style="font-size:15px;"> Forsythe sat listening. He could see Anne in the room below, watching the great hulking brute who was her husband, but if she spoke at all he did not hear her.
"Probably locked in her own room," said Mr. Jamison, an ear cocked to the floor. "The superintendent says they don't live together. Maybe things would be better if they did. No peacemaker like a pillow," he said, and gave a cackling laugh.
All at once Forsythe disliked the little man, with his prying and spying, and disliked him intensely. He got up abruptly.
"Well, thanks a lot," he said. "My sister will wonder what's become of me. That was good Scotch, Mr. Jamison."
Jamison smiled.
"I don't drink much, but Dawson's is good Scotch. By the way, I don't think I know your name."
"Wade," said Forsythe, and got out as fast as he could. He would have stopped on the second floor on his way out, but Jamison was seeing him off from his landing. There was nothing to do but go on and out.
He slept badly that night, but when he reached the office the next morning he found Miss Potter waiting for him.
"Found the agent," she said, placing a neatly typed memorandum in front of him. "Got it from some clerk or other at the sponsor's. It's a cereal company, and her name's Simmons. Martha Simmons. That's her address there. She was kind of upset when I called her. Said she had an ironclad contract, so just to make it interesting I said there wasn't such a thing. She almost bit the telephone."
"Thanks, Potter," he said. "That's fine. I'll ring for you a little later. If a message comes for me put it through, will you?"
When it did come, however, at eleven o'clock, it was disappointing. Anne's voice was tense and hurried.
"Listen, Wade," she said. "I'm at the grocer's. Fred's outside, watching for me. I've just seen him. I don't dare to come to your office today."
He swallowed his disappointment.
"It's important. I needn't tell you that. But it's more important to know that you're all right."
"Of course I'm all right," she said, a little wearily. "He was bad last night, but he still doesn't know anything. He found my typewriter, so he thinks I'm writing a book. And he's afraid I'm getting a divorce. I'll come as soon as I can, Wade."
He worked on the tax return of the corporation the rest of the morning, indicating among other things that its salesmen itemize their expense sheets. His heart was not in it, however, and after a quick lunch he went to the address Miss Potter had given him for the Simmons woman. It was in a midtown office building, and he found her name on the directory. Her offices were on the seventh floor, a small anteroom with a covered typewriter which looked as though it had not been used lately, and beyond it a somewhat larger room, with a desk, a safe, a row of steel files, and two or three plain chairs.
Miss Simmons was behind the desk. A carton, which had contained coffee, and crumbs and waxed paper indicated that she had just finished a frugal meal, and he felt rather puzzled. After all, the agent's percentage of the Jessica Blake income over the years must have been substantial, but there was no evidence of it here, nor in the woman herself. Martha Simmons was a woman in her late thirties, rather slovenly in appearance but with a pair of very sharp eyes. She surveyed him without interest until he gave her his card.
"A lawyer!" she said. "What on earth have I done?"
He smiled.
"Perhaps you know that better than I do," he said pleasantly. "Personally I doubt if you've done anything actionable, but it makes things rather confusing. It's the Jessica Blake matter, Miss Simmons."
She gave him a hard stare.
"So what about it?" she said, her voice cold. "It's the way she wanted it. I told her at the start it was silly. She had some idea of making a man out of that hulk she married, as if even the Creator could do that! He's a total loss, if you ask me." Then she brightened somewhat. "Don't tell me she's come to her senses and is getting rid of him."
"I don't know about that," he said. "Actually, she wants to make a will."
She was jolted by this, profoundly shocked. She went pale.
"A will? For God's sake, why a will?"
"She didn't say, but I understand she has earned a rather large sum from her program." And when she merely nodded: "You see, there's a slight complication. The money was deposited under a pseudonym. That's a fact, isn't it?"
She had pulled herself together somewhat, although she was still uneasy.
"I've told you she wanted it that way. I can show you the bank deposit receipts if you like."
She got up and going to a steel file brought out a bulging folder.
"She's made plenty," she said dryly, and shoved it across the desk to him. The receipts were there, made to the account of Jessica Blake, and she watched him as he went over them.
"She left them here," she said. "Afraid her husband would find them. I wish to high heaven he'd never come back from the war."
He smiled, remembering the times he had wished the same thing.
"Well, that's out of our hands," he said. "The thing to do now is a simple matter of identification. I expected her today but she couldn't come. She says the checks were made out by you and deposited to the Blake account, so we'll need you, of course, at the bank."
She nodded dully.
"Does this mean the end of the program?" she asked.
"I don't see why. It's up to her, of course. I gather she's rather tired of it."
Her mind, however, seemed to be far away.
"Why does she want a will?" she asked. "Is she afraid of Fred Collier?"
"Most people with a hundred thousand dollars or more have wills, Miss Simmons."
"I suppose so," she said, her voice bitter. "Isn't it just my luck?"
"I don't see how a will affects you."
"I'm not talking about the will," she said hastily. "She's my best account, what with television and everything else. And it's a success, Mr. Forsythe. It's made money for years and it still goes on. What's the matter with her? Why not just leave Collier, if she's afraid he'll kill her?"
Forsythe managed a thin smile.
"I don't think it will come to that. Has he ever been here, Miss Simmons? Is there any way he could know what she's been doing?"
"Not from me," she said promptly. "Her identity is the best-kept secret in radio. She never goes to a rehearsal, she never comes here. Do you know where I meet her, Mr. Forsythe? In Central Park. Snow or rain, cold or hot, that's where I meet her. When the kid was young she brought the scripts in his pram, and believe me, one or two were wet in those days! She'd pretend to show him to me, and I'd sneak them into my muff, or what have you. Tie that if you can."
"It sounds unusual."
"Unusual! It's crazy. Don't
