“Oh.” It was the first time I had heard him make such a declaration. Generally, we stayed in close contact throughout a case. “Just the lawyer?”
“As I said, they need someone outside the company. The two of you will keep it very hush-hush.”
“All right.”
“And I shouldn’t have to say this, but—no feminine wiles. Don’t flirt or simper. They won’t work on him.”
“Is he—” I thought of DeForest.
“Happily married.”
“God bless their everlasting happiness,” I said.
“Splendid. Now, lie to me.”
If I weren’t so accustomed to surprise, I would have flinched. As it was, I raised an eyebrow pointedly. It had been quite some time since Pinkerton had demanded I play our old game.
I said evenly, “On a chosen subject?”
“Your choice.”
Marriage was on my mind, so I said, “I was three years old when I first remember my mother telling my father she would leave him.”
Pinkerton eyed me steadily as the train gently rocked. At length, he said, “I do not believe a child of three years has such memories.”
No one had ever heard this story from me, not even Paul. In a way, it was a relief to speak the truth out loud. “I didn’t know all the words she said, but I knew some. I remember worthless and fool and mistake. I knew all those words, because she’d said them to me too.”
For the first time in our years of staring each other down to test the truth, he was the first one to look away. He directed his gaze out the window, though there was little to see.
“You are an unusual woman, Kate Warne,” he said.
If he had wanted further details, I could have provided them easily. Over the years, my mother had told my father she would leave him countless times. Only his response changed. In the beginning, it was Please don’t. Then I doubt that. Later, it became What would you do then? And once when he’d been out late drinking with a Greek chorus, Then go ahead and leave already. His response never mattered. The next day always dawned with my mother still in place, maybe muttering or maybe apologizing but never gone.
It was good to know, these years later, this behavior was unusual. At the time, I thought it was how all families behaved.
We sped toward our destination.
? ? ?
The room we were shown to in the law office was plain. One of the men matched the surroundings, and the other did not. The plain one was Lincoln, who wore a plain black suit and thin tie at the neck. He was clean-shaven, with hollow-looking cheeks and dark, bushy hair above a high, wide forehead. The other, McClellan, was showier. He had a bushy mustache and quite possibly the shiniest pair of shoes I’d ever seen.
I nodded my greeting to the lawyer first. “Mr. Lincoln.”
“Mrs. Warne. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“I could say the same, of course.”
He leaned over—with his height, he had quite a reach—and whispered conspiratorially, “Let’s agree not to believe all the things they say about us, shall we?”
“Agreed.”
McClellan shook Pinkerton’s hand and welcomed him gruffly but seemed not to perceive that I was in the room at all. For only a moment, I was disconcerted. Clients were often surprised to meet me but rarely openly rude. I decided my best response was to ignore that I’d been ignored.
Pinkerton was the first to seat himself. After the rest of us had followed suit, he turned to me and gave a slight nod. I understood his meaning: it’s your show now.
“Can you tell me how the suspicion came to light?”
“These books,” said Lincoln, sliding them across to me.
I searched the men’s faces, keeping my own expression level. It seemed clear I was being put to a test.
So I looked over the books. Three ledgers, incoming and outgoing funds, with the name of the company on the cover and the month and year at the top of each page.
Lincoln, possibly taking pity on me, said, “The first page of every month, working backward.”
I opened the top ledger, with the most recent entries, to the beginning of August’s figures.
There was an odd pattern I noticed right away—a coincidence, likely, but odd enough to jump out. The first four figures in the month ended in 73￠, then 37￠, then 77, then 33.
“These are correct?” I asked. “These four?”
Lincoln nodded, seemingly impressed. I knew I had to be on the right track.
I flipped to the beginning of July, then June. The same four figures: 73, 37, 77, 33.
“They remain the same.”
Lincoln pointed to another ledger, and I looked at the previous year’s figures. The first was lower, and so was the second. The third and fourth too, and all by the same amount. 63, 27, 67, 23.
“Ten cents,” I said.
“All on regular, recurring bills,” said McClellan, speaking for the first time since our introductions.
“Your suppliers’ prices hadn’t changed?”
“Not these.”
“Forty cents a month. Doesn’t seem like much.”
“Other numbers changed too. These were just the easiest to notice.”
“How much overall?”
McClellan confirmed the figure Pinkerton had given me on the train.
“So all this extra money isn’t being received by the people the books say it’s going to. Where is it going?”
The look on the lawyer’s face wasn’t quite a smile, but it seemed I had passed his test, if no one else’s. “That’s what you’re here to find out, Mrs. Warne.”
McClellan said, “There are two men most likely. Our accountant, Mr. Vincent, or the assistant secretary, Mr. Martin. We need someone to prove where the money is going and bring the guilty party to justice. And we need complete discretion. This kind of thing could cause a terrible scandal.”
Pinkerton said, “You will have the finest assistance available in Mrs. Warne. She will not fail to bring in your man.”