Magnolia (20 page)

“But you want her back?”

John was surprised—not only by the question but by his abrupt answer. “With all my heart.”

“All right. But first things first. I came here on business, and I've got to give a lecture during the conference. But I'll see your bookkeeper and we'll take it from there. Don't worry. I'm on the case.”

“So modest.”

“Glad you noticed,” Matt said, without a pause.

 

M
ATT DID WHAT HE CONSIDERED
the most necessary thing first.

He went to Kenny Blake's men's emporium to buy a vest. Claire had poor taste, he decided, if she could prefer this little dandy to John.

“Something I can do for you, sir?” Blake asked, approaching the man warily because he was tall and lean and had an untamed look, despite his expensive clothing.

Matt wanted to intimidate Blake, so he looked down at him without smiling, then hesitated for just a heartbeat before he answered. “I'm with the Pinkerton detective agency. I believe you know a woman named Claire Hawthorn?”

Kenny's face went white. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yes.”

“She's missing. I'm searching for clues as to her whereabouts before we pursue the foul play aspect of the case.” He looked as if he thought Kenny had murdered her.

“She's fine,” Kenny blurted out at once. “She's in Savannah.”

Matt scowled. “Savannah?”

“Yes, with the Hawthorn family. I'm not supposed to tell her husband. She doesn't want him to know.”

“Are you having an affair with her?” Matt asked bluntly.

“No! How dare you!”

“You've been seen with her lately.”

“Yes, on business!” Kenny blustered. “She's just contracted with Macy's department store in New York City to design a line of exclusive evening gowns for them. Her husband doesn't know that she has a separate income, doing business as the designer ‘Magnolia.' She's already quite famous locally.”

Matt stared at him.

“I swear it's just business! Look!” He rushed into his office, leaving the man to follow. Kenny's secretary looked up, startled, and then couldn't look away. Matt Davis was a striking man, even if his nose was a little large. He was an Indian. She'd never seen one, except on a buffalo nickel. He fascinated her.

Matt recognized her expression and gave her a cold stare. She swallowed, touched her hair expressively, and went quickly back to work. Matt was careful to hide his grin.

Kenny came back. “Yes, here it is. There was one sketch that didn't get in the package. I saved it for her.”

He showed it to Matt, who had more than a passing knowledge of exclusive clothing. He nodded as he
studied the fine, neat lines of the unique gown. “She's very good.”

“Isn't she?” Kenny beamed. “I've known her for years, ever since she came to live with her uncle. She's a sweet, gentle girl. Much too good for her husband—and him running around with that married woman.”

Matt's eyebrows lifted. “What married woman?”

“That Mrs. Calverson. Her husband's president of the bank. She and John were engaged once. Some people think he's still carrying on with her. Mr. Calverson's very ill now, though, they say—confined to bed and quarantined. I daresay she'll stay close to home for a while. Pity Claire went away.”

“Yes.” Matt handed the sketch back with a lean, immaculate dark hand. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

“Don't tell her husband where she is, if you've an ounce of decency,” Kenny pleaded, with genuine concern. “She only needs a little time to decide what to do. Perhaps it will make him appreciate her more. She loves him so much. It's all but broken her spirit to have him ignore her and pay court to that wicked Mrs. Calverson.”

Matt had learned more than he really wanted to. He understood more about John's troubled marriage than he'd been told, too. “I won't tell him where she is unless I have to.”

“That will do nicely. Thank you. When I give my word to keep a confidence, I don't like to break it.”

Matt's opinion of the man went up a notch. “Neither do I.”

“Now, can I help you with anything else?”

Matt smiled. “As a matter of fact, you can. I fancy a new vest.”

Kenny grinned. “I have some good silk ones, just in from New York City. Let me show them to you.”

 

T
HE NEXT MORNING, VERY EARLY
, Matt went to see Mr. Dawes at the bank. It took him less than two minutes to get every single thing he needed out of the little man and propel him forcibly to the nearest precinct to spill his guts to a police stenographer.

