She got up, laughing.

“I guess I should feel a little stupid,” he said.

“It’s not that. Before I was married the men I knew took every chance to exhibit themselves. They tried to be subtle, but the effect was always the same. I was supposed to be wowed.”

He was sitting up. As a kid he had done the same thing with Karen. “What about your husband?”

“Him, too, in the beginning.”

“Outside,” he said.

She made a little bow before she closed the door. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

He drew on his cigarette. She had laughed at herself, and she had been all but convincing in the covering-up. Roberts was right about her but she was more right about him. Roberts thought she was stupid. Leland was still enjoying the idea when he started down the stairs.

Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Driving into Manitou, Florence had little to tell him. Mike had called from the apartment to report that he was still working and, he thought, making some progress. A memorandum would have to be drafted; there were too many details for a verbal communication. He had instructed Florence to tell Leland that he could understand now how MacIver had been able to add a double column of figures as they had been read to him.

The Manitou Credit Bureau had not had a file on Mrs. MacIver. Florence had called the banks in Canby and then the savings and loan associations—only one of the latter was carrying an account in Mrs. MacIver’s name.

“Manitou has a file on her husband,” she told Leland. “They were supposed to call me from the warehouse yesterday afternoon, but they didn’t, so I called them again this morning, and they told me to send someone over at two o’clock this afternoon.”

“Okay, we’ll just have to wait until we see the file. Her husband’s estate has provided her with an income and we’ll find out from the copy of the trust agreement in the file who the trustee is. Probably one of the downtown banks. What about the houses?”

“The Canby house is hers outright. I’ve had to wait on her previous address.”

“You may get that in the insurance file, too,” Leland said. “What else has been going on?”

“There’s been nothing from Florida. The subject has been staying close to his hotel. We received a check from Schwartzwald for a hundred dollars less than our fee. Mike dictated a letter over the telephone to the effect that we were accepting the check as partial payment and would expect the balance by return mail. Mike told me to tell you that he would handle it—that it’s nothing for you to get angry about.”

“What about that custody case? I liked what I saw of that woman.”

“Nothing. Nothing’s happened.”