“They’ll have what they need,” vouchsafed Conover.
“Then you’re doing all this on the money that Shevlin left?”
“Sure! You don’t s’pose I’d waste my own cash on ’em?”
“What a clumsy liar you are!” observed Caine admiringly. “There! There! In this case ‘liar’ is no more a fighting word than ‘paradox.’ Don’t get red.”
“What are you drivin’ at?” demanded Conover.
“Only this: The wills and some other documents filed at the Hall of Records, are copied by our men and kept on file in our office. I happened to be going over one of the books the other day and I ran across a copy of old Shevlin’s will. There was a Certificate of Effects with it. He left just $1,100, or, to be accurate, $1,098.73.”
“Well?” challenged Conover.
“Well,” echoed Caine, “The rent of the house where Miss Shevlin lives, her two servants, and her food must come to several times that sum each year. To say nothing of the expenses and the support of the aunt, who lives with her. None of those are on the free list. You’re an awfully white chap, Conover. You went up about fifty points in my admiration when I read that will. Now don’t look as if I’d caught you stealing sheep. It’s no affair of mine. And as she doesn’t seem to know, I’m not going to be the cheerful idiot to point out to her the resemblance between her father’s $1,100 and the Widow’s Cruse. It’s pleasure enough to me, as a student of my fellow animals, to know that a pirate like you can really once in your life give something for nothing. There’s the house. Don’t forget you’re due at the Club in fifty minutes.”
Conover, red, confused, angry, mumbled a word of goodbye and ran up the steps of a pretty cottage that stood in its own grounds just off the street they were traversing.
Caine watched the Fighter’s bulky form vanish within the doorway. Then he lighted a fresh cigarette and strolled on.