income, and I can’t say I didn’t feel it.
Understand: There’d been an arrangement before, with my mother kicking in for my board on the farm, my expenses at Yale, and the money I needed to start out in the real estate
I got out my blank check, the same one I had waved at Lang, and got ready to kick in with my share. But actually I wrote five hundred, the whole bite. When she saw that figure, though, she lifted my hand, the one with the pen in it, and kissed it. “Gramie,” she said, “I love it when you give me money—it makes my heart go bump, that’s the woman of it. But this I can’t take off you. No—it’s on me for being so dumb. For having him here at all. For—”
Suddenly she stiffened, broke off, and then asked me: “Gramie, you talked to this girl—where? Where is she now?”
“At my house. I thought I said.”
“Then, until we know where we’re at, keep her there! Don’t let her go home! Because this is what terrifies me: Dale Morgan is dead—that we know. But it would simplify Burl’s problem, put him in the clear, if this girl were to die, too—accidentally, of course, as Dale Morgan died. It mustn’t happen.”
“Listen, I can’t lock her up.”
“You’ll have to do something, Gramie.”
She stared at me, then went on: “Perhaps Burl has skipped, perhaps not. Perhaps he’s out there somewhere, just biding his time. And if he knows where she is—!”
It was hard for me to believe, to get through my head at all, that she was talking in earnest. I mumbled I’d try to think of something, and then she asked me: “Would you like me to ring Jane Sibert? And call off your luncheon engagement?”
“I can’t. I drew some cash too, her allowance for the next four weeks, that I thought I’d hand her before she leaves, as kind of a going-away surprise—”
“Then, you must go. She’s important to us.”
“What time is it?”
“Twelve-ten. You’d better be running along.”
I kissed her, told her: “I’ll be in touch, I’ll keep you posted. After Jane goes I have to see Sonya, and report to her how I came out. Perhaps she’ll have some idea on how to keep undercover.”
“Is she nice? Or what?”
“She’s damned easy to look at.”
Chapter 5
S O WHY WAS JANE Sibert important, and why did I have to go? Well, she was a widow who lived on a little farm, a place of sixty-seven acres, in back of College Park, and I’ve already told how she took me in, when I was fifteen years old, becoming a sort of foster mother to me, so I wouldn’t have to live with my stepfather. It was a wonderful place for a boy, and I loved it for ten or twelve years, but it was not such a wonderful place for a middle-aged woman, trying to live there alone—after I pulled out, I mean. And yet she was sot, as she called it, and instead of selling her farm, persisted in living on it, as she had in the days of her marriage, when the University of Maryland, whose campus abutted her fields, was the Maryland Agriculture College, and things were simple and friendly and small. So of course the catch was her assessment. Once it was upped to bring it in line with adjoining properties, which were so valuable it took your breath, she’d be eaten alive by taxes. To head that off, to retain her “rural agriculture” status, the place had to be agricultural, meaning she had to farm it.
Not herself knowing a rake from a buzz saw, she found a guy out near Berwyn, who had all the required machinery and was willing to go shares with her, making a crop of hay. Then alfalfa it was, but when all deductions were made, it didn’t bring in much cash. So to kind of equalize, so she could go on living in style, I made her a little allowance—not so little actually, as one hundred dollars a week is a drain on anyone’s income, and I can’t say I didn’t feel it.
Understand: There’d been an arrangement before, with my mother kicking in for my board on the farm, my expenses at Yale, and the money I needed to start out in the real estate
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