Shadow of Guilt Read Online Free PDF Page B

turned sharply to me, but that was all Chuck needed. He dashed up the stairs.
    I said, “Look, Connie, Ala could be right about that girl, you know. Vivien did say Mrs. Fostwick was a gossip. She could have got it all wrong or invented the bit about the money—anything. At least we’ve got to make sure.”
    “And just how do you propose to do that?”
    “Call the Fostwicks, get the name of these people and talk to them. There can’t be more than one Reginald Fostwick in Toronto.”
    I went to the telephone. I got Mrs. Fostwick almost at once and, after she’d squawked a while like a panicked hen, she told me the name of the people. It was Duvreux. In five minutes I was telling Mr. Duvreux our problem. He was clearly a weighty and responsible citizen. It was quite impossible to doubt his word. With a feeling of dull depression, I put down the phone.
    “Well?” asked Connie crisply.
    “It’s true,” I said. “Saxby did take the ten thousand dollars. And that’s not all. Duvreux checked up on him through private detectives. There was another earlier episode in Quebec.”
    “So,” said Connie. “There it is. A very pretty situation, isn’t it? I congratulate you.”
    As we stood assessing each other like enemies, Chuck came down the stairs. He was walking unsteadily, almost as if he were drunk.
    He didn’t look at either of us. He was gazing straight in front of him.
    “She’s locked herself in her room. She wouldn’t let me in. She just talked through the door.”
    “But what did she say?” Connie asked gently.
    “She says it’s no good. She says she’s never going to marry me. She’s sorry, she says. She’ll explain it all later, but now…”
    Suddenly he sat down on the stairs and put his hands over his face. The light from the hall chandelier played on his blond hair and the smooth youthful skin at the back of his neck. He seemed to be in a state bordering on shock. To me Chuck had always been the very symbol of all that was stolid and unimaginative in good young boys. Seeing him like this, I felt disgusted at myself for my careless meddling, and the disgust brought with it a deep rage against Don Saxby.
    Connie dropped down at Chuck’s side. She put her hand on his shoulder. She was all maternal warmth and tenderness, as if he were a very little child who’d fallen and scraped his knee.
    “Chuckie dear, you mustn’t worry. Please. She’s in a silly, confused stage, but she’s only nineteen. She…”
    The phone rang shrilly. My wife glanced up at me, blazingeyed, as if it were my fault it had rung.
    “Don’t take it here. Take it upstairs.”
    I squeezed past them and hurried up the stairs to our bedroom.
    It was Eve. Her voice, coming so unexpectedly from a totally different world, was like sunshine suddenly splashing across the room.
    “Eve, Eve baby.”
    “George, I’m sorry, but I had to call. Is it all right?”
    “All right? Of course it’s all right.”
    “Don Saxby’s just been here.”
    “At your apartment?” I said.
    “I don’t quite know why. I suppose it was because he knows about you and me. He was terribly sweet. He seems absolutely crazy about Ala and he knows Connie’s going to fight it. Apparently Ala’s told him you’ll be on his side, but he begged me to call you right away and let you know how much it means to him that you…”
    I had been listening in growing outrage. Now I exploded. “What gall, dragging you into this!”
    “Gall? Why? I know it was rather odd coming to me when he hardly knows me, but…”
    “He’s a crook.”
    I told her about the Duvreuxs. She gave a little gasp. “No. George, are you sure?”
    “Of course we’re sure. I’ve just been talking to the Duvreux family in Toronto.”
    “Then what are you going to do?”
    I hadn’t really thought until then, but now I knew exactly what I was going to do.
    “It’s simple,” I said. “If he thinks he’s ever going to see Ala again, he’s out of his mind. And if he tries to