LITMIR.BIZ

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      “It’s so sort of wonderful,” she said. “I’ve had such rotten luck with my other husbands, and Nikki’s perfect. He leans over backward to keep anybody from thinking the Maloney Trust was the reason he married me. That’s why he’s so determined not to know anything about it. Because you know how people are.”

      The smile on her lips dissolved, leaving her face as gravely earnest as a child’s.

      “Did you know that his first wife killed herself? It was horrible for Nikki. He wanted a divorce, but it was religion, or something—she was from the Argentine. Nikki was away. He felt terribly sorry for her, and he called her up on the phone and she started crying about the divorce, but he hadn’t any idea she’d . . . do anything. Poor lamb, he blamed himself, of course. That’s why he wouldn’t keep anything she had, or take any part of her estate. It was terribly quixotic, I thought, but he says Americans don’t understand honor, and I guess we don’t.”

      She laughed merrily. “You can see how embarrassing it is, to have another rich wife, especially when you didn’t know that’s what you were getting.”

      Fish Finlay listened, knowing that when she got through with Nikki and got to her daughter this butterfly dust of happiness would dissolve like the mirage there on the terrace windowpane. He glanced over at it, moved slightly to bring it into focus, and sat motionless. There was a new figure in the center of his mirage. It was de Gradoff. He was moving quickly across the dining-room, oddly intent.

      Probably forgotten something, Fish thought, glancing at the door de Gradoff would be coming through. But the door did not open. He waited a moment, and another. The door stayed closed, with de Gradoff behind it. Fish Finlay mentally lifted his shaggy brows. So Nikki isn’t interested in the Maloney Trust. Nikki thinks money’s stupid.

      He sat forward as Dodo went blithely on.

      “Nikki simply hates the idea of Newport, but I can’t afford not to go there. Where my father got the idea—”

      “Look,” Fish said. “Why don’t we go outside?”

      “Outside? Whatever for?”

      She looked down at the crisp fresh lace of the breakfast coat she was still wearing. “But darling, didn’t you know? I’m not the outdoor type. Really!”

      She got up, laughing. “Still, if you think this atmosphere isn’t business-like, I’m happy to oblige. If it’s not windy, that is.”

      Fish, listening intently, thought he heard a movement. He got up. “I’ll see if it’s windy.” He went out and crossed to the balustrade, turned and glanced into the adjoining room. A door was closing noiselessly, leaving the room empty again. But the chances were there were other doors. . . .

      He turned back. “It’s not windy.”

      “Look, darling.” Dodo de Gradoff laughed again as she came out. “If you’re afraid somebody’ll hear you, you can relax. I’ve sent both servants out on errands. Still, it is rather nice out, isn’t it?”

      She sat in the bamboo chaise longue he drew out for her and looked at him with sparkling amusement. “You’re wonderful, you know.” She tilted her golden head appraisingly. “I’ve been trying to figure out what it is that makes you so really attractive. You’re not pretty, heaven knows, but neither was Abraham Lincoln. I suppose you’re just so homely every woman knows you’re an angel at heart. The girls must adore you, don’t they?”

      “I can get out of most places without being mobbed.”

      The sharp twinge he felt for an instant was in scarred tissue other than his leg.

      She was still laughing at him. “That’s what Caxson Reeves told me when he asked me to look you over—not that it mattered what I thought if he’d made up his mind, but it was a nice gesture. He said you ‘inspired confidence.’ “ She made her voice gruff and let her eyelids droop. “Poor Caxey, he’s like an old crocodile they won’t let back to his native ooze. But he’s sweet, really. You’re the first person he’s ever trusted with any of the Maloney problems. He said you were just what he’d been hunting for. Not too urbane, and very understanding . . . somebody he could depend on to take over for my daughter when her turn comes. If it comes.”

      Fish glanced at her. She was going cheerfully on. “Poor old Caxey, he’s always been in love with me, after his fashion. But it’s you I’m interested in. Why aren’t you married? What do you do with yourself nights and weekends?”

      “I’ve got a place in New Jersey,” Fish said. “It used to be an old mill. I’ve got a couple of sheep and a few strawberries, and I plant stuff. Azaleas, mostly.”

      “Oh, no! Pour l’amour de. . . . Don’t tell me!” She put her hand to her head in despair. “Just like my father! I can’t bear it—”

      She sat up. “Do you realize, Fish Finlay, that that’s why I have to go to Newport every summer? Because my father got the mad idea of endowing that matchstick monstrosity of a house and grounds, because he thought those two horrible old gardeners Jan Vranek and Rob McTaggert were Nature’s noblemen! Scheming old devils, is what they are. That’s why he endowed the place, so I couldn’t sell it and kick them out of their job—both of which I would have done instantly, but believe me. So I’m stuck with the place. If I skip two summers, the whole works goes to the city of Newport as a public park. It’s monstrous. It’s fantastic. But, of course, the whole Maloney Trust—”

      She broke off, smiling at him. “That’s why I’ve sent Nikki and the servants out. I don’t want anybody to know I’m a lady for a day. Not even Nikki . . . though it wouldn’t make any difference to him. But I’d be ruined if my friends and creditors knew the truth. And it’s wicked, Fish. The whole, entire Maloney Trust handed over to my darling daughter on her twenty-second birthday! Can you believe it! I won’t have a hundred dollars a month that Jennifer Linton doesn’t give me, six years from now.”

      “Four,” Fish Finlay said mildly.

      “Oh, my God, no! It can’t be four!”

      “She was eighteen last week.”

      “Oh, dear—and I forgot to send her a present.” She smiled helplessly at him. “But Caxey said you’re to take over when her turn comes, and I said if it comes. Because it’s not coming, believe me. I’m going to break that Trust, Fish. But Caxey’s told you that, hasn’t he?”

      “He mentioned it.”

      “Because it’s an outrage, Fish,” she said earnestly. “Father was out of his mind, stark, raving mad. He must have been, to write that kind of a Trust in the first place. And then to walk out of the bank and vanish into thin air—it doesn’t make sense. All I’m waiting for is the legal seven years, and I’m going to have him declared dead and smash the Maloney Trust to smithereens. I’ve never believed my father just vanished anyway. I think he was killed and his body hidden, or something. He carried enormous sums of money with him. Why would he want to disappear, for heaven’s sake?”

      Fish shook his head. It was three years before his time that James V. Maloney had walked out of the bank at high noon one Friday and never showed again. It would be seven years next October twenty-third.

      “And if he did, that in itself would be plenty to prove he was out of his mind when he drew up that insane and revolting document. You know that’s true, darling. It is revolting.”

      “I’ve never read it. Mr. Reeves won’t let it out of his private vault.”

      “Well, it’s fantastic. Here everybody thinks I’m rolling in wealth. Why, I wouldn’t have a friend in the world four years from now. Except Nikki, of course. I wouldn’t have married him if he cared about money. I’m sick of husbands who married me to get them out of debt. That’s one thing I’m but really tough about. And Caxey thinks I ought to tell Nikki about the Trust. He thinks it’s because I’m afraid of my marriage that I don’t. But

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