The Valentine Estate Read online

  ‘But that’s very strange,’ the girl said. ‘I mean, my father was such a gentle, tolerant soul. All this makes him sound like some kind of weird brimstone and hellfire evangelist.’

  Prendergast leaned forward in his chair and aimed a bony forefinger at the girl. ‘Elizabeth –’

  ‘You always said you found it difficult talking to your father, Elizabeth,’ Mrs Prendergast gently pointed out. ‘He might have had a side you never knew about.’

  ‘Please do not interrupt,’ Prendergast irritably told his wife. ‘Elizabeth, listen to me. You asked me here as your adviser, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right. Then my advice is not to make stupid remarks. Use your brains, girl. Your inheritance is worth a million dollars in cold cash. Do you know what that means? Mysterious relatives of this Valentine crawling out of the woodwork, phoney claimants popping up out of nowhere – all of them itching to shoot down your claim and establish their own. When you talk like this, when you practically challenge your father’s right to be named in the will, you’re giving them just the ammunition they’re looking for.’

  The girl’s face was flaming red.

  ‘But, Mr Prendergast, I’m not challenging anything in the will. All I said –’

  ‘Don’t argue. Warburton here is executor of the estate. He knows about these things. Ask him if I’m not right.’

  ‘Well –’ Warburton said unhappily.

  ‘Am I right or wrong?’ demanded Prendergast.

  It suddenly struck Chris how much the man in his gaudy Hawaiian shirt resembled a picture titled High Camp Dom had once used in the college magazine, a photograph of Calvin Coolidge in a business suit but wearing full Indian head-dress, its feathers draped down to his patent-leather heels. If anything, Prendergast looked even more dour and thin-lipped than Calvin Coolidge.

  Warburton cleared his throat.

  ‘Mr Prendergast does have a point,’ he told the girl apologetically. ‘Not only the size of the estate, but Clive Valentine’s known eccentricity invites trouble, so to speak, in spades. Any careless remark you make about the will – indeed, anything at all said about our business outside this room – can lead to a fearful tangle in court.

  ‘Now that this has come up, I’ll put it to you squarely. Secrecy should be our watchword. So far, we’ve been lucky in maintaining it. The will is holograph – written in Clive’s own hand and unwitnessed – and I keep the only copy of it in my personal possession. And I’ve cut corners by not submitting it for probate yet which means that to the outside world so far Clive would seem to have died intestate. Nor do I intend to hand the will over to the court until the last possible moment, so that you’ll be able to enter your claim before any mischief-maker can dispute the terms of the will. It’s really the only sound course to take.’

  The girl stubbornly shook her head.

  ‘Then I suppose I am stupid, because I still don’t see why.’

  ‘Your father was the heir,’ explained Warburton. ‘The will specifically provides that in return for his inspiring influence on Clive Valentine, he is to inherit the estate. Only if he predeceases Clive, are his married children as residuary legatees to divide the estate among them. At least we have no problem of family rivalries here. You, as Lucas Jones’s only child, become sole residuary legatee if and when you are married.

  ‘But let me warn you, Miss Jones, that residuary legatees are often like the sheep in the fold while the wolves prowleth close by. Just one small example. Clive foolishly drew up his will without legal advice, and thus foolishly neglected to specify that the residuary legatees must have been born in wedlock. Advertise the size of the estate and the terms of the will, and you’ll be astonished to learn how many illegitimate children your father seemed to have produced in his time. And each one now married and qualified to share your estate with you. All frauds, of course, but all nonetheless troublesome.’

  The girl nodded. ‘Yes, I can see that, although if you knew my father you’d find it pretty funny. But why the condition about having to be married?’

  ‘Oh, that would go back to Clive’s religious mania. He was batty on the subject of modern immorality. Most of it he blamed on women, notably the unmarried, free-thinking, free-living, modern young woman. Children, kitchen, and church, that was her proper lot, he used to tell me. And the modern young man had damn well better provide it for her, not go running around wild like the young rip he himself used to be.

