I had to admire the girl, even though she was being an insufferable little prig, acting as though she had too much money, too much beauty, too much talent, and not enough common sense.
There were five of us in the big house—Miss Varden, Van Ostrand, the mouse-faced Giles Jackson, the too handsome Bob North, and me. Van Ostrand herded the girl into the big living room; Jackson, North, and I tagged along behind. While the rest of them went on in, I stayed at the door, listening.
"Take care of her, North," Van Ostrand said smoothly.
North laughed in his rich, hearty way. "Just how do you mean that, Van?"
Van Ostrand looked painfully exasperated. "Please, Mr. North; I am much too old and too fat to be amused by your lascivious humors. Put the handcuffs on her before she does something young and foolhardy and forces me to shoot her."
"Shoot me?" There was a sneer in Nikki Varden's voice. "You wouldn't."
I knew what she was thinking, and I hoped she wouldn't try to act on it, because she was wrong. If she wasn't careful, she'd be dead wrong.
Bob North jerked the girl's hands around and snapped a set of magnetic cuffs on them. She said something in a low tone that I didn't get, but it probably referred to either North's ancestry or his questionable birth. North just laughed and pushed her into a chair.
"I don't get you, Bob North," she said. "You and your good looks had me fooled. You should have married me for my money instead of pulling something like this."
Van Ostrand's chuckle came bubbling up from deep within his great, soft belly. "My dear Nikki, you are wrong on at least two counts. In the first place, if he attempted to go anywhere near a Registry Office for a mating certificate, he would be nailed for bigamy and desertion."