Charlie Adair watched while Daugherty opened his letter. The big lawyer read it, reread it, and then scrubbed the palm of his hand over his short hair.
“You sure?”
“I counted the teeth,” Charlie said.
“Sure you got all of ’em?”
“Yes. Only three molars had come in. It is Richard.”
“How sure?— I ain’t doubting you, Charlie, it’s just I’m asking what other folks are going to.” Daugherty sighed. “You know the body’s gone.”
“Yes.”
“Reisden took a look at it, said it was an adult. Gilbert thought the same thing. You got measurements of the bones and stuff?”
Charlie Adair hesitated. “Yes.”
“Let’s see ’em.”
Charlie took a deep breath and let it out again. “No. No, I don’t.”
“Charlie, don’t you lie to me, I ain’t the right one to lie to. You ain’t an expert on identifying bodies, and I got to have good evidence for this one.”
“I know about children’s teeth,” Charlie said as quietly as he could. If he was going to lie he must be believed.
“Yes, and that goes some ways, don’t think it don’t.” Daugherty scrubbed at his head with his palm again. Through his thick glasses his eyes squinted at the paper. “I got to get me some new glasses, these ain’t worth much. How’s your sight, Charlie? You wear glasses too?”
“My sight is fine with glasses.”
“How was the light in that barn? Morning or afternoon?”
“Midday. The light was very good.”
“Hot, was it? Have any trouble with the heat? Your handwriting’s kinda scriggly here.”
Charlie remembered the barn at noon, full of sun and heat, and in the center that black horror. “No,” he said, “I didn’t have trouble.”
Daugherty looked at the paper in his hand, crossed his legs, uncrossed them again. “Charlie, this is as good as you got, I know, and I appreciate your writing it down and showing it to me. It’s going to be real useful if things ever come to court. ”
“Don’t you see that it is Richard?” Because only Richard stood between them and Reisden. For a moment, dizzyingly, he thought of confessing to killing Richard. Or to sending Richard away, as Reisden had said. But he hadn’t and he wouldn’t and no one would believe him, not even himself. He was nice Uncle Charlie, who didn’t commit murders. Why should they think he was anything else? Uncle Charlie was all he wanted to be.
“I don’t want Reisden to stay,” Charlie said with a little gasp. “He’s an immoral man.”
Daugherty coughed behind his hand; Charlie heard the chuckle underneath. “Been messing around with Annie Fen or something, has he?”
“I don’t know.” Charlie did know. “I think he has been, ‘messing around,’ as you call it. But there’s another woman. A girl.”
Daugherty looked across at him, one swift frightened stare.
“You know whom I mean,” Charlie said.
“He ain’t done nothing.” Daugherty shook his head. “He said he didn’t. That was only just yesterday afternoon.”
But what might have happened since then? Charlie saw Perdita’s tired softness this morning. He couldn’t bear to remember it.
“I’ve seen more than ‘nothing,’ Mr. Daugherty, and earlier than yesterday afternoon, and later, too! She behaves around him so, with such confidence, so familiar, and he looks—he looks at her—how can a man of decency even encourage such a thing? She is engaged to another man.”
“It ain’t so. Reisden’s decent enough by his lights; he wouldn’t do her harm.”
“Mr. Daugherty—” Charlie felt he was being driven to say more than anyone should ever have to. “He wants her. Perhaps he even believes he’d do her no harm. Mr. Daugherty, tell her what kind of a man he is—what he is doing here! ”
“No,” Daugherty said. “It’s too late for that.”
“What?”
“Harry told me this morning. She already knows he’s Reisden.”
Charlie sat down in his chair, and his heart banged and scrabbled like a trapped animal. Reisden could stop pretending to be Richard. But he had taught her to go out to restaurants by herself, to take cabs. He had told her to go to New York, and this morning there had been a big packet of mail for Reisden from New York; Charlie had seen it on Gilbert’s hall table. Reisden’s Swiss address was in the big book Daugherty had shown him, the European nobility book. They could guard Perdita from him forever, but could they guard her against herself if she thought she cared for the man?
“Get him away,” Charlie gasped. “Where she can never find him.”
“He ain’t going to be here for too much longer, Charlie. ”
“Every moment is too much.”
Daugherty got up and stood by the window. He turned around. “I hate to say this to a man like you, Charlie, and I hope you don’t mistake me. I got to have more than counting teeth. I got to have measurements. I got to have drawings of how the teeth looked.”
He could save her yet, if she could be saved. Charlie’s heart banged in his chest, but regular, steady. “You will have measurements,” Charlie said. Lies like that were honorable in comparison. “You’ll have drawings of the teeth and of how far the skull sutures had closed.”
The two men looked at each other for a moment, Daugherty sizing Charlie up. “You had ’em today, you just forgot to bring ‘em.”
“You will have them,” Charlie said a little stiffly. “Today, if you’ll come to the Clinic the end of this afternoon.”
“They’re dated yesterday. Just like that note.”
“You will see they are dated,” Charlie said.
“OK. I’ll get Reisden out of here.”