“Betraying?” He laughed uneasily. “Oh, come on, that’s a bit strong, wouldn’t you say? I only took the girl to supper a few times. I take hundreds of women to supper.”
“Only this girl’s name was Lowenstein. But taking Letitia Lowenstein to supper wasn’t what I was talking about, and you know it. I’m talking about the other matter—your father’s designs. You were looking in the wrong drawer, by the way.”
“Designs—what designs? I don’t follow you.”
“Isn’t that what you came here for, the moment your father left his office? Had he kept them locked away at home?”
He laughed again, a little more easily now. “I’m afraid I don’t see what my father’s designs have to do with me and Letitia.”
“Oh, so you weren’t just about to copy them and slip them to Mr. Lowenstein?”
“Why on earth would I want to do that? My old man might be dashed annoying, but I’m not out to ruin him.” He stared at me and I saw the worry grow on his face. “Is that what he believes—that I’m out to betray him? I know he thinks poorly of me, because I’m rather a duffer where money is concerned, but surely he must know—I mean, you must set him straight, miss—uh.” He was looking at me like a scared schoolboy again.
“So you’re telling me that you didn’t come here to sneak a look at your father’s new designs then?”
“I had no idea he had come up with new designs. I’m not at all interested in the fashion industry, much to his disappointment.”
“Then what were you doing in his desk?” I couldn’t help asking.
He blushed scarlet. “If you really must know, he keeps his checkbook in that drawer. I thought I might—uh—borrow one of his checks.”
If Ben Mostel was acting then he had better apply for the lead role in Ryan O’Hare’s next play. “You’re not going to tell him, are you?” He tried a winning smile.
“Not if you replace it immediately.”
“Oh, very well, although there will be a certain restauranteur who may not be happy if I don’t pay the bill after dinner tonight.”
He gave a sheepish smile, half opened the drawer, then looked up at me thoughtfully.
“You say you are working for my father, but I’ve seen you before, among the girls on the shop floor.” Not quite as inane a young man as his father had thought. “So it seems to me that you might not want the fact that you are working secretly for my father to be revealed.”
“Most astute of you. So you are suggesting that we have a bargain—I say nothing about your helping yourself to your father’s checks if you say nothing about my not really being a seamstress?”
“Exactly.”
We looked at each other for a long while in silence. “Very well,” I said. “However, if your father ever comments on anything missing from his desk, I shall feel obliged to tell him what I witnessed.”
“And if any of the girls comment that you are behaving strangely, I shall be obliged to set them straight.”
“I never behave strangely,” I said with the ghost of a smile.
“So sneaking up to the boss’s office isn’t strange behavior?”
“I am supposed to be in the washroom, which is where I am going when you are ready to leave.”
“Don’t trust me in here alone, huh?”
“Your father tells me you give him a lot of grief.”
“My father is a stingy old man who keeps me permanently short of cash. How is a fellow to enjoy life if he has no money?”
“It must be hard to have to go without champagne every now and then, or not to be able to see every new show that opens,” I said sweetly, but he caught my sarcasm and blushed again. “So tell me—how did Letitia Lowenstein come by that very attractive, unique locket I saw around her neck?” I knew this was really taking a chance. If Ben had acquired Katherine’s locket, it might have been taken from her dead body. This inane, overgrown schoolboy act might conceal a clever killer for all I knew.
This time he flushed almost beetroot red. “So that’s what you were getting at all the time! I guess you already know, don’t you?”
“I might do, but I’d like to hear your version.”
He winced. “Did my father find out and send you to get an admission of my guilt?”
“He may have. So how did you meet Katherine?”
“Who?”
“The girl who owned that locket.” I inched toward the door, feeling more secure when my hand wrapped around the doorknob behind me. “But surely you knew that, didn’t you? Did you meet her here, at the factory?”
“I’ve no idea who you are talking about. You know where I found the locket—at the bottom of my father’s drawer in his desk here. I wanted some cash to buy Letitia a present and I thought to myself, what does he need a pretty little thing like this for, so I pocketed it—as I think you knew all along, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes,” I stammered. “I knew that all along.”
Twenty-five