  ‘No, it was hardly a surprise to find he required any claimant to show up with both wedding licence and marital partner within a year after his death. What was surprising was his folly in not entrusting me with a copy of the will after setting a time limit to it. Really, your greatest piece of good luck is that I was able to locate both the will and you before the expiration date. As it is, we have less than three weeks left to us to appear before the court.’

  ‘But there’s no question,’ said Prendergast, ‘that if Elizabeth does show up in court on time and married, she inherits the works?’

  ‘Absolutely none,’ Warburton assured him. ‘Still, we should not let it be known in any way that this is to be a mariage de raison. Someone could raise a fuss about the intent of such a marriage being fraudulent, and while he’d have no real case, of course, he could delay the settlement. Which means that we cannot risk any written agreement between Miss Jones and Mr Monte regarding his compensation for entering the marriage. Willy-nilly, the exact terms of the agreement must be a matter of good faith.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Chris said flatly. ‘Miss Jones has offered me fifty thousand dollars for my part in this, payable when she gets her money, and I want a paper which says so.’

  ‘Young man,’ snapped Prendergast, ‘if you’re out to make trouble –’

  ‘Oh, please,’ the girl said in distress. ‘If Mr Monte wants me to sign a contract –’

  ‘Elizabeth!’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Warburton cut in sharply. ‘Please. Before you shout the building down, let me say you are all leaping to the wrong conclusion. Mr Monte is entitled to a guarantee of his compensation. And he can be given one temporarily which has no odour of mariage de raison about it.’

  ‘How?’ said Chris.

  ‘By each of you simply making out a will naming the other as heir, the wills to be destroyed when the marriage is dissolved. Thus Miss Jones’s entire estate becomes your guarantee. Even more vital from my admittedly legalistic point of view, it also means – and forgive me for sounding cold-blooded about it – that if either of you should die before the marriage is dissolved, the estate is not thrown into chaos.’

  ‘A million dollar lien on a fifty thousand dollar payment?’ said Chris. He relished the expression on Prendergast’s face as he said it. ‘Who could turn it down?’

  ‘And you, Miss Jones?’ Warburton asked.

  ‘Well –’ The girl looked pleadingly at Prendergast who only shrugged in cold dismissal.

  ‘It’s your money,’ he said.

  She hesitated.

  ‘Well, if Mr Monte wants the arrangement –’

  This was all Prendergast needed. He abruptly rose to his feet.

  ‘I can see I’m not needed here,’ he said coldly. ‘Come to the cabana when you’re finished with this business, Elizabeth. You and I should have a little talk in private.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Prendergast.’

  The door slammed behind the Prendergasts hard enough to be heard the length of the corridor outside.

  Warburton shook his head at this display of temperament.

  ‘He’s dead wrong, of course,’ he assured the girl. ‘Not only is the arrangement fair to Mr Monte, it safeguards the estate as well. Despite my woeful words about residuary legatees, if each of you name one in your wills it completely covers even the unforeseeable future. The legatees themselves don’t even have to be told you’ve named them.’

  ‘Mine will be,’ said Chris. ‘He’s my brother. My half-brother. Miss Jones said last ni
ght it would be all right to tell him about the deal, and I already have. He knows how to keep his mouth shut.’

  ‘I trust that he does,’ said Warburton. ‘What about you, Miss Jones? Do you have someone in mind?’

  ‘Yes. It would be Mr Prendergast.’

  ‘Excellent. Then we can attend to this on the spot. I’ll dictate the proper form where you each name the other as sole heir and also name the residuary legatee of your choice, and all you need do is copy it down. The public stenographer here is a notary. We’ll have her in along with someone from the desk downstairs to see that the papers are properly witnessed, signed, and sealed. That should make everything nicely ironclad and airtight. Yes, indeed –’ Warburton drew some stationery from the desk in the corner of the room and held it up to the light ‘– this paper is really posh, isn’t it?’

  ‘The poshest,’ said Chris.

