from his vest pocket a small, gold-cornered pigskin notebook. He opened it, and carried it, open, to the vault in the cashier's room. He read the combination from his notebook, and swung open the vault door. With the key at the end of his watch-chain he opened a file drawer marked Personnel Correspondence, and took out the Strademyer, Marian, folder. Soon he had a list of Strademyer, Marian's charge accounts, which had required routine references from Lockwood & Company. For a young woman who was earning forty dollars a week she had found it desirable to establish credit at a considerable number of luxury stores. Lucetta Shay was a small, exclusive dress shop that made Geraldine Lockwood complain of its prices; Milestone & Leigh was a small, exclusive jewelry-silversmith that did not advertise; Kimiyoto & Company, Marchbanks Limited, Barney's Theatre Ticket Service, Edouard Parfumier were Madison Avenue and cross-street institutions that were semi-secrets of the rich, the chic, the spenders. Marchbanks Limited did, not even state its business on its letterhead. It was six-thirty when George Lockwood closed the vault and took the subway uptown. Geraldine was lying in the tub. "You'll have to get out of there," he said. "I was getting ready to," she said. "Did you have a nice day with Pen? Tell me all about it, then you can ask me about what I did." "Thank God we're going to have plenty of hot water in the new house," he said. "Didn't we in the old? Wilma called and wants us for dinner tomorrow. I said yes." "I know. Pen left a message." "Where were you? I thought you'd be at the office, but they didn't seem to know where you were." "Pen knew, but I guess he was being discreet. We had lunch with Ray Turner and Charley Bohm, then I stayed and spent the afternoon with them." "Did you make a lot of money?" "Potentially. Potentially. But I tied up a large amount of cash." He was undressing as she dried herself. "I hope that's not intended as a warning. I went back and saw Mr. Kimiyoto. I told him we were taking the vases. Positively, this time. He wants to send them by van, and one of his sons is going along to supervise the unloading and uncrating." "I should hope so. How was Mary?" "Well, it shows what they think of them. Mary Chadbum? Weepy. Lawrence has T.B., and she was-" "Lawrence? Who's Lawrence?" "Her nephew. Doug's sister's oldest boy, but Mary is devoted to him." "Mary gets devoted to anybody that will give her an excuse to weep." "I know, but she does an awful lot of good, Mary." "Well, maybe she can get the boy a new lung." "I don't think that's nice, George. Shall I run your tub for you?" "Yes, will you please?" "Wait till I put something on," she said. "Mary wanted to know if everything was all right between Pen and Wilma. I said as far as I knew, yes. Then she gave me a sort of a patronizing look and I said well, I was just a hick from the country, but I couldn't pry any more out of her. Is there something I'm supposed to know? I didn't notice anything when I had dinner there, but I wasn't looking for anything." "What kind of thing was she talking about?" "Well, naturally I inferred that Wilma had a beau or Pen had a lady friend. One or the other." "Mary threw the match in the gas tank and ran." "But Mary doesn't usually gossip, unless there's something." "Well, I was with Pen today, and he happened to say he didn't have any problem, so it isn't Pen. And if Wilma has a beau it must be somebody like old Rancid Martin." "Ransome Martin." "And at seventy-eight he's relatively harmless. No, you go back and tell Mary to give you more particulars or shut up. Not too warm, my tub. Just make it half and half." "It is half and half. Your shirts are back from the laundry." "Why do you tell me that? Was anyone talking about shirts?" "I thought I'd say something to get you in a different mood. You've been very captious since you got here, and I don't enjoy that." "I'm very sorry, Geraldine." "I had too many years of every time
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