“The other item that makes his relationship to Rainbow so curious is that MacIver had no right or reason to possess any of Roberts’ letters. I told you that MacIver and Roberts were remote on the table of organization. The only explanation for the letters appearing in MacIver’s papers is that, at some time or other, MacIver created opportunities in his partners’ offices to go into their files and steal them.”

“There’s nothing in the letters but this unusual interest,” Leland said.

“But it is unusual,” Mike said.

“Blackmail is out, anyway,” Leland said. “A man doesn’t turn his back on nine hundred thousand dollars and then blackmail his neighbor.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a matter of money. You know more about it than I do.”

“They had a good relationship,” Leland said. “It was MacIver who decided to buy the house next to Roberts’. He told his wife that he thought Roberts was a civilized man—he wouldn’t be knocking on the door every morning. Roberts spoke well of MacIver to the insurance investigators. They had an occasional beer together. Discussing sports, Roberts says, but that’s a lie. Did you see anything on MacIver’s last few days?”

“Yes. As I told you, there were the three corporations formed this year. MacIver sold the last of his older holdings late last year. His correspondence and appointment book show that he was continually involved up to the end—meetings, lunches, telephone calls, introductions. On his last morning he called a man in Rainbow for an employment interview for the son of the man who did the electrical work on the Palmer Street job. The boy had been graduated from the University of California in June.”

“MacIver went there before the war.”

“The appointment was set up for the following week. There was no friction. MacIver was in the same good spot he had been from the start. Better. He was in a position to do people favors.”

“What about our client? Why doesn’t she know about all this?”

“He received a letter from a man who was coming in as an investor. The man wanted to know the same thing. MacIver answered by saying that he was only recently married and the setting-up of a new household took time. He intended to bring her in, he said.”

“But he didn’t,” Leland said. “I should have told you to take a look at the souvenir book and the insurance file.”

“I did, last night. Florence brought them up. All I can tell you is that I didn’t see anything that contradicted what I found in the papers.”

“Let me have those lists,” Leland said. “I want to try them on the client.” He put the papers, unexamined, in his inside pocket. He knew what was coming and now he knew, too, that he had been groping for a way to avoid it.