“Is she being blackmailed?”
“I don’t know. If she is, I want you to find out about it.”
“And if she isn’t?”
“Find out what’s happening to her dough. She’s either being blackmailed, is gambling, or Bob has inveigled her into financing him. Any of them are dangerous to her and distasteful to me. Not only have I her welfare to consider, but I’m in a very delicate position myself. The first breath of financial scandal in my family would raise merry hell with me... And I’m talking too damn much. I don’t like it. Let’s get this over with.”
Bertha said, “He took a fancy to you as soon as he saw you throw that Jap around, Donald. Isn’t that right, Mr. Ashbury?”
“No.”
“Why, I thought—”
“I liked the way he acted while the Jap was throwing him around. We’re all talking too damn much. Let’s get to work.”
I asked, “Why do you think your daughter is being—”
“Two cheques in the last thirty days,” he interrupted, “each payable to ‘Cash’. Each in the sum of ten thousand dollars, and each deposited by the Atlee Amusement Corporation. That’s a gambling outfit — restaurants downstairs for a blind, gambling upstairs for profit.”