The Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 15 Classic Crime & Mystery Stories
- Автор: Деминг Ричард
- Год: 2015
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press
- ISBN: 9781479406159
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 15 Classic Crime & Mystery Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
When we finished, Morrison said, “Now let me understand this, Mr. Loudan. You want to forestall your mother’s engaging us to do an investigation in depth by having us make a cursory investigation that will turn up nothing derogatory about the young lady?”
“Wrong,” Ellen told him. “He wants the same sort of investigation you would have made for his mother. Anything derogatory you learn is to be included in the report. If it will help, I will list all of my bad habits before you start.”
After examining her curiously, Morrison said in a polite tone, “That won’t be necessary, Miss Whittier. We prefer to come to our own conclusions about our subjects’ habits.”
In due course I received a thick report. Mother had shown me only the pertinent parts of previous reports, and I hadn’t realized how’ comprehensive they were. Every phase of Ellen’s life from birth on was covered. Scores of people who knew her, ranging from relatives and close friends to mere acquaintances, had been interviewed.
Her choice of boyfriends prior to me had been impeccable, I noted. The investigators had unearthed only three regular ones. The earliest, when she was fourteen, had been an Eagle Scout. The second, a summer romance when she was seventeen, had been the son of a New England senator. During her first two years at Columbia she had gone with a philosophy student who had since transferred to a Presbyterian seminary, where he was studying for the ministry.
According to the report, she was in excellent physical health except for an occasional touch of insomnia. The note about her insomnia impressed me with the Flynn Detective Agency’s thoroughness, because until then I had been unaware of it.
The only blemishes the investigators had been able to uncover on an otherwise spotless record were that Ellen had once played hooky in the sixth grade and that at seventeen she had been arrested for speeding.
When Ellen read the report, her main reaction, like mine, was awe at its thoroughness. “They even dug up my criminal record,” she said. “Do you think your mother will decide it makes me ineligible?”
“She couldn’t without being hypocritical,” I told her. “I have often heard Mother relate with relish how she and a high-school girlfriend alternately cut English class for a whole term by answering roll calls for each other. And at last count she had fourteen speeding tickets.”
Mother was currently playing the Town Casino in Buffalo, and was staying at the Statler Hotel there. The weekend after receiving the report, Ellen and I flew to Buffalo together. I phoned to let Mother know I was coming, but didn’t mention that I was bringing a girl.
We checked into adjoining rooms at the Statler about six p.m. on Saturday. As Mother had an eight p.m. dinner show, I knew she would be resting up for it in her suite. As soon as we were settled, I went to see her alone.
Mother, as always, was delighted to see me. She gave me a hug and a smack on the cheek, then laughed and ran to the bathroom for some facial tissue to wipe the lipstick off my cheek.
“You’re looking wonderful, Francis,” she said as she rubbed away. “You’ve certainly grown into a handsome young man.”
“Thank you, Mother,” I said. “You’re looking wonderful, as usual, too.”
I wasn’t just offering flattery. Mother was an extraordinarily attractive woman in a regal sort of way.
Bunching the tissue into a ball and tossing it into a wastebasket, Mother waved me to a chair and gracefully sank into another. “Sit down and tell me everything you’ve been doing, dear. Are you keeping your grades up? Whatever is that you’re carrying?” She referred to the thick manila envelope under my right arm.
“My grades are fine,” I said. “It’s a report from the Flynn Detective Agency on a girl named Ellen Whittier — the girl I’m going to marry.”
Mother’s eyebrows peaked in mild astonishment. “You had her investigated?”
“I thought I would save you the trouble.”
I removed the report from its envelope, walked over and laid it in her lap. She glanced down at it, then looked up at me with a bemused expression.
“Do I sense a touch of belligerence in your tone, dear?”
“Not at all. Mother. It’s simply that I knew you would have her investigated, and decided to expedite matters. Ellen knows about it. As a matter of fact, it was her suggestion.”
“How quaint,” Mother said somewhat dryly. “You mean you explained to her that I would have her investigated if you didn’t?”
“Well, yes. Yes, I told her.”
“That must have given her a fine impression of me.”
“It seemed to amuse her more than offend her. Actually she has no impression of you as yet. She is reserving opinion until she meets you.”
“Decent of her,” Mother remarked in the same dry tone.
“Incidentally, that is not a whitewash report designed to discourage you from having one of your own made. We stipulated to the agency representative that absolutely nothing be left out.”
“I see. Will you get my purse from the bedroom, dear? The black one on the dresser. It has my reading glasses in it.”
I got the purse, Mother put on her glasses and began to read the report. I took a chair opposite her.
“Twenty years old, I see,” Mother commented. “Just right for you. I think it’s nice for a man to be at least a year older.”
As this comment seemed to require no reply, I remained silent.
A moment later she said, “Oh, she’s that Whittier family. The congressman’s daughter. You didn’t mention she was from down our way.”
“She isn’t, exactly. Her father is a cattleman as well as a congressman, you know, and the ranch is in the mountains up near the Los Padres National Forest. Ellen says you get to it by a narrow unpaved road called Sulphur Mountain Road, which is up somewhere around Ojai. And Ojai must be close to a hundred miles from Beverly Hills.”
Mother read on. Her next remark was, “She can hardly be a fortune hunter, like that Harmon girl. Hugh Whittier must be quite well off.”
“His assets are listed on the next page, Mother. They total around fourteen million.”
“How nice. I note that the family is also Presbyterian.”
“I thought that would please you.”
She continued to read, making no further comments until she had finished the report. Then she laid it on an end table next to her chair, replaced her reading glasses in her purse and gave me a warm smile.
“She sounds like an eminently suitable young lady, dear. When do you plan the wedding?”
“This June, after graduation. Ellen still has another year of school, but that will be no problem, because we plan to live in New York City. I hope to have a stage manager’s job by next fall.”
Mother raised her eyebrows. “I thought you planned to produce and direct your own plays, dear.”
“I do, eventually. I want to accumulate some experience first.”
“I see. When do I get to meet Ellen?”
“Right now, if you wish,” I said. “I brought her along.”
Mother looked pleasantly surprised. “How nice. Where did you leave her?”
“We have adjoining rooms on the sixth floor.”
Glancing at her watch, Mother said, “I like to get to the club about a half hour before show time, but I can spare about fifteen minutes.”
Mother’s suite was on the fourth floor. We went upstairs to the sixth and I knocked on Ellen’s door. It opened immediately.
For a brief moment the two women regarded each other with the estimating, calculating expressions common to potential in-laws on first meeting. Then both smiled warmly, I made introductions, and Ellen invited us in.
As I closed the door behind us, Mother said, “You’re quite pretty, Ellen. I’m glad, because I’ve always hoped for handsome grandchildren.”