Bob looked at me and swallowed twice before he said anything. “Now listen, Lam,” he said, “you’re getting me wrong. I was up there. I went up to get those letters back. I knew what it meant to the kid. Nobody thinks I’m worth a damn around here except Mother, but I’m a pretty decent guy just the same.”
“How did you know about the letters?” I asked.
He twisted in his chair, and didn’t say anything.
I heard a commotion in the hallway, voices raised in protest, someone saying, “You can’t do that,” and then the sound of a scuffle. Mrs. Ashbury, attired in a flimsy nightgown and nothing else, jerked the door open. The nurse grabbed at her, and Mrs. Ashbury pushed her away. The doctor trotted along at her side mouthing futile protests. He took hold of her arm and kept saying, “Now, Mrs. Ashbury — now, Mrs. Ashbury — now, Mrs. Ashbury.”
The nurse came back for another hold. The doctor glared at her, and said, “No force, nurse. She mustn’t struggle, and she mustn’t get excited.”
Mrs. Ashbury stared at me. “What,” she demanded, “is the meaning of this?”
Bertha Cool answered the question. “Sit down, dearie, take a load off your feet, and keep your trap shut.”
Mrs. Ashbury turned to stare at Bertha Cool. “Madam, do you know whose house this is?”
“I haven’t looked up the record title,” Bertha said, “but I know damn well who’s throwing this party.”
I said to Bob, “Crumweather hired you to get those letters out of the way. Instead of giving them to him, you arranged with Esther Clarde to use some of them to raise a little dough. You—”