The Witchfinder Read Online Free PDF Page A

this business, and that’s as close to an apology as you’ll hear from me.”
    “It’s closer than you need. I gave up slapping people with gauntlets years ago.”
    “In that case, please don’t insult me with this story about locating Jay’s heirs. Some of the younger members of the board of directors are trying to force me into retirement on grounds of senility. They won’t succeed.”
    I smoked the rest of my cigarette. By the time I twisted it out in the ruby tray I’d made a decision. I took the photograph Lund had given me out of my inside breast pocket and laid it face up on the desk. He looked down at it without moving his head, let his eyes register a full stop, then looked back at me. “I’ve seen this before. Jay showed it to me the day it came.”
    “What did you think?”
    “I thought she had a beautiful body. I was eight years younger than I am now.” Something that would have been a tragic expression on any other face, but which on his passed for a smile, pulled at the corners of his mouth. “If you want me to say I was shocked, I’ll have to disappoint you. When a man who has passed his threescore and ten takes up with a girl in her twenties, he’s a fool to think he can satisfy all her needs.”
    “It doesn’t sound like you thought much of her.”
    “I didn’t think much about her. I met her only once, when Jay brought her to the office to show her the operation. She didn’t chew gum and she asked intelligent questions. Beyond that I couldn’t judge her. And wouldn’t if I could. I met my wife modeling nude for a life drawing course I attended in nineteen thirty-nine. When we went out she told me she’d appeared in a two-reeler ‘exposé’ set in a nudist camp; a silly little teaser, but it postponed my proposing to her for six months. Six months I never got back. She died five years ago and never once gave me cause for embarrassment. I wish she could have said the same about me. What are you getting at, Walker?”
    “The picture’s phony. Furlong only found it out recently. Someone who didn’t want them to marry rigged it up.”
    He sat back. “Poor Jay.”
    “Poor Jay wants to know which one of his beneficiaries fitted the frame while he’s still capable of knowing anything. That’s the job. So now you know more than you’ve told me. Maybe I ought to ditch this line and look for something in advertising.”
    “If he changes the will in his advanced condition the family will break it.”
    “I don’t know what his plans are when he has the information. That much Lund didn’t confide in me. Do you know who the man is in the picture?”
    “I recognized him then and I still know him. I saw him just two months ago at the Builders Trade Show in Novi. When this was taken he was only a junior partner in Imminent Visions. Now he’s CEO.”
    “I guess women’s lib accomplished something after all,” I said. “You no longer have to be female to sleep your way to the top.”
    “Ah, but he didn’t. Isn’t that your point?”
    I picked up the picture and returned it to my pocket. “Perceptions change, even if people don’t. These days the appearance of impropriety is evidence enough to convict. Witchfinding is becoming more respectable all the time.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
    “History. Phooey. If Lily Talbot had married Furlong and inherited the best part of his estate, where did that leave your partnership agreement?”
    “There would be no change. As I said, the agreement was exclusive to the terms of his will. Is this the third degree?” He tried to appear wry. He only managed to look like a recently bereaved bassett.
    “As the widow she’d have been in a strong position to overturn the agreement in court. Or she might have persuaded Furlong to do it himself while he was still alive.”
    “I hadn’t thought of that.”
    It was my turn to sit back. “I believe you. I was just trying to make you sore. Do you get sore?”
    “Not over money.