Free Where Is Janice Gantry? by John D. MacDonald Page B

help of the servant couple. A man arrived with a fifty-four foot Matthews, brand new, and he turned out to be a combination boat captain and gardener, a rare and wonderful combination. When the whole place was ready, even tocut flowers and beds turned down, I’ve heard, Mr. and Mrs. Weber appeared and moved in. And they’ve been there ever since.”
    “Where did they come from?”
    “Michigan, I believe.”
    “What did he do?”
    “The local word is that he was an investment banker.”
    “Are they old?”
    “Yes and no. The few people who have gotten a good close look at him say he’s in his middle fifties. His wife is supposed to be breathtaking, and in her early thirties.”
    “Haywood got friendly with her somehow?”
    “That’s the gossip.”
    “And then Mr. Weber caught him while he was trying to open a safe?”
    “He wasn’t trying to open it. It was set into the back of a closet in the dressing room off the master bedroom. He had a big pry bar. He was tearing the wall down. He apparently intended to pry the safe loose and carry it out. As I remember the story in the papers, it weighed less than a hundred pounds empty. It was a barrel job, small but damn sturdy.”
    “Everyone was away from the house?”
    “It was late in the afternoon on a nice day in March, two years and four months ago. The Webers had gone out on the boat, with their hired captain. It was a Thursday, the house servants’ day off. Presumably the servants had locked the house. But he had not broken in.”
    “And he knew exactly where the safe was.”
    “Yes.”
    “So he had either wormed that information out of the Weber woman, or she was in partnership with him.”
    “I thought you were in corporation law.”
    “The logic, or illogic of human behavior, Sam, has damn little to do with the law. Why wasn’t all this brought out?”
    “Who by, Cal? He made no fuss when they came and gothim. He would permit no attempt to raise bail for him. He sat in a cell for three weeks until Circuit Court was in session, and he pleaded guilty and they sent him away.”
    “How come he got caught? I know all this was in the papers, but I paid no attention to it. I didn’t know any of the people involved.”
    “He had bad luck. Ordinarily the servants wouldn’t be back until ten o’clock. The Webers had left the dock right after lunch, planning to be back at about five-thirty. He admitted entering the house at quarter to three. He could see the boat basin from the window in the dressing room. He had parked the agency car he was using where it couldn’t be seen from Orange Road or from their boat should they return earlier. But at about two-thirty one of the diesels conked out on the boat. Weber had his man turn back and leave it at Jimson’s Marina and stay with it to get it repaired. The Webers taxied home. They arrived a little after four. Charlie was too busy to hear the cab. Weber found the front door unlocked. When he walked in he heard somebody in the bedroom wing making a hell of a noise. He got a gun from his study and went in and caught Charlie hard at work. He disarmed him. Mrs. Weber called the law. And that was that. It was such a shock to Mrs. Weber that she took to her bed.”
    “She did indeed?” He stood up with a sudden restlessness. “But this gets us no place. Millhaus has been out there. Janice is not … a devious sort of person.”
    “I can’t get used to hearing her called Janice.”
    “Sis is an absurd name for her. It has a connotation of … sexlessness.”
    By a quick struggle I managed to squelch all the too obvious comments that drifted to the top of my mind. “I guess it does at that.”
    “She likes me to call her Janice. She says it makes her feel girlish and helpless.”
    “She’s pulled too much weight too long. She needs somebody to lean on.”
    “I would very much like … that privileged position, Sam.”
    And right then he didn’t look either cold or colorless. I saw more jaw than I had