Black Orchids

She swallowed. "I was clerking in a store at Richdale and he-I met him there. That was nearly two years ago, when he was working at Hewitt's."

"Do you mean Lewis Hewitt's."

"Yes, the Hewitt estate."

"Indeed. What did he do there?"

"He was a gardener and he did some chauffeuring. Then he got fired. He always said he quit, but he got fired."

"When was that?"

"Over a year ago. Winter before last, it was. He was a good greenhouse man, and it wasn't long before he got another job at Dill's. That's about two miles the other side of Richdale. He went to live there in one of the houses."

"Did you live there with him?"

"Me?" She looked shocked and indignant. "I certainly didn't! I was living at home!"

"I beg your pardon. How long have you been living at the place on Morrow Street?"

She shut her mouth.

"Come, Miss Lasher. Even the janitor could tell me that."

"Look here," she said. "Harry Gould was no good. He never was any good. I knew that all the time. But the trouble is you get started, that's what makes the trouble, you get started and then you keep it up-even if I knew he was no good there was something about him. He always said he wasn't the marrying kind, but when he took me to that place on Morrow Street one day-that was last June, June last year-and said he had rented it, that looked like he wanted a home and maybe to get married after a while, so I quit my job and went there to live. That's how long I've been living there, nine months. At first I was scared, and then I wasn't. There wasn't much money, but there was enough, and then I got scared again on account of the money. I didn't know where he got it."

The seam had ripped and the beans were tumbling out, and Wolfe sat back and let them come.

"He came there one night-he came four or five nights a week-that was one night in December not long before Christmas-and he had over a thousand dollars. He wouldn't let me count it, but it must have been, it might have been two or three thousand. He bought me a watch, and that was all right, but all the money did to me, it scared me. And he began to act different and he didn't come so often. And then about a month ago he told me he was going to get married."

Her lips went tight and after a moment she swallowed.

"Not to you," Wolfe said.