  He felt a curious uneasiness as he wrote out the prescribed formula. It was guilt, he knew, at having driven such a viciously hard bargain with the girl. If only she didn’t look so much the shiny-faced babe in the woods, hair now primly braided around her head, lips soberly pursed as she scribbled away. And, heiress or not, she had meekly indicated her willingness to report to Prendergast for a tongue-lashing right after this. It was infuriating the way she let the man bully her. There was something almost sick about it.

  When the job was all done and the witnesses dismissed, Warburton collected the papers, read them over carefully a final time, and deposited them in his attaché case with open relief.

  ‘Now, the marriage itself,’ he said, ‘should be contracted as soon as possible, after which you two will fly to London and meet me there so that we can settle everything Johnny-on-the-spot. And I urge you again, do be as secretive as possible about all this.’ He gathered together his belongings. ‘I’ll stay on until after the wedding so that I can leave with a copy of the licence in hand. I’ll be in touch with both of you meanwhile.’

  As soon as he had left, Chris said to the girl, ‘Did he have any private talk with Prendergast?’

  ‘No. Oh yes, last night when we – when I went to see you about this, I left them having drinks together in the cabana. Why?’

  ‘Because I think he told Prendergast something he hasn’t told you. There’s another claimant to the estate all right. Someone he’s really worried about. I’ll bet on it, the way both of them kept hammering at that angle.’

  ‘Then why didn’t he tell me about it?’

  ‘Probably because he didn’t want you to lose any sleep over it. You seem to invite that kind of fatherly treatment. I suppose Sweet Alice did too.’

  The girl’s eyes narrowed, her nostrils flared.

  ‘You know, that is such an unfunny crack –’

  ‘Temper?’ said Chris with raised eyebrows. ‘Hell, don’t waste it on me. Save it for Prendergast the next time he tells you to stand in the corner for being a naughty little girl.’

  He walked out of the room, glad he had gotten it off his chest, half-expecting from the expression on the girl’s face to hear the crash of something flung against the other side of the door as he closed it behind him. There was only silence. Then he saw the man leaning against the corridor wall near the door elaborately lighting a cigarette. A bony little man in a wilted seersucker suit, his straw hat pulled down square on his head so that it looked as if its brim were resting on his grotesquely flaring ears.

  That cigarette was being lit too elaborately.

  Those ears looked made to order for pressing against door panels.

  ‘Hey, you,’ Chris said.

  It was all he had a chance to say. The man flipped the cigarette at his face and raced full-tilt to the stairway at the far end of the corridor. He was out of sight and sound by the time Chris reached the stairwell and stood looking down its emptiness with a black cloud of foreboding gathering over him.

  5

  Downstairs in the lobby he saw Augie Bloom, the manager, standing near the cashier’s window.

  He motioned Augie aside, out of earshot of any guests.

  ‘Augie, did you sign on any new help the last couple of days?’

  ‘It’s almost the end of the season, Chris. We’re laying off, not signing on. Why?’

  ‘There was a skinny little guy I didn’t recognize hanging around upstairs. Looked like he might be a porter or dishwasher. When I started to ask what he was doing there he took off like a shot. He could still be around here somewhere.’

  ‘I’ll tell Security to check. Thanks for the tip.’

  ‘That’s all right. And if they grab him, tell them to get in touch with me, will you?’

  ‘Sure, Chris. Anything for my favourite tennis star,’ meaning, of course, anything for Marty McClure’s favourite tennis star.

  All the courts were in use, Chris saw on his way back to the shop, and on the verandah of the shop were quite a few loungers waiting to sign in for their turn. He went around to the back door to avoid conversational tie-ups and found one waiting for him anyhow. Hilary Talbot, side-saddle on the parked Harley-Davidson.

  ‘Hi, mister,’ she said gravely in a little girl voice. ‘Take me for a ride?’

  It wasn’t the first time she had waylaid him like this, but his initial experience with her type of tourist, the bored, restless, patently available type, had wound up with the woman in a disastrous emotional tangle over him, and he had been wary about playing that kind of game ever since.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Talbot, but this gimmick is for transportation, not riding. Oh yes, thanks for passing up your lesson. It was nice of you.’

