Free The Wrong Venus by Charles Williams

what her net worth is from one day to the next, and you know how I do it? I look in tea leaves and chicken entrails—”
    “Just calm down, Merriman,” Martine soothed.
    “Checks!” he groaned. “Have you got any idea how long it takes a check to clear New York from some goat-infested rock in the Aegean that nobody’s even heard of since the Trojan War? Or how many of ‘em can be in the pipeline at any one time with that woman loose with two checkbooks and a yacht and a coin-operated stallion?”
    “Can you make a rough guess?” Colby asked.
    “Yeah. There’s a Paris Herald-Tribune just behind you on that table. Pass me the financial section.”
    Colby removed the financial page and handed it over. Dudley took from the desk another ledger, a slide rule, and a scratchpad. Muttering to himself, he began making computations, consulting the cablegrams and yesterday’s closing Stock Exchange prices. Colby leafed through the rest of the paper, and was folding it to put it aside when his eye was caught by a name on the front page. MYSTERY GIRL SOUGHT IN TORREON SLAYING. It was local.
    Could they mean Pepe? He quickly read the lead.
    Police investigating the bizarre slaying five days ago of Jose (Pepe) Torreon, South American millionaire, playboy, and political exile—
    “Hey,” he said to Martine, “they got Pepe Torreon.”
    “Yes, hadn’t you heard?” she replied. “He was killed in his apartment with something that looked like a bolt from a crossbow.”
    —are intensifying their search for an unidentified girl described only as being tall, blonde, and apparently Anglo-Saxon—
    “Sixty-seven thousand, four hundred eighty-one dollars and fourteen cents,” Dudley’s voice broke in, “at the close of business in New York yesterday afternoon. But the bank’ll be open again in another nineteen minutes.” He shuddered.
    “How fast can you get hold of ten thousand?” Colby asked.
    “There’s that much in the Paris account. She hasn’t got a checkbook for that one.”
    “Good. We may be able to swing it for that, or maybe less. However, there’s another charge.”
    “I know,” Dudley said wearily. “You and Martine.”
    “Right. That’ll be five thousand.”
    Dudley groaned, but reached for the checkbook. “Make it payable to Martine. She can give me her check later. The total amount is six thousand thirty-six dollars and fifty cents.”
    Martine put the check in her purse. Colby looked at his watch. “You and Martine go to the bank. I’ll stick by the phone. Get fifty thousand francs, nothing bigger than hundreds and no new bills with consecutive numbers. Then stop at a kiosk or bookstore and get a good map of the city and a Michelin road map of France. Martine can go by her apartment on the way back and pick up her car.”
    They left. The house was silent except for the humming of Madame Buffet’s vacuum cleaner somewhere on the lower floor. He paced the office, trying not to think of how hairy it could get if something went wrong. To take his mind off it, he leafed through a few of the manuscript’s sizzling love scenes, and turned up a page of Sanborn’s version to see what it was like.
    And then with a shy little smile she was fumbling with the straps and buckles. The negligee slipped from her body and she stood before him completely nude, glossy, deep-chested, clean-limbed, her conformation impossible to fault. His heart leaped. . . .
    He ought to get a bet down on her before the windows closed, Colby thought. There wasn’t much doubt it needed the Flanagan touch to whip it into final shape. After four o’clock he began to check the time every few minutes. It was four-twenty . . . four-thirty-five. ... At four-forty Dudley came in carrying the two maps and a briefcase bulging with francs. Colby checked the money. It was all right. As he was closing the briefcase they heard the tapping of heels in the hallway. Martine came in. She had changed into a severe dark suit that looked like