The Devil To Pay by Ellery Queen Page B

bankbook with a five-million-dollar deposit, and I found it this morning in your morocco golf-bag!”
    Rhys rose, holding the bankbook in one hand and the fuming cigar in the other, and began to walk up and down the narrow kitchen. The brown wrinkles on his forehead deepened with each step. The paleness was gone now; the brownness had an angry red tinge.
    “I never thought,” said Pink bitterly, “you’d be that kind of a heel, Rhys.”
    Rhys stopped pacing. “I can’t help being angry,” he said quietly, “although I don’t blame either of you. It looks damned bad. But I’m not going to deny this more than once.” Pink paled. “I know nothing about this deposit. I’ve never had an account at Spaeth’s bank. This five million dollars isn’t mine. Do you understand, both of you?”
    Val felt a great shame. She was so tired she could have cried for sheer exhaustion. As for Pink, his pallor, too, vanished in a blush that reached to the roots of his red hair; and he leaned against the gas range biting his fingernails.
    Rhys opened the book and glanced again at the stamped date of deposit. “Pink, where was I last Wednesday?” he asked in the same quiet tone.
    Pink mumbled: “We ran the yacht down to Long Beach to see that guy who decided not to buy.”
    “We left at six in the morning and didn’t get back to town until after dark—isn’t that so?”
    “Yeah.”
    Rhys tossed the bankbook on the table. “Look at the date of that deposit. It was made last Wednesday.”
    Pink snatched the book. He said nothing at all. But the blush turned burning scarlet. He kept looking at the date as if he could not believe his eyes. Or perhaps because it was the only way he could cover his embarrassment.
    “Pop,” said Val, resting her head on her arms, “I’m sorry.” There was a long silence.
    “It could only have been Spaeth,” said Rhys at last. “He visited me in the gym this morning, as I told Glücke. He must have slipped it into the golf-bag when my back was turned.”
    “But why, for the love of Mike?” cried Pink. “My God, who gives away five million bucks? I had to think—”
    “I see it now.” Rhys flung his cigar into the drip-pan. “I’ve never told you before, but when things began to go wrong with Ohippi I came to my senses and had a confidential accountant and investigator look into things.”
    “I had to think—” said Pink again, miserably.
    Rhys began to pace again, nibbling at his lips. “I found that friend Solly, who up to a certain point had been perfectly coached by Ruhig, had gone on his own in one connection—and slipped very badly. He issued a prospectus for the further sale of stock in which he falsified the cash position of the companies. He had to make the stocks look sound, and he did—with false figures.”
    Val raised her head. “He was always a thief,” she said wearily.
    “Suppose he did?” demanded Pink.
    “Using the mails to defraud is a serious offense, Pink,” said Rhys. “It was the penitentiary for Spaeth if the government ever found him out.”
    “Why didn’t you hold him up?” asked Pink hoarsely.
    “At the time there was still a chance to recoup. But later, when the floods ruined the plants completely, I threatened to send him to prison if he didn’t rehabilitate them.” Rhys shrugged. “He made a counter-threat. He said he had something on me which would so blacken my reputation and so completely destroy public confidence that nothing would ever save the plants. This deposit must have been the answer, making it look as if I’d cleaned up, too, and was a hypocrite besides.”
    “But five million dollars!”
    “If paying out ten percent of fifty millions in profits would keep him out of jail,” said Rhys dryly, “he was a good enough business man to pay it out.”
    “The dirty rat,” said Pink passionately. “Mixin’ people up! Why the hell do they have to look for people who bump off rats like that? It ain’t fair!”
    “It puts me