Dawes immediately gave up Eli Calverson to save himself. Two police officers were sent around to the Calverson residence with orders to arrest the man, no matter how sick he was. But to their surprise, when they forced their way in with a search warrant and went up to his quarantined bedroom, it was empty.

“Why, the doctor said he was too ill to move!” Diane gasped theatrically when they saw the neatly made bed and the empty room. “Wherever could he have gone?” she added ingenuously.

“Perhaps he died and was removed without your realizing it,” an older policeman said sarcastically.

She glared at him. “I am not shielding my husband! He asked me not to risk myself by coming in here. And he gave me this in case anything really terrible happened to him. He said I was to show it to the police.” She took a sealed envelope from her pocket and handed it to the man, look
ing up at him with guileless blue eyes and a sweet smile. “I can't imagine what it says.”

I'll bet you can't, the veteran officer thought, but he only nodded. He tore the envelope open and scanned the handwritten lines. His lips made a thin line.

He turned, motioning to the other officer. They bade Mrs. Calverson a good day and went quickly out the door.

The letter, in Calverson's own hand, accused John of embezzling thousands of dollars from the bank. His wife, Diane, had had nothing to do with the theft and didn't know his plans, so she shouldn't be questioned. He would make himself available to the police the minute John was safely in custody. The bookkeeper, he wrote, would verify his story. John was trying to steal his wife, Eli wrote plaintively and because, he charged, “Hawthorn knew he would need huge sums of money to keep her—money that he didn't have—he stole that, too.” Dawes would never testify against John, he alleged, because John had threatened the little man, who led a secret life that included evil sexual practices. And now, he, Calverson, was going to go into seclusion at a friend's house in town until John was apprehended. He added in a postscript that he feared for his life.

The letter, with a signature and handwriting that was confirmed by Eli Calverson's own secretary, was evidence enough for the police to arrest John.

 

J
OHN WAS DEMORALIZED
and furious to be led out of the bank in handcuffs. He vehemently denied any knowledge of the
embezzled money, but Calverson's story sounded very logical. And to clinch it, Calverson had sent the same letter via his lawyer to the newspapers to be opened and published in the case of John Hawthorn's arrest. The next morning, the front pages of every Atlanta paper carried the story that the young vice president of the Peachtree City Bank was under arrest for embezzling the bank's money.

John sat in his jail cell in a brown fury of impotence. He'd lost his wife and he was the prime suspect in a bank theft. If his life had seemed hopeless before, it was certainly hopeless now.

Eli Calverson, as he'd promised, had immediately reappeared on the doorstep of his home, apparently completely recovered from his “illness” the minute he knew John was safely in jail. He invited reporters to his home so that he could give them his sad tale of intimidation by his vicious, embezzling vice president, while his beautiful wife charmed the male visitors. Everyone believed him, with the exception of one hawkeyed reporter who wanted to know, quite loudly, where the bookkeeper Dawes was.

“Oh, he's in hiding, too,” Calverson said quickly. “But I know where he is, and he'll come forward at the appropriate time to testify. I've told the police so.”

“Wasn't there a case of suspected embezzlement filed against you some years ago?” the reporter said persistently.

“I really feel too weak to continue,” Eli said, pretending to swoon. “I've been ill. Thank you all for coming. I'm sure you'll do the proper thing with this story. Investors
must be protected from such charlatans. To think he was my own protégé, and my friend!”

The reporters ate it up, glaring at the man who'd asked such harsh questions that he had poor, dear Mrs. Calverson in tears. When they left, Calverson gave his wife a hard look.

“You did very well, my dear,” he said, with cold menace. “Continue to do as I tell you, and we'll pull this off.”

Diane was unusually pale. “I do not want to run—”

He caught her arm roughly. “But you will,” he said firmly, twisting it until she cried out. “This was as much your fault as mine, with your incessant demands for pretty trinkets and clothes. Now you'll pay the piper with me! Do you understand?”

She choked. “Yes, Eli. Of course. I'll do whatever you say!”