  ‘Beneath this Jordan Marsh special beats a very warm heart, teacher. How did the meeting go? Ready for the wedding bells?’

  ‘Soon. We’ll skip the bells though.’

  ‘Good idea. There’s always a sour note in them somewhere.’ She patted the motor cycle’s handlebars. ‘What is this thing anyhow? A 500cc? I rode a 500 once, but this looks even more rugged.’

  ‘It is. It’s a 1200.’

  ‘The genuine article, no less. The big one. Well, what do you know?’

  She wasn’t wearing anything at all under that short cotton dress, he realized as she slid off the saddle. And where Elizabeth Jones, head to head with him, had given off a wholesome aura of soap and water, Hilary Talbot filled his nostrils with the scent of some wonderfully unwholesome, highly expensive perfume.

  ‘I’m serious,’ she said, and he saw she was. ‘Let’s hop aboard and take off. You owe me a ride anyhow.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For one thing, who do you suppose –? No,’ she said shrewdly, ‘I’ll tell you at the end of the line.’

  ‘Something to do with the legacy deal?’

  ‘That’s right. I’m a regular little mine of information about it. Drive fast enough, Jack, and I’m likely to spill all I know.’

  There was a thin chance she might have something to tell him about the deal at that.

  ‘Not until tonight though,’ he said. ‘I have a couple of lessons to give under the lights, so I won’t be off the job until after ten. And you’ll have to find yourself a crash helmet.’

  ‘I’ll find one. I’ll meet you here at ten-thirty.’

  He watched her as she strolled away without a backward glance at him, every motion of those neat legs and that rounded rear-end indicating her awareness that he was watching.

  Frenchy was irritably waiting for him in the shop office.

  ‘Nice of you to remember where you work, big boy. Now donnez plein gaz. Get the move on. Twelve-thirty we ’ave this set-up with Mr Leroy and Mr Slade. In ten minutes, you hear?’

  ‘Hell, I haven’t eaten yet today. And there wasn’t any match listed in the book for twelve-thirty.’

  ‘It was all of the sudden. Eat some chocolate meanwhile. Mr Leroy is your partner. You know what to do.’

  He did. These set-ups always followed the same pattern. Best two out of three set matches where his partner was the smoothly operating Ivy Leagu
e young man with something to sell, and Frenchy’s partner was the slightly flabby, greying tennis nut who might buy. Age against youth, with age being handed the match so that it would be in a buying mood.

  Chris flung open his locker and pulled out his gear. He sat down naked before the locker to wrap the elastic bandage around his knee.

  ‘How much is Leroy paying?’ he asked. Whatever it was, he needed his half of it badly. He had about a dollar in his pocket, and under no conditions was Hilary going to pick up any checks on their excursion.

  ‘Fifty,’ said Frenchy, which meant it was probably a hundred. ‘A cheap one, that type, so we make it quick. Use the big first serve but always out. Then the second serve make very fat with no topspin. When you play the net you can hit hard but no angle. Maintenant allons.’

  All this so in the bar that night Slade could wrap a flabby arm affectionately around Leroy and say, ‘Yes siree, ladies and gents, this boy here will tell you there’s plenty of life in the old dog yet. He and Chris Monte, no less, against me and Frenchy Barbeau, and ask him who took the cup.’ And Leroy could shake his head with a grudging, good loser’s admiration while he fingered the contract warming in his pocket and ready to be signed after a few more drinks.

  Chris Monte, no less.

  6

  Hilary had never yet showed up on time for any of her tennis lessons, so he was pleasantly surprised when she walked into the shop that night at ten-thirty as promised. If she looked good dressed in the minimum, she managed to look even better in stretch-pants, turtle-neck sweater at least a size too small, and scuffed sneakers. She was carrying an oversized pair of goggles and, as prescribed, a crash helmet.

  ‘Well, all right,’ Chris said.

  ‘More than that, man. Highly inflammatory, I’d say. Where are we headed?’