“Even a boneheaded Polack couldn’t miss that one … Last week you were threatening him, today you’re protecting him—sort of. Which is it?”

Anger flashed across Grafalk’s face and was quickly erased. “Martin and I have—a tacit understanding. He doesn’t attack my fleet, I don’t tell people about his disreputable past. He was making fun of the Grafalk Line. I was backing him off.”

“What do you think is going on at Eudora Grain?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve leaped to a couple of conclusions, based on my investigations down at the Port. You think there might be some kind of a financial problem down there. You’re concerned enough to reveal a well-concealed truth about Bledsoe. Not even his ship’s officers know it—or if they do, they’re too loyal to betray it. You must think something pretty serious is wrong.”

Grafalk shook his head and gave a slightly condescending smile. “Now you’re leaping to conclusions, Miss Warshawski. Everyone knows you’ve been looking into your cousin’s death. And they know you and Phillips have had a few words together—you just can’t keep secrets in a closed community like that. If there is something wrong at Eudora Grain, it would have to involve money. Nothing else important could be wrong there.” He swirled the olive in his glass. “It’s none of my business—but I do periodically wonder where Clayton Phillips gets his money.”

I looked at him steadily. “Argus pays him well. He inherited it. His wife did. Any reason why one of those possibilities wouldn’t be good enough?”

He shrugged. “I’m a very wealthy man, Miss Warshawski. I grew up with a lot of money and I’m used to living with it. There are plenty of people without money who are at ease with and around it—Martin’s one and Admiral Jergensen another. But Clayton and Jeannine aren’t. If they inherited it, it was an unexpected windfall late in life.”

“Still possible. They don’t have to measure it in your class to afford that house and their other amenities. Maybe a crabby old grandmother hoarded it so that it would give everyone the least possible pleasure—that happens at least as often as embezzlement.”

“Embezzlement?”

“You’re suggesting that, aren’t you?”

“I’m not suggesting anything—just asking.”

“Well, you sponsored them at the Maritime Club. That’s impossible for the nouveaux riches to crack, from everything I read. Not enough to have a quarter million a year for that place—you have to trace yourself back to the Palmers and the McCormicks. But you got them in. You must have known something about them.”

“That was my wife. She undertakes odd charities—Jeannine was one that she’s since come to regret.”