He scoffed, but he let her go. She'd do as she was told or face the consequences. His only real concern now was escape. He had to do it while attention was focused on John Hawthorn. His revenge on the man who'd attempted to cuckold him was sweet, indeed—and made even more so by the thought of the money he'd squirreled away. All he had to do was get to Charleston and take a ship to the West Indies. There, he could live like a king. He'd use Diane as a blind until then. But afterward…well, a rich man could get any woman he wanted. Diane's coldness had wearied him. He was ready to ditch her and look for a woman with beauty and a kind heart. She could go back to Hawthorn, with his blessing. And the fool was welcome to her!

 

J
OHN, SITTING ALONE
in his cold cell, wondered if Claire ever thought of him. She probably believed he still loved Diane. That was a joke. Diane was surely in league with Eli. What a pity, he thought bitterly, that he'd been too blinded by his obsession with her to see clearly why Eli Calverson had hired him in the first place. The old man had surely been planning this for years, taking little bits of money out of the bank and letting Dawes cover up for him. If he wasn't lynched, the absence of Dawes, and Calverson's continued attacks in the press, would surely convict him. His future was sorely in doubt—and he hadn't a friend in the world to come to his rescue. Not even his wife was likely to come to his aid, if, wherever she was, she knew of his ill fortune.

 

I
T WAS INEVITABLE
that the Savannah papers should pick up the story about a young bank executive arrested for embezzlement in Atlanta. But it wasn't the story in the newspaper that alerted Claire to her husband's predicament. It was a telegram from Kenny Blake.

“Your husband arrested for bank fraud and in grave danger,” the telegram read. “Come at once. Kenny.”

“Oh, heavens!” Claire exclaimed, falling back in her chair as if she'd been struck.

Maude and Emily rushed to her side. Maude read the telegram with no thought for courtesy. “It must be in the newspapers, too,” she added, and rushed to the front door. She came back with the paper in her trembling hands. “Yes, it's in here, too. Oh, Claire! They say he's stolen thousands of dollars and that there's talk of lynching!”

“But this is ridiculous. John is the most honest man I know. He would never steal from investors.”

Maude looked at the younger woman with love and gratitude. “I know that. I'm so glad that you know it, too. But what shall we do, Claire? If I tell Clayton, the shock may finish him.”

“I don't think so,” Claire replied. “I think it will provide the challenge he needs to bring him to his feet again.”

“It's a terrible gamble,” the older woman said worriedly.

“Yes. But think of the reward if it succeeds.”

And the tragedy if it fails, Maude was thinking. But she kept her worries to herself. She studied Claire for a long moment.

“Very well. But let's break it to him gently.”

And they did, as gently as it was possible to tell someone that his eldest son had been arrested for theft. They showed him the newspaper, the headlines of which he could barely make out.

“Of all the damned outrages,” he exploded, and then begged the women's pardon for his language. He shook the paper at his wife. “If I catch the scalawag who did this—and blamed my son for it—I'll cane him bloody!”

“John's in jail,” Maude said gently. “What do you want us to do?”

“I'll do what needs doing,” he muttered, easing himself off the bed. “By heaven, I'll see about these charges myself. Maude, send for a carriage to take me into town. I want to stop and get our attorney to go with me on the next train to Atlanta.”

“Are you sure you're fit to travel so far, Clayton?” she asked, hesitating.

“Do I look it?”

She smiled. “I suppose you do, my dear. Very well. I'll do what you say.”

Claire insisted on going along, and Maude wouldn't stay behind with her husband on a long journey. She went, as well, leaving Emily—although she had wanted to go with them—in the care of Jason.

The family attorney, Harland Dennison, a thin man with a firm demeanor, wasn't averse to the trip. They all got tickets for Atlanta and set out with the barest minimum of clothing and toiletries.

Rather than check into a hotel first, they went straight to the Atlanta jail nearest the bank. There was a small crowd outside with placards denouncing John. Clayton gave them angry glares as he pushed his way through, ahead of Maude and Claire, then led the way into the precinct.