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learn more about Mr. Ellison Seabright. It may be to your advantage to help me do so."
"Whom do you represent?" Miller asked quickly, before Mary could respond.
Thorn turned to him. "Only myself. Therefore any information you may give me will go no farther." After
a pause he added: "You may be confident also that none of it is likely to be used to Mr. Seabright's
advantage."
His visitors exchanged a cautious glance, and slight shrugs. Then Mary asked: "What sort of things do
you want to know?"
Mr. Thorn moved a little closer to his guests, taking a seat on a sofa opposite their chairs, his lean hands
clasped before him. "To begin with, whom do you accuse Mr. Seabright of having murdered?"
"Mary," Robinson Miller cautioned, shaking his beard at her.
Mary took another sip of Coors and ignored legal counsel. "He killed his half-brother, Delaunay
Seabright. And Helen, his own step-daughter. You must have heard and read about those killings, they
made news all over the country. Oh, I don't mean he did it with his own hands. But you can bet he was
involved."
Thorn allowed himself a pained frown, and objected gently: "Were not the police of the opinion that
Helen was killed by men trying to abduct Delaunay for ransom? And that Delaunay himself died almost
accidentally, though while he was in the unknown kidnappers' hands?"
Mary brushed back her wayward hair. "I bet they weren't unknown to Ellison. I was there that night,
when Del and Helen were killed was I ever there. And I know what I saw. And I know that Ellison's
no good."
"Kid," warned Miller, hopelessly.
Thorn nodded to Mary. "When I learned your name, I of course could place you as the escaped hostage
of the news stories. But your claim that Ellison was implicated comes as a surprise to me. Have you any
evidence that will support it?"
"No, if you mean legal evidence," said Mary, dismissing the idea. "Do you know the family at all?"
"Only through the news accounts."
"Well." Mary looked at her lawyer at last, then back to Thorn. "Excuse me, but just what good is all this
going to do you?"
Thorn was not at all sure of that himself, but he was interested. He said: "I find myself in the position of
being Mr. Ellison Seabright's rival. Therefore I wish to learn everything of importance that I can learn
about him. If, as you say, he is really involved in murder, that is certainly an important fact."
"You're his rival as an art collector?"
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"Exactly. Now can you explain to me just what he stood to gain from his brother's death? Or from the
girl's?"
"His half-brother," Mary corrected, as if she thought the difference had significance. "What did he gain?
The chance to buy up Delaunay's collection, at least the part of it that he really wanted. That's what he's
doing over in Scottsdale right this minute. Look, poor old Del hated Ellison. He wouldn't have given him
the sweat off . . . so according to Del's will, Helen was to get it all. She was the closest family he had,
that he cared anything about. Del's own wife died years ago, and they were childless."
"You say he left all to Helen. His half-brother's stepdaughter."
"Yes. I don't suppose she ever knew about the will. He was always nice to her but I don't think she
appreciated him very much. In some ways, I have to admit, Helen could be a snotty little bitch." It was
said much more in affection than in anger. Mary gulped beer audibly. "She was still a minor, only
seventeen. So everything was to be held in trust. Right, Robby? And if Helen predeceased Del, or died
at about the same time, which was the way things turned out, then everything in the collection was to be
sold at auction, proceeds going to a charitable foundation Delaunay was setting up. Except "
Here Mary broke off with a sigh, an unexpected, hopeless sound. Miller was shaking his head again.
"What?" Thorn prompted.
Mary said: "The Verrocchio, that's what. It's really mine."
Miller said quickly: "I think Mary is quite right, I mean I believe what she tells me. But of course legally,
again "
Mary interrupted him. "You see, Mr. Thorn, I lived there in the Seabright house for a couple of months
before the night of the killings. And two weeks to the day before he died, Delaunay Seabright stood there
with me in the midst of his collection, and told me that Verrocchio was mine. I didn't know what to say,
how to react. Then he got sick, and that meant there was a delay in making the gift official, and evidently
he never mentioned it to anyone else before he died. Or if he did, no one is going to admit it now."
Thorn made no attempt to hide his doubts. "You say he simply gave you the Verrocchio."
"I know it isn't the easiest thing in the world to believe, that anyone could be so generous. `This is yours
now, Mary, I want you to have it.' Those were his words."
"You told this to the police?"
She glanced at Robinson Miller once more. "Yes. Or I tried. For all good it did me. We've never tried to
file any kind of legal claim, since I have nothing to support it."
Thorn could not tell whether she was fantasizing or not. He felt sure she was not simply lying. He asked,
in curiosity: "What would you have done with the painting, Mary? If it had actually come to you?"
Her laugh was surprisingly gentle. "Why, hung it over Robby's Salvation Army sofa. No, I'd have sold it,
of course. I would have hoped to be able to sell it to some museum, where everybody would be able to
see it for a change . . . Del didn't care for museums, you know, he thought they were more arrogant and
greedy than anybody else. The people who run them . . . did you get a chance to look at the painting
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closely? It's really so beautiful."
"I agree."
"I certainly wouldn't have sold it to that creep who's got it now. I'd have made sure he never got his
hands on it, and I'm sure he knew I felt that way."
There was a little silence. "May I refresh your drinks?" Thorn offered.
"You see," Mary explained suddenly, "I got to know Del because I helped out his niece when she was a
runaway. I met Helen in Chicago, when she was ready to give up being on the road. I was a kind of
official social worker then."
"You were a nun," her lawyer interjected.
Mary gave him a glance. "I hadn't taken my final vows. Anyway, I was able to help Helen get her head
together somewhat. Delaunay appreciated that, and at his request I wound up living with them here in
Phoenix for a couple of months. Helen's parents came along too, at his urging. The old man was grateful
to me for helping Helen, that's all there ever was between us."
"I see." Mr. Thorn considered Mary's lush figure, the full veins in her throat. He was unsure whether he
ought to envy the young lawyer with whom she was apparently living now, and/or feel regret on behalf of
the dead old man who had been only grateful. There wandered into his mind the image, thin and dark, of
the other attractive woman who had been at the auction room. Stephanie Seabright, mother and
sister-in-law respectively of the two victims. A woman desperately wanting to be young, to start over,
perhaps, somehow . . .
Mary had paused for a full breath. "Excuse me, Mr. Thorn, but you're not an American, are you?"
"I am not. Though I have made my home in America for the past year. I like your "
"You see, we have in this country a very serious and tragic problem, of teenagers, some kids even
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